GM Roundtable: Running The Darkest Hour (SPOILERS LIKE A MOTHERF****R)

[Gentry]

So, like, there were these adventure modules I wrote this one time ... or a few one times ...

And people run them and stuff ...

So I was thinking it might not be a bad idea for people either demoing or using these adventures in their games to hear from some who already have run them, regarding trouble spots in the pacing, encounters, or other action.

The CAVEAT: I'm willing to own mistakes I've made. I'd rather not have them screamed at me while people piss in my face. So this is not the place to say "this part of the adventure sucked". The adventure exists in print, and it can't be written again. I learn as I go, too, so cut me some slack. We're here to help people come to the awesome that is Fantasy Craft, not rail on adventure authors because our styles differ from yours.

Anyways.

I'll start:

The Darkest Hour can bog down really fast in Scene 1. Time after time I've started in on raveners and mayhem, only to realize half my time's gone and I've still got two scenes to do. In home play this scene could conceivably occupy an entire play session, what with role-playing in the Inn and fighting all over it, and that can be fine in a store demo, too (nothing wrong with a one-scene demo encounter--especially one with lots of potential for heroic derring-do), but if you want to get to the rest of the adventure then I suggest that you, like me, try and keep the action at the Tipsy Wyvern down to one mob of raveners, two if the party handles the first one TOO casually and quickly.

Who else has a tip?

[aegis]

The raveners of the Darkest Hour are described as "fast and furious" (well, not explicitly but that's how I felt it), but you're right, a few mobs can quickly lead to a very time-consuming combat. One suggestion I can make is simply to make the raveners less resilient, but more offensive. Lower the Defense and their Damage Save bonus (consider even mook), but increase their Attack, their attacks, and give them the swarm NPC quality (I'm not sure they have it yet). This should keep them scary enough, let you introduce tons of raveners, without increasing the fight duration so much. One hit, and they're basically dead (again!), but let them get to you and you're going to suffer.

[ArawnNox]

Well, you've heard me complain before, but I'll try to voice the sticking points I've encountered without sounding like I'm just whinging. I'm also speaking for some of my players who had their own input on the events of the game.

The biggest issue that had been raised to me is that the NPCs are rather dull. This could be my shortcomings as an inexperienced GM, but let me try to explain.
Master- Mentioning his name earned more derisive chuckles than it really should have. Nobody could take him seriously. The player's learn nothing about this fallen paladin though out the adventure, even his 'big villain speech' is lacking. He is also introduced way too late into the game. I've found a lot of success in my games by giving the Players a big personality to latch onto early on, even if they can't yet confront him/her/it. It gives them something to work towards and a focus-point for their actions.
One of my players suggested that an excellent encounter location for him to first butt-heads with the PCs is inside the mayor's home. The scenery is very creepy, being the site of the major battle for the unfortunate adventuring party before them.

Wiltweevil- I don't like this NPC, to be honest. Both from a design standpoint and from a character standpoint. I feel he's built too much like a 3.5 monster and unless the party has access to some form of fire attack, he's a walking TPK. Once I was forced to scale him back and in another game a PC got in a lucky crit that stunned him long enough to turn him trivial. This could just be anicdotal, however. Now, from a character standpoint he's... just 1 dimentional. He's got HK-47 syndrome in his disdain for 'fleshy ones' but there's no explanation as to why he chose to serve Master. There's just not enough to his character to make him an interesting foe, outside his combat stats.
The best encounter I had with him was when I had him attack the players outside the church with a group of scaled-back raveners and turn it into a seige scenario and made the surviving townsfolk be proactive and help on the defense. Just an example of how else he could be used. When I was toying with adapting Darkest Hour to Sunchaser, casting him as a Black Erron actually made a boatload more sense since they had a violent culture to back up the behavior.

The Survivors in the Church- One group of players totally ignored them, outside Bastian, and even then, they didn't seem to care much. Their default attitude is a bit too standoffish for a new group of heroes showing up on the doorstep. They really should be written to be more helpful and hopeful when the players arrive.

