Thread by @hexcrawl

On several occasions on the road to Bazzoxan, Call of the #Netherdeep has food so good that it gives you temporary hit points.

Yeah. I'm gonna need the recipe.

I've checked my copy of Heroes' Feast, but no such luck.

amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS…

We're continuing the Let's Read of the Critical Role campaign book. Backtrack to the beginning, or follow along across the Barbed Fields to the gates of Bazzoxan.

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

Bazzoxan was established at the foot of Betrayer's Rise, an ancient temple complex and vast dungeon dedicated to the Betrayer Gods. Dungeon explorers woke something up within Betrayer's Rise and the town is now the front line in a war with abyssal forces rising out of the depths.

When the PCs arrive at the gates, the guards on duty are like, "Hey, would you like to join the Aurora Watch and fight the abyssal horrors of Betrayer's Run?"

And that ends Chapter 2.

Call of the #Netherdeep handles offers like this strangely: Someone will say, "Hey, would you like to work with us?"

... and then the book immediately forgets that this ever happened.

We saw this with Ayo Jabe earlier, for example.

Here the book remembers the offer long enough to assume that the PCs DEFINITLELY accepted it, so that Chapter 3 starts with the PCs to being led through town and getting ambushed by a gibbering mouther.

During the fight, Verin Thelyss, the leader of Bazzoxan, says, "Newcomers? Find me at the barracks after!"

But then amnesia sets in and the follow-up conversation with Verin has completely forgotten the mercenary offer.

As I mentioned previously, the PCs have been given no actual reason to come to Bazzoxan. So now that they're here, the expectation is that that'll just... wander around aimlessly.

There are three reps here from academic organizations in Ank'Harel:
- Prolix from the Allegiance of Allsight.
- Question from the Cobalt Soul.
- Aloysia Telfan from the Consortium of the Vermilion Dream.

This is not well explained, but the general idea seems to be that the PCs will stumble into these three scholars and then all three will simultaneously decide to return to Ank'harel at the same time the PCs go there and provide them with introductions to the factions there.

The key interaction for moving the plot forward works like this:

- The PCs eventually wander into the inn.
- There's a tiefling there.
- If they don't talk to the tiefling, the tiefling will ignore them.

- The PCs then need to mention to the tiefling that they have the Jewel of Three Prayers.
- If they do this, a different character (Aloysia) who has been eavesdropping on their conversation will be like, "Hey! I'm the NPC who tells you what to do next!"

Aloysia tells them that they need to find a prayer site. Coincidentally, she's also looking for the prayer site and offers to pay them to come with her.

This is a very convoluted path and it's really unclear to me why they've locked the plot behind two deliberately obfuscated checkpoints.

First, you need to say that you're talking to a random tiefling in a room with "two dozen stools that are mostly occupied by patrons."

Second, you need to spontaneously decide to reveal the Jewel (which you could very easily have decided is something you shouldn't be flashing around) during this specific conversation.

If not, the adventure-as-written breaks.

The meeting with Prolix, the third Ank'Harel scholar, is similarly obfuscated: The players need to randomly wander over to the crematorium and then agree to help burn corpses in order to trigger a cutscene with Prolix.

And, it should be noted, if you don't meet at least one of of these scholars in Bazzoxan, then the NEXT section of the adventure in Ank'Harel also breaks.

This is, to be blunt, video game writing.

And, sure, in a video game you can expect the players to keep clicking on NPCs in the tavern until they click on the right tiefling.

But it doesn't translate to the tabletop. There is no display of patrons for the players to click on.

The redundancy actually is good here. If Aloysia wasn't locked behind Question and if Question wasn't locked behind the "click on a random tiefling" interaction, my concerns here would be largely alleviated.

https://twitter.com/MoonsilverTV/status/1507002530059874307

Of course, in an ideal world the PCs would've been given a REASON to come to Bazzoxan, which would likely include, "Talk to local scholars."

And then the whole thing shifts, because now the PCs would be SEEKING these interactions instead of just randomly wandering around.

How would I do this?

First: I'd split Prolix, Question, and Aloysia out of their programmed cutscenes.

Give them write-ups using the Universal NPC Roleplaying Template.

Prep them for active play.

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/3791…

Instead of hard-coded cutscenes, tell the DM that they should look for opportunities to introduce these NPCs as the PCs explore Bazzoxan.

Then provide short options for this (no page-and-a-half scripts) in different locations. So Prolix isn't just at the crematorium: He might be there. Or the inn. Or studying a sacrifice engine.

Question is at the inn. Or leaving an offering at the Wall of the Unforgotten (he's made - and lost - friends here). Or studying carvings at Betrayer's Rise.

