Love your video. Your suggestion about giving the players more motivation is spot on. My solution is for the Bounty Hunter from part 1 (if he survived) or his replacement (if he didn’t) to contact the players after they save the town to suggest they meet his employer, Q.F., in Altdorf. Q.F. being a professor tracking chaos cults who can point them in Etelka’s direction and answer questions about the plot.
@@1ShotJC scrap the scene in Bögenhafen of Gideon killing him. (The Ordo Septenarius and the Purple Hand are supposed to be separate anyway.) If he survived the encounter with the players at Weissbruck, he decides they’re too much for him and shadows them, hoping to catch the Lieberung Lookalike alone, and ends up witnessing their heroics and realizing they’re probably not cultists and it’s a case of Mistaken Identity.
Definitely could have used this back when I was running DOTR in WFRP ... luckily for me, I'm going to be running it again for my online GURPS group (OlympusRPG). That particular group doesn't have a lot of interest in trading in the various games we've played in the past, so one of the options I'm considering is having Josef ferrying them around and handling the trading stuff. This will especially be true if they screw up the stuff in Bogenhafen, in which case Josef will want revenge as much as the PCs do. I intentionally customized a lot of the stuff in DOTR for my characters. Examples: * The witch hunter PC was explicitly instructed to capture Etelka for Questioning. * The spy PC was explicitly instructed by the Black Chamber to capture Etelka for Questioning. * The knight (turned judicial champion since I did the 1st two Rough Nights adventures in the middle) was a bastard of Ludwig (obviously from before he turned into a giant cockroach.) * In Kemperbad, the PCs got tired of the Purple Hand crap and the witch hunter PC sought out other Templars ... so they Questioned captured cultists then had a big skirmish-like battle at the cultist safehouse. * Etelka survived the watch tower - you're totally right that she and Ernst went down easily in that fight - using Teleport and Flight. She fled to Wittgenstein, then basically teamed up with the chaos champion to start a coup, so the PCs were moderately creeped out over all the corpses when they entered. Etelka survived this too even though she had UTTER CRAP rolls and her wizard duel against Margritte turned into miscast after miscast after miscast. Once again, Etelka used Teleport & Flight to narrowly escape & will replace the von Wittgenstein guy in PBtT.
What a great vid, and what a pity that we are in the middle of the adventure and two of the tips are not any more to be followed. I'm very curious for the next vid about PbtT.
Amazing! The advices in you first video on Enemy in Shadows was absolutely crucial in how I mastered my own campaign. I almost finished mastering Enemy in Shadow. I bet this second video will as useful as the first one. Thanks a lot for your amazing work!
I'm running DotR at the moment. It's a great adventure, though not perfect by any means. Your points are spot on. 1. The hooks are very weak. The GM needs to consider how to motivate the PCs to get involved. 2. The enemies are definitely pretty weak. I swapped the zombies for more powerful constructs but daemons could work better. I'm changing the goblins to Beastman as they tie in with the Red Crown's agenda better 3. There is a gazetteer of the settlements along the river but this dates from the 80s version of the scenario and the new map has lots more towns and villages that aren't mentioned. The GM needs to consider these if the players start trading 4. The Castle is great. And I wholeheartedly agree with the comments. I suggest using the power of the guards though (they are pretty wimpy). There are some lovely areas though the GM needs to be careful not to force the players to investigate all the castle. 5. It's a huge adventure, best played (imo) as a sandbox. With the right hooks the only 'vital' bits are the signal tower (maybe), Etelka's Tower (probably) and the castle itself. And yeah you don't necessarily need to deprive the players of the warpstone. If they want a box of really bad chaos matter let them have it... possession of it is going to be really 'interesting' for them :-) Great video. I look forward to Power Behind the Throne. Now that is a really hard one to run!
I am just about to run this. Thank goodness you made this video. Hopefully your Power Behind the Throne video will be out by the time I get to it. I am right now trying to better establish morivatipns for my PCs.
