New DM here. This video really validated some of the thoughts I've had about the big campaign books, both as a player and thumbing through them for adventure ideas. They're just A LOT. I greatly prefer modules that I can digest and modify to suit the PCs play styles. I thought maybe I'm just easily overwhelmed. And maybe I am, but this video helped me not sweat it. This channel has been great, and I'm excited for more world building content!
Far from easily overwhelmed, I prefer to fill my accessible mind and path with what my players produce and desire. Every module needs to wrap around the active players unless the characters were made to fit the module instead.
I like these books but I’m continually amazed by how poorly organised they are, with information presented in a weird order causing you to have to constantly flip back and forth or miss things.
Sometimes I feel like the only dm that doesn't want to homebrew entire settings. Even in homebrew, I'd rather: take a location in the forgotten realms I know a ton about, drop a problem or 2 into it, and then enable my PCs in that setting. Im hoping to master the official huge modules enough to dm Adventurers league where ever I can.
That is a completely viable why to play!! I think that's why some of these books are really popular: they are great for adding big chunks of a world into your game without doing all the worldbuilding yourself. It can save a ton of time if you're not into writing your own lore
I miss the old days of previous editions where modules were just for one or two levels that you can drop into your homebrew. The 5E books are complete campaigns from levels 1 to 15 and very hard to drop into a homebrew campaign.
I disagree and enjoy running the big modules. I use the pre-made roll20 modules along with the paper books. Those two things cost a lot together but saves me eons of prep time and I find that it’s easy to prep.
Haha, well that's also funny because a bunch of people have commented saying that CoS doesn't have all of these issues I mentioned for RotF! I've never run/played it myself though
My first foray into DM-ing was Out of the Abyss...man, that was a mistake. I was so overwhelmed because of the sheer magnitude and amount of content. I didn't realize that I could cut things out or add things. I think that this has been corrected in more recent modules, however, my gripe with the WotC modules is that there is SO much fluff in them for DMs that can discourage new DMs from being creative on their own. I also see DMs gripe that there isn't enough in the books to tell them "how to run it." I don't think a DM should want to be told "how to run it," instead, should be willing to take the bare bones of the adventure and flesh it out with their own content. Just my .02.
As a new DM, using a campaign book was a great resource for building the spine of an adventure, but I quickly learned to pull what I wanted and change/omit the parts that didn't work. (*looking at you Storm King's Thunder)
honestly I really enjoy some of the big modules (Curse of Strahd being my fave cause I can sort of morph it the way I want), but I agree that little adventures and modules are SO helpful to just drop into campaigns. I think both have their place! (but also I'm just a fiend and will read adventure modules for fun haha)
in previous editions we used to have adventures separately from region books and basically you used to go where you wanted to but now Wizards are only publishing a meagre three, four books a year and they have to pack it all up into one thing that's one of the reasons why people get upset when they release a new book, because they feel like a new release, with them being as scarce as they are, it's going to be taken the place another favourite campaign or adventure or setting book could take instead and this also to connects with the fact that yeah, Bob, many people want just to have fun, but some other people have grown up with the internet world and they want to feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves, so being able to play with printed, 'famous' modules is something that people want to experience too, so you can't just tell them to just play something coming from their minds and nothing officially printed it's a complicated issue with several layers. But yeah, prewritten modules especially WotC ones should be nearly flawless, considering the expertise, money and backing they have , which minor and amateur publishers don't count on
That's a great breakdown of the issue! Eventually I do think WotC will start publishing their own smaller books for 5e like they did for earlier editions, in addition to a few big books per year
@@BobWorldBuilder I wish they did, but apparently that doesn't meet their 'business model' they must be making a lot of money from those big books so sadly I don't believe Wizards is to change anything anytime soon. But if they did, it would be better for us, of course.
Got back into D and D with my best friend from high school, and found Bob at just the right time. I can’t agree with you more that those big Adventure books are overwhelming. I picked one up at a LGS, and was very intimidated. We played through the Dargon of Icespire peak and had a blast and I’m happy they had the online expansion to this adventure. Bobs video series on this adventure was perfect for a returning player to D and D, and I would totally recommend it to any new player wanting to get into D and D 5E. Keep on building!
Hey, new subscriber here! Just found you and I'm excited to see some world building stuff. I'm currently running Lost Mine of Phandelver for my group of all new players. I love it and I'm trying to keep it open to their whims and built around them. However, I think that after they finish (provided they want to continue with the same PCs) I'll try to really open up the world and make it a lot more of a sandbox.
All of the 5e campaign books I've read fail at the most important thing, organisation. Not a single one could you actually quickly reference important information like character summarys or a plot summary/flow chart and its a damn shame cause the books are rammed with useless flavour text thats taking up valuable space that could have been used so much better.
What I've been doing is using the "World" of the big books of The Sword Coast, and I just dropped my party into it as a level 1 family who lost their farm due to dragon attacks.... This give plenty of reasons for their weak state and how they are trying to build back their farm.... I can makeup what I want and drop it into the world or fall back on the city's quest board. It doesn't make it easy, but it gives you bones to lay your flesh and skin on. Like a Lich using his necromancy, you have to use what you got!
yeah great idea. You can either run them as standalone, deviate from them if you didn't like them, use only as much as needed, I think they do a better job
Wizards kinda started doing this? But not really. For example, RotFM is split between a level 1-4 sandbox module of Ten Towns, then level 5-8 about Icewind Dale, and a final 9-11 at its last adventure. The problem is they are all too connected. Similarly, Descent into Avernus starts with 1-4 module set in Baldurs gate that naturally segways into Avernus. But I would prefer to disconnect these "Modules" better. Give me a book of 3 or 4 Adventures set to run players from 1 to 4. Dragon Heist basically does this. Then give me a book from 5 to 9 Modules, 10 to 14, and lastly high level adventures. Let me figure of as the DM which ones work based on the party.
Yeah I was attracted to RotF partially because it seemed to have a pretty modular structure. I actually remember Crawford saying they were using a similar template to DoIP when designing RotF, but the books has a TON more going on!
I enjoy the large boos. It gives me a tom of premade content that I can loot, pillage and customize for my world. I run a modified Forgotten Realms using the 2E map because I never bought the whole Spellplague thing. For example, Hoard of the Dragon Queen was modded with an old Dragonlance module and the first part of Dragon Heist to replace the infamous Chapter 4.
I think modules, big and small, are good for first time DM's. But I do agree that modules should be smaller and more flexible. That's why I think Dragon Heist is the best 5e Module to come out.
RotFM is not about Aureil, it is about her Rhyme, and the impact it has brought upon the land. The campaign is about freeing Icewind Dale from the Rhyme.
Bob! Dude! YOU are awesome! This video summed up my problem with using Rime of the Frost Maiden: information overload and unclear advancement through the Ten Towns. I have been made de facto DM for our little group because I have experience (yeah... From the early 1980s!) and seem to know what I'm doing. But, friend, this is a whole new world. I love your channel and love the breakdowns and fixes you've provided. Thank you. Can you suggest some one-shots that are easy to prep? I've run one of DM Dave's stories and liked it but need more! Thanks again.
Hey! Thank you for the kind words! I'm glad you're enjoying the content here. Not to over-self-promote, but I do have a bunch of setting-neutral 5e encounters and short adventures available on my Patreon :) The others I mentioned in this video are from Goodman Games's Fifth Edition Fantasy series
I agree wholeheartedly with your opinions in this video. I really enjoy short, concisely presented adventure modules, one-shots, or whatnot. I generally don't buy these WotC campaigns. I did buy Rime of the Frostmaiden. The alternative cover was beautiful; the sandbox possibilities were solid; and I'm a sucker for Netherese storylines. They aren't 5E, but rather Cypher System; but I reallly enjoy the length, structure and presentation of Monte Cook Games' short adventures. They're generally only a few pages, and are designed to easily accommodate the unexpected that comes from players' choices. (MCG does have some 5E stuff, too, as they adapted the Numenera setting to 5E.)
Exactly! DM is most important and most fragile part of all RPG industry. If you make the game for him a second job with tons of responsibilities and less and less fun, he will burnout. 300- page-modules, sandbox bullshit, railroad-phobia etc. kill your DM, D&D and all gaming industry.
