Adventure Submission - Darga's Missing Cargo

NGSRizzen · July 1, 2022, 12:52pm

Page 12: I’d recommend adding a Perception or Survival check here. Perhaps Average, with 2 Setback for it having been a few days since the accident (which makes one wonder, should it still be smoking? While thematic, it may be worthy of removal given the time that has passed). I’d say make it a “group check,” but I think that may be a technique I originated, rather than an officially-sanctioned roll type. Point is, single check, effectively just an assisted check (best of both). You you can just say “[skill] check,” as long as it isn’t implied that each character can attempt it separately.

I usually GM like this as well; it makes more sense to me to have the group make a single check in most cases.

I removed the smoke.

Page 12: Perhaps I missed something, but what if they didn’t receive directions or the lead? What happens then?

I found it unlikely for this to happen but I’ll add a contingency anyway at the end of p.11… you never know with those dice ;) .

Page 13: Is it your intention that the players easily discover that the culprits were Narglatch, or is this supposed to be a surprise/“earned” information? I recommend that it be either a surprise or information earned through check results, and so if you agree I may have additional suggestions.

It is my intention for them to easily find that the speeder was attacked by animals, but not specifically Narglatch; I think the Hard knowledge check is appropriate to earn this information. If they don’t succeed in the Xenology roll, it will be a surprise.

You have the GM describe the scene, including some rather important details (e.g. claw marks) before the check is made. What if they manage to flub it?

I modified the check to Average +2 setbacks. I removed the last part of the paragraphs mentioning the prints and the claw marks and added them as potential clues for the time being.

You don’t mention any corpses at the scene. If you leave some bodies, but with a couple people missing, it adds an additional wrinkle. Maybe they’re still alive

I was thinking having no corpses would add to the mystery of what happened… but adding one or two bodies left behind might have a more powerful draw. I envisioned they would have brought maybe one to the lair and the rest in some of the early parts of the caverns. You’re right that this would leave trails. We could add a boost dice to survival for blood trails and need to modify the readouts to include some gore.

*Additionally, I doubt Narglatch would take live prey. Unlike the Wampa, which can simply pick up/drag a human, Narglatch are unlikely to be physically or intellectually capable of transporting live prey without killing it in the process.

Agreed; The Narglatch killed them all before dragging them away.

In the third paragraph, you mention smoke. But wouldn’t a column of smoke be visible from a fair distance? Why is it only mentioned now? And why do they notice the speeder before the smoke? Where is the wreck? Is it in the mountains, or before you get to the mountains?

I hadn’t considered that. Since it has modified to barely be smoking it would be less noticeable now. I picture the wreck being a short distance within the pass, just inside the mountainous area.

I like the rewrite!

Before I can really analyze this text box, you’ll have to make a decision about the suggested check. If you waive it, then only some minor adjustments will need to be made, but if you implement it, the text box will have to reflect the basic information, with specialized information being added later for the GM to translate into subsequent narration.

As you originally thought, my goal was to give basic info and have them find out the rest.

“After the ambush, they damaged the speeder [I say skiff] beyond repair.” This sounds intentional. Why would they? If you meant it as incidental, then what were they doing that damaged it? If you mention earlier that it is beyond repair, as I recommend, then you can safely cut this whole sentence.

I meant for the vehicle to be beyond repair and not sure if I mentioned it anywhere else so I put it here. It just made sense to me so I wrote it that way; I don’t think it would be that hard for them to wreck it and if they got riled up in a battle it’s not that much of a stretch.

“Three crates’ repulsorlifts were activated during the struggle, and so were easily pushed into the creatures’ lair, joined by a fourth which as dragged along the ground.” (Note: this adds an excellent way to track the Narglatch. Perhaps noticed with the check I suggest.)

Right. They dragged that crate all the way to Area 3 and then took the rest of the hovering crates to area 4 (their lair).

I get the idea from the picture that the Narglatches’ cavern may be the same one mentioned in your original description, which I omitted from my revision? I recommend that it remain omitted, as otherwise you place it very near the crash. I think you’d be better off having it be (somewhat) distant.

The way I envisioned it, there is a network of caverns with many entrances in the mountains. The Narglatch don’t usually use the entrance near the wreckage, but they didn’t have much choice if they wanted to drag one of the crates… so they took that longer route towards their lair instead. The group then tries to track them through a series of caverns and tunnels, following the crate’s trail as a reference point. Does that make sense?

One meter (note “one” rather than “1”) is quite a small entrance. Not only would a fully-grown human struggle to pass through the gap, but a Narglatch would find it nearly impossible. Their head alone is liable to get stuck. When you compare a Narglatch to the Talz, foot to head seems to be a bit over two meters.

Hmm… ok! I didn’t realize they were that tall, I thought they were mostly long. I adjusted it to two meters.

P.S. I’ll be away for the weekend so won’t be able to reply for a while. Thanks again for taking the time.

I implemented most changes and I think it’s ready for another round of revisions.

P-47Thunderbolt · July 7, 2022, 3:39pm

I still intend to help, I just haven’t had the wherewithal lately. Hopefully I’ll get to it by next week.

P-47Thunderbolt · July 8, 2022, 7:35pm

Excellent. I’d reword it slightly, to “reports that travelers spotted the wreckage of a cargo skiff in the western pass, and it matches the description of the one used by Darga’s crew.” The part of “instructs to investigate” seems like it would go without saying, and it looks a little odd tacked onto the end of the paragraph. Another way to write it would be to put it first, saying “orders them to investigate travelers’ reports of cargo-skiff wreckage in the western pass.” The “matches the description” could be forgone.

We might need to think about what more information would likely be given here. Would the travelers report the dead bodies? Animal marks? While it is better for the mission that they only receive a small amount of information, would it be plausible for them to only receive that much?

Makes sense. When I said “Narglatch” I really just meant animal, I was unclear in my wording.

My reasoning was just that it seemed unusual for them to attack an inanimate object, and that any damage would be incidental, not that they were incapable of dealing such damage. It seems you removed it anyway.

Adding here so I don’t forget it, I made a mistake in the edit (two, if you count the typo) and my wording technically implies that the repulsorlifts were pushed rather than the crates. Reword to “Three crates, their repulsorlifts having been activated during the struggle, were easily pushed”

So the PCs are still journeying to the lair, they’re just doing it through a network of tunnels instead of overland. Yeah, that’s fine. Perhaps that would’ve been more clear if I’d read farther through the doc. When reading back through, I’ll check to see if any wording needs to be changed to make a little more clear.
(Edit: There are a couple places it could be, like saying “cave system” rather than “cavern,” but I left this as-is for now, we can come back to it later.)

They’re both long and tall. Their bodies aren’t so huge, but they have big heads. A Talz warrior standing next to a Narglatch comes up about to the top of its head, and Talz are pretty tall. The head can be lowered somewhat to allow easier ingress or egress, but only a little bit.

Mechanics

Page 13: Why upgrade the check? I suggest you leave the option for Despair, but don’t upgrade the check. Give the GM the choice of inviting the possibility by spending a DP to upgrade the check. Unless there’s some exacerbating circumstance that specifically makes a Despair more likely, don’t upgrade checks. In this case, it appears that because a Despair could have a certain effect, you’re making sure a Despair can be generated.
Since you mention upgrading if the PCs have never encountered one before, I’m not sure whether that’d be a second upgrade or the one shown. I suggest base of Hard, with a conditional upgrade. Thus, the difficulty shown should be three Difficulty dice.

Why would an unsuccessful check make them specifically identify a different animal? In my book, an unsuccessful checks means they can’t identify the animal, while Threat might seed false information.
Instead of two Threat being for “cannot recall useful information,” I would consider that a product of a lack of Advantage and instead use two Threat (maybe up it to three) to redirect it towards being a Nexu. However, depending on your philosophy, this would require a failed check.
I suggest having two different two Threat results, one for successful checks and one for failed checks. On successful checks, you give them some false information about the Narglatch species (perhaps about a warning before they attack, giving a Setback to initiative) and on failed checks, you tell them it’s a Nexu.
Page 15: Why the upgrade? If you take my recommendation regarding navigation without a light (see “Adventure”), there is already a baked-in potential upgrade. Otherwise, it can be left to the GM.
1 Strain is pretty weak. I’d bump it up to 3, which also means that if they bumble around multiple times they might be forced to give it up and come back later. 1 Strain is negligible to the point of being almost entirely beyond consideration.
Consider increasing the difficulty to Hard, but giving an option for Advantage on a Failure to reduce the difficulty for future attempts of the check. One tack I often take for maze-nav is to make the check extremely difficult (e.g. Formidable), with each Failure reducing the difficulty by one, like process of elimination. Each time you attempt it, there are fewer chances to fail because you know what didn’t work the first time (though Threat might maintain the difficulty). Not suggesting you do that here, just explaining another method and how we can apply those principles here.
(The main reason not to increase the difficulty is that they are following a trail, rather than simply navigating the cave system. Some rewording of the Failure condition might be necessary, like “they lose the trail and have to back-track to find it again.”)
Page 16: Giving Advantage a parallel, but lesser benefit to Success is not advisable. Rather, Advantage should give some other bonus. One option would be to have each Success be one cluster, and each Advantage to increase the price of the clusters. So if you have two Success, you get two clusters, each worth 100 credits. If you have two Advantage, each cluster is worth 100 credits more. This gives them different effects, with different amounts of payout. If you have three clusters, one Advantage is worth effectively 150 credits, while if you only have one, an Advantage is worth just 50. Just an example, and not necessarily that great of one since they’re both still the same type of benefit.
Page 17: Hard Athletics check is fine, but again with the upgrades. It’s really excessive.
As mentioned elsewhere, I think this entire sequence needs to be removed, or at least dramatically recalculated.
You make the difficulty to climb out easier than the difficulty to leap or walk across, making the obvious solution to slide down safely and then just climb up the other side.
As for navigating to Area 3, apply all the same comments regarding navigating to Area 2 apply, especially regarding upgrades.

