I'm getting ready to throw my players into Dark Springs Island. Who out there has run this module before? What worked well and what needed tweaking? How did you end up using the secondary npcs like Lady Hedonia and Damadar the rakshasa?
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I’ve heard it’s very good.
You won’t get any advice here though as none of these people play games. Threads like this prove it when they die without responses.
Well thanks at least for giving it a bump then.
You have it incorrect, tourists.
We don't talk about games in the same way the website you came from does, and this distresses you, I understand
The people who wrote the book don't play games either, if they playtested it at all they would have actually filled out some of the locations to make them usable with less prep instead of forcing the gm to constantly improvise.
Wait a minute, this isn't an anime adventure.
My group completed Hot Springs Island in 20 sessions (~4 hours each), then went on to explore homebrewed versions of the other Swordfish Islands and elemental/astral planes. With Shadow of the Demon Lord as ruleset.
I tweaked the factions to make the nereids slightly more evil and the fuegonauts somewhat nicer, so that diplomacy could take place in shades of grey instead of having a clear "good guys" side.
The biggest hurdle was the Bathhouse. It's the largest dungeon in the setting, but the author got lazy and did not include it in the book. Have a look at versions of it made by the community and/or spin out your own before your players reach Hot Springs City.
Damadar and Lady Hedonia got off-hand mentions on Hot Springs Island, but didn't get a significant role in the campaign until we explored North Spire Island.
Have a look at the Swordfish Island community FAQ that someone shared on their official Discord, it solves the most common issues with the setting: https://pad.whidou.fr/pad/#/2/pad/view/izhvZq807WJ-g095JcCc1Lvjbg1zlSv512Q2WvSHBXI/
>The biggest hurdle was the Bathhouse. It's the largest dungeon in the setting, but the author got lazy and did not include it in the book
Happens a lot with more recent 'osr' coffee table books. They pass off
>We let you explore your own creativity by not having a dungeon
or other useful content but still charge out for high priced novelty books.
It's not the first time I see OSR settings such as Hot Springs island, Ultraviolet Grasslands or Silent Titans called "coffee table books" on /tg/. What makes you say that? Those settings are much more play-oriented than most adventures from major publishers. There is no boxed text, no pre-planned path to follow. Descriptions are terse, short and to the point, giving the referee the important bits quickly during play. Plenty of hooks are provided, along with a truckload of things to do and places t explore. Sure, the missing dungeon here is a major pain, but I'll take that any day over an umpteenth Paizo or WotC railroad that should have been a novel.
Read the thread, moron
Read the post past the first few sentences, moron.
>y us say bad thing about thing I liek
For hsi:
Emphasis on P R O D U C T I O N V A L U E S instead of stats and a fricking dungeon for the main fricking dungeon to presumably play dungeons and fricking dragons.
The way it hot hyped and then forgotten.
The gimick of having to buy 2 books to run the island at all.
UVG:
The rules that come with the game aren't even finished or functional.
Again, emphasis on art over content, you have to make almost everything yourself, its a series of cool looking story prompts. Looks fricking cool though. Its not play oriented at all. Each area has a bit of stuff to extrapolate on but very minimal usable content as is. Its oriented around being an art project that could inspire gameplay.
Silent Titans:
The closest to a gameplay oriented of the bunch. Has procedures, rules, dungeons, settings. No complaints really. I have a copy, looking forward to running it this summer for my friend's kids. Its got a good amount of read aloud though. Opens with some even.
>that weird shit where if you don't like artbooks you must endorse wotc and shovelware modules
Not really sure where you get that from.
> Have a look at the Swordfish Island community FAQ that someone shared on their official Discord, it solves the most common issues with the setting
Holy shit, this is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. Thanks Anon!
>The biggest hurdle was the Bathhouse. It's the largest dungeon in the setting, but the author got lazy and did not include it in the book.
Ran up against this problem hard.
My players immediately beelined to the city as it was the most obvious place to find treasure.
The city itself isn't mapped with only a few locations noted, so I was basically making up everything as I went.
>Dark Springs Island
Never heard of it. Is it near Hot Springs Island?
What makes HSI different and more interesting than the umptillion other big dungeon adventures like Isle of Dread?
Things that jumped out to me that made me want to give it a go
1. The procedures for generating whats going on in the dungeons so things are more dynamic with out me having to come up with it all on the fly.
2. An interesting set of factions and backstory that gives a lot of opportunity for the players to take things in whatever direction is interesting to them without an obvious "correct story"
3. The background of the whole thing sounds cool to me. A hedonist island for drug addled elves that was obliterated.
4. A slew of unique magic items that aren't just "Sword +1"
Overall it looked like something that'd be fun to slot into my world that players could explore and come back to. That's not to say there aren't a lot of other great modules out there that could do similar things. This just happens to be the one I'm running with
Sounds fair, thanks for the info. I'll give it a look-see.