So, I am running Ghosts of Saltmarsh for my D&D group. They just finished the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh in our last session, but during that session I made a pretty big mistake. On the Sea Ghost, there are 3 Lizardfolk who are buying weapons from the smugglers to bring back to their clan, which is preparing for war. The characters didn't kill the Lizardfolk and instead chose to talk with them. I let the players learn that the Lizardfolk are preparing for a war with the Sahuagin.
However, reading through Danger at Dunwater, I learned that I wasn't supposed to do that. Going into the next adventure, the characters are supposed to think the Lizardfolk could be getting ready to attack Saltmarsh. Now that the cat's out of the bag, I'm not sure what I should do. The whole next adventure is centered around the characters slowly discovering what the Lizardfolk are actually up to. What can I do to patch up my mistake and still run Danger at Dunwater the way it's supposed to be run?
So, I am running Ghosts of Saltmarsh for my D&D group. They just finished the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh in our last session, but during that session I made a pretty big mistake. On the Sea Ghost, there are 3 Lizardfolk who are buying weapons from the smugglers to bring back to their clan, which is preparing for war. The characters didn't kill the Lizardfolk and instead chose to talk with them. I let the players learn that the Lizardfolk are preparing for a war with the Sahuagin.
However, reading through Danger at Dunwater, I learned that I wasn't supposed to do that. Going into the next adventure, the characters are supposed to think the Lizardfolk could be getting ready to attack Saltmarsh. Now that the cat's out of the bag, I'm not sure what I should do. The whole next adventure is centered around the characters slowly discovering what the Lizardfolk are actually up to. What can I do to patch up my mistake and still run Danger at Dunwater the way it's supposed to be run?
I haven't read or played this module, but generically speaking, you can lead your PCs to believe the Lizardfolk in question may have lied to them. Provide evidence, even if it's just eyewitness testimony, that the Sahuagin claim was a ruse, because of course you don't casually reveal your war plans to random strangers before you enact said plans. For example, you could have a Lizardfolk be arrested for scouting out the town and get the party involved in that. Have it be a scout who truly believes in the cause, so they'll die before confessing the truth, and have all of the evidence point to the scouting mission be for an invasion of the town. I'm sure you can come up with a reason for the scout to have been in town that wasn't actually spying on humans.
Time to start thinking on your feet. I'll preface this with the fact that I haven't played/dm'd GoS. Maybe lead them on the other way and make it seem like the Lizardfolk smuggler lied and they really are gearing up to take Saltmarsh as a staging point for their campaign against the Sahuagin. The first smuggler's info was bad too right? Or maybe they caught the Lizardfolk smuggler and now need to change plans to keep their assault secret. Now it's up to the adventurers to parlay with the Lizardfolk so they can bring them to the table for the next act.
Heya! I ran about 25 10-hour sessions for ghosts of saltmarsh (added quite a bit of extra stuff) and this little mishap should be no problem whatsoever.
Have them report back to the Saltmarsh council - make sure that they find this "Sahuagin story" highly unlikely - since there has been no high amount of Sahuagin activity around the area in years. Furthermore (I added this) - shipments of armaments from the capital to Saltmarsh have gone missing for the past 2 months - rumour has it that the lizardfolk have been attacking these convoys, killing everyone in sight and stealing the weapons. This could be corroborated since the weapons your players found on that ship had the king's symbol on them.
This is obviously not true - you could have them find out later that it was either Gellan or someone from the Scarlet Brotherhood (Skerrin for instance). But the council is already on alert with all the smuggling / sightings of Sea Princes, so they need you to go there and find out what the hell these lizardfolk are up to.
Good luck, it's a fun campaign! I can highly recommend this btw:
Be careful of what you say….the weather forecast says mist is coming to your town….
You’re welcome ;)
Another thing that worked to establish a sense of danger when going to the lizardfolk lair is having them walk through the forests/swamp area for a few hours - they met up with Bullywugs (I mostly made this a funny encounter, they’re silly creatures, they gambled with them, had a duel with their king who was vastly underpowered but pretended he was about to win at any moment, it all ended in my group’s barbarian feigning a loss and pretending to fall on the ground unconscious since they realised winning was very important to the ego of the Bullywug King) and they befriended them a bit. Then I had arrows flying at them from nowhere - a lizardfolk hunting party, the Bullywugs shouting RUN - THE LIZARDS ARE HERE! RUN! My players running away with them, trying to find cover etc - all these things can lead to them having real doubts about the intentions of the lizards. But when they get to the actual cave and are surrounded, and hence surrender, they quickly find out these lizardfolk are amazing creatures with good intentions (bring Sauriv into the picture as soon as possible, he’s the one they’re going to fall far, make him sound confused at times - let him do stupid puns that don’t work well in ‘common’ and then he laughs at his own jokes - adorable grandpa essentially) and they find out the Bullywugs hunt and kill Lizardfolk all the time (oh shit, were those our friends?).
If you have more questions about Ghosts of Saltmarsh feel free to send me a DM here - there’s plenty of things I encountered in the book / side adventures that were tricky or didn’t work all too well that have great solutions for them. Good luck!