Adventure

Page 13: Reek are normally herbivorous grazing animals, but were used within gladiatorial arenas because when starved and fed meat, they could make useful combatants. However, that is not their usual manner of being and they are not usually aggressive. Further, they are effectively bulls, and lack claws. Their horns would deal significant damage, but it would be of a very certain type. A different breed of big cat (or canine, or ursid) would be more believable, such as a Nexu or Corellian Sand Panther (I recommend choosing one of the two).

Page 15: Perhaps add something like “Otherwise, upgrade the difficulty of all check made to navigate the caves twice, in addition to the normal penalty for darkness. Characters who do not use light to see are immune for this effect.”

Grammar et al

Page 12: "No check is required to find the pass comma, which is about two hours away by speeder.
“Read the following” clips slightly into the gray textbox.
British spelling of “traveled” has two ls: “travelled” (pretty sure that’s my fault).
Way too much of a break at the bottom of the textbox. If you can expand it down a little bit more and borrow some text from the next page, it’ll help. Usually, you’d want to only break a textbox at a breaking point, rather than fabricating one in the middle of a thought. Sometimes it’s unavoidable. You’ll just have to fiddle around with it.
“Faint cloud of smoke” should be dropped if you don’t intend the skiff to be smoking, but it would require some restructuring of the last sentence. I recommend you replace it with a mention of circling carrion. It’s foreshadowing, and makes sense with the later mention of vultures.
I used way too many commas in the last paragraph of my rewrite. Ouch. Let me fix that…

Rewritten rewrite

Here, as the last of the grass dies away—overtaken by dust and rock—the road becomes the faintest of tracks, leading around the stone hill that obscures the pass. As you turn the corner the cause of the smoke becomes clear: an overturned cargo skiff, wrecked against the rocks.

(Smokeless:)
As you turn the corner you see an overturned cargo skiff, wrecked against the rocks, its crates spilled across the ground.

“However, even” is an optional change. I think it’s better, but you could go without.
Change “land speeder” to “skiff,” and add “is”
remove “there” from “crates there.” If you remove the smoke and take the rewrite of “crates spilled across the ground,” you can drop the entire part about crates since it’s already been addressed.
If you drop the part about crates, you’ll have to amend the final clause. I recommend simply dropping the part about the crates and merging the two sentences, so “here, but even from a distance” and add a period after “beyond repair.”
(I wish I could be more clear, but this requires a couple decisions from you so my suggestions shall remain a convoluted choose-your-own-adventure novel)
“While” not “whilte”
You capitalize “Short” at my direction, but I believe the standard style is to not capitalize ranges. We’ll have to check on that, and at least ensure that the adventure has a unified style. That can easily be done with spot-searches later on.
If we do pare the first paragraph, we’ll need to consider if and how to merge what will be three single-sentence paragraphs.
Page 13: “Read the following” touches the textbox.
You say “it is unclear if it can be repaired,” but earlier you say that it’s clearly beyond repair.
You say “many,” but if they’re close enough to count, couldn’t you just say “six”?
In the second paragraph, you put the emphasis first on the gore, then add the corpses. The corpses are usually what would first be noticed unless they are somehow obscured, so I’d put them first. Here’s a rewrite:

Rewrite

Now that you are closer, you see two partially-eaten Neimoidian corpses lying near the skiff, blood and gore painting the ground around the wreck. Carrion perched on the rocky crags nearby watch you intently, wondering if you are going to take their meal or become one yourselves.

(Wooo, ominous… >:) [“carrion vultures” is redundant since vultures are carrion. It would be like saying “herbivorous cow.”])

You could use the word “break” instead of “smash.” It ought to allow you to get that single word up onto the previous line.
“They were” should be “The Narglatch were,” otherwise it refers to Darga’s crew.
“scene, but add [SETBACK][SETBACK] because…”
“the remaining crates”
“blasters,” drop “weapons.” Or simply drop “blaster” and leave “weapons.”
Unless the PCs never made it out of preschool, I’m pretty sure you can leave “four crates are missing” as a given and remove it from the list.
“Damage on the remaining crates indicates the attackers were unable to open them normally, so tried to force them open instead.”
The crates have built-in repulsor tech, so some of the crates may not have been dragged, thus leaving no trail.
“If the check generates [TRIUMPH], the PCs are able to salvage 500 credits’ worth of valuable parts from the skiff.”
“cold climate comma, and are dangerous predators”
“If the roll generates [ADVANTAGE][ADVANTAGE]/[THREAT][THREAT],” is a better style, in my opinion.
“determined likely that” is confusing wording. Better to simply drop “likely.”
“pair up to survive.”
Page 14: “If the roll generates [TRIUMPH]/[DESPAIR]” (perhaps substitute “check” for “roll,” but make it blanket rather than to change it up. With something like this, it’s consistency, not repetition)
“remember the aforementioned noise incorrectly.”
“Scene” is very vague, and some might consider the “scene” as ending once they enter the tunnels. “Encounter” is likewise up for debate, so I’d suggest “session.” If you go with “encounter,” however, some might interpret that to mean until the start of initiative or until the end of combat, and either are perfectly applicable so you could reasonably elect to go with that wording instead.
“Some” should be capitalized.
Could be “less than pleased” instead of the more sarcastic “less than thrilled.” Given the overall tone of this adventure’s writing, I recommend the former, although either is acceptable.
Perhaps “cave, considering enticing them”
Extraneous space between “terms.” and “The”
“have enough food to last several days” (this indicates that they also have a source of water within the cave. For the Narglatch to truly be pinned in, it would also mean that the PCs found all of the exits, and I would recommend listing some kind of check to find them)
“If the PCs draw too much attention to themselves, they might be ambushed”
Two meters is six-and-a-half feet, high enough that most could walk in comfortably, possibly only ducking slightly. “Stoop” is certainly too strong a word.
“most chambers are fairly spacious.”
This passage needs to be rewritten for the changed dimensions.

Rewrite

A few meters past the entrance, the path takes a sharp downward turn and then opens up into tall and spacious cavern, branching off into many smaller passageways.

Light streams from an opening in the ceiling, reflecting beautifully off the orangey rock but casting eerie shadows in the untouched corners, but deeper into the caves is only darkness, untouched by the sun, moon, or stars.

“wreckage of the cargo skiff.” Optional, but makes it more clear that you’re referring back to where they were rather than where they are now.
(Things like this are less about clear communication, because pretty much everyone would understand, but making sure that it is well-written and technically precise. Sometimes the
technical matter has a greater bearing on understanding than at other times, but it is always best practice to be correct.)
“prints… make it harder to track the Narglatch, adding [SETBACK].”
You sort of connect the thoughts of the blood trail and drag trail, as if the crate is bleeding. Try “Since there are drag marks from a crate and a blood trail from one of the creatures’ victims, add [BOOST][BOOST].”
“another [BOOST] period.”
“Success means”
“Failure means”
“a PC chosen by the GM suffers the effects”
Page 16: “If the roll generates [TRIUMPH]/[DESPAIR]”
If this is a single check performed “by the group,” then saying “the active character” doesn’t make much sense. Perhaps “one of the PCs.”
“Read the following” touches the textbox.
“Small ravine” in the context of the cavern would not be several meters wide and deep, but using the word “several” for both implies that it’s a 45° slope down, and a 45° slope up, very climbable and hardly dangerous. I recommend saying “crevice,” narrowing the gap to maybe three meters, and describing it simply as “deep,” possibly later saying that a fall would be from Medium range. “Several meters” is also not plausibly jumpable. The world record long jump for men is just under nine meters, but that’s an extreme athlete, extreme training, perfect conditions, and a very particular technique. Something like four meters is much more plausible, especially because they don’t have to clear it all the way but can jump and grab onto the ledge, then haul themselves up.

