[Official] Loch Varn

[Usgardh]

Loch Varn is an official scenario included in the "introduction kit" of Shadows of Esteren: Book 0 - Prologue.

As it is announced in its introduction, this scenario is intended for rather experienced Leaders and Players, with a mixed-up chronology and a complex atmosphere. However, it was also designed to be easy to handle, with the presence of many information boxes and staging aids to provide the Game Leader with tips and reminders.

If you have any questions about this scenario, the team will do their best to give you satisfactory answers. Likewise, feel free to share any remarks or suggestions you might have in mind.

Also, do not hesitate to create discussion threads to post reports of your game sessions!

[tamsyn]

We had our first session of LV last week. This is my report/thoughts.

The group decided to make their own characters. They are seasoned role players and they decided if they were going to be playing this for a long time then they would rather be fully bought into their roles. We ended up with a magientist, a damathir, a blade adept and a warrior/rogue. I easily aligned them with the premades for plot points.

I really liked the music suggestions for some scenes. Not having the songs listed I did a bit of research and found similar from the Chronicles of Riddick soundtrack and Clannad albums. Even one from Bladerunner! If people want to know what I chose for each I can add that after.

First problem for the players was the fight with the Melwan fighters. They felt they were quite hard in comparison to the players. I suppose this is true. Luckily it is part of a nightmare so not reality but it did become a theme that they were constantly underpowered. Ok if it is a giant man eating plant, or so much when it is just a guy in leather armour. I had to increase the power of healing to make sure they didn't die straight away. Might have to look at that for the game in general but works at the moment for the 'dream'.

For me the first tricky bit was at the camp. The players keep asking the old man and warriors who they were and where they were. I understood from the scenario (may be wrong) that they shouldn't learn that at that point. I tried being vague but they pressed. In the end I made the warriors out to be suffering from the same memory loss which the players accepted.

The ruins scene was fine but I had to block up the entrance to the factory to make them explore further. They stepped in goo and discovered the report in a desk. by now a healthy level of paranoia was getting them to sneak around corners and use lots of torches. I did add some magientist symbols to things, including the one on the necklace to keep up interest. Of course they had no idea what they were. Yet. I went with the giant plant for a fight where one player was eaten then they went into a side room where they met the centipedes. As each one was caught they were crushed/ eaten etc and that ended the scene, ready for the to wake up screaming next week!

Any questions? Otherwise I'll add what happens next.

[Clovis]

Ah, a report of Loch Varn; great! I was looking forward to having some feedback from the English-speaking community!

The group decided to make their own characters. They are seasoned role players and they decided if they were going to be playing this for a long time then they would rather be fully bought into their roles. We ended up with a magientist, a damathir, a blade adept and a warrior/rogue. I easily aligned them with the premades for plot points.

Yep, it's undoubtedly always better if the Players can have their own Characters instead of being necessarily restricted to premade ones. Those from Book 0 are great for one-time sessions, and even for a whole campaign, if the Players are okay with it, but as far as I'm concerned, nothing beats shaping your own avatar in the end!

I really liked the music suggestions for some scenes. Not having the songs listed I did a bit of research and found similar from the Chronicles of Riddick soundtrack and Clannad albums. Even one from Bladerunner! If people want to know what I chose for each I can add that after.

Sure! If that's not too much of a bother, do share that with us. I'm always on the lookout for fine pieces of music, and who know, maybe it will inspire someone else to spice up a scene, or even to create a whole scenario!

First problem for the players was the fight with the Melwan fighters. They felt they were quite hard in comparison to the players. I suppose this is true. Luckily it is part of a nightmare so not reality but it did become a theme that they were constantly underpowered. Ok if it is a giant man eating plant, or so much when it is just a guy in leather armour. I had to increase the power of healing to make sure they didn't die straight away. Might have to look at that for the game in general but works at the moment for the 'dream'.

Well, after all, the idea is that they're trapped in an awful dream, and that they are doomed to perish horribly, whatever they do. However, it is true that even if none of it is real, it can easily be a let-down for PCs to see their enemies wipe the floor with them. In such a case, don't hesitate to lower the power of the opponents to make the fights more realistic and uncertain, or to simply roll the die secretly, and then announce what result fits the situation according to your needs.

For me the first tricky bit was at the camp. The players keep asking the old man and warriors who they were and where they were. I understood from the scenario (may be wrong) that they shouldn't learn that at that point. I tried being vague but they pressed. In the end I made the warriors out to be suffering from the same memory loss which the players accepted.

The basic idea of this part is to have it all go so fast that the Players don't have the time to think about it and start asking questions. However, it's true that there can still very easily be a "Woah there, wait a minute now..." moment.

