5 Tips For Running The "Curse of The Crimson Throne" Adventure Path

A little while back I put together 4 Tips For Running The "Rise of The Runelords" Adventure Path, and readers generally seemed to respond well to it. As such, I figured I'd offer some more advice for game masters considering running Curse of The Crimson Throne for their tables this week. My Table Talk run through of the campaign starts with The Saga of Majenko, as I called it, so feel free to give it a read through if you want to see how my table completed the campaign. Of course there will be spoilers both there and here, so keep that in mind going forward.

It's a tough one... but well worth running with a few tweaks.

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Tip #1: Give Locations A Personality

Walk down the wrong alley in Korvosa, and who knows what you'll find.

While CoTCT isn't the only campaign that takes place in a major urban area, it was one of the first games Paizo put out that did. And Korvosa itself is large enough that a GM should really sit back and think of how to best bring across the personality of this city, as well as the feel of all its different districts and locations. The docks should feel different from the Shingles, which should feel different from the castle district, and so on, and so forth.

My personal take is that Korvosa should feel akin to Gotham City. It has splendor and grandeur, but there's dark alleys aplenty, crushing poverty, and a crazed vigilante that only half the populace believes is real. But don't worry, we'll get to Blackjack later.

For GMs who want to keep some resources on-hand for adding details to make things organic, consider some of the following:

- 100 Gangs For Your Urban Campaigns: While we meet a few members of Korvosa's scummier side, given the roles the PCs get roped into it's good to have more. Whether they're snitches and contacts, former comrades, or just background information for you to feed your players when they go to the rough parts of the city, there's all sorts of options in this supplement to draw on.

- 100 Random Taverns: Though not all of the taverns in this collection are in a city, there's plenty of strange and unusual options that are. So if the PCs want to ask around for information, catch a bite to eat, or just have some RP time, consider adding some of these locations in between the margins in the setting.

- 100 NPCs You Might Meet at The Tavern: Whether the PCs are looking for informants, experts in history, gossip, or just somebody to fix a damaged boot, there's all sorts of strange and unusual NPCs in this collection... it's also (at time of writing) the only one of mine to reach Gold seller status!

Also, this tip applies to more than just Korvosa (though it will be where the bulk of the campaign first happens). It also applies to Scarwall, to the countryside you travel through, to Kaer Maga if you go there, to the lands of the Shoanti, each of these places needs to have its own personality in order for the players to really engage with it. Don't just read box text and roll some dice, either. Incorporate the environment, the culture, the feel, the smell, and the taste of things so that there's a real difference from block to block, street to street, region to region.

Tip #2: Prep Your Players For Their Upcoming Role

The city needs people like you. Will you volunteer today?

Like most other adventure paths, CoTC gives players a background trait to help tie them to the plot. I remember when I first tried the adventure that I thought Gaedren Lamm was going to be the antagonist of the whole first arc of the game. After all, he's such an ideal bad guy. He's just a ganglord with a decent gimmick, and he's been in power long enough that he's wronged an entire party of adventurers who are coming together to deal with him.

If you've read the adventure at all, though, you know that Lamm is confronted and defeated in the very first session. After that the party gets sort of unceremoniously shuffled to the "opportunity" to be a special part of the Korvosa City Watch, putting their unique talents to work under Cressida Kroft. The difficulty here is that if the players put together a party with mutual grievances against this one guy, then once he's dead/captured/no longer a threat, their primary motivation may be complete.

As such, "spoil" this plot development with your players, make sure it's the role they're comfortable in, and that they've given their characters proper motivation to do it. My game actually skipped the cloak and dagger, and just started off as a squad of low-level patrolmen to get ahead of this arc.

Additionally, you should actually prepare a list of dos and don'ts for players once they accept their role as special consultants/troubleshooters to make it more than just a pretense for the rest of the campaign. Does the city offer armaments to them, allowing you to bypass the clunky mechanic of coinage as a reward and so they can get better gear, for example? Are they expected to bring people in alive for trial? Will they have jurisdictional squabbles with the Order of The Nail, or the queen's Gray Maidens?

Since the first half of the game is basically a cop drama, lean into that aspect and make sure your players really enmesh themselves in the city, and understand they can make a difference... for good or ill, depending on how they choose to act.

Tip #3: Make Sure Actions Have Consequences

I will remember this. Always.

While this adventure path eventually leaves Korvosa, the players are going to meet the same NPCs, go back to the same districts, etc., over and over again. The most important thing you can do as a GM is to make sure that the players' actions have appropriate consequences... both good and bad.

I talked about some of this in Character Reputation in RPGs: The Small Legend, but specific examples might be more helpful for applying this tip to your game.

