So im about to finnish Lost Mines of Phandelver for my first ever group and we had so much fun i want to build an even longer adventure. I did a lot of reading and decided to try something a little different. I would like to run Dragon of Icespire peak but i want to merge it with some of the extra LMoP quests and the adventures from Tales from the Yawning Portal. My idea is that Phandolin is makeing an adventures guild in the town and is looking for new members, que my group. From there all the job board quests come from their guild hall instead of the townmaster. My thought is they have the normal quests to get them into the guild but when they are in they will occasionally get "gold jobs" and these would be the Yawning Portal adventures. If anyone has any thoughts on how i can pull it all together or ideas for running ingame guilds i would love to hear them. Im super excited to start this game but i want it to be the best it can be. Thanks!!
Well,every guild could use a rank system. Ie you start at something like wood or stone rank,and after doing great things, eventually become gold,diamond, platinum,mithril, adamantine, or whatever you want to call your ranks.
When envisioning a campaign, guilds sound really necessary to plot hooks. But my (admittedly limited) experience shows me that they really get ignored as a resource for a party traveling all over for work. Plot hooks show up in all sorts of organic places that make the party feel like they’re encountering the world more than a job board. We ran DoIP before I took over DMing, at which time my DoIP character became the guildmaster, lining up work for the other original party while I looked after our newly purchased property. However, as they traveled from Neverwinter, where they insisted HQ should be (they wanted to be in a larger town), towards the south on the High Road they passed several locations from Icespire Peak that they never went through when we played, and also from Storm Lord’s Wrath, which I was steering them toward. So they encountered shady characters on the road, zombies attacking the Wayside Inn at the crossroads, and Salvagers at the Inn just coming back from the Tower of Storms 1 mile west, where they had given up on salvaging the wrecks after being chased off by harpies in the air, and sharks in the water (“But Man, there’s been a lot of wrecks there lately. Probably some good treasure. It’d be nice to salvage those things before others get there, or the sea washes it away.”) There was only one time they even thought to check in with the guild. Other than that, they were too busy where they were.
As for working in TftYP material. That’s as easily done as anything else. Sunless Citadel even suggests if running it as set on the Sword Coast using the chaos of Mt. Hotenow’s eruption some 30 years back as the event that sunk the abandoned citadel and opened the rifts in the underdark used by Goblins and Kobolds to find and move into the structure. Plot hook would be the mother of the two adventurers seeking help to bring back her children that disappeared months ago after heading to the Sunless Citadel. She could find the party in The Stonehill Inn as easily as at Guild HQ. Or she could be a random bystander that witnessed an impressive fight or bit of magic during a random encounter, and beg them to use those skills to help find her children.
Honestly, your original idea of a guild seems good, as long as your players are interested in the hook. Having a guild (and possibly a rank system) allows your party to look for quests that interest them and allows you to give them the option to do more difficult quests (with the caveat that they know and have a chance to prepare). As long as it doesn't feel too restrictive, I think that should work very well.
I think that, seeing as the guild doesn't exist in Phandalin to begin with, it would make some degree of sense for the party to be actively involved with the founding of the adventurer's guild from day one, so that would be a good way to have them feel invested in the guild. They're not just hired... what if they're founding members?
Thank you for your imput! It really has me thinking and perhaps ill make the guild something that CAN just be kinda low key so they can use it or not. All in all im thinking its a decent place to get a starting point as i do want to run a game from 1-20 so as i grow into a better DM (still on a very large learning curve but im reading a lot too) i want to move into some of the other more complicated adventures.
Yes thats exacly what i was thinking. Some of my players will have just finnished LMoP so they will know the area and some of its people. And they should be very surprised when they find out that the one putting the guild together is non other than Sildar Hallwinter along with his squire the rambunctious youth Carp Alderleaf (now 15 as 5 years would have gone by from the last adventure). They will start as unproven and work their way up from there. Since Sildar is running it they will have the financial backing of the lords alliance and theu them the lord of neverwinter. So all they got to worry about for some time is just proveing they deserve to be top member's.