Rewrite

The winding tunnel opens up into a wide chamber, split down the middle by a crevice about four/five meters across, bridged by a single arch of rock. The crevice is deep and the walls are sheer, leaving no obvious way out but a difficult climb.

(I think you can drop the last paragraph, it doesn’t really add anything)

If it is “fairly narrow,” wouldn’t the Narglatch have had trouble not only crossing, but bringing crates and humanoids along with them? If I were a PC and I saw that rock bridge, I’d say “guess they didn’t come this way.” I think this whole circumstance needs reconsidering.

I made it through the first two areas, I’ll do more when I can.

NGSRizzen · July 9, 2022, 1:39pm

Would the travelers report the dead bodies? Animal marks? While it is better for the mission that they only receive a small amount of information, would it be plausible for them to only receive that much?

I added a sentence saying they reported bodies and signs of a struggle. Travellers likely would not have investigated further out of fear of being attacked themselves.

Since you mention upgrading if the PCs have never encountered one before, I’m not sure whether that’d be a second upgrade or the one shown. I suggest base of Hard, with a conditional upgrade. Thus, the difficulty shown should be three Difficulty dice.

I didn’t mean to upgrade it twice, but rather to explain the challenge dice that was already there. Changed it

Why would an unsuccessful check make them specifically identify a different animal? In my book, an unsuccessful checks means they can’t identify the animal, while Threat might seed false information.

I wasn’t really sure how to handle it but I agree with your assessment; I modified it so that on a failure they do not identify a species, on a failure with threats they think it is a Nexu, and on a success with threats they get a penalty on initiative.

1 Strain is pretty weak. I’d bump it up to 3, which also means that if they bumble around multiple times they might be forced to give it up and come back later. 1 Strain is negligible to the point of being almost entirely beyond consideration.

By bumping it up to 3 it makes it very possible they will need to rest and come back, which is not a bad thing. I changed it.

Consider increasing the difficulty to Hard, but giving an option for Advantage on a Failure to reduce the difficulty for future attempts of the check. One tack I often take for maze-nav is to make the check extremely difficult (e.g. Formidable), with each Failure reducing the difficulty by one, like process of elimination. Each time you attempt it, there are fewer chances to fail because you know what didn’t work the first time (though Threat might maintain the difficulty). Not suggesting you do that here, just explaining another method and how we can apply those principles here.
(The main reason not to increase the difficulty is that they are following a trail, rather than simply navigating the cave system. Some rewording of the Failure condition might be necessary, like “they lose the trail and have to back-track to find it again.”)

I like this idea alot; I changed the difficulty to 3 purple and they receive a cumulative +boost for each failure with advantage.

Page 16: Giving Advantage a parallel, but lesser benefit to Success is not advisable. Rather, Advantage should give some other bonus. One option would be to have each Success be one cluster, and each Advantage to increase the price of the clusters. So if you have two Success, you get two clusters, each worth 100 credits. If you have two Advantage, each cluster is worth 100 credits more. This gives them different effects, with different amounts of payout. If you have three clusters, one Advantage is worth effectively 150 credits, while if you only have one, an Advantage is worth just 50. Just an example, and not necessarily that great of one since they’re both still the same type of benefit.

I added a completely different advantage to it. Let me know if it is too strong

Page 13: Reek are normally herbivorous grazing animals, but were used within gladiatorial arenas because when starved and fed meat, they could make useful combatants. However, that is not their usual manner of being and they are not usually aggressive. Further, they are effectively bulls, and lack claws. Their horns would deal significant damage, but it would be of a very certain type.

I didn’t know that; from memory I think every time you see them in movies they are always aggressive and in arenas.

A Nexu is a better choice anyway as it more closely resembles the physiology and claws of the Narglatch.

You capitalize “Short” at my direction, but I believe the standard style is to not capitalize ranges. We’ll have to check on that, and at least ensure that the adventure has a unified style. That can easily be done with spot-searches later on.

Looking at the same published adventure as before, it seems the ranges are capitalized in equipment descriptions (Blaster carbine (Ranged [Heavy]; Damage 9; Critical 3; Range [Medium]) but not when describing range bands in general.
ex: " … smugglers quickly run for the nearest crate in short range and open it…"

“Scene” is very vague, and some might consider the “scene” as ending once they enter the tunnels. “Encounter” is likewise up for debate, so I’d suggest “session.” If you go with “encounter,” however, some might interpret that to mean until the start of initiative or until the end of combat, and either are perfectly applicable so you could reasonably elect to go with that wording instead.

I changed it to “adventure” as that more accurately represents the intent.

If it is “fairly narrow,” wouldn’t the Narglatch have had trouble not only crossing, but bringing crates and humanoids along with them? If I were a PC and I saw that rock bridge, I’d say “guess they didn’t come this way.” I think this whole circumstance needs reconsidering.

I had thought about this as well, but they are very strong and agile so although it is a bit of a stretch, it is definitely possible. They could carry the bodies in their jaws, it’s mostly the crate that poses a problem.

If we need to we could say that the dragged crate ends up in this area instead of Area 3. The blood trail would continue but the dragged trail would stop. Thoughts?

“Several meters” is also not plausibly jumpable.

I added the jump option for those who are particularly athletic. I personally couldn’t make that jump to save my life, but someone with a running start, a Brawn of 4, ranks in Athletics or even force leap may want to try it just for kicks.

describing it simply as “deep,” possibly later saying that a fall would be from Medium range

I had specified the few meters because falling from a “full” short range is 10 damage and one from medium range would be even more. I didn’t want it to be too deadly.

I tried to make it just deep enough to be hard to climb out of, but not so deep that it would be lethal to fall into. Makes sense?

As always thank you for all your interventions and suggestions!

P.S. I implemented the changes and it is ready for further revision

P-47Thunderbolt · July 9, 2022, 8:24pm

That sounds fine.

I believe the only movie/show it appears in is Attack of the Clones, although it may have appeared in other types of media. At any rate, those are more prone to suffer from the “planet of hats” trope (and so I don’t take them as seriously for a source). If one person from Corellia is dashing, they must all be! If one Reek fights in an arena, they must all! etc.

Thanks for doing the legwork on that, I’m pretty sure you’re right.
My style for conversation is to capitalize Official Names for Things so that there isn’t any confusion with generic things (“it’s a short-ranged weapon” vs. “it’s a Short-ranged weapon”), but the official style is what I recommend for writing resources like this.

That’s more broad-ranging than most effects (I believe the maximum duration is a single session), but it oughta be fine. Most will play the adventure in probably a single session, so you could even get by with just saying “session.” Your discretion.

Possible? Yes. Likely? I think not. Animals, like most natural things, take the path of least resistance. Why cross the bridge at all, ever? Why not set up on this side? Narglatch may be agile—for large creatures—but they are much bigger and heavier than humans, and carrying a creature in their jaws is fairly cumbersome. As for pushing crates, it wouldn’t be hard to accidentally push it off the edge. If it requires a Coordination check for human-sized people, it’d be very difficult for one of them.

If you want a crevice, I would recommend placing it in a location that the Narglatch don’t have to cross, but the PCs might want to. Whether that’s a route to flank the Narglatch or to escape from them (it’d have to be wider, more fragile bridge, etc. if you want it to actually stop them), or some other reason to take a different route is for you to decide.

But you gave it a difficulty that is achievable. Even if you have 2 Brawn and no Athletics, a Hard Athletics checks is a 32% chance of success. With a pool of, say, YYGG, that’s 69% of leaping “several meters”. Also, someone with the Force Leap upgrades to Enhance doesn’t have to make a skill check, just roll the Force power check (X Force dice). Since that is based on range, you adding a difficulty doesn’t actually affect it.

Yes, but it isn’t as dramatic. Usually, the trade-off I make to very dangerous obstacles is to make them optional, give an achievable recovery option, and not make them too difficult. Three layers, each of which would have to fail before the character is seriously injured.

If you take my advice and either remove the obstacle or make it optional, that’s one layer. Making it not too difficult to cross (maybe allow them to cross without a Coordination check, if they’re taking it slowly) gives you a second layer. For the third, recovery, don’t make failure equal a fall. Failure means you didn’t succeed in crossing. If you just jumped, maybe it means you’re grabbing onto the side. If you ran across a bridge, maybe it means you lost your balance and fell down. Despair or three+ Threat on a failure might mean you fall, but even then there are ways to recover without “death.” If the PCs have proper equipment (lights, rope, etc.) and/or the person in the ravine isn’t in too much danger, then it becomes “let’s rescue our injured friend!” rather than “oh, poor Bob. He always did flub his important checks. Time to roll up Bobette, I guess.”

