Thread by @hexcrawl

Let's talk about the Rival adventuring party in Call of the #Netherdeep.

Clockwise, starting lower left: Galsariad Ardyth, Irvan Wastewalker, Maggie Keeneyes, Dermot Wurder, and Ayo Jabe.

We're doing a Let's Read of the adventure. You can start at the beginning by popping over here:

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

I've mentioned previously that these NPCs are given great back stories and personalities, which are then expertly presented in 3-4 paragraph briefings. Each also has an individual goal to pursue.

Very easy to pick up and play. Lots of varied opportunities for cool interactions.

In fact, if you paired these up with character sheets, you'd have an absolutely great party of pregenerated PCs.

These characters are seeded into the Festival of Merit contests in Jidow.

This is very smart: It gives players a chance to meet the Rivals individually (instead of one large, undifferentiated group).

And it also gives an opportunity to shape the Rivals' opinion of the PCs.

Over the course of the campaign, the DM needs to keep track of what state the Rivals are in:

- Friendly
- Indifferent
- Hostile

This will determine/inform the relationship between the PCs and the Rivals, both individually and as a group.

The PCs then compete with the Rivals during the race through the Emerald Grotto, at the end of which:

- One of them has won the race.
- One of them (possibly the same one) has claimed the Jewel of Three Prayers.
- The initial relationship (Friendly/Hostile) has been established.

As we get ready to head to Bazzoxan, there are three scenarios:

1. The Rivals have the Jewel. (Their opinion of the PCs doesn't matter here. And, as we've discussed, the campaign probably derails at this point because there's no good reason for the PCs to follow them.)

2. The PCs have the Jewel and the Rivals are Friendly.

In this scenario, the Rivals stop by and Ayo Jabe says, "Hey! We'd like to join you!"

Call of the #Netherdeep then quietly assumes that the PCs will turn this offer down, so that the Friendly Rivals just kind of doggedly follow the PCs like hopeful puppies for the rest of the campaign (or until their attitude changes).

But it seems far more likely that the PCs will agree with Ayo Jabe's logic...

... and now the GM has to deal with five GMPCs.

Honestly, this feels like a huge headache to me.

Even running one NPC companion effectively is a challenge: It creates issues with spotlight time. It creates problems with bias and perceived bias. It affects the balance of combat encounters.

I talk about the challenges of running GMPCs in more detail as part of the Avernus Remix: thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4424…

But, speaking of balance:

The adventure ISN'T DESIGNED FOR THIS.

Running 5E for a group of 10 PCs is infamously difficult, but Call of the Netherdeep seems to just blithely assume that it will make absolutely no different at all.

(To be fair, the book DOES use the new paradigm where NPC wizards don't actually cast spells, so the Tier 3 "wizard" in the Rivals group will, hilariously, be limited to scrying, a single area attack, and a handful of 1st level spells.

"No, see, this is a great idea because NPCs only need spells for combat encounters! You never need to think about what NPCs do outside of combat!

...

Any way, here are 5 GMPCs who will be traveling with your group at all times."

When I say that this return to the 4E-era paradigm of monster design is a terrible idea, this is exactly what I'm talking about. But I digress.)

The bigger problem, of course, is action economy.

Even if you adjusted encounter strength for the extra party members (which the book doesn't), any encounter with a small number of opponents (one or two or three) will just get absolutely curb-stomped by 10 party members.

So, for example, the Betrayers' Rise dungeon in Bazzoxan - made up entirely of encounters with 1-3 opponents - is going to be absolutely steamrolled.

So that's the GMPC option.

What's the other option?

3. The PCs have Jewel and the Rivals are Hostile.

In this scenario, one of the Rivals sneaks into the PCs' room and tries to steal the Jewel.

I've been doing this for awhile, and IME there are two Unforgivable Sins which an NPC can do:

1. They can kill a PC's pet.
2. They can steal the PC's shit.

Anything else is probably negotiable. But these are points of no return.

So if the Rivals do this, they are dead meat.

They steal from the PCs.

The PCs catch up to them on the road (as scripted on p. 45).

Stab, stab, stab.

Rivals are dead.

Oddly, Call of the #Netherdeep does this A LOT.

Hostile RIvals show up, try to kill the PCs in a no-holds-barred fight, and then the book says something like, "So then the Rivals follow them to Ank'harel."

And I'm like, "Uh... No. Then the Rivals are rotting corpses."

It's not just weird, it's kind of a problem. Because the adventure keeps using the Rivals as an important lynchpin for specific events, but offers no alternative if the Rivals are (as is overwhelmingly likely in a Hostile Rivals campaign) dead.

And it's actually worse than that, because the lynchpins are ALSO based on the assumption that the Rivals aren't allied with the PCs.

(They usually take the form of, "And then the Rivals appear! It's surprising!")

So the campaign is set up to make it overwhelmingly likely that the Rivals are either GMPC allies or dead as a doornail by the end of Chapter 2.

But then the rest of the book (I'm currently in Chapter 5) seems to be written on the assumption that neither of these things is true.

Hold on. Let's back up for a second.

What was that plan for stealing the Jewel again, exactly?

Maggie: So the plan was for Galsariad to sneak in and grab the Jewel?
Ayo: Yup.
Maggie: And then he comes right back?
Ayo: Yup.
Maggie: And he hasn't come back.
Ayo: Yup.
Irvan: So what should we do?
Ayo: Let's leave town and wait at a rest stop for a week. See if he shows up.