I have a lot of the official 5e campaigns, and all of them have needed significant changes to story, pacing, and NPC motivations in order to make sense. You mentioned game balance as well, which of course is another issue (although at higher levels in most of the modules, it's a bit better). The whole point of buying a module is so the DM DOESN'T have to spend hours prepping. But the 5e content, you absolutely cannot simply open the book and start gaming. Some prep should be expected, but to make a good game out of it, you'll need to read the module very critically and fix it at many points. And on top of it, you're still paying $50 (yes, Amazon is cheaper, but I try to support my local game store). And WORST of all, the modules that have interconnections of plot points (eg SKT and HotDQ) have both continuity errors and spoilers from one module to the other. So groups that trade off DM-ing between campaigns, you can't really use those modules. Or, at least, not those parts of them. I still use the modules, because my group and I are interested in the lore of Faerun, and they're not outright bad... but it's a lot more work for the DM. More than I think is fair to expect of a pre-written official module.
Yeah, I agree about wanting to support my gamestore, and that price can feel like it's not worth it with the amount of prep involved after purchasing. I've had much better luck with the Goodman Games modules (also available at my FLGS)
In my "reviews" playlist there are a handful of modules from DMs Guild I stand behind, but maybe I'll do a video in the future about my favorite little modules
I think I have a bit of the opposite problem. I feel I don't have the creativity to come up with an overall plot and world. When I picked up RotF, it was great because there was a story and there was a world. There are also a lot of other DMs who have done the hard work of creating guides and ideas on reddit. If there's a story, my brain can really go wild and add and replace encounters or story threads to fit my players. Instead of small modules, I like little dungeons or encounters that I can repurpose for something in my campaign so that I don't have to create dungeons for the edits I'm making.
I should add that part of this ties into me being insecure about creating an entire homebrew world and making it complex enough for my players to explore in.
Hey, good morning Bob. The videos are always amazing and appreciated. Its been great watching the channel grow and the fact you have been getting sponsors lately is amazing!
I have ALWAYS skimmed down the modules, I would read the main story, and slice and carve the fat, and minimize it down to a quick simple quest. Take barrier peaks, I have this one just in my back pocket. I’m going to drop it on my group as a random encounter - not something they have to investigate, just something they will happen upon. In the end, it will just be a dungeon crawl, not a story. You can do this with ANY small module. Turn it into a “hey, what’s this?! You guys wanna go inside and check it out? Since we are just traveling across the land to another town, and happen upon this cool cave”? (Insert any small module here, improv whenever the module turns toward the main storyline of the module).
90% of the time mods end halfway. I played too much of CoS but even with Horde and Rise are pretty long and boring in some areas. Tales from the Yawling Portal, Icespire, and small quest are worth mixing into a campaign. I gave up on Dino Island becauss players ditched after Act 1. So I can say Smaller adventures are best.
Could not agree more re: Rime of the Frostmaiden being way too big and spread out. That module has been absolutely brutal to prep for; I’ve had to abandon MAW (module as written lol) to pick a few threads and simplify things way down to keep the story moving forward. (I think it was actually you that suggested using Ravisin as the first arc villain - it’s been going great for us!). I’ve always felt like the fantasy of the “total open world sandbox” is the most overrated thing in gaming (video games and TTRPG) since interesting worlds end up turning into narratives with a “linear” structure anyway (and there’s no way I’m going to build all ten Ten Towns in Foundry ahead of time so my party can feel like they have total free reign to do what they’re going to end up doing anyway).
I’ve been running Curse Of Strahd, and haven’t started Icewind Dale, but the problems you’re talking about are pretty much beholden to Icewind Dale. Strahd has been an epic game so far, and the party has come close to being TPK’d, but they are fully sold on the story, and still 3-4 sessions away from heading into the villains castle!
That's great to hear, and honestly it's probably why CoS is still one of the most popular modules and they are now putting more effort into expanding it. Can't wait to play it some day!
I think overall the modules are good at giving people different things to use and re play them, and some are just better at both of those things respectively. Tales from The Yawning Portal has amazing re booted content that can always be used over and over, while CoS is the best gothic module that was expanded on from the original Ravenloft. Ghosts of Saltmarsh is also a good reboot with many modules that can be interspersed into any adventure.
Haven't played a ton of prewritten but the encounters seemed horribly balanced lol. Although idk if my dm ran them right. In waterdeep we went to the casaalanter mansion, lost 2 PCs to some ghoul things before we got into the mansion. Ok, fine. we made 2 more and continued. We opened a book and 2 CR 4 ghosts came out and killed the 2 new PCs. Sure, my warlock came out unscathed but the others didn't. We also tried playing strahd twice but the pandemic stopped us. However, both times we ran into random encounters with like 3d6 enemies that were absolutely brutal. 15 wolves at level 1 was harder than any boss I've ever fought (but thanks to unbalanced unearthed arcana we somehow all survived)
Nice video Bob, providing an opportunity to reflect..I agree with you. I've spent the last 8 months studying Storm Kings Thunder, and getting to grips with that book for one campaign I run. Whereas the homebrew campaign I run, I've used a number of small modules and slotted them in.The latter has been a much simpler process. Keep the insights coming. I enjoy your videos,
SKT is the most epic of the 5e books in terms of its scope and take told. What you do need to do is recognise which bits to run for your group and your DM style and run that only. There is a ton of scope to include character backstory plot but you are looking at a year if game time. For a new DM run sunless citadel or a starter box adventure and then run into this book Sure you won't use all th content in one pass but that's a feature not a big as you have options to suit your playstyle and not all the adventures in the multi adventure books are good so there is little difference in total percentage actually used.
Still mad (not really...annoyed?) with Sly for backtracking RotF. And honestly this goes back to Hoard of the DQ. Just found and am really enjoying your channel. Cheers.
I totally agree with you. I am running this massive 1-20th level campaign, which is a totally epic, grandeous mythic Greek styled setting that is pre-written. It does a good job at making it fairly linear while giving the illusion of choice to the players. But there are many inconsistencies; a lot is left for the GM to fill in; important info is plopped all over the place; I constantly keep needing to read over it and I read over the content we just covered, and then find out I missed out some important stuff. While this 3rd party campaign is fantastic and really story driven with a hyper focus on the heroes of the story, there's a lots of work I've had to do; customising and making the world my own, adding or dropping content. And this video summed it all up. The good thing is, I never have to look for a new campaign and setting again as I will just keep running this one and refining it. But it also means my players who have experienced it, won't be able to play a new campaign with me and will have to find a new GM for the big campaigns 😒 (I'm secretly trying to train them to become GM's so I can stop being the forever GM) 😅
Would love your thoughts on players metagaming/buying these types of books to try and surpass insight checks... Fell like it’ll cause problems if I’m like “your character would know that” even after the player has read all this stuff...
I think that is generally uncommon, but if you suspect of player of that behavior, you should just ask them to hold off-- or really just to focus on what their character knows, and to not spoil anything for other players!
There are all of these modules on how to get new players but no real how to start DMing. The best book I’ve seen for new DMs is Dragon Heist, simply because it has an actual flowchart and the book differs in the 4 seasons so it’s the smallest content to learn and a great story. Frostmaiden, I took the 10 town quests and sprinkle them in my own setting or run as one shots. I took environmental rules and ideas from Saltmarsh, Tomb of Annihilation, Frostmaiden, & out of the abyss but will probably never run those books. 🤷♂️
I agree, I have a stack of small old TSR modules and I get inspiration just flipping through and recalling “rooms”, and recalling what happened in old runs, and picked some of the cool things and base a room around that. I have even used old modules as an inspiration for improv, ie. Nothing prepared but a few people want to play, I’ll grab an old module and just improv everything (even the map), and use an old module for filling in rooms (just change a few things to stay in line with what we are doing).
I myself took Rime of The Frostmaidan and then homebrewed the crap out of it to fix the main problem of the Madian not being the main focus as a villian... and man my players have latched on the hook I have given. Keeping them from getting stuck even though the setting is open. Plus thrown in a good ol' teacher/master NPC and I found that having a larger book gives me more tools for homebrewing on the fly within my schedule.
1/2 these big books are collecting dust at my flgs. I blame the writers/editors . Ravenloft is almost 40 years old and along with starter adventure are the best 5e out there. Rime doesn’t flow well along with many others. I see that wotc realizes this and are pumping money and resources into barovia. If I were wotc I’d get Mercer to put campaign one into an adventure book and at some point adventure 2. I’d then get dragon lance fixed and back out there plus find the newest hickman etc. rime was hyped as this scary adventure/alien /the thing. It’s a a slog and not dm friendly
Yeah I like RotF’s setting, but the adventure is a little complicated. Fortunately it’s basically a setting book too, and I think the many town/wilderness adventures can be mined by DMs
100% agree - we need more modules and less campaigns. Your world will feel more open if you scatter modules of content and let the party decide what's important. Campaigns assume major goals that often leave the party feeling like audience members.