I'm currently running Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Running Danger at Dunwater was pretty tricky. First my players missed the Sea Ghost entirely so I had to get them on the hook in an entirely different fashion. I had a new player joining who wanted to be a lizardfolk and I wanted to play up Gellan's connection to the smugglers. So I had the lizardfolk player be the contact that Gellan used to set up the arms deal with the lizardfolk colony in the first place.
Gellan ended up being the one to send the players out there because he was starting to think that selling lizardfolk weapons could turn out to be a bad deal. The players went there as a diplomatic mission. There's a lot in the book about ways to get the players to build trust with the lizardfolk colony, but it seemed confusing and difficult to run. So I threw it all out. The players blew their initial chance to talk up the queen, then met Sauriv who patched things over. They did the Thousand Teeth subquest which turned out really well. After that the queen told them what was going on and they offered to set up an alliance with Saltmarsh.
There's a part in the Saltmarsh Region section (page 21) that mentions the lizardfolk colony is secretly harboring a black dragon. That might be something you want to work in.
So if you wanted to run Dunwater the way it's meant to, it could be based around the idea of building the alliance by doing all the social interaction that the book has set up. Or maybe Saltmarsh doesn't trust the lizardfolk, and the party is there under false pretenses to spy on the colony.
I put the text in a spoiler just in case. However, the short answer is that I think you played it perfectly and you WANT the characters to start off believing that the lizard folk are innocent of planning an attack on Saltmarsh.
Honestly, the information you gave the players is fine. The players should discover that the lizard folk aren't hostile within the first 5-10 minutes of entering their base. If the players enter intending to fight the lizardfolk then the entire plot line can go sideways since the goal is an alliance between the lizard folk and the citizens of Saltmarsh and MOST of the module (Danger at Dunwater) is about the players taking actions within the lizard folk settlement to build up enough trust so that an alliance between Saltmarsh and the lizardfolk is arranged. If the players start killing lizard folk then this doesn't really work at all - so having primed the players with the idea that the lizard folk may not be hostile is a GOOD thing.
However, the Saltmarsh town council on the other hand will hear that the lizard folk are buying weapons from smugglers and THEY are the ones who will NOT believe the lizard folk are innocent. The town council assumes that the lizard folk might well be planning an attack on the town and they send the party to discover the truth of the situation. The town council are the ones who should be saying that the lizard folk are lying. It is then up to the players to decide whether the town council is correct or whether the lizard folk are telling the truth - this is especially important given the hostile reception the players may receive depending on how they enter the lizard folk settlement (entering by water can end up in a fight very quickly - so if the characters have been given the idea that the lizard folk are NOT bad guys then they may choose to parlay rather than fight - which makes the rest of the module play out much more smoothly).
This is not a good module for murder hobos.
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So, I am running Ghosts of Saltmarsh for my D&D group. They just finished the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh in our last session, but during that session I made a pretty big mistake. On the Sea Ghost, there are 3 Lizardfolk who are buying weapons from the smugglers to bring back to their clan, which is preparing for war. The characters didn't kill the Lizardfolk and instead chose to talk with them. I let the players learn that the Lizardfolk are preparing for a war with the Sahuagin.
However, reading through Danger at Dunwater, I learned that I wasn't supposed to do that. Going into the next adventure, the characters are supposed to think the Lizardfolk could be getting ready to attack Saltmarsh. Now that the cat's out of the bag, I'm not sure what I should do. The whole next adventure is centered around the characters slowly discovering what the Lizardfolk are actually up to. What can I do to patch up my mistake and still run Danger at Dunwater the way it's supposed to be run?
I haven't read or played this module, but generically speaking, you can lead your PCs to believe the Lizardfolk in question may have lied to them. Provide evidence, even if it's just eyewitness testimony, that the Sahuagin claim was a ruse, because of course you don't casually reveal your war plans to random strangers before you enact said plans. For example, you could have a Lizardfolk be arrested for scouting out the town and get the party involved in that. Have it be a scout who truly believes in the cause, so they'll die before confessing the truth, and have all of the evidence point to the scouting mission be for an invasion of the town. I'm sure you can come up with a reason for the scout to have been in town that wasn't actually spying on humans.
Time to start thinking on your feet. I'll preface this with the fact that I haven't played/dm'd GoS. Maybe lead them on the other way and make it seem like the Lizardfolk smuggler lied and they really are gearing up to take Saltmarsh as a staging point for their campaign against the Sahuagin. The first smuggler's info was bad too right? Or maybe they caught the Lizardfolk smuggler and now need to change plans to keep their assault secret. Now it's up to the adventurers to parlay with the Lizardfolk so they can bring them to the table for the next act.
Heya! I ran about 25 10-hour sessions for ghosts of saltmarsh (added quite a bit of extra stuff) and this little mishap should be no problem whatsoever.
Have them report back to the Saltmarsh council - make sure that they find this "Sahuagin story" highly unlikely - since there has been no high amount of Sahuagin activity around the area in years. Furthermore (I added this) - shipments of armaments from the capital to Saltmarsh have gone missing for the past 2 months - rumour has it that the lizardfolk have been attacking these convoys, killing everyone in sight and stealing the weapons. This could be corroborated since the weapons your players found on that ship had the king's symbol on them.
