I've played before but I want to DM for my friends and we would like the run the Ghosts of Saltmarsh as a campaign. Is there anything I need to know before we start/ does anyone have any good advice?
Just finished Salvage Operation with my group and every one went up to 5th level.
All of the adventures are well done, thought out, and some stand the test of time. Three of them are from 1st edition and I actually played in the 1st two.
Things have been going well for my group, but I did find it a little disjointed on getting the adventures to merge well right out of the box. I have an Elder God Awakening theme with the story line set in the Keolands in Greyhawk's Orth. First couple of adventures with the house were it was not even related to it. Then I started to add in cultists, deep ones, otherworldly occurrences, weak walls between the planes, and just last Saturday Cornerhounds! I had wanted to stretch things out so have filler modules and they may go to the Isle of Dread to stop the incursion once they are really high level.
My advice is to come up with an overall plot for the game. Will not require much work, but will help them feel more at home. I had toyed with a war against the Sea Princes or the Tentacled Mass of Evil from Outside! The Outside! won.
Other thing is running the Danger at Dunwater and Final Enemy can go horribly wrong. If the PCs go in on the aggressive right off the adventure will side track and you will have to adapt. That is not bad, but takes a lot of extra work you may not have time for. My group was better off and did not attack the "wandering monsters" right off the bat.
Also ran into the problem of there not being an adventure for 6th and 8th level. I added in two other ones (one from Tales of the Yawning Portal and another old school module.) I have had other people here say that those were not needed, but the total XP was not enough to go up a level during the adventures.
I'm currently running Ghosts of Saltmarsh and am close to finishing the first module.
Some advice - pay attention to the compasses on the town and regional maps. I didn't find them intuitive. In fact I set the mansion flipped North/South which messed some things up.
I also agree that some work needs to be put into tying all of the modules together because the book does not do that beyond the three that are directly tied together (for better or worse).
The module has some suggestions for the politics that ties the adventures together. One of the town leaders asks the players to investigate the haunted house for example.
I'd also second the warning about the compass headings on maps. The orientation is weird - the city map is oriented opposite the area map for example and neither has north at the top. Essentially, the town of Saltmarsh is on the south coast of a land mass facing on a sea.
I'd also add that the map of Saltmarsh doesn't have nearly enough buildings marked for the supposed population. Saltmarsh is described as a "non-descript fishing village" ... however this "village" has a population of 5000 inhabitants, 100 trained warriors in the town guard and a militia of 500 residents with basic weapon training. All of the politics/smuggling and all of the other background material are consistent with a thriving commercial town based on fishing and trade than a "non-descript fishing village" ... so you will probably want to modify how you describe the town to your players. I added an entire dense housing district south of the "kingfisher river" to try to make the map match the rest of the description and provide somewhere for some of the "5000 inhabitants" to actually live.
---
However, depending on what you are looking for, I find GoS to be a bit limiting and I like the idea of a sandbox. The GoS plot doesn't have a fixed time line so it is possible to weave other adventures into the storyline.
In my case, I am combining Tales from the Yawning Portal with Ghosts of Saltmarsh (which is suggested as an option at the start of GoS) to give the players more choices and options and to flesh out the campaign world (and minimize my prep time :) ).
The party arrived in town on a ship owned by the town counsellor. They helped fight off a Sahaugen attack during the trip. The captain mentioned this to the owner and the owner thought the group might be interested in investigating the haunted house for him. In the meantime, The Hucrele family of Saltmarsh was looking for some folks to track down their missing children who fancied themselves adventurers and had gone off about a month previously looking for treasure and an unusual fruit. The players thus had some choice in what to follow up on and ended up agreeing to investigate the haunted house but felt the rescue mission seemed more important to do first. So they tracked down where the missing party had traveled and started with Sunless Citadel from TfYP rather than the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh for the first adventure. They will be level 2 after Sunless Citadel (I could make them level 3 but this is a group of old school players and I think they would prefer a slower leveling pace than is common in 5e (the GoS adventures essentially level the characters up after every one ... so in my case I can throw in the TfYP adventures to have more content between level ups - I am using milestones).
