What is your favorite Dark Banana Adventure "so far"?

[Crusader]

What is your favorite Dark Banana Adventure "so far"?

[Makhaira]

The Ogres is the only one I've been part of for its entirety. I started playing at the tail end of Dust/Stars.

So I went with Ogres :) in spite of my craptastically useless rolling today.

[Crusader]

Well I voted for all so that the results show up once I go to the thread ;)

[Glen Fiddich]

I've been giving it a good think over the morning, and I'm torn between #2 and #3. I voted for #3 in the end, but I figured I'd leave some feedback on all three that I was involved in, just in case it's helpful. :)

#2 - I liked the broad spectrum of things we got to do at the Tournament. There was a really good balance of fighting and skills; and because some of that fighting was staged in the arena while other parts were impromptu ambushes in alleys and brawls at sports matches, it kept things fresh and interesting. We did split the party every now and again: but it was mostly for short, exciting scenes, like Dasquian's rooftop rapist escape, or the exploding from both ends adventure; and we always met up again straight after and did some adventuring as a group too. By the end of it, it felt like it wasn't our luck at combat rolls and skill rolls that saved the day: it was us as players unravelling all the mystery and intrigue. By the end of it, our participation in thwarting a coup made it feel like we'd done something important as far as the kingdom was concerned.

#3 - Dust & Stars on the other hand felt like a more classic RPG adventure. We were in foreign lands on a clear quest; we spent most of the time travelling as a group and working together. It also gave us a lot more opportunity to derail your DM plans with our unorthodox Wile E Coyote tactics, pick-pocketing the rare artefact and then bravely running away, and all that jazz. Unlike the Tournament, which culminated in the attack on the wine cellar against a group of "normal" people, Dust & Stars gave us a final "boss fight" against wizards and demons; and there were plenty of other noteworthy fights along the way. I voted for this one in the poll in the end because for me it felt the most inclusive: everyone had a part to play for most of the campaign.

#4 - Ogres built on some of the best bits of #2 and #3. Like the Tournament, it felt like we were doing something politically important: I also liked the way that our actions at the Tournament actually counted for something, with people remembering who we were and placing more trust in us as a result of that. Like Martina said, it had a very Tolkien vibe: we were in a position where our little Fellowship of adventurers had the fate of the known world in it's hands, and that was pretty cool. It also captured some of the adventure quality of Dust & Stars: the Valley of the Ogre Spoon, the Traitors of Wehrheim, Treasure Island, the Battle of the Flaming Sheep... there were a whole load of adventures within an adventure. I think the only problem was that we weren't all involved in all of them, like we talked about in the hangout yesterday.

[Crusader]

I totaly agree with you on #4 - The group split up earlier than expected after the first contact with the ogres. So I had to come up things to do on the way.
A I had to introduce Pomme De Fries earlier
B Add an Allegiance Problem in Wehrheim as a sidequest

The anticipated plotline would have been:
A the group destroys(Rigging it to become a deathtrap was never intended) the Ogre Spoon together in a black Ops fashion
B The Group travels back to Wehrheim and meet Pomme de Fries and the Messenger of the Emperor at the harbor
C They defend the Ferry House together and then they have to split up once they realize that vital information was lost

As you can see a lot less splitting up although in retrospective the splitting up makes for a stronger narrative since the commando group knows what is at stake at the fortification in the valley. If the group had not split up there would have been no logical way to portray those events for the group.

A suggestion on a DM forum was to play both story lines with two sets of heroes one playthrough doing the siege and one doing the hunt but that would take away a lot of the personal experience in my opinion since it would not be your characters.
On the other hand it would have been easier for me since I would not have had to establish two timelines that I always have to synch.

I found the ending a little bit anti climating due to two obvious reasons:
First you talked yourself out of fighting the Half-Elven servants. While I always prefer a non violent approach. The fight would have been a mirror match but since Saidra was not here the Elves would have outnumbered you by one person so maybe this was better approach. Sure I could have let you fight against Galotta but according to the source book he needs to blow up in his tower
Then the Twentyggedon happened at the fortification. I expected Dee to not fall off her horse. So the plan was to let her ride at the tip of the speer and end up at the wall of ogres blocking her way. She should have then joined Kurth fighting the Ogre Chieftain and saving the emperor.
Eventually it was too late to really play out the fighting on the wall that was about to fall any second if not the intervention of the other team came just in time.
So chapter 4 got derailed quite a lot and a lot of dice throws were responsible for that. It was the total opposite of the Dust and the Stars where I had an entire Great Dragon on standby for the finaly but that ending never got desperate enough so that I would have to use it as a Deux Ex Machina. Infact Teclador only burned away Liscoms remaining 6HP... in other words the Dragon was never required in the end.

[Kurth Halx]

Not to #4's fault, but #2 and #3 were crazy amounts of fun with a lot of varied things going on. I've enjoyed all of the stuff since the tournament though, where it felt we finally were able to get things in high gear and tell our group's story.

[Dasquian the Elf]

I voted for #2 and #3 mostly for reasons that have already been mentioned.

I'm not against splitting the party up, but I think that I prefer splitting for short periods of time, as opposed to dividing the party for big chunks of the adventure.