Last night in my in-person game we finally completed the second module of the Skull and Shackles adventure path, Raiders of the Fever Sea. It actually feels that this module has taken a huge amount of time to get through because of the open world nature to it where there are some prescribed plot points to work through but how they are applied is up to the GM.
This style of module is always a big hit with my players. They love the freedom that comes with sailing their ship around, raiding potential merchant ships and sneaking around causing all kinds of mischief. A lot of this adventure path offers up that experience too after the drudgery of the first module the freedom is warranted.
Last night saw the group clean the final vestiges of the underwater lair they were exploring out and they finally had enough disrepute and infamy to go and lay claim in the Shackles to the right to ply their trade alongside the best in the business. This is one of the focus points of the next module as the players seek to get their name added to the ranks of the pirate council that serves the Shackles.
This is a popular adventure path for me as well as it is relatively quick (designed to go to 14th level) and it offers up a lot of plot hooks that the players can flesh out on their own. There are several in the module that they just completed and I know at least one of them holds one of the players fascinated and every now and again they mention another. This will make it easy for me to insert some material into the coming module to keep those plot hooks alive and allow the players the breadth to strut their characters stuff.
But all of that will have to wait as we put this adventure path on hold for a little while. We have made a unanimous decision as a group to try out the new D&D by playing the Starter Set module called Lost Mine of Phandelver. I opened my Starter Set yesterday and thought “Wow, that is full!” but after I took out the insert that lifts everything up I realized it was just a marketing tool. There are a couple of pretty books and by far the fattest of those pretty books is this module. So I asked the players who have all talked about the new edition if they wanted a break from the Skull and Shackles to give D&D a try and they all agreed.
Next week the players will dice off and then pick from 5 identical sealed envelopes one of the pre-generated characters. Then we will no doubt be exploring the caverns and tunnels of this lost mine and seeing how the new edition plays. Exciting times so wish us luck! Keep rolling 🙂