So far it seem to be working since between GoS and TfYP, I can flesh out an area with a wide range of adventures and give the party choices to make.
I'd also add that the map of Saltmarsh doesn't have nearly enough buildings marked for the supposed population. Saltmarsh is described as a "non-descript fishing village" ... however this "village" has a population of 5000 inhabitants, 100 trained warriors in the town guard and a militia of 500 residents with basic weapon training. All of the politics/smuggling and all of the other background material are consistent with a thriving commercial town based on fishing and trade than a "non-descript fishing village" ... so you will probably want to modify how you describe the town to your players. I added an entire dense housing district south of the "kingfisher river" to try to make the map match the rest of the description and provide somewhere for some of the "5000 inhabitants" to actually live.
---
However, depending on what you are looking for, I find GoS to be a bit limiting and I like the idea of a sandbox. The GoS plot doesn't have a fixed time line so it is possible to weave other adventures into the storyline.
In my case, I am combining Tales from the Yawning Portal with Ghosts of Saltmarsh (which is suggested as an option at the start of GoS) to give the players more choices and options and to flesh out the campaign world (and minimize my prep time :) ).
The party arrived in town on a ship owned by the town counsellor. They helped fight off a Sahaugen attack during the trip. The captain mentioned this to the owner and the owner thought the group might be interested in investigating the haunted house for him. In the meantime, The Hucrele family of Saltmarsh was looking for some folks to track down their missing children who fancied themselves adventurers and had gone off about a month previously looking for treasure and an unusual fruit. The players thus had some choice in what to follow up on and ended up agreeing to investigate the haunted house but felt the rescue mission seemed more important to do first. So they tracked down where the missing party had traveled and started with Sunless Citadel from TfYP rather than the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh for the first adventure. They will be level 2 after Sunless Citadel (I could make them level 3 but this is a group of old school players and I think they would prefer a slower leveling pace than is common in 5e (the GoS adventures essentially level the characters up after every one ... so in my case I can throw in the TfYP adventures to have more content between level ups - I am using milestones).
So far it seem to be working since between GoS and TfYP, I can flesh out an area with a wide range of adventures and give the party choices to make.
I think the 5,000 population is post-Greyhawk Wars. I think Seaton was destroyed by some minions of Iuz and a lot of people left for the Saltmarsh. The Dungeon Master's Guide 2 for 3.5 edition has a build up of the town after the wars. I was still having the town be around 500 permanent residents and another 1,000 transients and people around the area. The monetary success of the local adventures has brought in another wave of people in so they may be up to 2,500 total with transient populations coming off and on the constant flow of ships. Have to build out a part of the town for more housing and shopping.
For the fillers, I ended up using the Hidden Shire of Tamoachan tying it into the Old Ones theme. I am toying with Tomb of the Lizard King and having him be an outer space vampire or going a different route with it. I stayed away from the some of the more dungeon crawl feeling adventures mainly due to the players I was working with. They are fine with a more open play style and sandbox-like environment. I like how they had the choice of the two paths and that put the PCs on the side of law and order since the welfare of the child took precedence over some old house.
spoiler tag did not work. I took out the events of the first adventure. Just give them the chance to travel and hopefully they take it.
I've played before but I want to DM for my friends and we would like the run the Ghosts of Saltmarsh as a campaign. Is there anything I need to know before we start/ does anyone have any good advice?
Thanks in advance.
Just finished Salvage Operation with my group and every one went up to 5th level.
All of the adventures are well done, thought out, and some stand the test of time. Three of them are from 1st edition and I actually played in the 1st two.
Things have been going well for my group, but I did find it a little disjointed on getting the adventures to merge well right out of the box. I have an Elder God Awakening theme with the story line set in the Keolands in Greyhawk's Orth. First couple of adventures with the house were it was not even related to it. Then I started to add in cultists, deep ones, otherworldly occurrences, weak walls between the planes, and just last Saturday Cornerhounds! I had wanted to stretch things out so have filler modules and they may go to the Isle of Dread to stop the incursion once they are really high level.