Take the character of Thousand Bones, the Shoanti NPC. Early on the players have to find the body of someone important to him, and return it to Thousand Bones. This is a sensitive matter, both because of his grief, and because of the... fraught nature of relations between Korvosa and the tribes of Shoanti people. And since the PCs are eventually going to venture out into the harsh country where those tribes live, how they treat Thousand Bones, and how they approach his case should be reflected when they see him again later. If they were rude, dismissive, or disrespectful, they'll have a much harder time getting him to help them. If, on the other hand, they were helpful, sensitive, and acted in good faith, they'll find he's a far more willing ally to their cause.

There's countless opportunities for this to happen. Do the PCs kill Lamm, or take him prisoner and arrest him?  Does that create a power gap that other gangs move into, or are they lying low so as not to catch the attention of these new troubleshooters? What sort of situation do they create when they deal with the Spider? Do they form relationships with the community by doing outreach and helping, or do they hide behind their badge while abusing their authority? Do they form a bond with people that gets citizens to trust them over the plague doctors? Or are they seen as even less reliable than the hellknights, because at least the Order of The Nail has rules they follow?

The story shouldn't be happening in a vacuum. So keep track of what the PCs do, and ask how that affects the city, future scenarios, and how certain NPCs view them... as well as what sort of reputation it garners them.

Tip #4: Keep Track of Active NPCs and Relationships

I don't know who you are or how you got here, but it's in the box text.

This is related to the previous tip, but I felt it should be mentioned on its own just to drive home how important this is. Because CoTCT is jammed with named NPCs who can be more or less important, and if you want to create a cohesive narrative with your players it's important to look at who is going to matter going forward, and to ensure that you put in the effort to establish some kind of relationship with the party in order for those NPCs to actually matter to the party, and your players.

Cressida is a primary example of this. She is a major NPC, but if you just treat her like a stock quest giver then the party is going to have zero investment in her struggles trying to manage their actions along with the rest of the deteriorating situation in the city. Another big example of this is the mysterious vigilante Blackjack, who the PCs eventually have to go and save from a dungeon. But if they've never met Blackjack before (he never swooped in to assist them in a fight that was going poorly, he's never contacted them to provide plot-relevant information Batman-style, etc.), this is going to have zero impact on them. As such, what feels like a huge moment plot-wise is just going to fall flat because it comes out of left field.

Whether the NPCs are written into the module, or you want to add moments with individuals that aren't part of the established game (be it discussions with Severs DiViri from the Order of The Nail, or turning characters like Lamm into longer-running figures in the event the PCs don't kill them, etc.), you need to solidify those relationships to give them weight in the game. Otherwise they become just so much box text in the background that people forget about, or aren't interested in, and that sucks all the impact out of the story.

Tip #5: Keep Players Invested in The Overarching Plot

It's all connected!

CoTCT starts off as a minor story of revenge on a ganglord who personally wronged a bunch of people, and eventually spirals out into fighting a queen possessed by the spirit of a legendary dragon trying to re-conquer an empire that's centuries in the dust, and to subjugate thousands of people through blood magic. Unfortunately the sort of PC who'd be right at home in the former scenario may not be the sort of PC who has the motivation and drive to handle the latter scenario.

Without a little help from the GM, that is.

The early parts of the game are fairly straightforward. You're acting on behalf of the city because it's your job, this is where you live, it pays your bills, and whatever personal motivations you have as a character. As things spiral out of control with the queen actively engaging in conspiracy, becoming more and more extreme, etc., it is very important to make sure the PCs don't just say sod this, and flee the city so that Ileosa is no longer their concern.

There's a lot of things you can do, here. If the PC is loyal to the city because it's their home, or they view it as their duty to protect it, lean into that. Especially if it means establishing relationships with other protectors of the city so that the PC feels like part of an organization rather than just some unaccountable nobody who can book it if they get cold feet. If the PC is more selfish, ask who they care about in the city? Because they could leave, but that would mean their sister, their friends at the bar, their favorite restaurants, all those people they've protected (who should exist as NPCs with names and faces by that point) would be left defenseless. Duty to flesh and blood people, rather than the idea of city or country, can be  equally useful as a motivator.

Whether the motivation is religious zeal (useful for Iomedae worshipers), loyalty to their companions, a sense of duty to stand against the horror the queen has become, or even something as petty as spite, make sure the players don't feel like they're scrambling to remain part of the plot because it's become so different than what they what the early game might suggest.

Lastly, make sure you break down the current goals and plot arc in a way that makes sense to your players. With so much happening at any given time this adventure path can easily feel like a disjointed mishmash if events and characters aren't having a lasting impact on folks sitting around the table.

Also, if you're looking for any additional advice that will come in handy when running this and other adventure paths, don't forget to check out my supplement 100 Tips and Tricks For Being a Better Game Master!

What's Next on Table Talk?

That's it for this installment of Table Talk! What would you like to see next? Or do you have your own story you'd like to share with folks?

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