I am running the HotDQ for a small party and honestly... I’m not really liking the story nor how the campaign book is set up. I feel like there’s little guidance and organization and it’s very frustrating. Ive watched a lot of videos and read forums for suggestions on how to run it/adjust it, but I’m still not a fan. I’m at the point where I want to segue into another adventure altogether, but don’t want to rob my players of the story that they’re getting invested in.
What have other DMs done to make this adventure more palatable? If you transitioned to another adventure, how did you do so?
Where have the players gotten to? I agree HotQ can be frustratingly sparse on details, and a bit of a chore to run.
There’s a good story in there though, it just takes a bit of teasing out. I’ve been through it twice, as player and DM, so might have some suggestions about the chapter you’re up to.
I’m at the point where I want to segue into another adventure altogether
Go with that feeling: it gets even worse during Rise of Tiamat. I did a lot of work to make them palatable, but (knowing what I know now) I would unreservedly recommend switching immediately to Tomb of Annihilation.
I actually started Tomb of Annihilation with the epic battle at the end of Rise of Tiamat (which might work well for you too). The (new) PC's were each in one of the armies that participated in the final battle from Rise of Tiamat. I played this out kinda like the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan... with Tiamat and other enormous dragons occasionally swooping past. Afterwards, people started noticing the death curse.
Two of my groups started as low level PC's sent on a mission (by the players' former high-level PC's) to Chult to deal with the Death curse. My third group chose to keep playing as their high-level PC's (that had just completed Tyranny of Dragons and defeated Tiamat). But all of those PC's had been resurrected at one point, and thus had to deal with the death curse (so they eventually had to make new characters anyway).
Your fun is as important as the players' fun. If you are running something that you don't like then either (a) change to something else (b) make changes to it so that you will have fun.
There are elements of a good story in HoTDQ, but structurally it is a mess. Consider extracting the "beats" of the story, then creating your own pieces of smaller content around those. Ultimately that becomes your version of the module -- and the modules are really just broad guidelines anyway.
I had considered running it (as I think Dragons are cool) but instead just pulled out the ideas of having a couple of "council" type meetings, and in those meetings there would be competing factions with different end goals. I took that idea and incorporated it into my own concoction that then adds a few larger dragons as well as giants causing issues.
The more sessions we play, the more the world becomes mine and the less it's based off of a module.
Hope that helps!
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"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
We began with the level one adventures in Phlan and are now finishing out Chapter 1. I agree that the overall story is pretty cool, I just don’t like the pieces and parts (especially at the beginning) that they’ve laid out to get there.
Another problem is we have a three-player party, so some of the tasks, such as charging into a city besieged by dragons or infiltrating a whole camp, are a bit daunting.
I am about to start HoDQ with a group of about 5 for 6 pcs this will be my first time as the dm
Any input would be greatly appreciated
For new DM's I would instead recommend the initial part of "Lost Mines of Phandelver", or any short adventure (especially an Adventurers' League adventure) that you've previously been a player in.
Besides being long, HoDQ has a lot of issues in it (partly because it was written before the 5e rules were released). I heard WotC was planning to re-release it with the needed corrections. If you must run it, maybe wait until then.
The biggest problem with HotDQ is episode 4. If you began with LMoP and are transitioning into HotDQ, I suggest replacing Greenest with Phandalin as the two villages are opposite ends of the sword coast. That will make life infinitely easier on you. Second biggest problem is episode 4. It is a long slog of an episode to get through. Unless your party absolutely love random encounters, I would ignore most of them. The one with the dude buried to his chin in the middle of the road can be turned important. If they're actively following the cult's caravan at this point, you can skip all random encounters and gloss over travel until you get to the point of the mandatory encounters with Jamna Gleamsilver and the cult members. (When I ran my party through this episode they had missed the cult's wagons and didn't know where they were headed so I came up with other reasons for them to go north and added a dungeon and a chance for some lore about the dragon masks in lieu of most of this episode.)
The biggest problem overall with the module (second biggest if you're not happy with the railroady nature of how it's written) is that it doesn't do a very good job building to the climax of RoT. And it does a lot of rug-pulling on the PCs. Gives them the chance to get one of the masks but then it turns out to be a fake out. So it takes a lot of work.
If I had it to do over again, I probably wouldn't pick HotDQ and RoT as my first modules to DM. I'd probably go homebrew or have done something like Dragon Heist and DotMM.
