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I'm very sorry to hear it!

Some quick ideas.

• Before each session, meet for 5-10 minutes with the other judges and review this session. See if they have questions, review possible pitfalls, and verify that the Gygaxian and new DM understand what players likely want. (And, in theory, both Gygaxian and total new 4E play should be fun if done well... that's were a head DM can provide some pointers).
• For a bit more time, consider setting up a Google or Yahoo group and discussing each upcoming session the week prior so that these issues are ironed out. Honestly, this is a good thing to do regardless
• Consider creating a handout that lists the NPCs they have met and gives a 1 sentence description.
• Roleplay can be fun for the non-actor. It is about less "staging a TV show" and more "present choices". But, I would have to know more about the DM to really comment on how to help here.
• Brutal combats: reduce all damage by 1 die size (d10 to d8). Remember to use scaling in the PCs' favor. Put in an escape clause for each combat. For example, if the party is doing poorly, maybe that "attack three times" attack suddenly becomes "attack two times" when the creature is bloodied, and the PCs can learn that with a knowledge check. But, in general, take steps to tone down combats if needed.
• If players are near a TPK but should not be, provide them with surgeless healing via an NPC, meal, consumable item you make up, in-combat terrain feature you make up, etc.
• Have friendly NPCs point out that lethal combat is seldom seen here and suggest they use it so they can learn about their opponents.
• It is overall very good for Encounters to try new things. Otherwise it would get really stale playing 1-3rd level each time. All experimenting leads to some issues.
• I hope you get the creative spark back. But, it is good to take breaks every so often. You might want to step away for a season, then come back.

Jan 5, 2012 -- 10:47PM, beowulfthehunter wrote:

Many of the combats are meant to be ended in non-fatal ways, but most of our players are use to the violent method so no NPC is left alive.

Are the players aware of this and just ignoring it for the sake of splattering the enemy or is it just not clear to them that it is an option?

Jan 6, 2012 -- 6:26AM, beowulfthehunter wrote:

As far as modifying things on the fly...I do that, however I do not feel as if I should have to, that should have been the writer's job.

It is always, first and foremost, a game for your table. You own it and you can do what you want with it. You can make changes beforehand, make changes during the session, and even make changes after the session.

I've either playtested or written a number of adventures that have been played by a good number of tables and I know there is no "perfect" or "getting it right". When writing an author can play it safe and reduce the breadth of experiences (primarily by sticking to very tried and true formulas), but that means both limiting the really bad tables and also limiting the really good tables. And you will still see issues. There are adventures for organized play that are widely held to be "far too easy and straightforward" that have seen posts on the forums saying the adventures caused TPKs and are unfair. The game is swingy (actually a good thing) and can play very differently.

Yes, all authors and developers can do things to reduce "the bad", but it is very hard. It is especially hard when you try to do something new. It is a price you pay for that type of creation. It pains me greatly to know that the work I do (or edit/develop) will cause a terrible experience somewhere, but it isn't avoidable entirely.

The best safeguard is playtesting, but even there we see challenges. I've playtested with my own group and then sent out my adventure to receive from very good gamers the following: "this was a TPK and completely unfair", "pretty good, we liked how it played", and "way too easy, we finished the entire adventure an hour early, here's what you can do to make it harder." I've been fortunate to come up with decent solutions to those cases, but it is indicative of how hard it is to get it right for all tables such that you don't require a DM's modification.

We've lost a couple of DMs due to this module. We are losing regular players as well.

This is a terrible module if you don't have DMs committing to the whole season. If you're handed the module at 5, to run at 5:30, you're kind of screwed. Especially if you haven't read the frontmatter, or you're working from a photocopy of that night's session and don't have the full module (we have lost a copy of the module to someone moving, and a second copy to the DM disappearing-- we are down to 2 mods for 5 tables).

An example of how bad this is? I was called in to run session 5, having missed 3 and 4, but with very little prep. Any week of Neverwinter or Evard, I'd have been fine. Session 5, I mentioned the keys, and all my players gave me blank looks. I've now read the module a little more thoroughly (as well as having run more sessions) and lo and behold: the PCs are supposed to know they need the keys, but where is it ever mentioned to tell them this?!?!? It seems like the leprechauns would have been a good fit for that....? Nope. It says in the front of the book that it's important that they get the keys. But nowhere in the module that I've found does it tell the PLAYERS that it's important to get the keys.

We've been struggling for weeks with this problem of the keys. I've taken to just calling them the "plot hole keys." I've suggested to players that they should just pluck any leaves at this point, since they have no idea why the leaves are important, just that they're strangely compelled to collect them.

I'm sorry for the writers of this module, cause I am sure you put a lot of work into it. I don't know if this stuff got changed in playtest and editing or not, and I really don't care. It really shouldn't have been sent out for this program.

Would have been good as a standalone module, with about 8 more pages of information, I think.