The NPCs at the camp are indeed supposed to remain anonymous. Your solution was not bad. Another possibility would have been to feed the Players with useless information: instead of telling them his real name, Jearon can tell them the name of one of their childhood friends, since their memories are all mixed up... or maybe he can even tell them his name is Verzal (an influence of the fact that the Varigal is currently being possessed by the ghost of the Magientist), which should sound all the more ominous when the name comes up again later in the scenario!

The ruins scene was fine but I had to block up the entrance to the factory to make them explore further. They stepped in goo and discovered the report in a desk. by now a healthy level of paranoia was getting them to sneak around corners and use lots of torches. I did add some magientist symbols to things, including the one on the necklace to keep up interest. Of course they had no idea what they were. Yet. I went with the giant plant for a fight where one player was eaten then they went into a side room where they met the centipedes. As each one was caught they were crushed/ eaten etc and that ended the scene, ready for the to wake up screaming next week!

Any questions? Otherwise I'll add what happens next.

Quite nice overall! However, one question comes to mind: did you include the scene with Terent? It's a rather important component of the scenario, and since you did not mention it, I am wondering if you forgot to, or if you simply removed this element.

[tamsyn]

Thanks for that positive feedback!

Great idea about using Verzal if they get too inquisitive but I also get it about the pace.

Yes, they met and killed Terent almost immediately. I guess I forgot to mention it as I played it as passing, as part of the fight almost so it will have more impact later. Hopefully!

[Dragoslav]

Thanks for posting your experience so far. I'm going to run Loch Varn as the first scenario when we start playing, so hearing about someone else's experience is quite useful.

[tamsyn]

No problem, I'll keep doing it after every session. Then you will be more prepared than me! Then again I am a bit of a 'fly by the seat of my trousers' gm.

[Dragoslav]

I have only GMed a handful of sessions before, so I need all the preparation I can get.

[tamsyn]

Second session of the Loch Varn scenario. It is working out that they are covering an act per session.

I took them aside and reassigned the remembered information to relevant characters. One small part of confusion here - it says some of them don't remember their trip to the ruins - did this mean they didn't remember the actual trip or the nightmare trip? Initially I went with both, until later on I released that they couldn't remember Deorn they didn't remember the nightmare trip. Oops. Luckily my group are quite easy going and realise that the story is difficult to run! This is also when a bit of note passing by the gm started. I like some of it to make he rpg conversations interesting. The inguard and chapel scenes went well - even if I had to invent what happened to the dead soldier! Also I made the inguard a bit more interesting as they were desperate to search something else!

They decided to go to the chapel after waking up in the camp. Player disappointment #1 - they thought the chapel would hold more mysteries than some registers. Onto the village and that was fun for me, the villagers chatting to them and asking about Jearon. Tip for GMs, make sure you know what Jearon looks like before someone asks. For the council, I made them all stand up and tell their story in character. Good bit of roleplaying there and amusing to hear them trying to recount what they remembered. The magientist saw his brother in town a few times so he was primed for the ghost scene. I had them all sleeping in the same hut so when he woke up traumatised it upset the others as well. I did decide not to introduce the puzzle until the ghost. It is mentioned they have it earlier but I didn't want them to try and solve it earlier. Wish I'd one a bit more prep on the puzzle as there isn't much in the text and they wanted to know all about it.

Eventually they got in a boat and got out to the island. Was tempted to have something attack the boat to keep up the theme but was running short on time. They got the coordinates and they made a good point. Would they use maps like that? It felt a little incongruous. I know it was still a dream but they didn't know that! They found the site and this led to player disappointment #2. They thought after all that effort (having to persuade a fisherman to give them his!) a couple of bits of paper was a let down.

My favourite part of the session? Reading the documents, getting up to leave turning around and I put on the music from the first scene and bam! They are back in the ruins under fire. The look on their faces! Threatening to jump out the window, banging their head on the table and pretending to shoot themselves were some of the reactions. If driving the players mad was the goal, it was achieved!

Last act review coming next week. Feel free to ask any questions

[Dragoslav]

Thanks for the update. How long are your sessions running if you have only been able to get through one act per session so far?

The whole bit about the nightmare was confusing to me the first few times I read the scenario. Only one of the PCs has the nightmare, so it would have to be the one who kills his brother, right? Otherwise he wouldn't recognize it when the scene plays out again. At first reading I thought that all of the PCs were supposed to have had the same dream, but I don't think that's the case.

Did you have any trouble getting the group to go to where you wanted them to go? In particular, the chapel (especially since it's optional) and the island (since they have to solve an esoteric puzzle to figure out that they need to go there)?

Sounds like your players had fun, despite a few disappointments. That's good to know! The players need to learn that not every scene can turn up a huge discovery.

[tamsyn]

Our sessions run for about 3 hours since we have a small window after the kids go to bed and before everyone has to get home for work the next day. The trouble with gaming as you get older!

Yes the nightmare is just for one player. No problem with the players going places, they really wanted to work out what was going on with their memories.

They don't expect cool stuff all the time but it might gave been too many only finding bits of paper in one session