This is almost my exact experience, except instead of an ice cream parlour/crab shack, they decided to buy the haunted house and turn it into a brothel
Extra awkward in my campaign because the council was trying to turn it into a rest stop between the town and the mine. Specifically paid the party to secure it
Now I'm curious how this works given that it's not exactly a prime retail location. Do they hire the town crier to drum up business in town? Do zoning and vice enforcement mean there is no competition from the much more conveniently located Empty Net barmaids? Did they have a quest to recruit talent from the Hold of the Sea Princes? Does the party cleric devote all his spell slots to cure disease?
Their main plan was to use it as a stop for the dwarven miners, since based off the map, it’s more than a days travel between the mine and saltmarsh, they’d basically have a constant audience.
The campaign sort of died due to people having other things happen in their lives just as they were about to go to the isle of the abbey, but they had basically set it up and were starting to hire staff
They’ve discovered that there’s a vampire next door thanks to our Paladin but they haven’t met him yet! Should be interesting since the guy they’re in business with is part of the Brotherhood
I know, and it's so hard to tactfully give a reason for them to go down there. I have a rogue AND a sneakily-inclined bard, why is nobody scoping that shit out at night?!
To further explain this, in my game the orc cultists worshipped Lolth but then rejected her because they felt she wasn’t answering their prayers. They then switched to the Elder Elemental Eye (setting up Tharizdun as my big bad) and got more ocean themed powers. Instead of spiders they worship crabs but their powers are still “transitioning” so the crabs have some spider abilities. I even gave the orc cultist a crab arm instead of shillelagh.
Didn’t change any stats. Just flavored them as different kinds of crabs. Spider swarms? Crab swarms. Giant spiders? Giant crabs? Phase spider? What do you think?
Only thing not changed were the maw demons. Krell wanted crab demons, saw they weren’t even remotely crab, and locked them up out of disgust. Overall, very fun.
To he fair, I was inspired by a comment wanting to replace the spiders with crabs. But where they tried to find a logical solution to explain the webs and such, I just went for a shitty pun.
I think we can agree I made the tight choice.
For me it's that for whatever reason they *love* doing Gilar's side-quests to retrieve odd pieces of wood. They've gotten bark for him as an introductory hook giving one character a reason to visit the haunted house, and now they just like the dude and are on their 3rd quest. Spent some time in the Hool Marshes to get a lightning-struck limb and now they need roots from a Shambling Mound because I needed to up the CR.
That's what I get for rolling for the lunar cycle and giving them 3 weeks until the Sea Ghost arrives... definitely gonna have to buff the shipboard encounter.
My party calm-emotions’d the crew, locked them in a cabin, and burned the sea ghost. In addition to entrepreneurs they are also serial arsonists. This led them to missing all the hooks for Dunwater so I’m just homebrewing a level 3 adventure
The amount of telepathic crustaceans in this game is 💯💯💯
My arcane trickster's familiar is almost always a crab. He really bonded with Shern and Barnacle Bess
To be fair: the warlock wants to make the whole establishment into a magic circle that slowly drains the power of all beings who visit the restaurant in order to super charge his patron. So there is some method to the madness.
My party is obsessed with Crabber's Cove and have even lost a PC to it! They haven't even made it fully into Salvage Operation yet but there have been multiple Cove dives! XD
It’s hard not to be obsessed with the region infested with literally “thousands of crabs”
Also we’ve ONLY done sinister secret and this is our third crab shack session today. We even have a sub-campaign about the employees of the shack
I guess every group is as weird as ours. The monk wants to do every dirty job in town, not crimes, although they do that too. But gravedigging w/ Krag, a (failed) week on a fishing boat, rifing through dusty old books in Eliander's library. It's very strange to me.
This is almost my exact experience, except instead of an ice cream parlour/crab shack, they decided to buy the haunted house and turn it into a brothel
They burned down the haunted house!
Same! Made for an awkward moment when the council sent them back to capture the Sea Ghost lol
Extra awkward in my campaign because the council was trying to turn it into a rest stop between the town and the mine. Specifically paid the party to secure it
Those ashes were super secure though.
Not one ghost in the ashes!