Thank you! Photoshop has a built-in Colorize filter - I used it a ton to make the black and white art in the book into colored tokens in my last VTT campaign.
I wish i had thesse tips before we did death on the Reik. Will you make another video for power behind the throne? I am currently preparing that adventure for my group :)
hi i casually stumbled on this video searching an answer for my problem, i'm about to stat this campain soon and while reading the book i didn't find how much time there is between a city and another, the only thing i thinked is that they take the same time as the red crown cultists. i really hope you can help me and thanks in advance
First, be sure to check this out: awesomeliesblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/25/the-enemy-within-a-companion-2/ -- has a lot of good advice on travel times. Also, if you search for "Map of the Reikland" on Google, you'll find some simpler maps that more clearly show distances. All that said, if you roughly assume that the PCs travel at the same speed as the cultists, it will all still mostly work out. Good luck!
If the Red Crown always travel in three's, why did Heidelman travel alone to Etelka? It makes more sense that they will have thugs accompanying them in more civilized areas and swap them for mutants/beastmen in remote areas.
I think I meant that they operate in cells of three, vs they never let each other out of their sight. But agree that thugs in cities make more sense, unless you allow heavily-disguised Ungor to count.
That's true, though I always figured the Skaven have so much warpstone it didn't matter much if it was THAT piece of warpstone. But too bad I didn't finish this 3 weeks ago!
Love your video. Your suggestion about giving the players more motivation is spot on. My solution is for the Bounty Hunter from part 1 (if he survived) or his replacement (if he didn’t) to contact the players after they save the town to suggest they meet his employer, Q.F., in Altdorf. Q.F. being a professor tracking chaos cults who can point them in Etelka’s direction and answer questions about the plot.
Oh I like the idea of using the bounty hunters to connect the two adventures…
@@1ShotJC scrap the scene in Bögenhafen of Gideon killing him. (The Ordo Septenarius and the Purple Hand are supposed to be separate anyway.) If he survived the encounter with the players at Weissbruck, he decides they’re too much for him and shadows them, hoping to catch the Lieberung Lookalike alone, and ends up witnessing their heroics and realizing they’re probably not cultists and it’s a case of Mistaken Identity.
Definitely could have used this back when I was running DOTR in WFRP ... luckily for me, I'm going to be running it again for my online GURPS group (OlympusRPG). That particular group doesn't have a lot of interest in trading in the various games we've played in the past, so one of the options I'm considering is having Josef ferrying them around and handling the trading stuff. This will especially be true if they screw up the stuff in Bogenhafen, in which case Josef will want revenge as much as the PCs do.
I intentionally customized a lot of the stuff in DOTR for my characters. Examples:
* The witch hunter PC was explicitly instructed to capture Etelka for Questioning.
* The spy PC was explicitly instructed by the Black Chamber to capture Etelka for Questioning.
* The knight (turned judicial champion since I did the 1st two Rough Nights adventures in the middle) was a bastard of Ludwig (obviously from before he turned into a giant cockroach.)
* In Kemperbad, the PCs got tired of the Purple Hand crap and the witch hunter PC sought out other Templars ... so they Questioned captured cultists then had a big skirmish-like battle at the cultist safehouse.
* Etelka survived the watch tower - you're totally right that she and Ernst went down easily in that fight - using Teleport and Flight. She fled to Wittgenstein, then basically teamed up with the chaos champion to start a coup, so the PCs were moderately creeped out over all the corpses when they entered. Etelka survived this too even though she had UTTER CRAP rolls and her wizard duel against Margritte turned into miscast after miscast after miscast. Once again, Etelka used Teleport & Flight to narrowly escape & will replace the von Wittgenstein guy in PBtT.
What a great vid, and what a pity that we are in the middle of the adventure and two of the tips are not any more to be followed.
I'm very curious for the next vid about PbtT.
Amazing! The advices in you first video on Enemy in Shadows was absolutely crucial in how I mastered my own campaign.
I almost finished mastering Enemy in Shadow. I bet this second video will as useful as the first one.