My favorite modules? The giants. They were so small, maps so large, it was great because you can read it front to back (as a DM) and understand what these modules are supposed to be, you can get the world the place is in. Just because if that, spend 30 min reading the thing front to back, and then play... Awesome. Small modules rock!
I feel like I'm following your footsteps as DoIP was the first official module I ran and just started to go into the Rime ( with the same party) Personally I go back and fourth on my opinion of the topic. Right now I really enjoy the Frostmaiden book and I'm really excited to go thru the quests. The ONE thing I'd love to see in published adventures would be a flow chart of sort including a useful summary. I don't want to read every quest to find out what it is related to or not. - Very excited to see your worldbuilding content. Also :thumbsup: for the Hasbro moment ;)
@@BobWorldBuilder The flowchart in before the chapters is a step in the right direction but it's more of a summary. But if I want to know what quest leads to other quests I do have to read all of it or trust that reddit has an answer.
No haha, at the end of the video I say how I am still totally completing Frostmaiden, doing a series for LMoP, and probably occasional other official adventures. Like there's more I want to do, but it takes so much time!!
I was SO stoked for Rime (partly due to falling for the hype) but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s too big/too much for me as a DM or my group or all of the above. You’d think prewritten material is less work but at least for me it’s much harder than just making it up. All of this to say I’m on board with your channels direction. Cheers!
Your advice absolutely helped me wrap my head around everything but between irregular game nights it’s got too much going on for my players to keep track of.
Interesting take on this topic. I'm currently running Rime for my group and decided not to give them all of the books since my players don't want all of those choices. They want the goal laid out for them. Go here, kill that, retrieve this. One thing I do with the big adventure books like this is use it as a guide, but keep it flexible as things happen. One example is that my characters actually captured the goblin wagon, put the fire out, and made friends with the polar bears, so they use that to travel around the tundra. Certainly was an unexpected turn of events. I am looking forward to your world building stuff to see how you do it. Keep up the insightful videos.
Good point regarding building the world for your players. Let's take the wildemount setting That is based on Matt Mercer's homebrew Which is primarily designed with his players in mind. His players, not ours The monk of the cobalt soul is Mariska Ray's homebrew Oath of the deep sea paladin is Travis' fantasy Dunamancy is Matt's concept of a cool fantasy hook I like what you mentioned about smaller modules that u can incorporate into your campaign To be clear, not saying the big modules r bad in any way. Am sure many players want to go through Curse of Strahd, Avernus, and Tomb of annihilation and such But the most memorable experience will be in a world that speaks to the fantasies of those on the table itself Glad to c u discuss this topic and I will consider it for my next campaigns Cheers
@@BobWorldBuilder the issue of playing online really drives you to purchase big adventures so u have the maps ready at least Tough to improvise as this content should be ready ahead of time
Love the direction of more home brew stuff. I am a pretty new DM (bit less than two years) and I did a ton of home brew twist stuff for Lost Mines of Phandelver and really, really enjoyed it. I finally finished that and moved onto Rime of the Frostmaiden and still enjoying it, but now I really want to try home brewing a full campaign and I don't really know where to start. I'd love a whole series on how to approach this. Essentially, a checklist of sorts. I have lots of information I know for what I want within the campaign, I just don't know how to organize/structure it! I think this would be a definite gap to fill :)! The biggest issue i'm having is the middle. I know how I want it to begin, I know how i'd like it to end or at least the BBG for the ending, but i'm at a loss for how to fill in the middle with stuff that's truly meaningful and moving the campaign forward and not just filler content essentially. Sorry for the long-winded post!
Yeah none of it is necessarily easy, and that middle is usually the hardest part. It’s kind of where the game is really steered by the players, so it’s difficult to plan for. I’ll definitely do my best to cover it when we get to that point!
One thing that's useful about the big Story books, the various creatures that have stats in the books. I mean, Curse of Strahd has Barovian Witches, a cr 1/2 being that happens to be a 3rd class spellcaster using Wizard spells. I can see one of them being an Expert that slings some rather nasty spells. Then there's the Tabaxi Minstrel from Tomb of Annihilation, who has an ability similar to Inspiring Leadership - could be a Dex-based Warrior, an Expert, or a Spellcaster (Great choice for Prodigy, decent pick as a Mage, with the small possibility of being a Healer). Then there's the fellas from the Champaign setting books. In a homebrew, it's all pick and choose.
@@BobWorldBuilder You can steal a lot of them. Heck, some have already been reskinned in the books themselves - the Flying Sword has at least half a dozen variations - Staff, Battleaxe, Trident, Halberd, Shield (no attack other than I'm guessing the regular Unarmed Attack), Dagger/Knife - plus all the other craziness.
I’ve recently started DMing Tomb of Annihilation for my son and wife after we have unanimously decided to let our first campaign (which spanned Phandelver, Icespire Peak and quite a bit of homebrew) go. I’m in love with ToA (and actually checked your channel again, hoping to find some prep guides for it), but perusing this diverse and beautiful green sandbox I have come to a similar conclusion as you have: We have to keep our players and their interests and preferences in mind. On one hand my six-year-old is roleplaying the shit out of Dodo Darwin, his lizard folk druid zoologist, and in between games we’re drawing pictures for every encountered animal before he can wild-shape into them next game. On the other hand my ADHD-wife does her best to bear with us, but personally probably prefers 2/4 fast combats, 1/4 exploration and about 1/4 of social role play. Not to forget me, the wargaming perfectionist who likes things grim and “realistic”. Seeing this video and having you remind me of conclusions I had drawn before, I feel encouraged to take even more liberties than before. I will make this adventure a good family-time instead of clinging to the letter of the book and putting my favorite people through hundreds of hex fields of gritty jungle survival, looking for a lost city filled with dungeons, that contain the keys to an 80-room dungeon, that can only be explored after finishing yet another pretty large dungeon. Instead there will be pirates, dinosaurs, zombies and fun! That, and Dodo Darwin’s greatest wish will be fulfilled: to be transformed into an aarakocra and soar over the canopy of the ocean of green.
Hi , I am new player . Dragon Heist was my first game as player , and it was fantastic experience with my friends . But currently, may be it about 1-2 session left . After that, I would like to be DM . But I have question ... how important is overall campaign arc story line? Thanks
I think that Paizo did their campaign 'books' better, by splitting them into more linear adventure paths for Pathfinder. This way the GMs who want it can just run the entire campaign from levels 1 to 17 if they wish, or they can just use a single book or two if they want to spice things up for their homebrew, or insert something that's relevant to their personal campaign, since each of these books is self-contained enough to allow for it. Since I am relatively new in dnd/pathfinder system, when I picked up the Rime of the Frostmaiden I expected something really similar to pathfinder's APs, only to get both kinda disappointed and overwhelmed by the sheer content. If you expected a toolkit, an entire tool shed is definetely not what you'd want or need.
After nearly four decades of roleplaying, I started running from books just two years ago, having previously nearly entirely homebrewed all of my campaigns. I did this because I wanted to run a low effort, casual game during lockdown on top of my regular weekly game, and pre-written campaigns are a good way of doing that. My group and I all went into understanding that we were running through a pre-written scenario and wouldn't have the flexibility and choice usual to the games I run. It's been a fun experience, even if all the best moments were off-script.
I've always disliked long campaigns. As a player for more decades than I'd like to admit to, I found them to be extremely boring. And now that I am DMing, I still get bored with long campaigns but I also find the books to be too overwhelming. I much much prefer smaller adventures and one shots
I ran LMOP and ROTFM, and my players have all liked Lost Mines better. Maybe it's just the tone of both adventures is so different, but I think you're right--the complexity of 10 towns alone is overwhelming! Can't wait to get some homebrew pointers and focus on some smaller modules. Great video as always
We've been playing Princes of the Apocalypse, and having a bit of a problem with knowing where to go and what to do. Granted, we didn't take a few obvious hints dropped by our DM, but they were in situations where we thought the logical thing was to do something else first. I kind of think that maybe the layout on these big books is just bad or disorganized. It seems like they could be written in a manner to make it much easier to set up and run, sort of like the adventures in the starter kits. And we actually skipped all the random prep quests and started at level 4; I can't imagine how confusing it might have been to start at Level 1 with this book. I haven't read it closely because spoilers, but have read about it, and lots of folks seem to think this book especially is badly layed out to where it's harder for the DM to keep track of everything. He seems to have to flip back and forth a lot. Anyway, I'm enjoying the grand adventure, and probably am more into that than one-shots or smaller adventures, but maybe in the future the books will get written better and be more helpful to DM setup.
I'm running Curse of Strahd for my Campaign, and I think you made a lot of great points. There are some chapters that are just absolutely monstrous with dozens and dozens of named NPCs and they don't really read like story books. They read more like exercise manuals. I think that the best way to use the books is a framework to leapfrog off of and build your own campaign and story.
