Hello all, I’m relatively new to DMing, and I’m about to run the free sample of Mad Mage for a group. I have two questions I’m hoping someone would help me with. 1. There is tons of info not printed in the “read this to PCs” boxes. A lot of it seems pertinent to the story—like the background info on the under mountain. Should my players get this info outright? How do you personally decide what to share if it’s not explicitly noted to do so? 2.Mad Mage mentions the tension between the Undertakers and the Xanathar Guild but then gives no direction on how to present this conflict to the players. How has anyone else handled this? Am I missing something? I’m playing the free preview of lvl 1 on roll20 so maybe it comes up later. But they present it in the setup(another thing I don’t know whether to share with the PCs or not) and then not another word during the lvl 1 chapter. Is it just up to the DM to find a way to work it in? I’m just worried I’m gonna mess up the continuity of something big later if I do the wrong thing. Thanks!
Share what you think the party would know about Undermountain in your world, even if it's just rumors and not true. What the party I ran it for knew and discovered is probably completely different from what another DMs party found.
There's a few encounters later on with some of the Undertakers and some of Xanathar's gang. IIRC it's not till level 2 (I could be wrong, I haven't ran that section in over a year and a half).
There's a lot to Mad Mage, with almost every level having it's own sort of story and subplot as well as connecting to the overarching "FInd Halaster and defeat him." You may just have to wing it and completely make the rest of the levels your own if you don't have the full adventure.
Somewhat background dependent, but I like giving each of my players some lore at the beginning of an adventure if possible. It helps during the first couple sessions when the players are talking between themselves and encourages roleplay. That way is not you giving the info as general knowledge, but a specific PC sharing what they know to the party. As I said, it kind of depends on the PC's background, but can also be related to skills. High history skill, arcana, etc can help determine who gets what nugget of lore to share.
Very true, but there's as much disinformation about Undermountain as there is information. In the module itself are actual cards with different bits of lore the PCs discover as they explore.
Adventurers pay to go down the well in the Yawning Portal. Not everyone comes back. A lot of those that don't come back don't talk about it, and Halaster is constantly rearranging and changing the levels and the layout, so any information the players know "for sure" may have been accurate six months or even six days ago, but it could have changed multiple times since then.
To me learning those items that aren't just handed to the PC's is part of the role playing aspect of the game. They're interacting with the NPC's, investigating the world, and role playing in order to discover those things that aren't given to them automatically. It's one of the things that makes the game more fun than a video game.
I love @Sigvard_Vigrid's suggestion about giving each PC different information! I'm definitely going to use that in my games that I run!
Hello all, I’m relatively new to DMing, and I’m about to run the free sample of Mad Mage for a group. I have two questions I’m hoping someone would help me with. 1. There is tons of info not printed in the “read this to PCs” boxes. A lot of it seems pertinent to the story—like the background info on the under mountain. Should my players get this info outright? How do you personally decide what to share if it’s not explicitly noted to do so? 2.Mad Mage mentions the tension between the Undertakers and the Xanathar Guild but then gives no direction on how to present this conflict to the players. How has anyone else handled this? Am I missing something? I’m playing the free preview of lvl 1 on roll20 so maybe it comes up later. But they present it in the setup(another thing I don’t know whether to share with the PCs or not) and then not another word during the lvl 1 chapter. Is it just up to the DM to find a way to work it in? I’m just worried I’m gonna mess up the continuity of something big later if I do the wrong thing. Thanks!
Share what you think the party would know about Undermountain in your world, even if it's just rumors and not true. What the party I ran it for knew and discovered is probably completely different from what another DMs party found.
There's a few encounters later on with some of the Undertakers and some of Xanathar's gang. IIRC it's not till level 2 (I could be wrong, I haven't ran that section in over a year and a half).
There's a lot to Mad Mage, with almost every level having it's own sort of story and subplot as well as connecting to the overarching "FInd Halaster and defeat him." You may just have to wing it and completely make the rest of the levels your own if you don't have the full adventure.
Somewhat background dependent, but I like giving each of my players some lore at the beginning of an adventure if possible. It helps during the first couple sessions when the players are talking between themselves and encourages roleplay. That way is not you giving the info as general knowledge, but a specific PC sharing what they know to the party. As I said, it kind of depends on the PC's background, but can also be related to skills. High history skill, arcana, etc can help determine who gets what nugget of lore to share.
Very true, but there's as much disinformation about Undermountain as there is information. In the module itself are actual cards with different bits of lore the PCs discover as they explore.
Adventurers pay to go down the well in the Yawning Portal. Not everyone comes back. A lot of those that don't come back don't talk about it, and Halaster is constantly rearranging and changing the levels and the layout, so any information the players know "for sure" may have been accurate six months or even six days ago, but it could have changed multiple times since then.
To me learning those items that aren't just handed to the PC's is part of the role playing aspect of the game. They're interacting with the NPC's, investigating the world, and role playing in order to discover those things that aren't given to them automatically. It's one of the things that makes the game more fun than a video game.
I love @Sigvard_Vigrid's suggestion about giving each PC different information! I'm definitely going to use that in my games that I run!
Professional computer geek
Thank you! That all helps. If lvl 1 goes well, I’ll likely spring for the whole module.