I am running the HotDQ for a small party and honestly... I’m not really liking the story nor how the campaign book is set up. I feel like there’s little guidance and organization and it’s very frustrating. Ive watched a lot of videos and read forums for suggestions on how to run it/adjust it, but I’m still not a fan. I’m at the point where I want to segue into another adventure altogether, but don’t want to rob my players of the story that they’re getting invested in.
What have other DMs done to make this adventure more palatable? If you transitioned to another adventure, how did you do so?
Where have the players gotten to? I agree HotQ can be frustratingly sparse on details, and a bit of a chore to run.
There’s a good story in there though, it just takes a bit of teasing out. I’ve been through it twice, as player and DM, so might have some suggestions about the chapter you’re up to.
Go with that feeling: it gets even worse during Rise of Tiamat. I did a lot of work to make them palatable, but (knowing what I know now) I would unreservedly recommend switching immediately to Tomb of Annihilation.
I actually started Tomb of Annihilation with the epic battle at the end of Rise of Tiamat (which might work well for you too). The (new) PC's were each in one of the armies that participated in the final battle from Rise of Tiamat. I played this out kinda like the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan... with Tiamat and other enormous dragons occasionally swooping past. Afterwards, people started noticing the death curse.
Two of my groups started as low level PC's sent on a mission (by the players' former high-level PC's) to Chult to deal with the Death curse. My third group chose to keep playing as their high-level PC's (that had just completed Tyranny of Dragons and defeated Tiamat). But all of those PC's had been resurrected at one point, and thus had to deal with the death curse (so they eventually had to make new characters anyway).
Your fun is as important as the players' fun. If you are running something that you don't like then either (a) change to something else (b) make changes to it so that you will have fun.
There are elements of a good story in HoTDQ, but structurally it is a mess. Consider extracting the "beats" of the story, then creating your own pieces of smaller content around those. Ultimately that becomes your version of the module -- and the modules are really just broad guidelines anyway.
I had considered running it (as I think Dragons are cool) but instead just pulled out the ideas of having a couple of "council" type meetings, and in those meetings there would be competing factions with different end goals. I took that idea and incorporated it into my own concoction that then adds a few larger dragons as well as giants causing issues.
The more sessions we play, the more the world becomes mine and the less it's based off of a module.
Hope that helps!
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
We began with the level one adventures in Phlan and are now finishing out Chapter 1. I agree that the overall story is pretty cool, I just don’t like the pieces and parts (especially at the beginning) that they’ve laid out to get there.
Another problem is we have a three-player party, so some of the tasks, such as charging into a city besieged by dragons or infiltrating a whole camp, are a bit daunting.
I am about to start HoDQ with a group of about 5 for 6 pcs this will be my first time as the dm
Any input would be greatly appreciated
For new DM's I would instead recommend the initial part of "Lost Mines of Phandelver", or any short adventure (especially an Adventurers' League adventure) that you've previously been a player in.
Besides being long, HoDQ has a lot of issues in it (partly because it was written before the 5e rules were released). I heard WotC was planning to re-release it with the needed corrections. If you must run it, maybe wait until then.
The biggest problem with HotDQ is episode 4. If you began with LMoP and are transitioning into HotDQ, I suggest replacing Greenest with Phandalin as the two villages are opposite ends of the sword coast. That will make life infinitely easier on you. Second biggest problem is episode 4. It is a long slog of an episode to get through. Unless your party absolutely love random encounters, I would ignore most of them. The one with the dude buried to his chin in the middle of the road can be turned important. If they're actively following the cult's caravan at this point, you can skip all random encounters and gloss over travel until you get to the point of the mandatory encounters with Jamna Gleamsilver and the cult members. (When I ran my party through this episode they had missed the cult's wagons and didn't know where they were headed so I came up with other reasons for them to go north and added a dungeon and a chance for some lore about the dragon masks in lieu of most of this episode.)
The biggest problem overall with the module (second biggest if you're not happy with the railroady nature of how it's written) is that it doesn't do a very good job building to the climax of RoT. And it does a lot of rug-pulling on the PCs. Gives them the chance to get one of the masks but then it turns out to be a fake out. So it takes a lot of work.
If I had it to do over again, I probably wouldn't pick HotDQ and RoT as my first modules to DM. I'd probably go homebrew or have done something like Dragon Heist and DotMM.
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