I'm currently running Ghosts of Saltmarsh and am close to finishing the first module.
Some advice - pay attention to the compasses on the town and regional maps. I didn't find them intuitive. In fact I set the mansion flipped North/South which messed some things up.
I also agree that some work needs to be put into tying all of the modules together because the book does not do that beyond the three that are directly tied together (for better or worse).
The module has some suggestions for the politics that ties the adventures together. One of the town leaders asks the players to investigate the haunted house for example.
I'd also second the warning about the compass headings on maps. The orientation is weird - the city map is oriented opposite the area map for example and neither has north at the top. Essentially, the town of Saltmarsh is on the south coast of a land mass facing on a sea.
I'd also add that the map of Saltmarsh doesn't have nearly enough buildings marked for the supposed population. Saltmarsh is described as a "non-descript fishing village" ... however this "village" has a population of 5000 inhabitants, 100 trained warriors in the town guard and a militia of 500 residents with basic weapon training. All of the politics/smuggling and all of the other background material are consistent with a thriving commercial town based on fishing and trade than a "non-descript fishing village" ... so you will probably want to modify how you describe the town to your players. I added an entire dense housing district south of the "kingfisher river" to try to make the map match the rest of the description and provide somewhere for some of the "5000 inhabitants" to actually live.
---
However, depending on what you are looking for, I find GoS to be a bit limiting and I like the idea of a sandbox. The GoS plot doesn't have a fixed time line so it is possible to weave other adventures into the storyline.
In my case, I am combining Tales from the Yawning Portal with Ghosts of Saltmarsh (which is suggested as an option at the start of GoS) to give the players more choices and options and to flesh out the campaign world (and minimize my prep time :) ).
The party arrived in town on a ship owned by the town counsellor. They helped fight off a Sahaugen attack during the trip. The captain mentioned this to the owner and the owner thought the group might be interested in investigating the haunted house for him. In the meantime, The Hucrele family of Saltmarsh was looking for some folks to track down their missing children who fancied themselves adventurers and had gone off about a month previously looking for treasure and an unusual fruit. The players thus had some choice in what to follow up on and ended up agreeing to investigate the haunted house but felt the rescue mission seemed more important to do first. So they tracked down where the missing party had traveled and started with Sunless Citadel from TfYP rather than the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh for the first adventure. They will be level 2 after Sunless Citadel (I could make them level 3 but this is a group of old school players and I think they would prefer a slower leveling pace than is common in 5e (the GoS adventures essentially level the characters up after every one ... so in my case I can throw in the TfYP adventures to have more content between level ups - I am using milestones).
So far it seem to be working since between GoS and TfYP, I can flesh out an area with a wide range of adventures and give the party choices to make.
I think the 5,000 population is post-Greyhawk Wars. I think Seaton was destroyed by some minions of Iuz and a lot of people left for the Saltmarsh. The Dungeon Master's Guide 2 for 3.5 edition has a build up of the town after the wars. I was still having the town be around 500 permanent residents and another 1,000 transients and people around the area. The monetary success of the local adventures has brought in another wave of people in so they may be up to 2,500 total with transient populations coming off and on the constant flow of ships. Have to build out a part of the town for more housing and shopping.
For the fillers, I ended up using the Hidden Shire of Tamoachan tying it into the Old Ones theme. I am toying with Tomb of the Lizard King and having him be an outer space vampire or going a different route with it. I stayed away from the some of the more dungeon crawl feeling adventures mainly due to the players I was working with. They are fine with a more open play style and sandbox-like environment. I like how they had the choice of the two paths and that put the PCs on the side of law and order since the welfare of the child took precedence over some old house.
spoiler tag did not work. I took out the events of the first adventure. Just give them the chance to travel and hopefully they take it.