T1: The Village of Hommlet

imaginaerum1

A while back I adapted the Moathouse from the classic TSR module T1: Village of Hommlet.
Reaction was favorable enough that I have now added the rest of the module.

I am looking for feedback. Not reviews. Feedback. It's not completely finished, and with the exception of the moathouse, I have significant budget remaining to add more depth, additional NPCs, more details, whatever.
I want to know what you liked, what you didn't, what you'd like to see that isn't there, etc.
Please check it out, and let me know what you think.

Quest name: T1: The Village of Hommlet
Short code: NW-DBDB7A38M
Author: @Gruffydd

An important note: I've been having publish issues lately. The current version as of this writing is 2.13, and if you get an earlier version there will be things that are missing, or that may not work. If you play an earlier version, and run into problems, please do not flame.

Thanks.

tipadaknife

I only see 2.10 still. Hoping the foundry catches up to your publishes soon!

melinden

I see 2.10 as well but I also see it was published on Jan 6th. Is there a lag on the description by chance?

imaginaerum1

I'm not sure what's going on with publish. Half the time, it just says "Publish Failed", and I have to try again later. When it does publish, some of my characters see one version, and others see another version, but none see the current version. It's highly annoying. I can tell you that it's definitely the version and not the description, though, because the things I added that are in the versions after the one it's giving me are definitely missing.

The current version, by the way, is now 2.13. I've been adding in some of the suggestions that Tipa made.

tipadaknife

I had the exact same problem with Crushbone's Revenge. It eventually settled down.

melinden

So we finally saw the new version:

General comments: This is a very ambitious quest and we recommend you either simplify the first section in the village or make it more clear what the players need to do.

We had three people playing and talking on Skype. One of them remembered the module very well. After about an hour of running around Hommlet we still could not trigger the events that would let us into the Inn. We finally gave up and used the teleporter. We were under the impression that many of these quests were optional but we couldn’t figure out which were required and then how to trigger whichever one that was.

We felt that this was very ambitious in terms of letting us explore but we needed a little bit more direction.

Once in the Moathouse, it really had the feel of the original module and the construction of the building was -extremely- impressive.

Unfortunately the master’s guards were under the floor or in the wall in their room. It took us a long time but we eventually were able to shoot them all through the wall. This would be a dealbreaker for any melee only class. It was especially frustrating since it had taken so long to get to that point.

The gnome bit was very very funny.

It seemed odd that you were trying to be both extremely faithful to the text of the module and then also connect it to Neverember and the Forgotten Realms. As our one player said “Just let this be a Grayhawk adventure.” People who know what T1:The Village of Hommlet is won’t need those connections to the Neverwinter plot.

imaginaerum1

melinden wrote: »

So we finally saw the new version:

General comments: This is a very ambitious quest and we recommend you either simplify the first section in the village or make it more clear what the players need to do.

We had three people playing and talking on Skype. One of them remembered the module very well. After about an hour of running around Hommlet we still could not trigger the events that would let us into the Inn. We finally gave up and used the teleporter. We were under the impression that many of these quests were optional but we couldn’t figure out which were required and then how to trigger whichever one that was.

We felt that this was very ambitious in terms of letting us explore but we needed a little bit more direction.

Once in the Moathouse, it really had the feel of the original module and the construction of the building was -extremely- impressive.

Unfortunately the master’s guards were under the floor or in the wall in their room. It took us a long time but we eventually were able to shoot them all through the wall. This would be a dealbreaker for any melee only class. It was especially frustrating since it had taken so long to get to that point.

The gnome bit was very very funny.

It seemed odd that you were trying to be both extremely faithful to the text of the module and then also connect it to Neverember and the Forgotten Realms. As our one player said “Just let this be a Grayhawk adventure.” People who know what T1:The Village of Hommlet is won’t need those connections to the Neverwinter plot.

Thanks for playing it. The whole final room walls/floors thing has been fixed, by completely replacing both the architecture and the mobs. I don't know what was glitching it out, but even stationary mobs with no wander or patrol were teleporting into the walls or falling through the floors. Extremely frustrating.

