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Our time with Dragon Heist is drawing to a close. I have a few more Addendums I want to explore, and there are a number of Running the Campaign columns based on my actual play that I think are likely to provide useful insight and cool ideas. But the core of the Alexandrian Remix is complete.

When I wrote my original review of Dragon Heist in November last year, I did not anticipate that the campaign would become the central focus point of the Alexandrian for the next several months.

Even when I started writing the Alexandrian Remix of the campaign a few weeks later, I wasn’t expecting to still be writing about it in February. My rough plan was that it would run through December and wrap up. What happened?

One of the major shifts was the decision to do full adversary roster breakdowns for each heist in the campaign. This was basically essential for me actually running the campaign, and it turned out to be a great opportunity to introduce a wide swath of new GMs to these really powerful techniques. But it was also the seed which saw my original intention of more-or-less briefly saying, “Use this lair to run a heist!” grow into a much more expansive concept of breaking down the entire heist structure and showing how each lair could be fully adapted to that structure.

The Faction Outposts also outgrew their original scope. My plan had been to highlight how material from the chase sequence in Chapter 3 of the book could be repurposed, and my expectation had been that I could basically say, “Use the Autumn Version of this location.” In order to balance the number of outposts between each faction, however, I ended up adding several all-original locations to the campaign. The process of making the clue-progression of the campaign more robust also meant including significantly more material with each outpost.

For something that stuck much closer to the original spec, look at the Faction Response Teams: The Faction Outposts were supposed to look more like that, with one post for the outposts and one post for the response teams. (Although the response teams actually expanded, too, as I realized that response teams should be included for factions beyond the four villains.)

In the end, a feature that I had originally thought would be perhaps 10,000 words ended up being more than 55,000 words. Seeing this, some have suggested that my early comments that the Remix primarily represents what the campaign could have been and arguably should have been was in error. (That clearly adding all of this new material would have considerably expanded the size of the book.) I don’t think this is accurate; reshaping material (and explaining the design choices I was making) is often more costly in terms of word count.

I primarily mention this length, however, to explain why this final installment of the Remix is necessary.

You see, when the original intention was a fairly short series of a little over half a dozen posts, I decided that the best structural organization was design-oriented:

Discuss general principles (how the factions are organized and the new, heist-oriented structure of the campaign)

Introduce adversary rosters and a proto-heist (Gralhund Villa)

The path from Gralhund Villa to the Eye Heists (Faction Outposts & Response Teams)

The Eye Heists (the heist structure and the four villain lairs)

Making the Three Clue Rule and node-based scenario design of the campaign more robust (revised revelation lists tying all of the material together)

Most of these, with the exception of the Eye Heists themselves, were visualized as being one post. In actual practice, only one of them – Gralhund Villa – actually achieved that goal, and the tail end of the series also saw feature creep (adding full remixes of both Finding Floon and the Nimblewright Investigation, plus reference timelines and faction reports).

As the length increased, the original intention became obfuscated. The material had also become more specific than originally intended, encouraging GMs to simply pick up the Alexandrian Remix and run it… except the material wasn’t actually organized for doing that. It was organized as a design discussion.

All of this created a lot of confusion and frustration, particularly as the series began attracting new readers who weren’t necessarily familiar with the Alexandrian or the discussions out of which the Remix had arisen.

RUN-TIME ORGANIZATION



As I’ve discussed these issues with people, there has been some confusion about what the distinction is between a design-oriented structure of the material and a run-time organization of the material.

Here’s what the final organization of the Remix series here at the Alexandrian looked like:

Part 1: The Villains

Part 1B: Other Factions

Part 1C: Player Character Factions

Part 2: Gralhund Villa

Part 3: Faction Outposts

Part 3B: More Faction Outposts

Part 3C: Response Teams

Part 3D: Other Response Teams

Part 4: The Eyes of the Stone

Part 4B: Bregan D’Aerthe – Sea Maidens Faire

Part 4C: Cassalanter Villa

Part 4D: Xanathar’s Lair

Part 4E: Zhentarim – Kolat Towers

Part 5: Clues and Timelines

Part 5B: Finding Floon

Part 5C: The Nimblewright Investigation

Part 5D: Backtracking Dalakhar & Kalain

Part 5E: Outpost and Lair Revelation List

Part 6: Golorr Artifacts

Part 6B: The Brandath Crypts

Part 6C: The Vault

Part 6D: Faction Reports (Gralhund/Jarlaxle)

