Well we played the second chapter of eye for an eye. They were investigating, doing there thing. But failed miserably with chao stars everywhere. Every time they got a chaos star I moved the cult track. Well, not many clues were found, I forgot to drop the "goose is good" note so one of the PCs is poisoned and the others decided to get drunk with the staff ,which means they are going to be asleep in there beds.

I think in our next session I will have sister Sonja go to the heroes door to tell them that "they" took the dwarf at night and need to find him, he'll die if the don't. Sound reasonable?

Even more, I forgot to have the characters take resilience checks when they ate the goose. And I forgot to give them 6 fatigue. Hindsight is 20/20, need to think how to fix this….

Well if you plan to give the players an extra day you could exchange the 6 fatigue for a severe hangover (add 2 misfortune to every action for the morning?). As for the cult track filling up, look at what the players have actually found out and maybe you can do a light behind the scenes reset. Give the players an extra day to sort things out and discover the rest of the mystery.

Perhaps the Schlaff was administered a day early by an overzealous member of the cultists and now the cultists are nervously planning to poison everyone for a second time. That will give these people something to do while the players look for the dwarf.

Are the beastmen behind the abduction? Maybe the have stolen a (freshly imagined) all important ritual dagger from the cult, or one of the books the cultist need to finish their ritual. That would slow them down, maybe one or two will travel with the players.

Or, if it is a fight you like, perhaps the cultist take over the house as the players rescue the dwarf. Reclaiming a hunting lodge, saving what remains of the real inhabitants and fighting a daemon after taking on a forrest full of beastmen to save a wounded dwarf. Well it sounds heroic…

Always remember that as a GM you know much more then your players ever will, which gives you a chance to improvise and change to fit the actions of the group. In the end the scenario's that turn your hair grey because they went off the rails in the first minute are the ones most fondly remembered by everyone.

This are some great ideas. Maybe I should give them an extra day to investigate the manor. Or better yet, I also like the idea of the cult kidnapping the dwarf, the mystic in the group having a hostage situation while the rest of the group look for either the hammer or way to end the situation with blood.

I like the idea of the cultists, especially the non-leaders, got nervous, poisoned it too early, panicked, and all hell breaks loose. The dwarf gets tortured, Sonja killed, while the PCs struggle to end it. It's WFRP fiasco.

Be careful though.

Sometimes players need to learn things the hard way. If they get used to a lean-back-and-see-how-the-GM-will-silve-our-idle-drinking-when-we-should-investigate attitude they will certainly start challenging you in the future.

You could either let the daemon wreck havoc in the mansion - if you're really nasty then you do this with the hangover penalty. I didn't think the daemon was that heavy. Leave out the beastmen if it would really kill the players and you don't want to go that far.

Or maybe one of the players got kidnapped and is to be used as a sacrifice and one of the other PCs notices the player gone after one too many bottles, maybe even a scream from this player. Watching their companion being dragged into the kitchen should push them to investigate matters. And then you can have a fight between not-so-good-cultists and drunken adventurers.

As a GM you have to find a good balance between being lenient (as you are supposed to amuse the players) and harsh (as there should be a real sense of danger). Too lenient and they will walk all over you and become bored. To harsh and they won't show up or become frustrated.

Get to know your players and see what works for them I would say.

What I think I will do is have the cultist send people kill the NPCs. They will try to assassinate the PCs while taking their victim, the insane dwarf. I will create a persuit track of them chasing the kidnappers. To make up for the missed poison test I will have the one PC who got poisoned take it the and the dwarf PC who drank will take a test for drunk ness so I think he should be fine. My third PC should be OK, didn't drink heavily and is a wizard.