We had our latest session of Pathfinder this weekend, with the group finally entering the pocket dimension of Runeforge, with recently upgraded level 14 characters. Their biggest challenge is adjusting to the changes in reality in the new location (some spells don’t work, or work differently), and my biggest challenge was actually filtering and editing the content creatively.
The campaign, especially at this stage, deals with the seven deadly sins, and how they related to the various Runelords. The background and story all makes sense, and the group rapidly determined which themed sections they needed to go into in order to accomplish their treasure hunt. However, that included the Lust wing, and much of my player group is 12 and 13 year olds playing with their parents. Paizo wrote the module with a lot of detail and flair, which is to their credit, but at least in this particular wing, not necessarily appropriate for the audience.
As such, I had to creatively adjust description text, creatures, actions, and details. Overall, I think it worked pretty well, no one was overly uncomfortable, but the concept was still understood as appropriate. Had this been my other group, this would likely have gotten far more adult, but it was safely in the PG level.
Most interestingly was how the group ended up handling the overall section. Combat wasn’t really that hard, the creatures were not very power compared to the large group, however they could not just rush in and kill the enemy leader. She was obviously evil, and demonic (a succubus), but she was also the only one who knew where the macguffin was hidden that they needed. They rightfully refused her devils bargain of trading five minutes alone with one of the group in exchange for the needed item, and instead bargained away a minor artifact they they had (which they had admittedly never used).
The wrinkle however is that Merisel (the rogue) uncharacteristically decided to be stealthy, and sneak off on her own, becoming trapped deeper in the lair of the demon. Unfortunately, although the group knew she was with them before, they did not see her sneak away, and so logically doesn’t have knowledge that she is trapped. As players, this makes a challenging dilemma – as players do the attack to rescue the lost friend (poor roleplaying), and potentially risk the demon reclaiming the trinket they need, or do they leave and keep to the bargain, sticking to character knowledge? They are also aware that the succubus is an accomplished liar, and can out-bluff everyone in the group, leading to doubts as to her claims.
We had to leave the situation unresolved due to time, giving the group some breathing time to ponder their solution to the problem.