Part 6E: Faction Reports (Cassalanter)

Part 6F: Faction Reports (Xanathar/Zhentarim)

Part 7: How the Remix Works

(To aid with navigation, this table of contents has also been added to the first post of the series now that it’s wrapping up.)

As noted, this was a design-oriented structure: I was grouping the material, and discussing the material, by the method of design. For example, the revision of the Floon investigation came almost last because it was part of the discussion about how to structure revelation lists in investigations throughout the campaign.

From a run-time perspective, of course, this makes no sense: The Floon investigation should come first because it’s the first thing that happens in the campaign, and it shouldn’t be grouped with the Nimblewright Investigation because they have virtually nothing to do with each other. So when I actually sat down to run the campaign, this was how I organized the material:

0.0 Campaign Overview

1.0 Finding Floon

2.0 Trollskull

3.0 Nimblewright Investigation

3.1 Gralhund Villa

4.1 Faction Response Teams

4.2 Faction Outposts

5.0 Heist Overview

5.1 Bregan D’Aerthe – Sea Maidens Faire

5.2 Cassalanter Estate

5.3 Xanathar’s Lair

5.4 Zhentarim – Kolat Towers

6.0 Brandath Crypts

6.1 The Vault

The difference is stark, and I suspect abundantly clear to anyone who has been reading the Alexandrian Remix.

(Patrons of the Alexandrian can find my own run-time files on Patreon as a patron-exclusive example of this.)

It should be noted that I largely don’t regret presenting the Alexandrian Remix in the way that I did: A design-oriented approach was valuable and allowed the presentation of material that would not have been possible in a run-time presentation. A run-time presentation, by its very nature, is stripped down and utilitarian, and I believe there was value in actually discussing and exploring the design choices I was making in a step-by-step fashion.

But if you’re actually looking to run the Alexandrian Remix (which I heartily recommend), you’d probably benefit from ripping it apart and putting it back together in a run-time organization. In many ways, this was always my intention: That GMs would take the Remix and then put in the work to finalize it into their own campaign.

HOW THE REMIX WORKS



To that end, allow me to wrap things up with a concise summary of the structure of the Dragon Heist campaign.

If you’re running Dragon Heist as it was published, the structure of the campaign looks like this:

This structure is lightly accented with contrapuntal Faction Missions unrelated to the core structure of the campaign, although the application of these missions is limited because the Nimblewright Investigation, Gralhund Villa, and subsequent chase sequence are likely compressed into a very limited span of time (probably 24-72 hours at most), which means that faction missions will largely occur between Finding Floon and the fireball explosion. (And, of course, the lairs are completely absent.)

If you’re using the Alexandrian Remix, on the other hand, then the macro-structure looks like this:

(click for larger version)

This macro-structure is accompanied by two strong contrapuntal elements: The Faction Missions and the Faction Response Teams. What is essentially the expansion of Act III of the campaign (the investigations culminating in the Eye Heists) also allows these contrapuntal elements to be more thoroughly interwoven with the core structure of the campaign. In other words, the PCs will be called upon to complete faction missions while continuing their ongoing investigation into Neverember’s Enigma, thus complicating the action and possibly requiring them to make some tough choices.

(It can also be argued that the event timeline of the Fleetswake & Waukeentide festivals also constitutes a third weak contrapuntal element.)

It should be noted that the distribution of clues throughout the Alexandrian Remix will belie the straight, parallel lines of investigation implied by the diagram above. For example, here’s what a tiny selection of possible investigatory paths looks like in detail:

But in terms of actually running the campaign, it’s the macro-structure you need to pay attention to: The PCs investigate a villainous faction. You point them at an outpost. The outpost will contain clues that point them to a lair. Performing a heist at the lair will get them the Eye in the lair. Repeat to obtain the other Eyes.