DIY modules are the way to go. That's how it started and was the way it was built to work. The only pre-made, module-like things I liked to use are big cities, no quests, no plot points, but a vast urban scape, well laid out, pre-labeled, and pre-peopled, like a directory. The ones that included a large play map, and a booklet, Thomas-style map with DM info separately have always served me well. And that's the format I use to build a city, though I honestly never find the time to put in all the details to a city of thousands. I generally fill in the highlights, and leave my spiral notebook mostly open to fill in details later. And I reuse cities a lot. I lost my old copy of Greyhawk in a move, but we used that as an eternal city, out of time and space, a world of its own, connected to other worlds in some arcane fashion, like Lyss, or Tanalorn, or Amber.
I've got a FFG warhammer 40k RPG book that I was going to adapt, but its scope is just too big for me to digest and be able to run properly. Homebrew & modules are a lot easier
I don't how you can argue that the big books have less replay value but then discuss the sandbox nature and multiple routes in them. I see these way easier than homebrew in terms of prep time since your locations, npcs and everything are there, you just really need to read over your given chapter and maybe pull a stat block or two before each session, its about as much work as a night of english homework for a highschooler. If it feels too big or bloated cut what you dont want, to save prep time and player confusion. You can make a sandbox more linear much easier than opening up and expanding a small module unless you're placing in something else you already have established. The one complaint I do get and have had both as a player and DM is that it doesnt allow for much exploration of a character's backstory when people create their characters on their own, BUT to me that's easily solved with a session zero and or handout giving some some baseline info their characters would know going into the adventure and some of the character hooks in those prewritten campaigns. Maybe their cleric was given a vision of the frost maiden's eternal winter or the goliath was an outcast from one of the tribes in the adventure and is seeking to regain favor. Essentially you tie the backstory to the main story that's already theire rather than having to tailor the adventure to the backstory like you would in homebrew. Overall the campaign books and small modules fill different roles so kind of tough to honestly say one is better.
Ive run 3 now, and for £50 the books are reasonable value for a 4 to 6 month campaign, I had to do work to amend and add stuff but if you dont have much time to prepare these books are great.
Having run Storm King's Thunder and about 2/5 of Tomb of Annihilation, I can also say that the Big Books also have a shallowness problem: they're full to bursting with encounter locales and such, but those encounters are not very challenging, not very deep, and only have minimal connection to the big picture... leading to a lot of time spent by the party wandering around in search of the plot. Connecting a string of smaller, "deeper" adventures would be comparable or even less work, but yield bigger rewards, I suspect. The 3E "Red Hand of Doom" was a great Big Book adventure, but it's about 1/2 the size of the ones currently being put out by Hasbro and was a lot more focused.
Storm Kings and Tomb have that issue with them being more about the exploration tennet of D&D for a good chunk of the book, so those might just not be the best fit dor your style or table. On the other hand something like Dragonheist is more about the social with less exploration being that the whole book takes place in the city but the whole things is pretty railroad and interconnected. On the extreme other end you have something like Mad Mage which has next to no overarching story and just a long grueling dungeon crawl for exploration and combat.
As always, top notch opinions. As someone who’s first attempt at running games was with Hoard of the Dragon Queen, I can only agree wholeheartedly. Especially when a GM is first starting, these large modules are overwhelming to both absorb and afford. Glad to say my library is filling with indie material including a fantastic Neverwinter utility and a Session 0 guide by Mr Worldbuilder himself! As a forever GM trying to start his own thing, I can really get behind a message to support the “mom and pop” shops of online DnD. Cannot recommend Bob’s work and sites likes drive thru rpg and dmsguild enough! Bob, we gotta get you an interview with Brennan Lee Mulligan’s Adventuring Academy, for real
I enjoy all the lore the bigger campaign books give, most of players are new and really love the lore they learn. The work is worth it for that. Great video brother
Yeah I think that can be valuable to help flesh out a DMs personal setting. Ultimately writing your own lore with your players will make the best works for your group!
I concur. I still have all of my old AD&D modules or pathfinder adventure paths and enjoy digging them out and cobbling together new stories for my 5e campaigns. I have Rime of the frost maiden. I do like the detail of the towns and a few other elements, but I'm sure that the story it's self isn't necessary. So far I might just get Candlekeep and see how that one works out, because it's a collection of modules.....I hope. lol
Well.... I saw only Cons of D&D Campaign Books... Apart from art+maps. But I agree in part with that. I still love campaign books even though they are a lot of work do digest when compared to smaller campaigns. But what I usually do is break the main story, pick all the material that I want and change what needed so the world can adapt to my players. With RotF I'm doing that so that my players have a deep connection with the place, being through backstory or other story elements. That way, they'll get a special motivation when the towns are at danger. Also, I'm using this stories with small elements that are building to my homebrew campaign that I started years ago so when we finish this and/or other campaings, I'll have a lot of lore for my campaign. For example, the motivation of Auril to do the everlasting Winter is because she's trying to imprison the BBEG of my homebrew world and Icewind Dale was the location that she chose. My players don't know that saw there's a very high probability that they will accidentality set free the BBEG. On a final note, the start of RotF is really very daunting with too much options for the players that don't connect to the main story. But I believe that the idea of the writers was to have "time" for the players to create a connection with the place. But the way it transits to the plot it's a little too lose. But that gives some freedom for the DM to connect the story the way it wants. :D
Yeahhh this ended up being pretty con-heavy for the big books. The main pro is just getting a lot of material to work with, but I prefer getting a little because it's easier to find the good stuff!
Love this idea of using the module as a catalyst or inspiration. I am currently “running” DoIP, however one of my PC’s died at the foot of the altar of Savras. After rolling and desperate attempts from his party, Savras decided to charge him with the fate of the sword coast so they found a dungeon under the dwarven graveyard on Umbrage Hill. Now I guess it is time to plan out a dungeon crawl.
I'm running my first big module (Dragon Heist) and I toooootally hear you. It's required a ton of work to adapt the events in the module to fit better with the story of the characters, and combining events to not have my players suffer from plot hook paralysis. Good video!
Glad to hear you can relate to this! Funny enough, others in the comments have said that DH is one of the easier big books to adapt! I hope to try that one out in the future
When I first started DMing using one of these books I found myself so overwhelmed and with not enough time to prep, to the point where I would get teased about it by my players. "Notitas Alex, Notitas!" they would say. I'm taking a new approach now which involves making the plot more character centered, so I use some of the big book but definitely not all of it to make the price worth it. I even found myself hopping on to the DM's Guild to find some supplements to help me out during those sandbox moments these books tend to have just to make the story a bit more cohesive for my players.
I really like some of the 5e campaign books but I think you hit it on the head. Small modules are great for there flexibility and ease of use. I've been really surprised they don't also make small modules that are stand alone or even connect to their larger story's.
The good news is that they may return to making smaller modules in the future! There are so many great ones available on DMs Guild, but with D&D's popularity continuing to grow, eventually they'll probably start churning out shorter books
I use the big campaign books as templates and then I substantially revise multiple elements to my liking. That said, I still spend vast amounts of time digesting the original content before I even get to the point of revision. I appreciate all of the information, but I can also appreciate the value of starting with a smaller, modular adventure as a template and then revising that to my liking.
I'm a new DM I've been preparing my own homebrew campaign for some close friends/ family. I didn't have any plans on using the premade stories until someone I hardly knew expressed interest in playing all of a sudden I started feeling insecure abut sharing my world with anyone I didn't know.
I love the modularity of Icespire Peak, and, to a lesser extent, the follow-up modules. It got me interested in starting to write my own modules, and I was able to join a project that was all about that.
Totally! DoIP feels like there's room to add stuff because some of the locations aren't too important. In RotF is a tougher to distinguish the signal from the noise
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New DM here. This video really validated some of the thoughts I've had about the big campaign books, both as a player and thumbing through them for adventure ideas. They're just A LOT. I greatly prefer modules that I can digest and modify to suit the PCs play styles. I thought maybe I'm just easily overwhelmed. And maybe I am, but this video helped me not sweat it. This channel has been great, and I'm excited for more world building content!
That’s awesome to hear! It’s exactly why I wanted to make this video :)
Far from easily overwhelmed, I prefer to fill my accessible mind and path with what my players produce and desire. Every module needs to wrap around the active players unless the characters were made to fit the module instead.
"Hasbro!" Oh god! The true villian behind the scenes. Make it stop, make it stop!
The necessary evil for all dnd fans!
I call them Has(all your money)Bro. But hey, at least they are interested in making product and supporting it.