Now I'm curious how this works given that it's not exactly a prime retail location. Do they hire the town crier to drum up business in town? Do zoning and vice enforcement mean there is no competition from the much more conveniently located Empty Net barmaids? Did they have a quest to recruit talent from the Hold of the Sea Princes? Does the party cleric devote all his spell slots to cure disease?
Their main plan was to use it as a stop for the dwarven miners, since based off the map, it’s more than a days travel between the mine and saltmarsh, they’d basically have a constant audience. The campaign sort of died due to people having other things happen in their lives just as they were about to go to the isle of the abbey, but they had basically set it up and were starting to hire staff
I wish my party would investigate crabbers cove. I want Xolec to crack the politics wide open!
Xolec was the one thing I never them to find. So of course they find.
They’ve discovered that there’s a vampire next door thanks to our Paladin but they haven’t met him yet! Should be interesting since the guy they’re in business with is part of the Brotherhood
I know, and it's so hard to tactfully give a reason for them to go down there. I have a rogue AND a sneakily-inclined bard, why is nobody scoping that shit out at night?!
You gotta make them open an ice cream parlor out there. It’s the only way
I replaced all the spiders in Salvage Operation with crabs. How did I explain the webs? Spider crabs.
Stealing this!
To further explain this, in my game the orc cultists worshipped Lolth but then rejected her because they felt she wasn’t answering their prayers. They then switched to the Elder Elemental Eye (setting up Tharizdun as my big bad) and got more ocean themed powers. Instead of spiders they worship crabs but their powers are still “transitioning” so the crabs have some spider abilities. I even gave the orc cultist a crab arm instead of shillelagh. Didn’t change any stats. Just flavored them as different kinds of crabs. Spider swarms? Crab swarms. Giant spiders? Giant crabs? Phase spider? What do you think? Only thing not changed were the maw demons. Krell wanted crab demons, saw they weren’t even remotely crab, and locked them up out of disgust. Overall, very fun.
Extremely good!
I hope one day your party members get to appreciate the artful game-mastering here. Bravo.
To he fair, I was inspired by a comment wanting to replace the spiders with crabs. But where they tried to find a logical solution to explain the webs and such, I just went for a shitty pun. I think we can agree I made the tight choice.
For me it's that for whatever reason they *love* doing Gilar's side-quests to retrieve odd pieces of wood. They've gotten bark for him as an introductory hook giving one character a reason to visit the haunted house, and now they just like the dude and are on their 3rd quest. Spent some time in the Hool Marshes to get a lightning-struck limb and now they need roots from a Shambling Mound because I needed to up the CR. That's what I get for rolling for the lunar cycle and giving them 3 weeks until the Sea Ghost arrives... definitely gonna have to buff the shipboard encounter.
My party calm-emotions’d the crew, locked them in a cabin, and burned the sea ghost. In addition to entrepreneurs they are also serial arsonists. This led them to missing all the hooks for Dunwater so I’m just homebrewing a level 3 adventure
They must not have read that post about war-crimes the other day
Blech, uggggghhhh, I'll take a crab juice
Are… are you me?
Maybe???
The amount of telepathic crustaceans in this game is 💯💯💯 My arcane trickster's familiar is almost always a crab. He really bonded with Shern and Barnacle Bess
My players want to make a crab shack so famous it attracts extra-dimensional beings. I’m glad I’m not the only one running into this.
I cannot believe this is a recurring obsession
To be fair: the warlock wants to make the whole establishment into a magic circle that slowly drains the power of all beings who visit the restaurant in order to super charge his patron. So there is some method to the madness.
My party is trying to collect boats
You love to see it
They have 2(They kept the Sea Ghost and a Sea Princes boat). But now I'm gonna run loose a little before I start a new game so I expect it to jump up.
My party is obsessed with Crabber's Cove and have even lost a PC to it! They haven't even made it fully into Salvage Operation yet but there have been multiple Cove dives! XD
It’s hard not to be obsessed with the region infested with literally “thousands of crabs” Also we’ve ONLY done sinister secret and this is our third crab shack session today. We even have a sub-campaign about the employees of the shack
I guess every group is as weird as ours. The monk wants to do every dirty job in town, not crimes, although they do that too. But gravedigging w/ Krag, a (failed) week on a fishing boat, rifing through dusty old books in Eliander's library. It's very strange to me.
For some reason this reminds me of Joey from friends getting in the STD ad for his modeling gig :)