Fall damage isn’t lethal. It’s reduced by soak and by a saving throw. A starting-level non-combat character might take 5 or 6 Wounds/Strain from a Short-range fall, but a Medium-range fall would certainly incapacitate (30 Wounds, 20 Strain).

Edit: Effectively, the idea of the failure condition on the check is that it takes another Action to cross the crevice. Outside of structured time, this isn’t a big deal. But when a large, angry cat is bearing down on you, this can be rather… hair-raising.

NGSRizzen · July 11, 2022, 5:39pm

I believe the only movie/show it appears in is Attack of the Clones, although it may have appeared in other types of media. At any rate, those are more prone to suffer from the “planet of hats” trope (and so I don’t take them as seriously for a source). If one person from Corellia is dashing, they must all be! If one Reek fights in an arena, they must all! etc.

Right; I vaguely recall seeing it a few more times but it may have been in comics or even listening in on podcasts of star wars campaign gameplay, etc.

Either way it’s good to know that is not their usual behaviour.

Thanks for doing the legwork on that, I’m pretty sure you’re right.

No problem!!

That’s more broad-ranging than most effects (I believe the maximum duration is a single session), but it oughta be fine. Most will play the adventure in probably a single session, so you could even get by with just saying “session.” Your discretion.

The idea is for it to last until they’re done at the caves and leave, which may or may not be more than one real-life “session”, but in-game even the two sessions would be happening in the same stretch of time. I’ll leave it as adventure for this reason.

But you gave it a difficulty that is achievable. Even if you have 2 Brawn and no Athletics, a Hard Athletics checks is a 32% chance of success. With a pool of, say, YYGG, that’s 69% of leaping “several meters”. Also, someone with the Force Leap upgrades to Enhance doesn’t have to make a skill check, just roll the Force power check (X Force dice). Since that is based on range, you adding a difficulty doesn’t actually affect it.

Just out of curiosity, is there a reference available for the success % of particular dice pools? This is the first time I’ve ever seen it mentioned and it helps put things in perspective.

I need to think some more about what I want to do with this section but will keep your suggestions in mind.

Thanks!

P-47Thunderbolt · July 11, 2022, 6:14pm

I understand, I’m just not sure it’s the best wording. A third option is to leave the timing ambiguous and completely up to the GM. For believing false information (absent something compelled like in the case of Influence), that is usually the tack I take.

However, in this situation, because of the direct application of mechanics (i.e. Setback), it naturally requires a greater degree of specificity. I’m not very comfortable with the “until the end of the adventure” wording, but it achieves your goal better and more concisely than the other options.

The simplest DIY method of getting an idea how likely a given check is to succeed is to total up how many times the symbols appear on all die faces, and then divide by the number of faces. So an Ability die will on average generate 0.625 (5/8) of a Success and 0.625% (5/8) of an Advantage, while a Proficiency die will generate 0.75 Success and 0.667 Advantage. You then add up each die’s total to get an idea of the average gross for a given symbol (Ability+Proficiency=1.375 Success, 1.292 Advantage, 0.125 Triumph).

However, that doesn’t actually tell you the odds. There’s one I’ve seen that allows you to enter any dice pool and any additional conditions (e.g. “at least one Triumph”), but it doesn’t help you visualize basic success data. This chart is what I use most frequently:

Dreenan · July 12, 2022, 8:12am

I use the “Never tell me the odds” chart too.
I wish there was a version with boosts and set backs though.

P-47Thunderbolt · July 13, 2022, 6:32pm

FYI, I don’t always remember what I’ve critiqued before, so if you reject a suggestion, please say so, so that I can actually recognize what’s an intentional choice on your part vs. something I missed while editing vs. something you missed while applying.

Also, I know some of these were part of my rewrites or suggested changes, but I’m fine-tuning them now that I see them in their full context and read them with an editor’s eye rather than a writer’s.

I made it through to The Blue Menace, but haven’t done anything in that section yet. Once we’ve settled this section, it should only take one more chunk to finish the adventure, and then we just need to review and comb through to make sure it has a unified style

Mechanics

Page 16: I recommend simply saying that the PCs fall Short range. Damage is only 10/10, both reduced by Soak and by an Average Coordination check (you can reference “see falling in chapter [?] of any CRB” <casual wording, you’d need to write it out). Accordingly, I’d remove the damage reduction via Advantage.
Page 17: Why the upgrade on the Perception check? Generally speaking, I would advise you to default to no upgrades. Only upgrade if there’s a very compelling reason why something about the check increases the chance of a Despair.
Page 18: A leech on the hand? Among “true leeches,” the shortest is half an inch long, well long enough that it would be easily noticed even if only by feel (“I know it like the back of my hand!” “Well you didn’t notice that leech, so you must not know it very well.” “WAHHH!”). Its ability to drain would accordingly be very miniscule, no one is really going to feel ill from it (just think about the quantity of blood it can absorb). The ill feeling would come from any injected toxins, and these (immediate effects) are extremely unusual among earth leeches absent an allergic reaction. I’d recommend you shorten it to a bite/sting from a poisonous creature.
Again, too many upgrades related to the leech. If it was “on Despair, the leech injects a lethal toxin,” there would be more reason for it. But as-is, the extra upgrades seem extraneous and unnecessary.

Adventure

Page 16: My thoughts on the rock bridge are well known, but just to reiterate I think this is a misplaced good idea. While you continue to consider it, I’m going to set aside my broader concerns and simply technically critique it.
Page 17: Instead of “balding sickness,” which sounds kind of silly and has no direct mechanical effect, I’d say lowers their Strain Threshold by X until Y (has happened). Maybe also mention an onset period, like “the start of next session” or whatever. But sicknesses are difficult to handle in this context, especially because you aren’t running their whole game, just giving them a session or two of material to work with. Having effects which run on outside your scope of influence is… a little bit of an overreach, or at least odd.

Grammar et al

Page 12: The red titles are something we need to revisit in-depth, but I’m leaving that for the style review at the end.
“Read the following” clips into the gray textbox.
“Rush of the repulsorlifts” could simply be “rush of repulsorlifts,” but either is okay so take your preference (my original rewrite had “of the,” but the latter removes a proximate repetition of “the”).
Add a paragraph break after “of the landscape.” This will avoid splitting a sentence between columns and bring the two columns to a more even distribution.
Remove “away” from “picturesque scenery fades away.” “Away” is repeated in the same context shortly with “grass dies away.” Since the first one isn’t entirely necessary, while the latter completes a thought, the first should be nixed.
“Land speeder” should be one word, “landspeeder.” It can also be replaced with “skiff.” If “landspeeder” was not a single compound word, it would be hyphenated. “Land” is not an adjective, but a part of the name. If you have two independent words that are a single “thought,” you would generally hyphenate. If you describe something as “red-blooded,” you wouldn’t say “a red blooded man,” you’d say “a red, blooded man” if they were two adjectives or “a red-blooded man” if “red-blooded” is a single adjective. A similar principle applies here, although my soliloquy about hyphens is somewhat misplaced as this… had nothing to do with hyphens.
Page 13: In American English, you can capitalize the first word after a colon if it begins a complete sentence rather than a list, but British English doesn’t. I would capitalize the first letter, and change the end of the first sentence to “comma, and” rather than “period. There” because the two sentences sound sharp when independent. They just flow better when conjoined. So since you’re using British English, leave it uncapitalized but still merge the sentences. (Am I getting rambley? I’m under the weather and my robrain tends to run marathons when I’m hangar-bound)
Move “nearby” to follow “perched,” the sentence will flow more smoothly.
You could add “seemingly,” “apparently,” or something like “you guess” before “wondering” if you want to avoid third-person omniscient.
“Because the scene is a few days old” comes a bit late, and the sentence itself is out of order. I’d recommend splicing it between “investigate the scene” and “asking the players,” and switching the internal order to “Add two Setback because XYZ” rather than “because XYZ, add two Setback,”
You mention the trail from the dragged crate, but not the blood trail.
“It” is lonely on a line by itself, so you should kill it and put it out of its misery. :P (change to “that point away period.”)
“Skiff” is also lonely, but I’m not sure how to reword the sentence to fix that. It’s just one of those things, I guess. It’s a longer word, so you can get away with it more readily.
You put the dice pool out of order. It should come after “Hard” and before “Knowledge”
“Recall basic information”: This is a perfect example of a colon where you don’t capitalize the following letter because it’s a list.
“Narglatch—the party suffers” or “Narglatch comma, causing” (as written, the party incorrectly remembers that the Narglach cause them to suffer Setback to their initiative). Some more specificity would be good, but isn’t wholly necessary.
After “Nexu” it should be a colon, not a semi-colon.
Page 14: “Roll is successful and generates Triumph”
You have two options on the Despair. You can either say “if it” (as in “successful roll”), or repeat the wording of the Triumph entry. Your choice, it just has to be a success condition.
Alternatively, keep it as-is, but say “[DESPAIR] and the roll is successful, the players misremember… or if the roll failed, the players don’t know what to look out for.” That way it’s equally applicable and gives fluff for both. Your choice, and you need to word it. That was just to give you an idea.
“Motivations comma,” rather than semi-colon.
“someone inside the cave desperately call for help” would probably be a better wording.
Page 15: Underlined colon.
Perhaps too much gap between the line and the textbox, but it isn’t clipping.
“into a tall”
“Corners period. Deeper into the caves comma, however is only darkness”
“all checks,” rather than “all check”
“Immune to” or “immune from.” You could also put “see” in quotation marks, since “see” implies “sight” which implies reception of light.
Could also be “these” effects, just to make sure you cover plainly both the darkness effects and the upgrades, though the immunity to darkness may be redundant since their stats should already reflect that (and thus you’re only referring to the upgrades).
Difficulty dice go immediately after the difficulty.
“Adding Setback.” It looks like that period is bolded. Check to make sure you haven’t bolded the die symbol or the punctuation.
Pick a style for “on page #X.” You’ve written it two different ways so far.
“Loses” to sync your tenses, “trail comma, and has… Area 1 in order to”
Page 16: “Failed check with”
Capitalize “Survival”
“This bonus is”
“For each net [THREAT]”
Capitalize “Survival”
Uncapitalize “the” following “[DESPAIR] comma,”
You can remove the success condition for cross the bridge, it’s both simple and obvious.
I think there may have been a miscommunication about falling into the crevice. My recommendation was that it be a fall from Short range, with my analysis being that low-tier characters could probably reduce the 10/10 damage to about 6/6 easily.
Previously identified as “crevice,” referred to continuously as “ravine.” I recommend “crevice,” in part because it has a more “cave-y” sound.
Page 17: Dice immediately follow difficulty.
Check style in published adventures, but I think “with a successful (check)” may be extraneous and you could just say “with a (check).” Success would usually be implicit, but I’m not sure if that’s how they style it.
Boost and Setback need to be capitalized. You also need to address accumulated effects, since you simply say “apply here as well.”
“Area 1” isn’t bolded. Style thing to check, look through each mention and decide 1. if you’re going to style all of them the same way, or 2. if they have conditional styling, what that is, and which is what.
Failure means no comma the party"
Punctuation shouldn’t be bolded. I take it you bold the symbols, and they got caught up in that? (I think bolding the symbols is probably unnecessary, but that’s a style choice you need to make)