I like these books but I’m continually amazed by how poorly organised they are, with information presented in a weird order causing you to have to constantly flip back and forth or miss things.
Yeah, I kind of feel ike the digital resources like DND Beyond are a better way to keep all that info organized.
Sometimes I feel like the only dm that doesn't want to homebrew entire settings. Even in homebrew, I'd rather: take a location in the forgotten realms I know a ton about, drop a problem or 2 into it, and then enable my PCs in that setting.
Im hoping to master the official huge modules enough to dm Adventurers league where ever I can.
That is a completely viable why to play!! I think that's why some of these books are really popular: they are great for adding big chunks of a world into your game without doing all the worldbuilding yourself. It can save a ton of time if you're not into writing your own lore
My current homebrew campaign takes place in Faerûn. I saw a monster and thought "this monster's existence is an entire campaign" so I did it
I’m personally really excited to see more videos about making a home brew world from this channel, can’t wait!
Me too! Haha, it’s about time
I miss the old days of previous editions where modules were just for one or two levels that you can drop into your homebrew. The 5E books are complete campaigns from levels 1 to 15 and very hard to drop into a homebrew campaign.
Yes, great for game store adventurers league play, not great for home campaigns :P
I disagree and enjoy running the big modules. I use the pre-made roll20 modules along with the paper books. Those two things cost a lot together but saves me eons of prep time and I find that it’s easy to prep.
True, having D&D Beyond to help me has been great for RotF. Using the book alone would be challenging
Bob: Says RotFM is a very big and complicated sandbox.
Me: *Laughs in Curse of Strahd*
Haha, well that's also funny because a bunch of people have commented saying that CoS doesn't have all of these issues I mentioned for RotF! I've never run/played it myself though
My first foray into DM-ing was Out of the Abyss...man, that was a mistake. I was so overwhelmed because of the sheer magnitude and amount of content. I didn't realize that I could cut things out or add things. I think that this has been corrected in more recent modules, however, my gripe with the WotC modules is that there is SO much fluff in them for DMs that can discourage new DMs from being creative on their own. I also see DMs gripe that there isn't enough in the books to tell them "how to run it." I don't think a DM should want to be told "how to run it," instead, should be willing to take the bare bones of the adventure and flesh it out with their own content. Just my .02.
That’s an interesting take! There should be more tips in starter modules for sure
Wow the Kickstarter sounds amazing
Yeah, it's a cool approach to design and it's really well presented. I just backed it. 🙂
Yes it’s the first I’m excited about in a while!
@@elementzero3379 I really appreciate that!
@@BobWorldBuilder I backed it!
Everybody gangsta til Bob World Builder starts World building
😎
As a new DM, using a campaign book was a great resource for building the spine of an adventure, but I quickly learned to pull what I wanted and change/omit the parts that didn't work. (*looking at you Storm King's Thunder)
Yes, it's all about picking and choosing the good stuff!
honestly I really enjoy some of the big modules (Curse of Strahd being my fave cause I can sort of morph it the way I want), but I agree that little adventures and modules are SO helpful to just drop into campaigns. I think both have their place! (but also I'm just a fiend and will read adventure modules for fun haha)
Haha, I’m hearing a lot of good things about CoS in these comments! I think that being its own little world really helps
in previous editions we used to have adventures separately from region books and basically you used to go where you wanted to
but now Wizards are only publishing a meagre three, four books a year and they have to pack it all up into one thing
that's one of the reasons why people get upset when they release a new book, because they feel like a new release, with them being as scarce as they are, it's going to be taken the place another favourite campaign or adventure or setting book could take instead
and this also to connects with the fact that yeah, Bob, many people want just to have fun, but some other people have grown up with the internet world and they want to feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves, so being able to play with printed, 'famous' modules is something that people want to experience too, so you can't just tell them to just play something coming from their minds and nothing officially printed
it's a complicated issue with several layers. But yeah, prewritten modules especially WotC ones should be nearly flawless, considering the expertise, money and backing they have , which minor and amateur publishers don't count on
That's a great breakdown of the issue! Eventually I do think WotC will start publishing their own smaller books for 5e like they did for earlier editions, in addition to a few big books per year
@@BobWorldBuilder I wish they did, but apparently that doesn't meet their 'business model' they must be making a lot of money from those big books so sadly I don't believe Wizards is to change anything anytime soon. But if they did, it would be better for us, of course.
Got back into D and D with my best friend from high school, and found Bob at just the right time. I can’t agree with you more that those big Adventure books are overwhelming. I picked one up at a LGS, and was very intimidated. We played through the Dargon of Icespire peak and had a blast and I’m happy they had the online expansion to this adventure. Bobs video series on this adventure was perfect for a returning player to D and D, and I would totally recommend it to any new player wanting to get into D and D 5E. Keep on building!
Thank you very much! Happy to help you get back into D&D :)
Hey, new subscriber here! Just found you and I'm excited to see some world building stuff. I'm currently running Lost Mine of Phandelver for my group of all new players. I love it and I'm trying to keep it open to their whims and built around them. However, I think that after they finish (provided they want to continue with the same PCs) I'll try to really open up the world and make it a lot more of a sandbox.
That's awesome! Thank you for subscribing, and hopefully my LMoP series will still be useful to you by the time I get to it!
@@BobWorldBuilder I'll definitely watch no matter what. I might wind up running it again too!
All of the 5e campaign books I've read fail at the most important thing, organisation. Not a single one could you actually quickly reference important information like character summarys or a plot summary/flow chart and its a damn shame cause the books are rammed with useless flavour text thats taking up valuable space that could have been used so much better.
Yeah I really think the group who sponsored this video are doing it quite well!
IMO this is my only complaint about the large books, thankfully resources like D&D beyond solve this with links.
What I've been doing is using the "World" of the big books of The Sword Coast, and I just dropped my party into it as a level 1 family who lost their farm due to dragon attacks.... This give plenty of reasons for their weak state and how they are trying to build back their farm.... I can makeup what I want and drop it into the world or fall back on the city's quest board. It doesn't make it easy, but it gives you bones to lay your flesh and skin on. Like a Lich using his necromancy, you have to use what you got!
Haha yes this is a great way to use modules of any size!
This is where Paizo got it right: Adventure Paths were often “just right” for my groups.
No experience with those! I like the sound of it though :)
yeah great idea. You can either run them as standalone, deviate from them if you didn't like them, use only as much as needed, I think they do a better job
Wizards kinda started doing this? But not really. For example, RotFM is split between a level 1-4 sandbox module of Ten Towns, then level 5-8 about Icewind Dale, and a final 9-11 at its last adventure. The problem is they are all too connected.
Similarly, Descent into Avernus starts with 1-4 module set in Baldurs gate that naturally segways into Avernus. But I would prefer to disconnect these "Modules" better.
Give me a book of 3 or 4 Adventures set to run players from 1 to 4. Dragon Heist basically does this. Then give me a book from 5 to 9 Modules, 10 to 14, and lastly high level adventures. Let me figure of as the DM which ones work based on the party.
Yeah I was attracted to RotF partially because it seemed to have a pretty modular structure. I actually remember Crawford saying they were using a similar template to DoIP when designing RotF, but the books has a TON more going on!
I enjoy the large boos. It gives me a tom of premade content that I can loot, pillage and customize for my world. I run a modified Forgotten Realms using the 2E map because I never bought the whole Spellplague thing. For example, Hoard of the Dragon Queen was modded with an old Dragonlance module and the first part of Dragon Heist to replace the infamous Chapter 4.
Yeah it definitely sounds like you're making them your own!
I think modules, big and small, are good for first time DM's. But I do agree that modules should be smaller and more flexible. That's why I think Dragon Heist is the best 5e Module to come out.
I still have to play that one! Eventually I want to cover it in the channel!
RotFM is not about Aureil, it is about her Rhyme, and the impact it has brought upon the land. The campaign is about freeing Icewind Dale from the Rhyme.
That's a great point! I think it's about balancing both her Rime's affect on the land and the people and her more direct impact as the villain
Bob! Dude! YOU are awesome! This video summed up my problem with using Rime of the Frost Maiden: information overload and unclear advancement through the Ten Towns.
I have been made de facto DM for our little group because I have experience (yeah... From the early 1980s!) and seem to know what I'm doing. But, friend, this is a whole new world. I love your channel and love the breakdowns and fixes you've provided. Thank you.
Can you suggest some one-shots that are easy to prep? I've run one of DM Dave's stories and liked it but need more!
Thanks again.
Hey! Thank you for the kind words! I'm glad you're enjoying the content here. Not to over-self-promote, but I do have a bunch of setting-neutral 5e encounters and short adventures available on my Patreon :) The others I mentioned in this video are from Goodman Games's Fifth Edition Fantasy series
My favorite 5E Adventure/Campaign Book is Waterdeep Dragon Heist.
