welcome to behind the screen with me Robert Hartley i am the
GM or games master for this lovely chaotic group Viva La Dirt League
and i'll be taking you through a few of the epic or crucial moments in the campaign so far
so come with us on the journey and learn a little bit about what's going on behind here
in episode 30 Baradun and the D**kheads stuck in the dead frost
met with master padrick
and he promised to get them back to Azerim if they helped him with some tasks
now he in the name of political campaigning
wanted to spread his good name around the ten and a half towns
and he had six tasks remaining
Rimming with fishermen going missing
jin shandy who had lost a shipment of iron from the mines
a series of unexplained murders around miscellaneous towns
dugan's shaft with their monthly sacrifice going missing
westhaven with their problems of a wizard
and argos putting together a mob of strong folk
now the guys when we first started playing
specifically asked me to run a bit of a railroad campaign
a specific call to action at any particular point
this was my attempt to kind of test the waters on that
to see if that's still the direction they wanted to take it
or whether they wanted a genuine choice that mattered
can we have a moment to confirm
of course
right
okay
we've come to a decision
Rimming
dugan's shaft
and westhaven
but what if they'd chosen the other three
one two three
all right let's go
firstly these towns were all based on my adaptations of the actual ten and a half
towns of the sponsored content that we were doing at the time
Rime and the frost maiden
and one of the starter quests in that module is to
track down a serial killer who is working for Auriel
so had they taken that quest they would have been given a similar task
but if they'd taken that quest they would have discovered here's a little secret for you
the killer in question was an undead and he was connected to
another member of the order of the weave
so if they hadn't met master yaris goldhorn
they would have instead started to hear story of another member of the order of the weave
if they'd have gone to Gin Shandy
that whole quest was about exploring how dangerous the
wilderness can be in the rime of the frost maiden
and how it can be just as dangerous or more so than a combat
it would have been about survival
trying to search in the blizzards and snow for a particular item
and if they'd succeeded they would have been rewarded with weapon upgrades and
armor upgrades using the iron ingots that they salvaged for the town
there was also a chance with Gin shandy for a tie into Bodgers blacksmithing
and his family ties to the area
wow
oh that's impressive
i've been working at it for a long time so
and finally of course if they had visited argos they would have been recruited into a lynch mob
in doing so they would have arrived outside of a particular cabin
and unless all of them rolled very poorly on intelligence checks
they would have realized that they were back at
dirk's place and the lynch mob was here to kill dirk kyagerberk for his monstrous wear bear form
it would have then been down to them to decide
whether they get involved on either side of the battle
and there would have basically just been a moral dilemma given to them for them to decide on
going to argos was actually not that they knew it the only chance of saving dirk at this point
so one tip for dungeon masters is often talked about as the illusion of choice
where you give them path a or path b but secretly both of them lead to destination c
we made a decision as a team as a group
and they think they're making choices when it doesn't really
matter you're kind of secretly railroading them
don't be afraid to actually come up with genuine different paths and allow your
players to decide for themselves which ones sound most interesting to them
i'm so excited about this excited
as long as i get to kill something
i'm sure you will
after all they can always go back and try those other quests later
but when they do they might find that the other quests have been hanged from a tree
just as an example
ladies and gentlemen remember vote for master patrick
he's the one that got us to do this for you
so go back and rewatch that episode now
decide which one you would have chosen in the time
and if i'd have given them all of this information which ones
you think they would have chosen in the moment
and i'll see you next time on behind the screen
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