The Raveners: Too strong. My opinion, but honestly, they could be scaled back a bit. Maybe I'm just more conservative when I design NPCs, but I just find them too dangerous for basic enemies.

Also, I've found that some of the NPCs have redundant qualities and/or don't have traits their template suggests they should. Plug a ravener into the NPC Generator and you'll see what I mean.

Narrative Flow:
Transitioning from Scenes 1 to 2 was repeatedly clunky as the combat with the Raveners after Hertiger's arrival tended to make the players forget what their next step was going to be. Even Hertiger's journal wasn't much help in that regard.

Delivery of Information:
I like giving things to my players to puzzle over and read, but I'll be honest, the journal entries were very wordy and never really got to the point. It also bogged things down while the group waited for a player to read and summerize the pages. Also, it's a bit too much exposition to deliver all at once. In my opinion, it would better serve the narrative to sprinkle the exposition around. Have the PCs begin the adventure knowing a tidbit of information already. Even better, put them on the trail of Master as well. Just because it's a single adventure doesn't mean you can't give more direct suggestions to the GM about why the PCs are together. Nudge GM to have NPCs ask what the PCs are up to and have them tell the legend of Pascal and the artifact some say he's buried with. Then, later, have his descendant give his real life story, as she knows it. Then, Barald's journal can fill in the gap about what the artifact really is. Just my suggestion.

I feel that the Anti-Undead sword is not as useful as it should be. It's special ability is not going to come up as often as it should for it to be useful and the fact that it's burst is Divine damage isn't that useful either as undead (if memory serves) are immune to baffled. Maybe stating it out as an Undead Bane Prize might be more in keeping with the Weapon's intent. I will say that dropping an item into the scenario that is geared towards the problem at hand is a good move.

Things Never Done:
No one ever found the healing potion on the dead dwarf. Either the corpses of the dwarf and warrior nun (as someone joked once) were passed by or nobody (surprisingly) was willing to loot them.
Using the tunnels: A rural community with an underground network of tunnels connecting their cellars is something that doesn't seem to occur to anyone and no one ever spoke to the rat-catcher. It's weird that something like that should go to waste, as it could be a great tension builder as you skulk around these sewer-like tunnels.
Looting the Tomb. I think its written in there somewhere that theres treasure to be claimed in the tomb, but nobody seems to be aware that it's contents are up for grabs.

In the End: I found segments of Darkest Hour more frustrating to run than rewarding. When I deviated from the structure of the game (The church siege, which also allowed me to introduce Master) was when I and my players had the most fun. I'm not a great or experienced GM, by any stretch of the imagination, but I feel there are some areas that really could have used some revising and improvement.

I hope I'm not coming off as a complainer. It's impossible to please everyone and maybe I'm just not getting the same thing out of it as everyone else, but I come from a school of thought that is is more into fast and loose gameplay and less moving from encounter to encounter, which Darkest Hour felt like, at times.

[warlock69]

I didn't find the raveners too threatening, even though we played at Menace III.  There are lots of them, but they are mostly push-overs.  However, I do agree that Wiltweevil is a potential TPK.  He is a melee tank that can dish out some serious damage to starting characters.  When I ran Darkest Hour, he nearly slaughtered the party in a few rounds.

I think the adventure is an interesting introduction to Fantasy Craft, but how much your players get out of it will vary greatly depending on their characters' personalities.  My player characters were very selfish.  They ran from the Tipsy Wyvern at the first sign of danger, not bothering to help Hertiger or protect anyone at the inn.  They also didn't rescue Frida.  Their primary concern was rallying as many NPCs as they could muster to help them stop the Master.  The safety of the townspeople was secondary.  So, they missed some opportunities for heroics.

[Gentry]

In the End: I found segments of Darkest Hour more frustrating to run than rewarding. When I deviated from the structure of the game (The church siege, which also allowed me to introduce Master) was when I and my players had the most fun.