Thanks a lot for your amazing work!
I'm running DotR at the moment. It's a great adventure, though not perfect by any means.
Your points are spot on.
1. The hooks are very weak. The GM needs to consider how to motivate the PCs to get involved.
2. The enemies are definitely pretty weak. I swapped the zombies for more powerful constructs but daemons could work better. I'm changing the goblins to Beastman as they tie in with the Red Crown's agenda better
3. There is a gazetteer of the settlements along the river but this dates from the 80s version of the scenario and the new map has lots more towns and villages that aren't mentioned. The GM needs to consider these if the players start trading
4. The Castle is great. And I wholeheartedly agree with the comments. I suggest using the power of the guards though (they are pretty wimpy). There are some lovely areas though the GM needs to be careful not to force the players to investigate all the castle.
5. It's a huge adventure, best played (imo) as a sandbox. With the right hooks the only 'vital' bits are the signal tower (maybe), Etelka's Tower (probably) and the castle itself. And yeah you don't necessarily need to deprive the players of the warpstone. If they want a box of really bad chaos matter let them have it...
possession of it is going to be really 'interesting' for them :-)
Great video. I look forward to Power Behind the Throne. Now that is a really hard one to run!
Great tips. And great timing! I am starting DoTR next month
I am just about to run this. Thank goodness you made this video. Hopefully your Power Behind the Throne video will be out by the time I get to it.
I am right now trying to better establish morivatipns for my PCs.
Glad I could help! Would love to hear more about how your game goes, and if you discover any new tricks along the way...
Great series, very well-made with a lot of smart ideas.
A lot of good advice here. Good video.
Out of curiosity where did you get the colored pictures of Ernst And Etelka?
Thank you! Photoshop has a built-in Colorize filter - I used it a ton to make the black and white art in the book into colored tokens in my last VTT campaign.
Very timely video for me. Thanks for the tips! 😊
Another excellent review! Keep up the great content.
Great video!
I wish i had thesse tips before we did death on the Reik. Will you make another video for power behind the throne? I am currently preparing that adventure for my group :)
I will eventually get around to PBtT but it will be a little while since I haven't run it for quite a while, or in the newer edition.
I love your content, would be stoked to see an actual play with you at the helm. If not, maybe some more alien rpg content? :D
Yes been meaning to do a live play sometime this summer - and I have more Alien content coming up soon too!
Good topes. I'd be really interested to see whats on your Town Cards.
I just added my town cards to my website along with the other assets for this adventure! 1shotadventures.com/more-vtt-assets/
hi i casually stumbled on this video searching an answer for my problem, i'm about to stat this campain soon and while reading the book i didn't find how much time there is between a city and another, the only thing i thinked is that they take the same time as the red crown cultists. i really hope you can help me and thanks in advance
First, be sure to check this out: awesomeliesblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/25/the-enemy-within-a-companion-2/ -- has a lot of good advice on travel times. Also, if you search for "Map of the Reikland" on Google, you'll find some simpler maps that more clearly show distances. All that said, if you roughly assume that the PCs travel at the same speed as the cultists, it will all still mostly work out. Good luck!
If the Red Crown always travel in three's, why did Heidelman travel alone to Etelka?
It makes more sense that they will have thugs accompanying them in more civilized areas and swap them for mutants/beastmen in remote areas.
I think I meant that they operate in cells of three, vs they never let each other out of their sight. But agree that thugs in cities make more sense, unless you allow heavily-disguised Ungor to count.
@1ShotJC mutants would make more sense than thugs thematically with the Red Crown, and can easily enough hide certain mutations.
Wish I had that first tip before I began DotR 3 weeks ago... Also the warpstone appears in principal in book 4...thats why the skaven are stealing it.
That's true, though I always figured the Skaven have so much warpstone it didn't matter much if it was THAT piece of warpstone. But too bad I didn't finish this 3 weeks ago!
you ever run Lair of the Fat Man?
No - but I've been meaning to give it a read.