[Savage Worlds Shaintar] Hacking Modules

The Monday face-to-face group I play in continued playing Savage Worlds using the Shaintar setting.

Since the PCs are pretty traditional fantasy types, I decided to dig through some of my D&D modules for some ideas to mine.  I decided to tweak the Green Ronin module titled Death in Freeport.  You see, I learned how to GM by taking modules and Dungeon magazine adventures and stringing them together into coherent stories.  As I mentioned on twitter (I’m orklord, follow me for infrequent posts of varying relevance! ), I have become rather good at taking a module and making it fun for the group to play.

Here’s what I did.

Module Details (the kinda boring stuff)

• Before the game, I read through the module, which was based in a port city (hence the name Freeport) while the city I was using was landlocked with a river nearby.  I hacked out the plot points dealing with the creation of a lighthouse and instead renamed the Harbormaster into the Master of Public Works.
• The first scene of the module is a fight on the docks where some ruffians try to shanghai the player characters.  This fight is supposed to impress the NPC who hires the party to participate in the mystery.  I removed the fight and had the NPC approach the party directly because they are “known”.
• One handout had to be altered to remove reference to Freeport.
• The “seaworthy” orc pirate ship was scaled back into a river raider (I considered making the orcs into a caravan, but decided I like the map of the ship)
• I read through each piece of boxed text (that’s the scripted exposition pieces that NPCs say) and highlighted the important parts so I could easily paraphrase it in conversation with the party

Tailoring (the part that gets juicy)
Tailoring is where I make the adventure MEAN SOMETHING to the players.  Notice, I don’t say the player characters, I’m talking about the players.  This is where I add in or flesh out pieces of story that hit upon the player’s desires.

• One player is playing a fey (a winged elf named Leanan).  Whenever the party encourntered an NPC and she didn’t state her PC was wearing a cloak or cape, that NPC would comment on her wings or make comment about her race, asking if she was part of an aerie or would offer her the nicest drinks.  It was subtle, but this tipped to the player, “Your character is rare and special” which was exactly what she wanted.  I also knew that the player has a fondness for children, so when I needed to move them along to the next plot point, a helpful guide turned out to be a street urchin who needed some coin.
• Two players (a dating couple) decided to make orcs together (who are generally civilized races in this setting) and decided to make them as a married couple.  When the party went to the orc pirate ship to question the captain, the first mate made moves on the female PC (Koraa) and questioned the strength of the male PC (Kresh).  The threat to their relationship felt real enough to them and it did spark the fight I knew the player of Kresh was itching for.
• The fourth player was playing a sullen dwarf named Scar.  In one scene, the party went to talk to a dignitary named Milos who worked for the library/temple of the god of knowledge.  I decided that the dignitary knew Scar’s backstory, and during conversation, he picked up on Scar’s accent and his silver eye.  Milos started asking him questions about the minehome and clan Scar came from and if he ever discovered why everyone died of a mysterious plague and why he survived.  This was touchy backstory stuff that the player had yet to mention in play, so it was a revelation to the players and it hit the guy playing Scar right in the nose.  This was the strongest scene of the night and it was born out of the module.  It simply made sense to me that one who sought knowledge would, you know, know things.

If you see the trend above, I take what the players set up as flags and use what is already in the module to hit them.  I point the plots at the players specifically.  It isn’t rocket sciene, but it takes an awareness of the players’ interests, the player characters’ flags, skills and abilities, and most importantly, the personalities of the major NPCs and driving forces in the module itself as well as the edges of the story where you can drop in elements that appeal to the players.

I asked one of the players afterward pointedly about the boxed text that I had a couple NPCs speaking.  I literally read (with shifts in tone and effort given to act it a bit) the text to them as a test.  The player said he had no problems with the information because the general outline of the module was a mystery.  A mystery needs clues, clues make sense if they aren’t extemporaneous.

So now we come to the final point, which is really the first point to know.  Pick the right module.  Does the intent of the module fit the tendencies of the players?  I would never EVER run them on a dungeon crawl and expect half of the playgroup to have fun because I know they like interacting with characters more than beating them up.

So that’s a brief on how I make modules fun.  How do you do it?  If you avoid them like the plague, why?  I’m quite interested in this, so hit me up on the comments section.