That’s another one I want to eventually cover in this channel, but it will be a while!
Can't wait for some world building and some more actual play like you did with Dragon of Icespire Keep
Some gameplay coming this month! And more later this year :)
I agree wholeheartedly with your opinions in this video. I really enjoy short, concisely presented adventure modules, one-shots, or whatnot.
I generally don't buy these WotC campaigns. I did buy Rime of the Frostmaiden. The alternative cover was beautiful; the sandbox possibilities were solid; and I'm a sucker for Netherese storylines.
They aren't 5E, but rather Cypher System; but I reallly enjoy the length, structure and presentation of Monte Cook Games' short adventures. They're generally only a few pages, and are designed to easily accommodate the unexpected that comes from players' choices. (MCG does have some 5E stuff, too, as they adapted the Numenera setting to 5E.)
Yeah RotF is actually a solid book for the resources and short adventures packed into it. I’ll have to check out cypher!
Exactly! DM is most important and most fragile part of all RPG industry. If you make the game for him a second job with tons of responsibilities and less and less fun, he will burnout. 300- page-modules, sandbox bullshit, railroad-phobia etc. kill your DM, D&D and all gaming industry.
Haha you sound ready to start a revolution!
I have a lot of the official 5e campaigns, and all of them have needed significant changes to story, pacing, and NPC motivations in order to make sense. You mentioned game balance as well, which of course is another issue (although at higher levels in most of the modules, it's a bit better).
The whole point of buying a module is so the DM DOESN'T have to spend hours prepping. But the 5e content, you absolutely cannot simply open the book and start gaming. Some prep should be expected, but to make a good game out of it, you'll need to read the module very critically and fix it at many points. And on top of it, you're still paying $50 (yes, Amazon is cheaper, but I try to support my local game store).
And WORST of all, the modules that have interconnections of plot points (eg SKT and HotDQ) have both continuity errors and spoilers from one module to the other. So groups that trade off DM-ing between campaigns, you can't really use those modules. Or, at least, not those parts of them.
I still use the modules, because my group and I are interested in the lore of Faerun, and they're not outright bad... but it's a lot more work for the DM. More than I think is fair to expect of a pre-written official module.
Yeah, I agree about wanting to support my gamestore, and that price can feel like it's not worth it with the amount of prep involved after purchasing. I've had much better luck with the Goodman Games modules (also available at my FLGS)
Greetings, Bob. Love your channel. Used the DoIP videos. What smaller modules do you recommend?
In my "reviews" playlist there are a handful of modules from DMs Guild I stand behind, but maybe I'll do a video in the future about my favorite little modules
Thanks! Aaaaand watching the videos you mentioned now!
I think I have a bit of the opposite problem. I feel I don't have the creativity to come up with an overall plot and world. When I picked up RotF, it was great because there was a story and there was a world. There are also a lot of other DMs who have done the hard work of creating guides and ideas on reddit. If there's a story, my brain can really go wild and add and replace encounters or story threads to fit my players.
Instead of small modules, I like little dungeons or encounters that I can repurpose for something in my campaign so that I don't have to create dungeons for the edits I'm making.
I should add that part of this ties into me being insecure about creating an entire homebrew world and making it complex enough for my players to explore in.
Hey, good morning Bob. The videos are always amazing and appreciated.
Its been great watching the channel grow and the fact you have been getting sponsors lately is amazing!
I appreciate that! :D
I have ALWAYS skimmed down the modules, I would read the main story, and slice and carve the fat, and minimize it down to a quick simple quest.
Take barrier peaks, I have this one just in my back pocket. I’m going to drop it on my group as a random encounter - not something they have to investigate, just something they will happen upon.
In the end, it will just be a dungeon crawl, not a story. You can do this with ANY small module. Turn it into a “hey, what’s this?! You guys wanna go inside and check it out? Since we are just traveling across the land to another town, and happen upon this cool cave”? (Insert any small module here, improv whenever the module turns toward the main storyline of the module).
Excellent style!
90% of the time mods end halfway. I played too much of CoS but even with Horde and Rise are pretty long and boring in some areas. Tales from the Yawling Portal, Icespire, and small quest are worth mixing into a campaign.
I gave up on Dino Island becauss players ditched after Act 1. So I can say Smaller adventures are best.
Yeah some of it is the difficulty of keeping a group together for long enough to finish one, but just managing the campaign is hard work!
Could not agree more re: Rime of the Frostmaiden being way too big and spread out. That module has been absolutely brutal to prep for; I’ve had to abandon MAW (module as written lol) to pick a few threads and simplify things way down to keep the story moving forward. (I think it was actually you that suggested using Ravisin as the first arc villain - it’s been going great for us!). I’ve always felt like the fantasy of the “total open world sandbox” is the most overrated thing in gaming (video games and TTRPG) since interesting worlds end up turning into narratives with a “linear” structure anyway (and there’s no way I’m going to build all ten Ten Towns in Foundry ahead of time so my party can feel like they have total free reign to do what they’re going to end up doing anyway).
It’s the folly of all world builders! haha
I’ve been running Curse Of Strahd, and haven’t started Icewind Dale, but the problems you’re talking about are pretty much beholden to Icewind Dale. Strahd has been an epic game so far, and the party has come close to being TPK’d, but they are fully sold on the story, and still 3-4 sessions away from heading into the villains castle!
That's great to hear, and honestly it's probably why CoS is still one of the most popular modules and they are now putting more effort into expanding it. Can't wait to play it some day!
I think overall the modules are good at giving people different things to use and re play them, and some are just better at both of those things respectively. Tales from The Yawning Portal has amazing re booted content that can always be used over and over, while CoS is the best gothic module that was expanded on from the original Ravenloft. Ghosts of Saltmarsh is also a good reboot with many modules that can be interspersed into any adventure.
Haven't played a ton of prewritten but the encounters seemed horribly balanced lol. Although idk if my dm ran them right. In waterdeep we went to the casaalanter mansion, lost 2 PCs to some ghoul things before we got into the mansion. Ok, fine. we made 2 more and continued. We opened a book and 2 CR 4 ghosts came out and killed the 2 new PCs. Sure, my warlock came out unscathed but the others didn't. We also tried playing strahd twice but the pandemic stopped us. However, both times we ran into random encounters with like 3d6 enemies that were absolutely brutal. 15 wolves at level 1 was harder than any boss I've ever fought (but thanks to unbalanced unearthed arcana we somehow all survived)
Uhhh 15 wolves at level 1 seems impossible! Now that's a story!
Nice video Bob, providing an opportunity to reflect..I agree with you. I've spent the last 8 months studying Storm Kings Thunder, and getting to grips with that book for one campaign I run.
Whereas the homebrew campaign I run, I've used a number of small modules and slotted them in.The latter has been a much simpler process.
Keep the insights coming. I enjoy your videos,
Thanks for sharing! SKT is one I want to run eventually :)
SKT is the most epic of the 5e books in terms of its scope and take told. What you do need to do is recognise which bits to run for your group and your DM style and run that only. There is a ton of scope to include character backstory plot but you are looking at a year if game time. For a new DM run sunless citadel or a starter box adventure and then run into this book
Sure you won't use all th content in one pass but that's a feature not a big as you have options to suit your playstyle and not all the adventures in the multi adventure books are good so there is little difference in total percentage actually used.
Still mad (not really...annoyed?) with Sly for backtracking RotF. And honestly this goes back to Hoard of the DQ. Just found and am really enjoying your channel. Cheers.
RotF is a beast! I don’t blame anyone for taking a break from it haha
I totally agree with you.
I am running this massive 1-20th level campaign, which is a totally epic, grandeous mythic Greek styled setting that is pre-written. It does a good job at making it fairly linear while giving the illusion of choice to the players. But there are many inconsistencies; a lot is left for the GM to fill in; important info is plopped all over the place; I constantly keep needing to read over it and I read over the content we just covered, and then find out I missed out some important stuff.
While this 3rd party campaign is fantastic and really story driven with a hyper focus on the heroes of the story, there's a lots of work I've had to do; customising and making the world my own, adding or dropping content.
And this video summed it all up.
The good thing is, I never have to look for a new campaign and setting again as I will just keep running this one and refining it. But it also means my players who have experienced it, won't be able to play a new campaign with me and will have to find a new GM for the big campaigns 😒
(I'm secretly trying to train them to become GM's so I can stop being the forever GM) 😅
I think that's the dream haha, a group of players who also all DM and have their own awesome worlds!
