Vidynn wrote:thanks to both of you for your answers. I read thru both the setting and the adventure now. I really love the Last Street-setting - I wish it would have been used more for Dreams of Glory, interconnecting setting-ideas and the adventure proper in more ways than "just" the book and bookstore.
I'm not sure what you mean here, since if the adventure is ran as written, it's pretty much assumed that the characters are affiliated with the university and the Last Street community. If they aren't, they will likely be drawn, or directed there, in short order. The setting is used as much as the player characters interact with it.
Also, no offense Mr. Yoho, it seems a little dull with dream-battle after dream-battle.
No offense taken, since it's one of my earliest writings and does have its flaws. Mostly that it's not, as some people have asked for, a scripted adventure to run. As designed, the dream battles are only half of the adventure. The other half is what the characters do during the day. Like I said, it's not a completely scripted adventure. It's a fleshed adventure outline. I don't play those, and this isn't written as one. From the standpoint of the design, it's up to the GM and the players to fill in the events of the daylight hours.
The adventure can be ran as the most important plot point, with the daylight hours investigating and tracking down research on the book. Or it can be a hell of a nuisance while they are dealing with other in-campaign issues. I mean, if some of the characters are students or faculty, they still have to go to class that day, suffering from the fatigue of living through the Battle of Gettysburg the night before. Or it could be sprung on them by one of their enemies as a distraction, allowing some nefarious plot to slip by the player characters while they are concentrating on the dreams and the book.
And Im not sure the presumption that more than one or two characters in a group are drawn into the book (the dreams) might not work for my group, so it could be a session were some groupmembers are involved in the action and others are not, so I gotta give the rest of the group something to do.
Who gets drawn into the book is up to the Game Master. Unless someone has some sort of specific rule or plot-immunity to being supernaturally summoned by a friend's subconscious mind to help with this physically, mentally and emotionally crippling ordeal of fighting some of history's bloodiest battles, then I would consider anyone fair game. But if there are characters who aren't going to be part of the action, that doesn't mean they have to be excluded from the plot.
Also, design-wise, is there an alternative route other than fighting and surviving (in) the dreams?
Page 26, Closing the Book, #2) The Protection of the Phoenix.
I also think that the detective shouldnt really know about the connection between certain recent incidents and the book - why would it, if that were the case, be "back" at the bookstore anyway?
That depends on how you use the introductory story; if at all. It's not necessarily "part" of the actual adventure canon. It can be used as a tone piece to set the stage for the GM, or it can be a prelude to the adventure that the characters can investigate and provide clues.
As to why it's back at the bookstore, it's a supernatural item with a semi-mind of its own whose express purpose is to have as many people read it and get trapped by its spell as possible. I all but explicitly state that the book "...moves about of its own free will" on page 26 under Closing the Book.
Mr. Yoho, did you develop more on the events in the future leading to the book being back in the 1920s/1930s? Cause thats an intriguing idea.
I'm sure I did, but they're buried somewhere in my old handwritten game notes, or on a floppy, both of which may or may not still be around.
But I am totally thrilled that you like the setting.