I do see what you mean about the village, but I'm hesitant to make it more linear. As it is, there are two ways to advance the quest other than the teleporter. You can either talk to people until at least one of them talks about the five key topics (bandits, gnolls, moathouse, cult, religion), or you can talk to a group of 6 key NPCs about anything (first dialog triggers). Either way will prompt you to go to the inn. Everything else is there to add depth and give people who really like exploring the dark corners of a quest stuff to do.
I think my solution will be to put a brief bit in the quest description, so that people know the side quests are entirely optional.

Other than the whole guards-in-the-floors thing and the other items you mentioned, was there anything that you thought needed to be added/fixed? In general I'm happy with the results, but I do have some budget left, especially in the inn and the village, with which to add additional stuff.

imaginaerum1

For anyone wondering, the publish problems are solved, and everything is working.
Please try my quest, and let me know what you think.

Thanks.

melinden

imaginaerum1 wrote: »

I do see what you mean about the village, but I'm hesitant to make it more linear. As it is, there are two ways to advance the quest other than the teleporter. You can either talk to people until at least one of them talks about the five key topics (bandits, gnolls, moathouse, cult, religion), or you can talk to a group of 6 key NPCs about anything (first dialog triggers). Either way will prompt you to go to the inn. Everything else is there to add depth and give people who really like exploring the dark corners of a quest stuff to do.

I think my solution will be to put a brief bit in the quest description, so that people know the side quests are entirely optional.

Well we knew who the villains were since we had the player who knew the original (as in, pretty much has it memorized). As for the list of things you mention (bandits, gnolls, moathouse, cult, religion) we had all of that from various conversations. So is there something keeping the trigger from tripping if different people are talking to the NPCs? We were rolling through the conversations and not seeing new material and we still could not trigger whatever it was.

imaginaerum1

melinden wrote: »

Well we knew who the villains were since we had the player who knew the original (as in, pretty much has it memorized). As for the list of things you mention (bandits, gnolls, moathouse, cult, religion) we had all of that from various conversations. So is there something keeping the trigger from tripping if different people are talking to the NPCs? We were rolling through the conversations and not seeing new material and we still could not trigger whatever it was.

The only thing left to do was for someone to get close enough to the central part of town for the triggers to be able to trigger. They're all located underneath the open area in front of the inn. You just need to get within combat activation range, which is a fair distance.

It's been working great in testing, so I know the triggers all work. If you were able to get all the way back to the bypass, one of you should have passed near enough to the inn to trigger them.

I was wondering about the different people thing as well, but the triggers are simply portcullises that disappear when key dialog prompts are reached. The only thing I can figure is that somehow the people talking managed to choose the dialog paths that don't touch on the key factors, and that my "safety valve" for when that happens (having spoken to five key people) won't trigger unless they're all on the same character.
Do you think this is possible? I've never tested with multiple people, so I'm wondering if the functionality doesn't work if it's all different people? If so, I can easily fix this by making it five different gates instead of one, with each gate having a different requirement instead of one gate with five requirements.

I know it works with only one person, as I've tested multiple combinations (one even by accident - I forgot that one of the NPCs triggered the Bandits topic, and next thing I knew I was being told it was getting dark and it was time to head to the inn). I think I'll change the gates for the safety valve just to be on the safe side.

Edit: I changed the gates for the "safety valve". It shouldn't matter now if you're in a group. Talking to Hroth, Jaroo Ashstaff, Brother Calmert, Brother Smyth, and Gremag - about anything - will advance the quest, if you don't get one of the working combinations from talking to other people.

imaginaerum1

Come on, folks, please try this one.
I need feedback.

If you're an old-school AD&D player with fond memories of the original module, I want to know what you think of the conversion to Neverwinter and the Foundry.
If you've never played AD&D, I want to know what you think of something that's entirely new to you.

Either way, I really want to know what you think!