Writing advice

I’m not criticizing you, I’m just trying to help you understand your own writing and improve it. You describe the room into which they enter, and then mention the light, when the light is what would usually be immediately noticed (similar to the smoke discussed previously). Your description follows a logical pattern, but it’s not a “human” pattern. When describing what is “seen” in a scene, try to think like the PCs who are experiencing this. What draws their eyes first? What do they notice? What do they feel? I’m certainly no expert, but that’s a large part of what I try to capture in my writing because it helps immerse the players into the situation by stimulating their senses’ imaginations rather than simply telling them what it looks like.

For an extreme example, imagine if you’re walking into restaurant and I describe the black-and-white tile, and the red booths and chairs, and the wonderfully greasy smell from the kitchen, and only then mention that three gunmen are holding up the joint and one is now waving a gun in your face. It’s a logical progression to set the stage and then the players, but it completely misses the point and forms the wrong mental image in the mind of the reader/listener. When you’re “painting someone a picture,” you want to write it in such a way that their assumptions aren’t jarringly contradicted, shaking up their mental image (it breaks immersion, for one thing).

In the case of the cave, the reader has the impression of darkness, carried over from previous descriptions, and so paints that picture as you describe the pillars etc., only to suddenly have to erase “darkness” and replace it with “light.”

In the case of the restaurant, if you say “you step in the door and a gunman points a gun in your face,” the reaction is “surprise! I didn’t expect this.” When you mention it after all of the other descriptions, the reaction is more like “wait, what? Where did this come from?”

How about you rewrite this one, taking my advice into account. Think about the approach to the cave; do they see the light first, or smell the stench?
Dice immediately after difficulty.
You say “clearly belonging.” In what way? It would be clearer to say something along the lines of “an ID card with the name of one of the crew members” or however you’d phrase it, to say they’re able to directly compare the ID of the card against a list of the people on the crew (we might want to go back early on and specify that they were given such a list, as there are many practical reasons why they would be).
You add that “the crate is empty” after talking about a successful check, which implies (contrary, I believe, to your intentions) that they’re able to tell easily. There are a couple ways to solve this. One is to somehow work “empty crate” into the narration, while another fancier option is to describe “empty crate” in what they find, as in “you find X in the empty crate” (as “the empty crate” carries the “empty crate” concept implicitly rather than “the crate is empty” which is declarative). Or a third option is to wrap up the crate mention into the failure condition, where you describe the obvious things that couldn’t be missed in the searching which constitutes the Perception check.
Why dark blue? You already have blue fruit and blue cats, it seems to me that the dark blue is repetitive.
“They find enough for one dose per Advantage.” (-1 dose to your wording, but it’s smoother)
Generally a bad idea to use formulas if you can avoid it. Better to talk it out, as in “a number of hours equal to his Brawn.”
“Any afflicted player becomes Disoriented” (the “Disoriented” condition has the same effect, while being mechanically represented and giving a use to the Hard Headed talent, should a player possess it).
You mention a Medicine check, but that’s rather at odds with the whole “balding sickness” thing unless you need to add an “if untreated” clause. Generally, this whole “sickness” section feels off to me. It’s an interesting concept, but it seems needlessly overcomplicated and like there’s way too much focus on it. It could really be distilled to Resilience check or else Disoriented, or even further to simply enough Threat/Despair=Disoriented.
Dice immediately after difficulty.
“previous owner was led him here” is unintelligible. Is it the datapad of one of the recent victims, or of a previous journeyer? Who led who? You can make it more specific/evocative by mentioning that they find it by a skeleton (perhaps mention species physiology) rather than just implying that it’s “in the mix.” Mentioning an old/dry skeleton also makes it more clear that it doesn’t belong to one of the crew.
“Was led” is also very passive language. Something like “came here seeking” is more active.
As previously mentioned I suggest nixing the leech in favor of a poisonous sting or bite. I think you’ve made the illness/leech effects too time-consuming for very little gain.

Now that I’ve finished that section, I’m going to call it quits for now. Some things were not carefully edited because I advised they be cut or radically altered, but this is restricted to just a couple paragraphs.

P-47Thunderbolt · July 13, 2022, 6:44pm

Just to expand on the writing advice bit some, you generally only need to give the important information. Oftentimes you can leave certain facets up to the PCs’ imaginations, especially if something more important (see: gunman) is drawing their full attention (maybe you don’t need to describe the color of the tiles when a gun is being held in the PC’s face). Other times, you can wrap descriptions subtly into prose as characters interact with the environment rather than outright describing it (maybe the blood from a gunshot wound “casts a red shadow over the black-and-white tile,” or “stains the booth a deeper red”).

As always, style will also have to be adjusted for context. Sometimes something (“casts a red shadow”) might read as unnecessarily melodramatic in one context, while fitting perfectly in another. But that’s a bit outside the scope of my original point, I’m just getting rambly again.

NGSRizzen · July 14, 2022, 11:27am

Just want to let you know I’ve been ill for the past week or so and starting to feel better but haven’t been able to work on the document. I’ll try to get to it this weekend.

Thanks again for all your help.

P-47Thunderbolt · July 14, 2022, 11:41am

Oof, that’s no fun. I hope you recover quickly!
(The forum is scolding me for constituting more than 53% of the replies. *Shakes fist*)

P-47Thunderbolt · July 16, 2022, 10:30pm

Since you haven’t been able to go over my previous suggestions yet, I’m able to cover more ground now.