Would love your thoughts on players metagaming/buying these types of books to try and surpass insight checks... Fell like it’ll cause problems if I’m like “your character would know that” even after the player has read all this stuff...
I think that is generally uncommon, but if you suspect of player of that behavior, you should just ask them to hold off-- or really just to focus on what their character knows, and to not spoil anything for other players!
There are all of these modules on how to get new players but no real how to start DMing. The best book I’ve seen for new DMs is Dragon Heist, simply because it has an actual flowchart and the book differs in the 4 seasons so it’s the smallest content to learn and a great story. Frostmaiden, I took the 10 town quests and sprinkle them in my own setting or run as one shots. I took environmental rules and ideas from Saltmarsh, Tomb of Annihilation, Frostmaiden, & out of the abyss but will probably never run those books. 🤷♂️
Yeah, Dragon Heist is on my list but idk when I'd actually get to it :P
I agree, I have a stack of small old TSR modules and I get inspiration just flipping through and recalling “rooms”, and recalling what happened in old runs, and picked some of the cool things and base a room around that.
I have even used old modules as an inspiration for improv, ie. Nothing prepared but a few people want to play, I’ll grab an old module and just improv everything (even the map), and use an old module for filling in rooms (just change a few things to stay in line with what we are doing).
Yeah, I kind of want to start collecting old modules just to see what I missed out on from the good old days of early D&D!
I myself took Rime of The Frostmaidan and then homebrewed the crap out of it to fix the main problem of the Madian not being the main focus as a villian... and man my players have latched on the hook I have given. Keeping them from getting stuck even though the setting is open. Plus thrown in a good ol' teacher/master NPC and I found that having a larger book gives me more tools for homebrewing on the fly within my schedule.
Well done, Brian! :)
1/2 these big books are collecting dust at my flgs. I blame the writers/editors . Ravenloft is almost 40 years old and along with starter adventure are the best 5e out there. Rime doesn’t flow well along with many others. I see that wotc realizes this and are pumping money and resources into barovia. If I were wotc I’d get Mercer to put campaign one into an adventure book and at some point adventure 2. I’d then get dragon lance fixed and back out there plus find the newest hickman etc. rime was hyped as this scary adventure/alien /the thing. It’s a a slog and not dm friendly
Yeah I like RotF’s setting, but the adventure is a little complicated. Fortunately it’s basically a setting book too, and I think the many town/wilderness adventures can be mined by DMs
Agreed love the content here. I wish they did another top quality starter type adventure.
100% agree - we need more modules and less campaigns. Your world will feel more open if you scatter modules of content and let the party decide what's important. Campaigns assume major goals that often leave the party feeling like audience members.
Well said!
My favorite modules?
The giants. They were so small, maps so large, it was great because you can read it front to back (as a DM) and understand what these modules are supposed to be, you can get the world the place is in. Just because if that, spend 30 min reading the thing front to back, and then play...
Awesome. Small modules rock!
I feel like I'm following your footsteps as DoIP was the first official module I ran and just started to go into the Rime ( with the same party)
Personally I go back and fourth on my opinion of the topic. Right now I really enjoy the Frostmaiden book and I'm really excited to go thru the quests.
The ONE thing I'd love to see in published adventures would be a flow chart of sort including a useful summary.
I don't want to read every quest to find out what it is related to or not.
-
Very excited to see your worldbuilding content. Also :thumbsup: for the Hasbro moment ;)
Yeah, they often give an overall flowchart now, but ones for smaller sections of the book would be super useful! Glad you liked Hasbro there :P
@@BobWorldBuilder The flowchart in before the chapters is a step in the right direction but it's more of a summary.
But if I want to know what quest leads to other quests I do have to read all of it or trust that reddit has an answer.
So, officially will you be stepping away from Campaigns? Will you finish the Icewind dale series?
No haha, at the end of the video I say how I am still totally completing Frostmaiden, doing a series for LMoP, and probably occasional other official adventures. Like there's more I want to do, but it takes so much time!!
You can get a lot of great Icewind Dale lore from Salvatore books... Much more fun a read than campaign books and you get great character ideas too!
I have yet to dive in! But it's good to know they make a good resource for this campaign!
I was SO stoked for Rime (partly due to falling for the hype) but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s too big/too much for me as a DM or my group or all of the above. You’d think prewritten material is less work but at least for me it’s much harder than just making it up. All of this to say I’m on board with your channels direction. Cheers!
Well I like to think that all my videos about Rime make it manageable :) but I totally understand the decision
Your advice absolutely helped me wrap my head around everything but between irregular game nights it’s got too much going on for my players to keep track of.
Subscribe!
Been waiting for a video like this forever!
Ty bud (no more google eyes)
Awesome! Thanks for subscribing :)
Interesting take on this topic. I'm currently running Rime for my group and decided not to give them all of the books since my players don't want all of those choices. They want the goal laid out for them. Go here, kill that, retrieve this.
One thing I do with the big adventure books like this is use it as a guide, but keep it flexible as things happen.
One example is that my characters actually captured the goblin wagon, put the fire out, and made friends with the polar bears, so they use that to travel around the tundra. Certainly was an unexpected turn of events.
I am looking forward to your world building stuff to see how you do it.
Keep up the insightful videos.
Thats interesting actually because (until it got nuked and buryed by a blizzard later) my party did the same thing.
This is a great way to run the big books!
Good point regarding building the world for your players.
Let's take the wildemount setting
That is based on Matt Mercer's homebrew
Which is primarily designed with his players in mind. His players, not ours
The monk of the cobalt soul is Mariska Ray's homebrew
Oath of the deep sea paladin is Travis' fantasy
Dunamancy is Matt's concept of a cool fantasy hook
I like what you mentioned about smaller modules that u can incorporate into your campaign
To be clear, not saying the big modules r bad in any way. Am sure many players want to go through Curse of Strahd, Avernus, and Tomb of annihilation and such
But the most memorable experience will be in a world that speaks to the fantasies of those on the table itself
Glad to c u discuss this topic and I will consider it for my next campaigns
Cheers
Ye, there is absolutely value in those books, but a lot more in your own players' heads that often gets overlooked!
@@BobWorldBuilder the issue of playing online really drives you to purchase big adventures so u have the maps ready at least
Tough to improvise as this content should be ready ahead of time
I wish I saw this before I purchased storm kings thunder.
Well, one of my dnd-tuber pals, Matthew Perkins, is planning to make a video guide series about that book! So you're in luck!
Love the direction of more home brew stuff. I am a pretty new DM (bit less than two years) and I did a ton of home brew twist stuff for Lost Mines of Phandelver and really, really enjoyed it. I finally finished that and moved onto Rime of the Frostmaiden and still enjoying it, but now I really want to try home brewing a full campaign and I don't really know where to start. I'd love a whole series on how to approach this. Essentially, a checklist of sorts. I have lots of information I know for what I want within the campaign, I just don't know how to organize/structure it!
I think this would be a definite gap to fill :)!
The biggest issue i'm having is the middle. I know how I want it to begin, I know how i'd like it to end or at least the BBG for the ending, but i'm at a loss for how to fill in the middle with stuff that's truly meaningful and moving the campaign forward and not just filler content essentially.
Sorry for the long-winded post!
Yeah none of it is necessarily easy, and that middle is usually the hardest part. It’s kind of where the game is really steered by the players, so it’s difficult to plan for. I’ll definitely do my best to cover it when we get to that point!
One thing that's useful about the big Story books, the various creatures that have stats in the books. I mean, Curse of Strahd has Barovian Witches, a cr 1/2 being that happens to be a 3rd class spellcaster using Wizard spells. I can see one of them being an Expert that slings some rather nasty spells. Then there's the Tabaxi Minstrel from Tomb of Annihilation, who has an ability similar to Inspiring Leadership - could be a Dex-based Warrior, an Expert, or a Spellcaster (Great choice for Prodigy, decent pick as a Mage, with the small possibility of being a Healer). Then there's the fellas from the Champaign setting books. In a homebrew, it's all pick and choose.
There's definitely good content to mine from the big books!
@@BobWorldBuilder You can steal a lot of them. Heck, some have already been reskinned in the books themselves - the Flying Sword has at least half a dozen variations - Staff, Battleaxe, Trident, Halberd, Shield (no attack other than I'm guessing the regular Unarmed Attack), Dagger/Knife - plus all the other craziness.
curse of strahd is very cohesive. rime of frostmaiden is not...
I still have to play that one!
They are tooooo big. Too huge.
When is the next Icewind Dale DM’s guide video??
Next week :)
well said
Thank you for commenting!
Nice.
Thank you for commenting!
