Video Preview: Customizing Published Adventures
Here's a preview of an upcoming video on customizing published adventures. Enjoy!
Note, if the video is marked "private", that means I've scheduled it to post on YouTube and it will be back up in a couple of days.
Comments (12)
Excellent video! I remember reading your advice for Storm King's Thunder about assigning a faction patron to the group, and that decision ended up shaping my campaign. One of the characters' mentor from the Emerald Enclave was shipwrecked and taken by Jarl Storvald, and the whole campaign became about rescuing him. Then they went back in with more backup to actually finish the Jarl. Tying the characters to npcs and factions in the world makes the adventure so much more personal for them.
Those big adventures can be, intimidating to the new DM.
Thanks so much for making that video. It鈥檚 helped a lot. Next time I read an adventure I鈥檒l make a few notes as I go.
New patreon, big fan of the Lazy books and podcasts, and veteran DM. I'm about to end OOTA and TOA with two groups, and starting DTA soon with another group of players. All these tips and tools are useful.
I guess one tricky part is making sure you don't cut something that 40 pages later turns out to have been important to the whole adventure and the way it resolves in some way.
Oooh the butterfly effect. Love it
I plan to do this with the Witchlight book for my wife! The big draw for us is the whole adventure can be completed with non-combat. My wife HATES the fighting focus in D&D but I suck at removing it from my DMing so this book should be helpful and I look forward to really cranking up the non-combat!
I鈥檓 really(!) a n00b dm, so do take this for what it鈥檚 worth, but have you tried halving HP for everyone, zoned combat, and side initiative? That will resolve combat a lot quicker. You could also implement the optional moral rules from dmg (I forget the page number), moral will make enemies surrender or run away if combat is going badly for them.
I definitely modified Rime of the Frostmaiden heavily to make a cohesive story work, but the real magic was all the backstory my players did in session zero to tie their characters together. I also mined their backstories for ways to tie their characters to specific encounters that really drew them in. When players feel connected to the world in a real way their engagement goes through the roof. Turned out to be the best RP campaign I've ever been a part of (DM or player), and I've been playing since 3e!
Yeah, this worked really well in my Frostmaiden game as well.
...and it takes a boat load of time. I am here to be lazy so I think all adventures that cost money should be turn-key and it only be a choice to make modifications? I love the idea you have to tie the characters in, that isn't really a huge modification but it's definitely necessary.
But it really does take time? i think that this is a on going thing that you do in a session to session basis, by having your characters at the center in the lazy session preparation