Mechanics

Page 18: It should be Vigilance, not Perception. Perception is for when you are actively looking for someone trying to hide using Stealth, Vigilance is for when you are unaware and someone is trying to sneak up on you using Stealth.
“If visibility is poor, add a Boost.” Do you mean in terms of darkness, or cover? If you mean darkness, then the Narglatch already get Boost dice for darkness (see “Concealment” in any CRB). If you mean cover (e.g. “have a concealed approach” or something) then a Boost would be appropriate.
“If a Fear check was triggered previously…” Why? What if they succeeded? What if it was caused by something else? I think you can cut this part, a single upgrade for unfamiliarity should be sufficient.
I think you can just say to add a Setback due to the unsettling nature of the boneyard.
Since they’re close to the lair and there are fresh tracks, I’d simply make the difficulty Average rather than Hard with a Boost (the actual difficulty is easier, rather than there being an effect which helps you overcome an equally difficult obstacle). Increased proximity=increased traffic=increased signs. Also, check the Boost and Setback modifiers as I previous mentioned when this was last brought up.
Seeing how often the “3 Strain for fatigue” comes up, I think it might be better at 2. 1 is definitely too low, but I didn’t originally realize that it’d be 3 each time. If they have somebody with YGG in Survival, a Hard (unmodified) Survival check is basically a coin flip, so on average that would mean 9 Strain between the three navigation checks.
Another option (which is not an either-or) is to facilitate strain recovery, which could conceivably be done with either the crystals or bone, although the already-mentioned medicinal properties of the bone is probably your best option. Giving a tangible strain recovery effect will be more immediately and noticeably useful than a Boost to future Medicine checks. Something should probably be mentioned about needing a medkit in order to craft the… “drug,” or whatever you want to call it.
4,000 credits is incredibly low (given the price Darga is paying the PCs, perhaps even less than the price of the ten crates). I count credits as being ~4x the value of a dollar, which is more favorable to your amount as-written than if I took it as a 1:1 ratio with the American dollar (as most credit amounts for “consumer price index”-type items generally seem to be). Working from that, let’s say the family provides ~$60,000 worth of labor (what they would be paid if they weren’t slaves) a year, and let’s just say they consume about $12,000 worth of food each year. On net, that’s $48,000 in production. In today’s money, a slave in the 1850s in America cost about $40,000 according to one source I found. However, in today’s market, a slave costs on average $90 worldwide. That, however, comes in large part mostly from extremely poor regions and I’m not sure how applicable it is to the issue at hand. (If you want more data and don’t mind a churning stomach, you can check here.)
If we go with my 4:1 ratio, then you’re pricing a family of slaves at $16,000.
You also have to consider the Hutt’s situation. If he sells these slaves, he’ll have to either hire employees or buy more slaves, and he loses the expertise these slaves have built up. And what about the debt? If Darga sells them, either they’re still indebted to him or that debt is wiped clean, in which case he can’t collect on it.
I think that any realistic amount will be astronomically high (compared to the PCs’ capabilities). But if you want an amount, Darga would probably say that if you pay off their debt, plus ten percent, he’ll free them. The catch is that the debt is something like ($48,000*20/4=) a quarter million credits, indicating that I may have buried the lead here. Obviously, this is astronomical for the PCs. Now they have a choice: leave it as a sad ending to the story, or decide to take matters into their own hands and risk crossing Darga if he finds out about it.
Page 21: I suggest making it 5/5 soakable (we don’t want to overdo it on the strain). 1 Threat for one or two Wounds and Strain is acceptable. I’d also recommend shifting it to Average difficulty, as Hard is pretty steep for, again, something that costs 1 Threat (it’ll also bring it in line with the next two).
Too many upgrades. I don’t think any of these are necessary (whole page), particularly as there’s never even a listed consequence for Despair.
-1 Agility for 1 Threat, even conditional, is pretty steep. That’s equivalent to an Average-difficulty crit. Instead, I’d recommend a Setback to Agility checks. Remember, this is only a single Threat and you don’t want to hamstring the PCs by the time they’re facing what is a very dangerous foe for non-combat PCs/PCs without a lot of EXP.
This second check for the cobweb is where I can see good reason for a Despair, but only if you intend them to have an encounter with a giant spider (and say as much). Depending on how big and nasty it is. However, given the relatively unpressured nature of the second check, I think this could be safely replaced with something like a spider bite/scorpion sting, dealing one wound and one strain (with no related checks). This does make it somewhat less steep than the poisonous fungus, but all that says to me is that maybe the poisonous fungus should be further nerfed (perhaps at least make the second check Average at most).
Philosophically, I disagree with your approach to the “Individual Hazards.” In my book, 1 Threat should be something very minor like 1 Strain. Because this is more involved, I can see good reason for bumping up the consequences slightly, but adding one or two checks to the mix makes it too complicated for a single Threat, I think. I recommend easy one-and-done effects, with the exception of a saving throw for the fall (that helps justify the higher damage). I’d suggest replacing the effect of the fungus with something like “hallucinogenic spores,” upgrading the difficulty of that PCs’ Perception and Vigilance checks once. Easy one-and-done that isn’t too serious, along with the spider bite and a minor fall.
^That’s all up to taste. While I think I’m right (obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have mentioned it), if you prefer it the other way I’m not going to belabor the point.
Group Hazards, triggered by Despair, are much more interesting to me and I think you have a lot more room to elaborate here.
If this is a corrosive atmosphere (see the combat chapter in any CRB), then there’s no Resilience check and they simply start taking damage. I recommend having some kind of “solve” check or trade-off choice they have to make. A “solve” check can be something like Athletics to push aside/climb over some obstacle, or something like Knowledge (Education) to find a way to neutralize the effect of the fumes (you’d have to get fairly specific, though), while the trade-off choice could be “failing” an otherwise successful check and having to find another way around, increasing the difficulty of the next Survival check by 1. Each attempt at a “solve” check would count as a round of exposure. However, I have to mention that if the Narglatch came this way… why? Path of least resistance and all that. Just something to think about.
(The “per ten minutes” bit is unworkable. You give no guidelines for how long such a thing should take or why it should take much time at all.)
The Fear check is good. You might want to add something here, like “if they fail, the difficulty of the next Fear check is upgraded once.”
A cave-in along their route is quite serious, blocking them off from the known route. I’d cut the “health” penalties (plenty of those already) and say that if they failed the Survival check, they increase the difficulty of the next one once. In addition… hmm, I’m not sure. I’d rather not do something with health, so maybe some valuable item or some supplies get damaged? But there has to be some penalty even on a successful check. Maybe just that any checks to backtrack out of the cave system have +1 difficulty per cave-in.

Adventure

Page 18: You say they’ve been “stalking” the PCs. In the caves? Should the PCs have been given a chance to detect them prior to this point?
Then later you say that the Narglatch approach from the west, and the players from the northeast. If they’re coming from the opposite direction, were they really stalking?

Males and females only commingled during mating season. Females were more fierce hunters than males, but males could chase a female from her kill. A pregnant narglatch always gave birth to twins, one of each gender. Since young narglatch could hunt immediately upon birth, mothers abandoned them.

No egg (feline=mammal=live young), no “hatchling,” no singular.
“A solitary hunter, narglatch silently stalked and quickly killed its prey, usually kaadu or jimvu.”
The above is a good argument to have only one of the Narglatch attack the PCs, which makes the fight less dangerous (and if the female is as pregnant as “soon-to-be” suggests, to me, at least, you have that excuse/reason as well for only one to engage). However, I think the best solution is to completely do away with the concept of “baby on the way” since the egg idea is out the window anyway (besides, given the males’ propensity to kill young, and the mention that Narglatch of the opposite sex only interact during mating season, she would likely not want to be around him when she’s about to give birth).
Nowhere heretofore has it been specified that the Narglatch are both male and female, nor is it important to the story, so we just have to determine what makes sense. I see basically three approaches: ignore it entirely (if you never take a position you can never be wrong); make them both of the same sex (they’re just working together for survival); or posit that it is mating season. Personally, I think the last option fits best, though the first would probably be fine.
“Fight to the death…” but will they though? “Fight to the death” is always a dangerous instruction, because that death could be the PCs’. Without any young to defend, I think leaving an opportunity for retreat is best. After all, why would the Narglatch die for a cave, when they could just leave and find another lair? If they do retreat, then the PCs have to decide whether to try and find and kill them or not.
Some tactical description or “win conditions” (e.g. to cause the Narglatch to retreat) would spice up this combat section. Text-wise, you effectively jump directly from “here’s how to handle the Fear check before initiative” to “the battle is over and everything is quiet.”
Rather than simply saying “the thugs attack,” I’d recommend taking a similar tack to the one you took a little bit earlier and have it be optional. For example, if the PCs are badly hurt, the encounter could go very badly for them. While a GM should use his best judgement and be willing to simply ignore it, some GMs will stick too closely to adventures as-written, especially if they are inexperienced (or tired, and not thinking clearly. Most of my mistakes have been made within that context).

