Insta-kill effects and crazy Oozes! Scarlet Citadel for 5th edition - Kobold Press

[@rbtalley3]

a few things I can say after running this game for about a year and a half, maybe 2 now. Sly Flourish nailed it when he said it's hard to get buy-in, or hook in characters... to give them the motivation to get involved. I feel like this module, and most large book formats, are great resources and starting points for settings etc. This one was just way more challenging for the first 6 months, but it gave a great launch point for a story.

[@Zr0din]

*********WARNING SPOILERS - DM's ONLY******** @5:10 YES!!! The Ooze section was excellent- did you use the MAPS and the OVERLAY? It was awesome! Then the Chronomancer section is so dangerous. Expecially if you run it per the book. Your players are playing adventurers... They WILL touch the THING because of the fact that they are ADVENTURERS! So yeah, leave it out! Specifically area 209. @14:30 We talk about the background information in the walls of text. You like it. I found it was a obstacle. After your explanation, I admit I did end up using that information in descriptions and clues, so I guess you win this one Mr T. But the question is - Are we making the books more difficult to use than they need to be? Sure, rule #1 for any book is READ THE FLIPPING BOOK! But I believe this is the limiting factor of the WHOLE INDUSTRY. This is the reason for the "Shortage of DMs." People are not DM'ing because to do it right you have to do a book report, and then be able to give an Oral report to 3-6 of your friends for 3 hours. Not easy, but for some DMs that's part of the fun! I guess the real question is: Did your players (and you, don't forget YOU) have more fun with the 5 to 15-minute prep adventure you can run straight out of the softcover book because it is formatted that way, OR did they (and you) have more fun with your prepping 2 hours after reading and taking notes in a hardcover book. I admit I like to prep my NPCs so I can slip in cool dramatic lines during the conversation (Foreshadowing so it looks like I'm William Shakespeare) and roleplay. Looking forward to the next Ptolus video!!!

[@MrTarrasque]

To the last point. I think both are equals amount of fun, but for different reasons

[@brentconaway6035]

The way I worked the time travel machine is that the machine went with them and activated randomly so they kept jumping around time. Eventually they came back to the start point. I made each jump fairly quick so they didn't have a whole lot of time in each jump.

[@Zr0din]

So did any of them jump off the ride? How did you express that it was a loop and they would make it back to where they started in less than the... What- if we go by the book the loop takes more than an hour in Kaggoth-Ze's time frame?

[@brentconaway6035]

@@Zr0din I made it to where the machine made a winning noise shortly before it activated and then a thump as they are transported. So if they started to wonder off it started the machine. I made it clear that the machine jumps sporadically and it caused the players to stay close. I did this so as not to break our campaign and to prevent it from going in a direction that would be hard to recover from. Also it helped with game time constraints.

[@brentconaway6035]

And yes this was a very very prep heavy book to drop in an already established campaign. But I thought the prep was fun. And I tailored the material quite a bit. I also hate the insta kill spots.i did have a character death further levels down. I tried to avoid it and even showed what could happen as a result. But as things work out it still took the life of one of the characters.

[@Zr0din]

Also- a good time for Ptolus because there is a humble bundle right now for Cypher System and the Ptolus Adventures in 5e and Cypher System.

[@RPG_Bliss]

I am running this dungeon currently and we are having a blast!

[@theblindjedi41]

I'll have to get this module at some point

[@AceneDean]

Are you going back to being a 5e channel? I subbed for the excellent Cypher system stuff. No disrespect either way. I'm just trying to set my expectations accurately.

[@MrTarrasque]

I do both, will be doing much more cypher stuff soon. Also going to look at a few other RPGs.

[@elilevinger5981]

Hi I would let them travel for a short time in there minds - they will send there image there for a short time

[@awaytoanywhere699]

ha ha. ageing or de_ageing a dwarf by maybe 50 years. no matter the number, the dwarf will still look the same! 😅

[@MrTarrasque]

In my games I always use the human equivalent. Meaning everybody ages the same compared to their max age. For magical effects that is.