(Art: Pathfinder, artist credit unclear)

Aloysia is at the inn. Or demanding soldiers from Verin to escort her into Betrayer's Rise. Or getting a puncture wound treated at the infirmary (she was fighting gibbering mouthers).

And yes, absolutely, have the scholars relate to each other: Aloysia can be caught eavesdropping on the PCs talking to the other scholars. Prolix tells them he's spying on Aloysia (but strengthen it and have Prolix ask them to break into Aloysia's room and steal her notes). Etc.

So let's head down into the demonic depths of Betrayers' Rise.

The keyed locations here are great. Gothic and fantastical imagery drawn in vivid details.

Fonts of blood, bladed statues, blood-stained spikes, strange stained glass, jagged bits of razor-sharp metal.

Guarded by flaming skulls and driders and mad cultists performing strange rites.

Fantastic stuff.

One of my favorite encounters here are swirling, humanoid flames that seek to entice characters join them in their frantic dance.

And become enraged if they are refused.

(Art: Konstanin Yuganov)

The design of Betrayers' Rest is also nicely jaquayed, giving PCs the opportunity to explore the dungeon strategically.

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1308…

This is great.

You see generic "there are purty pictures on the wall" or "there are some statues here" stuff in dungeon keys all the time.

It takes a little effort, but GETTING SPECIFIC with art is HUGE. It makes the world feel real and immerses the players in the setting.

Plus you can sneak all kinds of lore into this stuff.

"Holy shit! That's the guy from the painting!"

is 100% what you want to hear as a GM.

That's Mission Accomplished.

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4124…

Great example, and actually ties into the next thing I was going to say.

In Area R13 of BR, there's a labyrinth that's navigated by following the unlighted passages.

https://twitter.com/cjwynes/status/1507063351586832388

And it's another example of those "make a skill check to have the game play itself" puzzles we talked about before.

When you have a hint like this in a dungeon, you don't want to park it directly on top of the puzzle.

What you'd want to do here is drop this clue over in R12, where there's a super creepy statue of Torog.

You might inscribe it on the statue. But you can also just leave it as a skill check. The point is that (a) it now requires the PCs to actually put information together...

...and solve the puzzle.

But also (b) connecting information in a dungeon like this makes the dungeon more dynamic and interesting. Even having stuff just a couple rooms away makes the place feel like a total environment, rather than isolated rooms, and encourages exploration.

Betrayers' Rise is a really good dungeon as written.

My only problem, really, is that it doesn't deliver on the promise of Betrayers' Rise.

BR is sold as an ancient complex with vast, unexplored depths from which abyssal horrors are emerging.

As pitched, BR is Moria. A gargantuan complex worming its way into the earth; a place where people delved too deep and woke up horrors from an elder age.

As presented, BR is 16 rooms. They're good rooms. Even great rooms. But it... well, it doesn't quite deliver.

To be fair, the adventure knows it has a problem.

So it kind of tosses out the idea that "the characters experience a particular version" of BR. And that others experience "different configurations."

And there's a list of "Rise Encounters" that the DM can use to "expand" BR.

This is not an unusual problem: You want to send the PCs into a legendary dungeon -- Moria, Undermountain, Castle Blackmoor, Betrayers' Rest -- as part of your adventure.

But those places have like 20 levels and hundreds of rooms.

And in a published adventure, of course, page count becomes an issue.

I've previously talked about how Ed Greenwood added a whole second well to the Yawning Portal that was a convenient shortcut to the Undermountain location needed for FRE3 Waterdeep.

https://twitter.com/hexcrawl/status/1479152442503839748

And even if page count or prep time weren't important (which they obviously are), there's also pacing to consider.

Megadungeons are awesome. I love me a good megadungeon.
thealexandrian.net/wordpress/5/ro…

But it probably wouldn't make a lot of sense to put Call of Netherdeep on pause for 10 or 20 or 40 sessions while a largely unrelated dungeon crawl is happening.

So what's the problem?

If I'm saying that you can't do a megadungeon and you shouldn't do a megadungeon, don't we just have to accept the micro-dungeon that Call of Netherdeep presents?

No, actually.

What we need to do is shift our paradigm. And we can do that by rephrasing our goal:

The micro-dungeon in CoN is (a) good and (b) probably about right in narrative weight. So what is it that we want?

Ideally, we'd take that exact micro-dungeon and present it in a way that's consistent with Betrayer's Run being a gargantuan complex with vast, unexplored depths from which abyssal horrors are yada yada yada.

Join us for the delve into Betrayers' Rise over here, as the Let's Read continues!

https://twitter.com/hexcrawl/status/1507399062005424154