These two sentences are good. Thank you for adding them to the conversation, as they bring up an excellent general point that anyone running The Darkest Hour should be on the lookout for. 

It's important to recognize that slavish devotion to an adventure's text isn't in anyone's interest. I've run the module quite a bit, and nothing has happened the same way twice. Parties deal with the Tipsy Wyvern staff differently from table to table. Parties deal with the villagers at the church differently (some have only talked to Bastian, some have talked to a couple or other, and some have gone out of their way to introduce themselves to everybody and make sure everyone's ok). Parties *find the church* differently every time. Some save Frida. Some just tell her to be sure to re-lock the door 'til dawn. It's wonderful and bizarre at the same time. And it often means I have to deviate from my own text when running my own adventure. 

TDH has several key ingredients: There's a village in peril, suffering a bloodbath at the hands of a quasi-possessed madman with a psychotic Rootwalker and a Thing-From-Beyond under his direct command, and a horde of zombies doing his bidding thanks to his ownership of (and semi-submission to) an artifact of Dark Power^tm. Once you've got those basics in hand, don't be afraid to mix things up.   

[Gentry]

Here's something else I find causes confusion in potential GMs: The Grave Wurm.

Things to remember:

It's a Standard NPC. It breaks the rules in that it does not appear as a mob. But it tracks damage with saves and tough grades rather than using VP/WP. Note that this means it's vulnerable to all those "auto-fail" attacks in the various Supremacy feats, and is equally immune to abilities that target Special NPCs.

It has no attacks. The Grave Wurm is a mobile factory, not a battle tank. It's only attack is an Athletics check to grapple, and even then it can't swallow without a critical success (which it cannot activate until after Master shows up and turns the scene dramatic). My usual tactic with the Wurm: it grapples, pins, and then screaming clubs it's foe into the ground until the foe dies and can be swallowed for ravenering.

Them Death Throes are wicked.

And don't forget that it's got 3 raveners gestating when the fight starts. Those are a nasty surprise to a lot of parties. 

[royalfa]

Well hopefully in the near future I will run this to my PCs.

In the campaign I have the number of "undead" attacks are increasing and they have some special abilities that normally don't have.
One of them take this as a subplot: Find out who or what is creating/modifying the undeads.

In a previous session they confront a mad necromancer that bring to life the villagers as common zombies and an immature green dragon!!
Normally if you kill the necromancer (or knock unconscious) the summoned undeads drops too but he has an scroll of permanency that he use with the dragon. (The PCs don't understand why the dragon "live" lol)

The necromancer is from a cult that thinks the undeads has the key to a ever lasting life: Immortality and they are trying to "enhance" the undeads to become themselves into a powerful creature.

Then "The Darkest Hour" fits very well in this: The reveners (new undead), The grave wurm (a creation machine) and the Master (from the cult)....

I will post the results of my session (or sessions because we play only the Fridays every two weeks 3 or 4 hours. With "age" playing is a difficult non high priority task)

Good gaming
Roy 

[Gunbunny]

I enjoyed  running the Darkest Hour. 

My group started off slow.  I had a few other patrons, including a drunken wedding party.  The thief in the group "visited" rooms as quietly as she could while her two cohorts kept the alcohol and talk flowing in the common room.  When the Raveners attacked, however, the PCs were quick to help in defense of the inn, and gave direction to people.  They were able to get the gate shut, but just barely.  They locked down the Inn, maintaining a defensive position in the front door to prevent too many Raveners attacking at once.  They were QUITE disturbed when the Raveners begin to spit and spew bloody, rotted chunks of teeth at them from range.  As it was, I opted to go with three mobs worth of Raveners, spread out, and it resulted in two PCs being dropped unconscious in the doorway, with the menfolk in the wedding party stepping in to help (costing the bridegroom and the brides father their lives).  It was a steady amount of pressure that turned out quite well.