So please, give it a try.

Thanks.

imaginaerum1

A few pics from the Village map...

melinden

Talk about perfect timing porting this over, Gruffy!

imaginaerum1

melinden wrote: »

Talk about perfect timing porting this over, Gruffy!

Yep.

If they give us some more details relating to the new release, like they have the last couple of times, I might just be able to make the rest of T1-4 (The Temple of Elemental Evil)... that is, if they don't do an official version.

reiwulf

I never played AD&D, so I never tried the module, but I enjoyed it a lot. I couldn't get all the events needed to unlock the inn, but still it was very fun, also the map is gorgeous, very well done overall

imaginaerum1

reiwulf wrote: »

I never played AD&D, so I never tried the module, but I enjoyed it a lot. I couldn't get all the events needed to unlock the inn, but still it was very fun, also the map is gorgeous, very well done overall

I added another NPC for one of the topics, so unlocking the inn without hitting the "safety valve" of the five main NPCs or the "shortcut" trigger by the quest entrance should be easier.

If you get a chance, please give it another try. I'd love to hear what you think of it overall.

torontodave

I had great fun with this mission.

No sparkly trails/No quest markers for where to go next.. How do I do this?!?!! It's awesome!

Really makes you explore the town and remember where you've been and who you've talked too.

The town is BEAUTIFUL. Lots of fence/paths. The mill guy was awesome. I'm sure many Foundry Authors can relate.

The dungeon was great, had hidden walls etc.

Some nice logic on the sidequests, great dialog work, a beautiful town, and great dungeonmaking skills.

imaginaerum1

torontodave wrote: »

...
No sparkly trails/No quest markers for where to go next.. How do I do this?!?!! It's awesome!
...

Glad you liked it.

How do you do the no sparkle/quest markers? Well, there are probably a few ways, but here's how I did it:

I wanted people to explore, and talk to NPCs until five key topics were covered, those of bandits, cult, gnolls, moathouse, and religion. For each of those topics, I gave three different NPCs dialog sufficiently relating to it to trigger.
I then set up five room combinations, buried underground (under the inn, actually, because it's centrally located and on a convenient hill), that are each dead-end rooms around a four-way intersection, forming a plus symbol.
In the center of each plus, I placed one mob of an easy melee-only five-mob encounter. In the outer rooms of each plus, I placed a few guards, enough to easily and quickly kill the encounter mob.

Each of the outer rooms is blocked off with a portcullis. Each plus relates to one of the five topics. When one of the triggering NPCs is talked to, and the appropriate dialog reached, the portcullis disappears, and the mob is slain. So, there is more than one way to complete each topic (each plus). In addition, I added a "safety valve". Because someone might manage to talk to the right NPCs, but miss all of the key dialog, the fourth portcullis in each plus vanishes when the five most important NPCs are all spoken to at all. So, when you talk to the fifth one of those five, no matter who else you've talked to, each of the five topics are completed.

There's another room, all by itself, with a single drow assassin in it (because it's the weakest 1-mob encounter I found... anyone have a better one?). When the encounter in the plus symbols is completed (all five mobs killed, meaning all five topics or the "safety valve" completed), some guards get dropped into that room and kill the drow. Alternately, if you use the shortcut shrine at the beginning of the quest to skip the village map, a different set of guards is dropped into that room and kills the drow. Either way, the drow dies.

The drow is the only actual Objective in the map, and it is set to no waypoint, so you get no sparkle path, and no blue circle. When the drow is killed, the next Objective is the map transition. It also removes the invisible wall in front of the inn that has been telling you to do some more investigating, allowing you to "enter the inn" and transition to the second map.

So, that's how I did it. But Foundry is all about finding workarounds to get it to do what you want, and I'm sure there are many other ways to do the same kind of thing.

Thanks again for playing. I'm hoping they add enough Mod 6 details to the Foundry, like they have with the last few mods, to allow me to do the rest of the Temple of Elemental Evil. We'll see what happens.

-- @Gruffydd