Grammar et al

Page 18: “They wait until the characters are distracted, then attack them.”
“Perception skill,” “skill” should not be capitalized
“Read the following out loud” is underlined, a break from previous styles.
“Narglatch” is sufficient if the PCs succeeded on their previous check. If they didn’t, then your description is more in order, but lacks in punch since they were expecting something totally different. You basically have three approaches here: write two textboxes, one for each possibility; write a single, neutral textbox that really touches on neither; or leave it entirely up to the GM. I would recommend the first and third options most highly.
If you want to take the neutral approach, the prose will need some touching up. For example, you place “they have blue skin and move gracefully and powerfully” as an independent sentence following the first rather than intertwining it with the previous sentence.
“At a medium distance” should be “at medium range,” or “at medium range instead.” This is more specific and directly addresses the mechanics, whereas “medium distance” is far more vague. Yes, it would be understood, but it isn’t technically the best choice. If I tell you that “Corellia is a medium distance from Brentaal IV,” it means something very different than if I tell you that “the barbershop is a medium distance from the cantina.” But wait, do I mean that the barbershop is a moderate drive, or a couple dozen meters?
Mentioning “make sure to learn their statblock” is unnecessary. I’d recommend removing that entirely.
I recommend reordering the initiative and Fear checks. You introduce it as Stealth>Initiative>Combat>Fear when the pattern you actually want the game to follow is Stealth>Fear>Initiative>Combat. I would suggest that after the description of the Stealth check’s pool, if you intend to have a textbox, you put it here (I strongly suggest that you either have two, one for success and one for failure, or just leave it up to the GM. So much of the narrative is contingent on dice results). Then introduce “have each PC make a Fear check,” and then finally address the initiative. Then maybe have a text box introducing the actual combat, but by then the pace has been slowed down enough that you might be better off without it.
Bolded punctuation by the symbols.
Page 19: “Groove” is probably not your best word choice here. A “groove” is a long, narrow slit. What most people will think when they read “groove” is something like a stress gap in pavement, not a habitable space in a cave, or a ditch, which is what it sounds like you mean? At any rate, I’m not sure what connection the groove is supposed to have with the following narration, or if there even is one, in which case I’m not sure what its purpose is.
Again, I suggest that you rewrite this whole textbox using the advice I gave you in my last post, but here are some particular things to look out for in what you did write:
Six items is a bit much for a list. I’d recommend either trimming it to only the most important parts, or using some kind of catch-all like “anything at hand.” You can also take a hybrid approach, making list of broader categories (e.g. “natural materials”). Three is best, four is pushing it, but acceptable. Five or more is too many in most circumstances (especially in prose).
“Bright, blue stains” and “bright-blue stains” are different. “Bright blue” is a shade of blue, whereas a “bright, blue stain” is a “blue stain” that is also “bright.”
You say “ruined equipment.” Why would they have brought any equipment with them? Or do you not really mean equipment, and you mean more like personal effects that were still on the victims or parts of the crate? More specificity would help you here.
Oxford comma after “equipment”
“Three” and “two,” not “3” and “2”
The way you phrase this, with the comma, is like a list. However, it lacks the third entry which would make it whole. Accordingly, there should be some kind of conjunction like “but” or “and” (see how I wrote “‘but’ or ‘and’” instead of “‘but,’ ‘and’”?).
That isn’t so much for clarity as for correctness. Sometimes people do talk like that, but it isn’t technically correct.
Extraneous “successful” before “Average Perception check.”
You might want to be more specific on what the valuables are, like cred sticks from the corpses, jewelry, etc. Could also be a moral question, because it’s technically corpse robbing.
“Irreparably broken and worthless.”
As mentioned previously, Narglatch egg is a no-go.
Extraneous space between “and” and “receive”
“The three-hour ride back to the city of Zarra is uneventful.”
“It is probably quite late by now”
Unnecessary bolding. As it is the entire sentence, as opposed to giving context to a previous sentence, it is its own emphasis.
Extraneous space after “returned crate”
Extraneous space after “agreed-”
“If they received an advance at the beginning of the adventure, remember to deduct that amount from this payment.” (I’m not totally sold on the latter half. “Amount” and “this payment” in particular are not ideal)
Instead of decimated, you can just say something like “killed.” A bit less dramatic, but that could be a good thing. Also, “decimated” technically means to reduce by one-tenth, and there will often be someone ready and willing to point that out (“So only one of them was injured?” is a comment I can readily imagine someone making, or perhaps it is simply me projecting my penchant for literal humor).
“Their employer” can be “Darga,” and then “the crime lord” can simply be “he”
Alternatively, the first could be “the Hutt” and the second could be “Darga”
“Lenient” isn’t the best word, as it implies withheld standards or punishments. I recommend “partial to” instead. Some longer phrases (such as “favorably disposed”) are also applicable, but I think “partial” is your best bet.
“Hutts loves money” should be “Hutts love money”
Extraneous space and “is” after “Negotiation check”
Page 21: “Affects one character”
Change “requires” to “The character must pass” (note capitalization). Applies to all three.
“fall comma, taking”
Overuse of ampersands. Don’t do it! Generally, only use an ampersand if it is part of a proper noun (e.g. “Smith & Wesson”) or of a pseudo-proper noun (e.g. favorite breakfasts: donuts, pancakes, “biscuits & gravy,” and “bacon & eggs”).
“Or until one week has passed.”
“Gets stuck comma,”
Dice come immediately after difficulty
You’re inconsistent on the styling of the introduction. You basically have two options: either the intro/name leads directly into the text, or it’s a title, with a colon that leads into the text. Personally, I suggest the latter as it the usual style for effect tables. However, I understand why you might like the other option and it also appears in a few locations. Take your preference. Just know that you should capitalize the first letter after the colon if you take the “title” method. I’ll address wording once that’s all been worked out.
“Piece of Clothing” shouldn’t be capitalized (also, extraneous space after “clothing”).
Darga’s symbol drawn on a wall indicates that the person was still alive and cognizant enough to do such a thing (not grammar, I know, but just so we keep it all in one place…)
Three of these require knowledge of the identities of the victims, and imply that the PCs have some kind of bio on each of them. This should be mentioned early on in the adventure, probably a simple clause you can add to the paragraph for “Who were the guards?”
Since you removed the maps, you can remove the credit.
Change “over at” to “from the” or “over on the”
“Forum” rather than “forums”
“for helping make this more presentable”
“For all his very helpful suggestions” (aww… thanks!)

And that’s a run-through of the whole thing. Once we’ve worked through these last two posts, we’ll have to do another run-through, but it should be much faster going than the first time through since we’ve fixed the biggest issues, especially the structural ones.

Once we’ve at least worked out all the mechanical details, would you like to try a Play-by-Post to playtest the game? I can quickly draw up a party according to your specs and then we can run it through organically.
Or, if you’d rather cut to the chase, I can just run some basic roll-tests behind the scenes and present my findings rather than actually play-testing it in the course of a game.

NGSRizzen · July 19, 2022, 10:39pm

I’m pretty behind on updating the document but will take it one thing at a time ;). It’s amazing how time can slip through our fingers sometimes.

I just realized on P.6 that we don’t have a description readout for what the market looks like. I think that would be a useful addition. Thoughts?

FYI, I don’t always remember what I’ve critiqued before, so if you reject a suggestion, please say so, so that I can actually recognize what’s an intentional choice on your part vs. something I missed while editing vs. something you missed while applying.

For the most part I think this is how we’ve been handling it. It is possible I missed a change here and there but if I disagreed or wanted clarification on something I usually brought it up.

Page 16: I recommend simply saying that the PCs fall Short range. Damage is only 10/10, both reduced by Soak and by an Average Coordination check (you can reference “see falling in chapter [?] of any CRB” <casual wording, you’d need to write it out). Accordingly, I’d remove the damage reduction via Advantage.

I like this. I have never had anyone fall yet so I didn’t realize it could be reduced by Coordination… good to know! I removed most of the paragraphs for advantages and disadvantages because they were focused alot on the damage.

Page 17: Why the upgrade on the Perception check? Generally speaking, I would advise you to default to no upgrades. Only upgrade if there’s a very compelling reason why something about the check increases the chance of a Despair.

No particular reason, was mostly there to mix things up. I removed it.

Page 18: A leech on the hand? Among “true leeches,” the shortest is half an inch long, well long enough that it would be easily noticed even if only by feel (“I know it like the back of my hand!” “Well you didn’t notice that leech, so you must not know it very well.” “WAHHH!”). Its ability to drain would accordingly be very miniscule, no one is really going to feel ill from it (just think about the quantity of blood it can absorb). The ill feeling would come from any injected toxins, and these (immediate effects) are extremely unusual among earth leeches absent an allergic reaction. I’d recommend you shorten it to a bite/sting from a poisonous creature.

Sure! I’m not very familiar with what would be appropriate as an effect but I re-wrote using the strain damage idea.

Page 16: My thoughts on the rock bridge are well known, but just to reiterate I think this is a misplaced good idea. While you continue to consider it, I’m going to set aside my broader concerns and simply technically critique it.

I am certainly open to modifying it but would like to keep it there. What you’re saying about animal behavior and all that makes sense.

At the moment, what I am considering is making it so that Narglatch rarely cross through there unless they really have to, but the players still find the room. On the other side of the ravine would be one of the mangled bodies they are looking for but they need to cross to ID it. A Narglatch could have dragged it there from the boneyard to eat it away from the stench of the pile of bones. If the PCs decide to cross, they can ID the body and continue down that other passageway following a different but similar kind of bloody + dragging trail.

