Crown of Shadow?

[Aurae]

Hello.

I'm hoping to get a few tips from fellow GMs before running Midnight for my group in the new year.

I thought I'd run Crown of Shadow to get them started but I've heard it can be a bit railroady (I haven't had chance to read it through yet). Is this accurate and if so does anyone have any tips for ways to make it a little less restrictive? Also, I'm trying to keep them in the dark about what they're playing so they don't read things they shouldn't, how much history/background do you think it's necessary to give?

On a related note, I'm having problems with the downloads section of the site - does anyone have any of the files saved? Particularly the character sheets, spell lists, adventures, fonts etc? It's tough to find resources these days.

[Pheros]

Hi Aurae,

Welcome to the boards!

I ran a CoS years ago that turned out pretty well.  I put some comments on it up here: http://www.againsttheshadow.org/index.php?topic=1012.0

In that thread is the DOC file of my GM notes, which I'll attach to this post as well.  Hopefully shouldn't have the same problems that the Download section is having.

I guess CoS can be a bit railroady, but given that fairly early the players are given a specific task of getting from Point A to Point B often they are willing to go along the path the DM is laying out via advice from the NPCs.  In general most of the campaign is spent running from things chasing them (at least in my campaign it was) so that's an additional motivation not to stray too far from the path.

Hope that helps you,
Joe

[Aurae]

Thanks for the welcome, Joe!

Your attached GM notes have downloaded fine, thanks for those and the link. I'll give them a read.

From your experience it sounds like it's not too railroady. That's a good point, being chased would help! I find players are usually happy to take bait, especially when starting off in a new game. I don't like to give them the impression that they have no choice though.

[Pheros]

I've gone through CoS once as a player, once as DM, and now again as a player in the game on the boards here (the Clarion Quietus threads).  As you said, at low levels players tend to be OK taking the offered bait, and figuring the characters out.  As CoS is supposed to run only up to level 5 I think, that's usually a good enough amount of time for them to enjoy the ride without too much frustration as to direction. Once they hit the end of the module, there are lots of options to continue (eg see the CoS part two game also happening on the boards here).

[Aurae]

It sounds like CoS is a good start for a group, most would manage to behave for that long. We're playing in a high-magic setting currently so ~5 levels to adjust to the change should be about right. I'm starting to think the people who get frustrated with it are impatient to get going (in my experience some people really don't like playing through the low level stuff) or have a real thing for sandbox games.

I'm going to look at the Clarion Quietus threads, thanks for directing me there.

[Aurae]

I've managed to find two character sheets attached to posts (here and here, if anyone else has been looking for them).

Does anyone have a GM screen? I have the FoS one but I imagine that like most screens, it doesn't contain all the information you use.

[loric]

How to make CoS less railroad-y? Actually I found that pretty simple - once they are given their mission (deliver the Dragon Case to Arandil) I basically let them decide how to get there. It's a little more work, but you can use everything up to Baden's Bluff as encounters along the way. They talked about going via the Sea of Pelluria the whole way, but decided it would be safer overland.
I ended up skipping the dwarven clanhold stuff. That seemed super railroady to me - and didn't make a whole lot of sense. They were already on their way out of the mountains but there's an entrance to the (underdark) dwarven underground? Wouldn't that be up in the mountains?

[Aurae]

Thanks for the input, loric.

I have a few books so it shouldn't be an issue to let them stray a little. We've been delayed in starting which has given me some extra time to prepare too which is a bonus.