I'm curious about how others' Eye for an Eye played out. Did anyone have the temple discovered prior to dinner and/or have the cult in general ferreted out? How did you proceed with pacing?

I'm going to be running this in a few weeks and was just looking for some input on how to pace that. I fully anticipate the temple being discovered prior to the dinner and probably having the whole ritual snuffed out before it even gets started. Which seems sort of anti-climactic.

I think Gitzman's crowd did this and it seems like Jesse just pushed the beast man attack forward as well as the ritual, but I cant remember specifically.

Thoughts?

I think if you are frightened that the party will uncover everything in an anti-climatic fashion then there are a few ways to fix things so that the cultists go unnoticed during the investigation.

So if you want the PCs to have to face the full fury of the cult just deem that the entrances to the cellar are better hidden and that the more obvious clues, the 'goose is good' note, the painting and so on, are kept safely away from the PCs.

One way you might like to reward the players for good investigation, but still go forward with all the plot elements, is to build a sort of "cult suicide squad", consisiting of the coachman, doctor and guard, who are willing to make a break for it in order to draw the party off the scent once a couple of clues are uncovered. They could run off to the woods and deocy the party away from the other cult members - who can secure all the stuff needed for the ritual in the meantime.

The other option would be to just the PCs do what they do but have an alternative beastmen ending that involved a bit of a harder fight. My feeling is that it is better to suffer a bit of an anticlimax as a GM in order to provide the PCs with a genuine sense of reward for undertaking a thorough investigation. You can always save the bits of the adventure that get bypassed for a scenario in the future.

I think one very important element, that many forget, is that while Lord Aschaffenberg suspects his servants to be lazy/useless, he does not expect there to be a chaos cult involved!!!

So he wont take kindly to the players arriving, and then act like they're the holy inquisition...

They're there to observe, and not draw to much attention to themselves. Pushing the librarian aside, and forcing their way into the cellars is not what one might call subtle.

Remember that the manor is crawling with servants, the players can't really do anything without someone watching them.

Also it's very very rude to just start going door to door, and look inside every room. Some rooms came natural to my group:

Hospice: They went here after the beastmen attack

Library: The Verenna priest wanted to see this, but not the others (couldn't read, so whats the point???)

The outside grounds: Here really only the Amber wizard walked around, the others mainly kept inside

Remember the players play characters, with a career (profession), and it seems out of character for the Soldier to suddenly take a deep interest in the outlay of the manor. He'd likely chat with the guards, because that's what he knows. Same goes for the above mentioned, that characters who can't read (lacking education) has nothing to do being interested in the library.

Characters who has no medical knowledge (first aid or medicin trained), really has little doing in checking on the well-being of the two soldiers in the hospice, or trying to chat up the dwarf (unless they're dwarves themselves).

Players has to seperate themselves from their character. It's like when players start having their characters look behind every painting in a house where they've been invited as guests. Would they do this in real-life???

Finally, the characters think they have tons of time, they're being freaking paid per day!!! Why on earth ruin your income, by being to quick??? They obviously can't be to slow, as that might be suspecious, and make Aschaffenberg angry, but why not spend a few days prentending to get the work done first?

@Dave: The "suicide" decoy is something worth considering if the need arises. Thanks for that one.

And yeah, I'm very averse to ruining the PCs good investigation and feel that it should be awarded appropriately. I would never steal their thunder like that. That's really why I started the thread, because if they thwart the ritual then I'm not going to fudge that. I was just wondering if others had experienced this and how it felt in game, if it was still satisfying. I've even thought that if it really felt like an anti-climax, doing a "What would have happened" type narration to maybe give more emotional weight to what the PCs accomplished. Just a thought

@Spivo: A lot of good points. I feel more lenient towards theirs "exploration" than perhaps you do though. Obviously turning the place upside down would be out of line. However, they were hired to look into things and poke around a bit. I think Aschaffenburg expects them to meet and talk to most of the staff. Beyond that, I think most visitors to a noble's estate would probably take the opportunity to look about and see how the nobles live. Especially if invited to do so. Of course, the staff will feel inconvenienced by it. Anyway, I see your interpretation as perfectly valid. But I also see justification for any of the PCs to be pretty much anywhere on the estate if for no other reason than curiosity coupled with permission.

donbaloo said:

A few other thoughts...

If the PCs uncover the cult, they won't necessarily know exactly who is involved. So they might not want to act straight away until they know how many are involved, and they can be sure of getting them all. If/when they do (or think they do) know everyone involved, it might still be very hard for them to take action. There are a lot of cult members. How do they arrest/capture/kill them all? One by one? Will one of the others notice what's happening? Or all at once? A party might struggle to overcome all of the cultists at once.

The other thing you could do is shift the emphasis onto the consequences of uncovering the cult. The cult members will have friends and family, who may or may not be cult members, and who may or may not believe that 'little Johan' is a cult member. And there there are the political repercussions for the nobles involved. Keeping everything tidy and quiet may become more important to their paymasters than getting everyone.