Once we’ve at least worked out all the mechanical details, would you like to try a Play-by-Post to playtest the game? I can quickly draw up a party according to your specs and then we can run it through organically.

PBP would be too slow for me but if you think you would enjoy it and we could scrounge a group for a one-shot session I would be open to running a live session on R20 or RPG Sessions. I think that would have more potential

I’ll get to the many other changes over the next few days when I can.

Thanks again for all your help. Also 53% of all the posts is a pretty high figure ;)

P-47Thunderbolt · July 20, 2022, 12:27am

A description/narration wouldn’t be bad, but I don’t think it’s necessary. If you want to add something, by all means, I just don’t think you have to.

Good to know, I just wanted to clarify and make sure we were on the same page going forward.

Note that it’s Coordination OR Athletics. Check the falling rules in the combat chapter if you need more info.

I’m not sure that’s the best reason, but I don’t have any better ideas at the moment. Keeping it in there definitely makes sense, making it optional isn’t quite ideal, but ought to be good enough. My robrain is tired, I might think of something better later.

Live play is simply not a good option for me, unfortunately. While I agree on the pros of doing it by that method, it is not practical on my end. PbP can go pretty quickly if it’s only two people doing it and both are pretty committed, and it’s easier for me to set aside a chunk of time to be on stand-by (when I can juggle multiple things) than it is to set aside a chunk of time for live-play.

I’m glad to do it! You’ve been a lot of fun to work with, especially because you haven’t gotten offended at my plethora of suggestions. :P

NGSRizzen · July 20, 2022, 11:26am

A description/narration wouldn’t be bad , but I don’t think it’s necessary. If you want to add something, by all means, I just don’t think you have to.

Makes sense. I think we can do without.

Note that it’s Coordination OR Athletics. Check the falling rules in the combat chapter if you need more info.

Roger that.

I’m not sure that’s the best reason, but I don’t have any better ideas at the moment. Keeping it in there definitely makes sense, making it optional isn’t quite ideal, but ought to be good enough. My robrain is tired, I might think of something better later.

Robrain? :P

Yeah the reason isn’t perfect, simply an idea. I also considered making another creature having brought it here but that could complicate tracking, etc etc. It could also simply be that he was alive but near death and crawled over from the boneyard when the Narglatch weren’t around.

Live play is simply not a good option for me, unfortunately. While I agree on the pros of doing it by that method, it is not practical on my end. PbP can go pretty quickly if it’s only two people doing it and both are pretty committed, and it’s easier for me to set aside a chunk of time to be on stand-by (when I can juggle multiple things) than it is to set aside a chunk of time for live-play.

When I got to thinking about it I pictured you and I with a group of people; in PBP each extra person multiplies how long it takes to take a turn, make decisions, etc. If it was just you and I running PBP it would be much faster than I was first thinking so I would probably be open to it once we’re done.

I’m glad to do it! You’ve been a lot of fun to work with…:

Oh well thank you!! I do think we’ve worked well together and the adventure is leagues better because of it.

especially because you haven’t gotten offended at my plethora of suggestions.

Lol! I wasn’t sure how to take it at first but I made my peace with it :). Few people would take the time to make suggestions and corrections in such detail, especially for a stranger. At the end of the day, the errors and imperfections are there so might as well fix them.

P-47Thunderbolt · July 20, 2022, 12:11pm

I’m a sentient fighter plane, so yes, robrain. Short for “robot-brain.”

Awesome, I look forward to it.

Well I always want to help, especially if I’m asked to.

NGSRizzen · July 20, 2022, 6:49pm

If you take my advice and either remove the obstacle or make it optional, that’s one layer. Making it not too difficult to cross (maybe allow them to cross without a Coordination check, if they’re taking it slowly) gives you a second layer. For the third, recovery, don’t make failure equal a fall. Failure means you didn’t succeed in crossing. If you just jumped, maybe it means you’re grabbing onto the side. If you ran across a bridge, maybe it means you lost your balance and fell down. Despair or three+ Threat on a failure might mean you fall, but even then there are ways to recover without “death.”

I changed it to Easy difficulty and 3 disadvantages for a fall. I added a condition that if two players cause noise it alerts the Narglatch to their presence and they show up within a few rounds.

For the jump / athetlics check, though I am comfortable with difficult at Hard, I think an upgrade would be appropriate here.

I added a short blurb in the readout and description about the corpse.

I modified the strain damage for failed survival from 3 to 2. I agree this is a good middle ground.

Page 17: Instead of “balding sickness,” which sounds kind of silly and has no direct mechanical effect, I’d say lowers their Strain Threshold by X until Y (has happened)

OK! I also changed it to 2 threat instead of 1 as that is a pretty bad effect for a single threat.

I implemented the changes up to

“Adding Setback.” It looks like that period is bolded. Check to make sure you haven’t bolded the die symbol or the punctuation. (post #49)

Page 13: In American English, you can capitalize the first word after a colon if it begins a complete sentence rather than a list, but British English doesn’t. I would capitalize the first letter, and change the end of the first sentence to “comma, and” rather than “period. There” because the two sentences sound sharp when independent. They just flow better when conjoined. So since you’re using British English, leave it uncapitalized but still merge the sentences. (Am I getting rambley? I’m under the weather and my robrain tends to run marathons when I’m hangar-bound)

You don’t sound any more rambly than usual ;) but now I am getting sick again so I’m trying to get to some of these changes in before my brain goes zombie on me.

P-47Thunderbolt · July 20, 2022, 6:58pm

“Than usual” being the operative term, I suppose. xD

I agree on all counts aside from the upgrade. I’m not going to argue the point other than to say there’s nothing about the check that makes a Despair more likely, but I think it’s fine.

NGSRizzen · July 20, 2022, 9:18pm

“Than usual” being the operative term, I suppose. xD

I agree on all counts aside from the upgrade. I’m not going to argue the point other than to say there’s nothing about the check that makes a Despair more likely , but I think it’s fine.

It was to make the difficulty somewhere between 3 and 4; since you seemed to think that 3 wasn’t enough but to me 4 would be too much. Would it be better to leave it at 3?

I am changing it so that it takes 2 threats instead of 1 to trigger an individual hazard. I know you touch on it in more detail later but I’m not there yet.

I think there may have been a miscommunication about falling into the crevice. My recommendation was that it be a fall from Short range, with my analysis being that low-tier characters could probably reduce the 10/10 damage to about 6/6 easily.

I see that now.

Check style in published adventures, but I think “with a successful (check)” may be extraneous and you could just say “with a (check).” Success would usually be implicit, but I’m not sure if that’s how they style it.

You are correct; here are two random examples I found:

Accessing the building in this manner requires an Average (PP) Computers check with a Setback die ∫ to bypass the security system.

An Easy (P) Coordination check allows the PCs to maneuver through the tunnels safely

I think I got them all… It will make it less repetitive.

(I think bolding the symbols is probably unnecessary, but that’s a style choice you need to make)

It bolds itself for whatever reason when I switch between fonts and I catch most of them but I do miss a few here and there.

You say “clearly belonging.” In what way? It would be clearer to say something along the lines of “an ID card with the name of one of the crew members” or however you’d phrase it, to say they’re able to directly compare the ID of the card against a list of the people on the crew (we might want to go back early on and specify that they were given such a list, as there are many practical reasons why they would be).

This wasn’t clear. I modified it slightly :)

Why dark blue? You already have blue fruit and blue cats, it seems to me that the dark blue is repetitive.

This color was chosen before everything else turned out to be blue, as it seemed an interesting color for the bones of an alien species. I’ll change it to black.

“Any afflicted player becomes Disoriented” (the “Disoriented” condition has the same effect, while being mechanically represented and giving a use to the Hard Headed talent, should a player possess it).

Do you think think a reduced strain threshold after a 24h incubation is bad enough or should I add also an immediate disorientation to the effects of the poison?

You mention a Medicine check, but that’s rather at odds with the whole “balding sickness” thing unless you need to add an “if untreated” clause. Generally, this whole “sickness” section feels off to me. It’s an interesting concept, but it seems needlessly overcomplicated and like there’s way too much focus on it. It could really be distilled to Resilience check or else Disoriented, or even further to simply enough Threat/Despair=Disoriented.

Hehe… I was trying to do something interesting but I agree it got a bit muddled along the way.

“previous owner was led him here” is unintelligible. Is it the datapad of one of the recent victims, or of a previous journeyer? Who led who? You can make it more specific/evocative by mentioning that they find it by a skeleton (perhaps mention species physiology) rather than just implying that it’s “in the mix.” Mentioning an old/dry skeleton also makes it more clear that it doesn’t belong to one of the crew.

Yikes. Sorry about that; I rewrote it

OK. I implemented all changes from post #49 minus the rewrite for the Area 3 readout. That’ll be the next phase :).

Cheers