This is obviously not true - you could have them find out later that it was either Gellan or someone from the Scarlet Brotherhood (Skerrin for instance). But the council is already on alert with all the smuggling / sightings of Sea Princes, so they need you to go there and find out what the hell these lizardfolk are up to.
Good luck, it's a fun campaign! I can highly recommend this btw:
https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/316958
Man did I enjoy that little doodad!
I am the Ancient, I am the Land...
I think I will do this! It makes a lot of sense. Maybe Strahd isn't such a bad guy after all! Haha. Thanks a bunch!
Be careful of what you say….the weather forecast says mist is coming to your town….
You’re welcome ;)
Another thing that worked to establish a sense of danger when going to the lizardfolk lair is having them walk through the forests/swamp area for a few hours - they met up with Bullywugs (I mostly made this a funny encounter, they’re silly creatures, they gambled with them, had a duel with their king who was vastly underpowered but pretended he was about to win at any moment, it all ended in my group’s barbarian feigning a loss and pretending to fall on the ground unconscious since they realised winning was very important to the ego of the Bullywug King) and they befriended them a bit. Then I had arrows flying at them from nowhere - a lizardfolk hunting party, the Bullywugs shouting RUN - THE LIZARDS ARE HERE! RUN! My players running away with them, trying to find cover etc - all these things can lead to them having real doubts about the intentions of the lizards. But when they get to the actual cave and are surrounded, and hence surrender, they quickly find out these lizardfolk are amazing creatures with good intentions (bring Sauriv into the picture as soon as possible, he’s the one they’re going to fall far, make him sound confused at times - let him do stupid puns that don’t work well in ‘common’ and then he laughs at his own jokes - adorable grandpa essentially) and they find out the Bullywugs hunt and kill Lizardfolk all the time (oh shit, were those our friends?).
If you have more questions about Ghosts of Saltmarsh feel free to send me a DM here - there’s plenty of things I encountered in the book / side adventures that were tricky or didn’t work all too well that have great solutions for them. Good luck!
I am the Ancient, I am the Land...
I'm currently running Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Running Danger at Dunwater was pretty tricky. First my players missed the Sea Ghost entirely so I had to get them on the hook in an entirely different fashion. I had a new player joining who wanted to be a lizardfolk and I wanted to play up Gellan's connection to the smugglers. So I had the lizardfolk player be the contact that Gellan used to set up the arms deal with the lizardfolk colony in the first place.
Gellan ended up being the one to send the players out there because he was starting to think that selling lizardfolk weapons could turn out to be a bad deal. The players went there as a diplomatic mission. There's a lot in the book about ways to get the players to build trust with the lizardfolk colony, but it seemed confusing and difficult to run. So I threw it all out. The players blew their initial chance to talk up the queen, then met Sauriv who patched things over. They did the Thousand Teeth subquest which turned out really well. After that the queen told them what was going on and they offered to set up an alliance with Saltmarsh.
There's a part in the Saltmarsh Region section (page 21) that mentions the lizardfolk colony is secretly harboring a black dragon. That might be something you want to work in.
So if you wanted to run Dunwater the way it's meant to, it could be based around the idea of building the alliance by doing all the social interaction that the book has set up. Or maybe Saltmarsh doesn't trust the lizardfolk, and the party is there under false pretenses to spy on the colony.
I'm about to start Ghost of Saltmarsh in a couple of weeks and what you ran into is a good thing to keep in mind when I reach the Sea Ghost.
I put the text in a spoiler just in case. However, the short answer is that I think you played it perfectly and you WANT the characters to start off believing that the lizard folk are innocent of planning an attack on Saltmarsh.
Honestly, the information you gave the players is fine. The players should discover that the lizard folk aren't hostile within the first 5-10 minutes of entering their base. If the players enter intending to fight the lizardfolk then the entire plot line can go sideways since the goal is an alliance between the lizard folk and the citizens of Saltmarsh and MOST of the module (Danger at Dunwater) is about the players taking actions within the lizard folk settlement to build up enough trust so that an alliance between Saltmarsh and the lizardfolk is arranged. If the players start killing lizard folk then this doesn't really work at all - so having primed the players with the idea that the lizard folk may not be hostile is a GOOD thing.
However, the Saltmarsh town council on the other hand will hear that the lizard folk are buying weapons from smugglers and THEY are the ones who will NOT believe the lizard folk are innocent. The town council assumes that the lizard folk might well be planning an attack on the town and they send the party to discover the truth of the situation. The town council are the ones who should be saying that the lizard folk are lying. It is then up to the players to decide whether the town council is correct or whether the lizard folk are telling the truth - this is especially important given the hostile reception the players may receive depending on how they enter the lizard folk settlement (entering by water can end up in a fight very quickly - so if the characters have been given the idea that the lizard folk are NOT bad guys then they may choose to parlay rather than fight - which makes the rest of the module play out much more smoothly).
This is not a good module for murder hobos.