The church portion was very...bland to my group.  The idea of sewers in a small town like that didn't really set well with me, so the ratcatcher showed them paths through the dense foliage surrounding the town.  They did come across the bodies of the priestess and dwarf, and rationalized taking the armor from the priestess as helping the town with the intent on returning it to the church after the undead menace was over (and it was much better armor than any of the PCs had).  The town scene was quite fun, as it resulted in a burned down house as they trapped some raveners inside.  Their flight, however, took them past Wiltweevil, who was "posed" near the town square.  He obliterated the old women they had rescued (she had fled a couple of rounds before the rest of the PCs did), and his animation forced the PCs back toward the burning house where the Raveners were being drawn to.  He did a substantial amount of damage on a PC before one of the PCs got super lucky and rolled two critical hits, one round after the other, and had enough action dice to confirm them quite well. 

The graveyard scene was predictable to them, as the bad guy made an appearance.  One PC got eaten by the Grave Wurm (but survived due to his spending of action dice), and the Wurm chased the other two around the graveyard.  It was quite the session, and one that I enjoyed very well.

[ludomastro]

My write up of  The Darkest Hour can be found here.

I like the parts and pieces of this adventure.  I had some issues with the pacing and the church scene but otherwise it was well done.

In the vein of possible improvements, I would recommend some play advice on the raveners.  My group cut through the mobs with ease but I've read about near TPK's from others who've run it.

I would also make some changes to the Church scene as it can be something of a snooze.

Very nice though.

[Gentry]

That link doesn't work. 

[Bill Whitmore]

Try: http://www.crafty-games.com/forum/index.php?topic=4434.0

The link above has some extraneous quotation marks in it that is throwing everything out of whack.

[ludomastro]

Try: http://www.crafty-games.com/forum/index.php?topic=4434.0

The link above has some extraneous quotation marks in it that is throwing everything out of whack.

Much obliged.  I fixed the original.

[Foghorn]

Ran it at NoobieCon last week and with I'd read on here, I think things went pretty smoothly. Wiltweevil was much less of a problem for the group than some people have had since the mage's fire elemental scored back-to-back critical hits on him and he caught on fire. The hilarious part was the other PC Wiltweevil was currently using as a screaming club vocally disapproved of the tactic, but he only ended up a little singed around the edges.

[adrick]

Ran this a couple times for 1st level characters.

Raveners are tough
I usually have to remove one or both of the wolf pack feats for them to survive a group, depending on how quickly the pc's duck and cover in a defensible position.  More than 2 or 3 on a pc in the open will rip them apart if the pc's don't get lucky and drop them quickly. combined with the reach and speed they can be mean. I usually highlight there danger an a hapless stable boy, horse or barmaid to encourage them to turtle up.

wiltweevil's slam attack is also rough on 1st level pc's i normally end up having to forgo the rend and two hit combo feats, two hit combo with rend is deadly considering the damage he dishes out.

master actually comes across as weakest(but more expected level of challenge) but the fight is rough depending on how the worm fights.
eating people the master knocks down, pretty bad. only going after random bodies and unconcious pc's not so bad. depending on how many raveners are present.

death throes for the worm can easily result in TPK 47 points of damage !!  so i usually emphasize that you don't want to be next to it when its hurt badly. and stop the damage at unconscious rather than dead pc. Less of an issue for high vitality parties but 1 level characters don't have enough to absorb the punishment.

Story usually flows ok, sewers are a little wierd i usually change that to a river bed or cave system or some such.
mercenary based characters don't have much of a reason to go to the town. evil characters want the star, good characters want to help.  the mercenary minded group didn't see much need to risk there lives. So i had to add a noble npc that would reward them if he was rescued from the church.

[Psion]

Ran it at NoobieCon last week and with I'd read on here, I think things went pretty smoothly. Wiltweevil was much less of a problem for the group than some people have had since the mage's fire elemental scored back-to-back critical hits on him and he caught on fire.

Yeah, I ran it for my experienced group, featuring a Lava Force of Nature (Expert class from Adventure companion); Wiltweevil didn't last long.