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So im about to finnish Lost Mines of Phandelver for my first ever group and we had so much fun i want to build an even longer adventure. I did a lot of reading and decided to try something a little different. I would like to run Dragon of Icespire peak but i want to merge it with some of the extra LMoP quests and the adventures from Tales from the Yawning Portal. My idea is that Phandolin is makeing an adventures guild in the town and is looking for new members, que my group. From there all the job board quests come from their guild hall instead of the townmaster. My thought is they have the normal quests to get them into the guild but when they are in they will occasionally get "gold jobs" and these would be the Yawning Portal adventures. If anyone has any thoughts on how i can pull it all together or ideas for running ingame guilds i would love to hear them. Im super excited to start this game but i want it to be the best it can be. Thanks!!
Well,every guild could use a rank system. Ie you start at something like wood or stone rank,and after doing great things, eventually become gold,diamond, platinum,mithril, adamantine, or whatever you want to call your ranks.
Ravinca has some interesting guild progression rules you might want to look at for ideas about benefits of moving up ranks.
When envisioning a campaign, guilds sound really necessary to plot hooks. But my (admittedly limited) experience shows me that they really get ignored as a resource for a party traveling all over for work. Plot hooks show up in all sorts of organic places that make the party feel like they’re encountering the world more than a job board. We ran DoIP before I took over DMing, at which time my DoIP character became the guildmaster, lining up work for the other original party while I looked after our newly purchased property. However, as they traveled from Neverwinter, where they insisted HQ should be (they wanted to be in a larger town), towards the south on the High Road they passed several locations from Icespire Peak that they never went through when we played, and also from Storm Lord’s Wrath, which I was steering them toward. So they encountered shady characters on the road, zombies attacking the Wayside Inn at the crossroads, and Salvagers at the Inn just coming back from the Tower of Storms 1 mile west, where they had given up on salvaging the wrecks after being chased off by harpies in the air, and sharks in the water (“But Man, there’s been a lot of wrecks there lately. Probably some good treasure. It’d be nice to salvage those things before others get there, or the sea washes it away.”)
There was only one time they even thought to check in with the guild. Other than that, they were too busy where they were.
As for working in TftYP material. That’s as easily done as anything else. Sunless Citadel even suggests if running it as set on the Sword Coast using the chaos of Mt. Hotenow’s eruption some 30 years back as the event that sunk the abandoned citadel and opened the rifts in the underdark used by Goblins and Kobolds to find and move into the structure. Plot hook would be the mother of the two adventurers seeking help to bring back her children that disappeared months ago after heading to the Sunless Citadel. She could find the party in The Stonehill Inn as easily as at Guild HQ. Or she could be a random bystander that witnessed an impressive fight or bit of magic during a random encounter, and beg them to use those skills to help find her children.
Honestly, your original idea of a guild seems good, as long as your players are interested in the hook. Having a guild (and possibly a rank system) allows your party to look for quests that interest them and allows you to give them the option to do more difficult quests (with the caveat that they know and have a chance to prepare). As long as it doesn't feel too restrictive, I think that should work very well.
I think that, seeing as the guild doesn't exist in Phandalin to begin with, it would make some degree of sense for the party to be actively involved with the founding of the adventurer's guild from day one, so that would be a good way to have them feel invested in the guild. They're not just hired... what if they're founding members?
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Thank you for your imput! It really has me thinking and perhaps ill make the guild something that CAN just be kinda low key so they can use it or not. All in all im thinking its a decent place to get a starting point as i do want to run a game from 1-20 so as i grow into a better DM (still on a very large learning curve but im reading a lot too) i want to move into some of the other more complicated adventures.
Yes thats exacly what i was thinking. Some of my players will have just finnished LMoP so they will know the area and some of its people. And they should be very surprised when they find out that the one putting the guild together is non other than Sildar Hallwinter along with his squire the rambunctious youth Carp Alderleaf (now 15 as 5 years would have gone by from the last adventure). They will start as unproven and work their way up from there. Since Sildar is running it they will have the financial backing of the lords alliance and theu them the lord of neverwinter. So all they got to worry about for some time is just proveing they deserve to be top member's.