Thread by @hexcrawl

We're still in Jigow and we're about to go play some games at the festival.

We're continuing our Let's Read of Call of the #Netherdeep. You can jump over here if you want to read from the beginning.

https://twitter.com/hexcrawl/status/1505005530112307208

The PCs can win medals for triumphing in various contests. One of these is a medal formed from pieces of a tortoise (awarded for successfully herding horizonback tortoises).

The adventure goes out of its way to assure you that these medals did NOT come from butchered tortoises.

Which I think is hilarious.

Because the first contest is an eating contest with meat-pies.

"We, the authors, would like to assure you that no domesticated tortoises were harmed in the making of this festival. Now, let's go stuff our faces with slaughtered meat."

The only way this could be funnier to me is if it was a turtle soup eating contest.

There's a good mixture of mini-games here (seven in all) that have clearly been designed to target a variety of specialties so that every PC will likely have a chance to play and contribute.

There's also enough that you can choose to skip some if they don't seem interesting.

Encounters with the Rivals have been seeded into these contests, and are designed to (a) introduce the Rivals and (b) establish what the initial relationship between the groups will be (based on mutual first impressions).

Great stuff.

One of the contests is Riddles & Rhymes. And I have opinions.

Two of the riddles are resolved with an Intelligence and/or Wisdom check.

One of them can ONLY by solved with a skill check (because the player doesn't have access to the visual image required to solve the riddle).

I'm not a fan of this approach to riddles and puzzles in RPGs. YMMV, but I find the interaction of, "Here is a clever question, now roll a die and I will tell you the answer," to be incredibly boring and fairly annoying.

I much prefer the approach taken by the third riddle, in which successful Intelligence checks provide the player with clues, but ultimately the player still needs to figure out the answer.

So... why is this true (IMO)?

In resolving puzzles in RPGs, there is a tension between player expertise and character expertise.

This is something I discuss in The Art of Rulings:

1. Passive observation of the world is automatically triggered.
2. Player expertise activates character expertise.
3. Player expertise can trump character expertise.

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4238…

Character expertise flows from the mechanical model of the character in the RPG system, which can be tested by the RPG's mechanics to determine the outcome of their expertise.

Player expertise flows from the decisions being made by players.

And the thing to recognize is that the core gameplay of an RPG lives in the handoff between player expertise and character expertise.

You can say, "My character should know that even if I don't!" (Because their Int is high or they have a skill or whatever.)

And that will often be true.

But it can only go so far before the character is just playing itself: Make a Tactics check to determine where they move in combat, who they attack, etc.

So the problem I have with "here's a puzzle, make an Int check, here's the solution (or not)" is that the character is playing itself.

You've presented what is ostensibly a challenge, but the player is not participating in it.

Everyone draws the line between player expertise and character expertise in a different place (and this can also vary across different actions).

But a key thing to recognize is that this doesn't just apply to puzzles: Any place where you're saying, "Here's a situation, give me a check" and the result of the entirely reactive check (no player input) completely resolves the situation is not a great experience at the table.

And this is something that most of the other games in Jigow generally get right: Even within fairly simple mini-games there are basic strategic choices to be made and options made available for clever, out-of-the-box solutions or shortcuts.

tl;dr Engage the players through their characters. If you're ONLY engaging the characters, then the players are no longer playing the game.

At the end of the festival, the Elders choose the two most successful teams to compete in the Grand Finale race through the Emerald Grotto.

One team will be the PCs. The other team will be the Rivals.

And this is a little weird because literally none of the contests up to this point have been team-based events.

The only previous mentions of a "team" are in J3, where you're explicitly PROHIBITED from competing as a team. And J5 where "teams" of two people compete (which is not the same thing as the five-person teams which are suddenly a thing at the Grand Finale).

So there's kind of this big, glaring continuity error squatting right on top of the event which is the lynchpin for the entire campaign.

I'm not really sure what my solution would be here. Revising all the events to be team-based doesn't seem very practical.

Maybe framing team registration at the top of the festival would work, with your team's collective medals determining Grand Finale placement.

(But what if the PCs don't actually do very well in the contests? The whole thing is a really shaky premise no matter how you look at it.)

In any case, the PCs and Rivals have to race through the Emerald Grotto and claim the Emerald Eye. Whichever team returns with the Eye to the Elders wins the race.

Oddly the adventure then acts as if the race ends as soon as someone grabs the Eye. Which, of course it doesn't. (And the book recognized that in the previous race - the Ifolon Plunge - where the race strategy is based around intercepting the goal item AFTER it's been grabbed.)

But the real problem here is that the scenario hook for the ENTIRE CAMPAIGN is horribly, horribly broken.

Here's how it works: The PCs get to the end of the Emerald Grotto and they spot a shark that has the Emerald Eye strapped to its side.

So you have to fight the shark. And when you defeat the shark, it crashes into a stone pillar, causing the wall of the cavern to crack open and revealing the Jewel of Three Prayers, which is the essential McGuffin on which the entire plot is built.

Problem #1: It's a RACE.

So, yeah, that glowy light is interesting. But you're heavily motivated by your immediate and only goal to NOT explore it right now.

Generally speaking, you want SCENARIO CRUCIAL ACTIONS to flow FROM the established goals of the PCs, not in direct contradiction of them.

The same is true for the Rivals. But, of course, I control their actions, so I can just decree that they go and check out the glowy light.

This still creates some difficulties, but they're fairly easy to surmount with some quick rewrites.

The bigger problem is that you DON'T HAVE TO FIGHT THE SHARK.

In fact, fighting the shark is probably the dumbest way for the PCs to get the Emerald Eye.

Even if you overrule an Animal Handling check, that still leaves alt solutions like Mage Hand (to grab the amulet), an Animal Friendship spell, or just a Stealth check (+ Invisbility?).

And the writers KNOW that these options exist, because Animal Friendship is how they got the amulet ON the shark in the first place.

So... no dead shark?

No thrashing.

No thrashing, no pillar collapse.

No pillar collapse, no glowy light.

No glowy light, the CAMPAIGN DOESN'T HAPPEN.

My recommendation is that grabbing the Eye releases a pulse of energy, which triggers the collapse.

Maybe grabbing the Eye triggers a thunderous voice declaring that SO-AND-SO HAS WON THE RACE, which pulses through the water and echoes over the shore.

https://twitter.com/LlamaDragon/status/1505882980425912320

It doesn't resolve all the problems and there's still some corner cases to worry about (what if the PCs lure the shark away from the grotto? and then realize that the shark can't actually fit through the passages?), but you'll have a lot more control over the outcome.

The Let's Read continues over here!

https://twitter.com/hexcrawl/status/1505944269915312129