If the players are struggling, use one of the proactive elements of the campaign (their faction allies or the faction response teams) to dump a lead in their lap.

Beyond that, just follow the players’ lead and everything else will take care of itself.

A SIMPLE CHECKLIST



A number of GMs — particularly new GMs — have told me that the ideas of the Remix excite them, but they feel overwhelmed by its complexity. In practice, however, the Remix can all be boiled down into a very simple structure:

1. Are the PCs looking for a lead to one of the Eyes? If yes, pick a Faction Outpost and point them at it.

2. Did the PCs just piss off one of the Factions? If yes, pick a Faction Response Team and have them target the PCs.

3. Are the PCs floundering and don’t know what to do next? If yes, pick a Faction Response Team and have them target the PCs. (If you’re not sure how they might target the PCs, just have them show up and try to kill them.)

Repeat until the campaign is done.

A GUIDED TOUR



With all of that in mind, let me just briefly walk you through the design-oriented posts on the website from a run-oriented perspective:

FIRST: “Finding Floon” is the beginning of the campaign. The revised “Finding Floon” investigation is Part 5B. An enhanced opening scene for the campaign is presented in Addendum: First Impressions.

SECOND: The PCs are rewarded with Trollskull Manor and are recruited into one or more factions. Spend some time allowing them to fix up their new home/business and run perhaps 1-3 faction missions. This is discussed briefly in Part 1C .

THIRD: The explosion happens. The Nimblewright Investigation which follows is covered in Part 5C and Part 5D.

FOURTH: The investigation leads them to Gralhund Villa. This scenario is given an adversary roster and other tweaks in Part 2.

FIFTH: After Gralhund Villa the PCs will either have the Stone of Golorr and need to find the Eyes (leading to the Eye Heists), or one of the factions will have obtained the Stone of Golorr and the PCs will need to find that (as an “Eye” Heist) and find the Eyes.

This is the core investigation loop: Point them at Faction Outposts (Part 3 and Part 3B) which will lead them to the Faction Lairs (Part 4).

SIXTH: With the Stone reconstituted, the PCs will be able to go to the Brandath Crypts (Part 6B) and access the Vault (Part 6C).

PROACTIVE ELEMENTS: In addition to the faction missions from the Dragon Heist book, use the Faction Response Teams (Part 3C and Part 3D) to actively bring the Grand Game to the PCs.

REFERENCE:

A FOND FAREWELL



And so we come to the end of the Alexandrian Remix of Dragon Heist.

If the Remix has brought you to the Alexandrian for the first time, I hope you’ll stick around. Not only for more Dragon Heist material (as I mentioned above, there are several addendums and Running the Campaign columns that are likely to still appear over the next few weeks), but for all the other cool stuff we do here. If you haven’t checked out Gamemastery 101, it’s a great place to take a deep dive into a lot of the material that underlies the work I’ve been doing on Dragon Heist.

If you liked what I did with this remix, you can check out a very different one with the Alexandrian Remix of Eternal Lies for the Trail of Cthulhu RPG. The Eternal Lies remix is much less about fixing the structrure of the campaign and much more about enhancing it – adding 300 + props, 150+ diorama elements, 450+ pages and 130,000+ words (including two completely new scenarios) to an already amazing campaign by Will Hindmarch, Jeff Tidball, and Jeremy Keller.

As you get your Dragon Heist remix campaigns to the table, I hope you’ll also come back here and share your own stories, tips, and modifications. Not only because I love hearing stories like that, but because I’m a big believer in GMs sharing their lore. It benefits the community and it encourages you to think deeply about your own campaigns, which is the first step towards improving your craft as a Game Master.

Good gaming, my friends!

Addendum: First Impressions

Addendum: The Twin Parades

Addendum: Fancy Props

Addendum: Other Collaborators

Addendum: A Night in Trollskull Manor

Addendum: The Dragon of Dragon Heist

Running the Campaign: A Party at Shipwrights’ House

Running the Campaign: The Manshoon Heists

Dragon Heist: The Final Session