Theater of the Mind for combat=Lazy DM
This is the way
I’ve recently started DMing Tomb of Annihilation for my son and wife after we have unanimously decided to let our first campaign (which spanned Phandelver, Icespire Peak and quite a bit of homebrew) go.
I’m in love with ToA (and actually checked your channel again, hoping to find some prep guides for it), but perusing this diverse and beautiful green sandbox I have come to a similar conclusion as you have: We have to keep our players and their interests and preferences in mind.
On one hand my six-year-old is roleplaying the shit out of Dodo Darwin, his lizard folk druid zoologist, and in between games we’re drawing pictures for every encountered animal before he can wild-shape into them next game.
On the other hand my ADHD-wife does her best to bear with us, but personally probably prefers 2/4 fast combats, 1/4 exploration and about 1/4 of social role play.
Not to forget me, the wargaming perfectionist who likes things grim and “realistic”.
Seeing this video and having you remind me of conclusions I had drawn before, I feel encouraged to take even more liberties than before.
I will make this adventure a good family-time instead of clinging to the letter of the book and putting my favorite people through hundreds of hex fields of gritty jungle survival, looking for a lost city filled with dungeons, that contain the keys to an 80-room dungeon, that can only be explored after finishing yet another pretty large dungeon.
Instead there will be pirates, dinosaurs, zombies and fun!
That, and Dodo Darwin’s greatest wish will be fulfilled: to be transformed into an aarakocra and soar over the canopy of the ocean of green.
Hi , I am new player . Dragon Heist was my first game as player , and it was fantastic experience with my friends . But currently, may be it about 1-2 session left .
After that, I would like to be DM . But I have question ... how important is overall campaign arc story line? Thanks
I CANNOT run modules.
They simply aren't structured the way I need them to be.
I can steal stuff from modules, but running the module, nah, can't.
I think that Paizo did their campaign 'books' better, by splitting them into more linear adventure paths for Pathfinder. This way the GMs who want it can just run the entire campaign from levels 1 to 17 if they wish, or they can just use a single book or two if they want to spice things up for their homebrew, or insert something that's relevant to their personal campaign, since each of these books is self-contained enough to allow for it. Since I am relatively new in dnd/pathfinder system, when I picked up the Rime of the Frostmaiden I expected something really similar to pathfinder's APs, only to get both kinda disappointed and overwhelmed by the sheer content. If you expected a toolkit, an entire tool shed is definetely not what you'd want or need.
After nearly four decades of roleplaying, I started running from books just two years ago, having previously nearly entirely homebrewed all of my campaigns. I did this because I wanted to run a low effort, casual game during lockdown on top of my regular weekly game, and pre-written campaigns are a good way of doing that. My group and I all went into understanding that we were running through a pre-written scenario and wouldn't have the flexibility and choice usual to the games I run. It's been a fun experience, even if all the best moments were off-script.
I've always disliked long campaigns. As a player for more decades than I'd like to admit to, I found them to be extremely boring. And now that I am DMing, I still get bored with long campaigns but I also find the books to be too overwhelming. I much much prefer smaller adventures and one shots
I ran LMOP and ROTFM, and my players have all liked Lost Mines better. Maybe it's just the tone of both adventures is so different, but I think you're right--the complexity of 10 towns alone is overwhelming! Can't wait to get some homebrew pointers and focus on some smaller modules. Great video as always
Yeah, I’m really excited for LMoP because it’s a lot smaller lol
We've been playing Princes of the Apocalypse, and having a bit of a problem with knowing where to go and what to do. Granted, we didn't take a few obvious hints dropped by our DM, but they were in situations where we thought the logical thing was to do something else first. I kind of think that maybe the layout on these big books is just bad or disorganized. It seems like they could be written in a manner to make it much easier to set up and run, sort of like the adventures in the starter kits. And we actually skipped all the random prep quests and started at level 4; I can't imagine how confusing it might have been to start at Level 1 with this book. I haven't read it closely because spoilers, but have read about it, and lots of folks seem to think this book especially is badly layed out to where it's harder for the DM to keep track of everything. He seems to have to flip back and forth a lot. Anyway, I'm enjoying the grand adventure, and probably am more into that than one-shots or smaller adventures, but maybe in the future the books will get written better and be more helpful to DM setup.
I'm running Curse of Strahd for my Campaign, and I think you made a lot of great points. There are some chapters that are just absolutely monstrous with dozens and dozens of named NPCs and they don't really read like story books. They read more like exercise manuals. I think that the best way to use the books is a framework to leapfrog off of and build your own campaign and story.
DIY modules are the way to go. That's how it started and was the way it was built to work. The only pre-made, module-like things I liked to use are big cities, no quests, no plot points, but a vast urban scape, well laid out, pre-labeled, and pre-peopled, like a directory. The ones that included a large play map, and a booklet, Thomas-style map with DM info separately have always served me well. And that's the format I use to build a city, though I honestly never find the time to put in all the details to a city of thousands. I generally fill in the highlights, and leave my spiral notebook mostly open to fill in details later. And I reuse cities a lot. I lost my old copy of Greyhawk in a move, but we used that as an eternal city, out of time and space, a world of its own, connected to other worlds in some arcane fashion, like Lyss, or Tanalorn, or Amber.
Bob, have you ever heard of the RPG Forbidden Lands? Their campaign book Raven's Purge is a great example of a good modular adventure.
I've got a FFG warhammer 40k RPG book that I was going to adapt, but its scope is just too big for me to digest and be able to run properly. Homebrew & modules are a lot easier
I don't how you can argue that the big books have less replay value but then discuss the sandbox nature and multiple routes in them. I see these way easier than homebrew in terms of prep time since your locations, npcs and everything are there, you just really need to read over your given chapter and maybe pull a stat block or two before each session, its about as much work as a night of english homework for a highschooler. If it feels too big or bloated cut what you dont want, to save prep time and player confusion. You can make a sandbox more linear much easier than opening up and expanding a small module unless you're placing in something else you already have established.
The one complaint I do get and have had both as a player and DM is that it doesnt allow for much exploration of a character's backstory when people create their characters on their own, BUT to me that's easily solved with a session zero and or handout giving some some baseline info their characters would know going into the adventure and some of the character hooks in those prewritten campaigns. Maybe their cleric was given a vision of the frost maiden's eternal winter or the goliath was an outcast from one of the tribes in the adventure and is seeking to regain favor. Essentially you tie the backstory to the main story that's already theire rather than having to tailor the adventure to the backstory like you would in homebrew.
Overall the campaign books and small modules fill different roles so kind of tough to honestly say one is better.
Sou do Brasil, fiz a tradução da legenda para entender melhor o conteúdo.
Eu concordo totalmente com você, DM Bob. Fantástico o vídeo!
Parabéns!!!
Dont agree I like the big campaigns, the thread of a long quest is great fun
I like long campaigns too! I just think they are usually better when built by the group than out of a book
Ive run 3 now, and for £50 the books are reasonable value for a 4 to 6 month campaign, I had to do work to amend and add stuff but if you dont have much time to prepare these books are great.
Having run Storm King's Thunder and about 2/5 of Tomb of Annihilation, I can also say that the Big Books also have a shallowness problem: they're full to bursting with encounter locales and such, but those encounters are not very challenging, not very deep, and only have minimal connection to the big picture... leading to a lot of time spent by the party wandering around in search of the plot. Connecting a string of smaller, "deeper" adventures would be comparable or even less work, but yield bigger rewards, I suspect.
The 3E "Red Hand of Doom" was a great Big Book adventure, but it's about 1/2 the size of the ones currently being put out by Hasbro and was a lot more focused.
Storm Kings and Tomb have that issue with them being more about the exploration tennet of D&D for a good chunk of the book, so those might just not be the best fit dor your style or table. On the other hand something like Dragonheist is more about the social with less exploration being that the whole book takes place in the city but the whole things is pretty railroad and interconnected. On the extreme other end you have something like Mad Mage which has next to no overarching story and just a long grueling dungeon crawl for exploration and combat.
I though this would be a Pros & Cons of WOTC adventures you have experienced
I use homebrew and have read old modules only for ideas
Haven’t bought or looked at these new adventures
I think this is pretty much the way it should be haha, I didn’t start playing official modules until I started this channel!
Thank you.
You're welcome! Thank you for commenting!
I know it helps a bit man...and I love yr content
Official books are all about bringing in new settings any DMs can plug and play into your own campaigns.
As always, top notch opinions. As someone who’s first attempt at running games was with Hoard of the Dragon Queen, I can only agree wholeheartedly. Especially when a GM is first starting, these large modules are overwhelming to both absorb and afford. Glad to say my library is filling with indie material including a fantastic Neverwinter utility and a Session 0 guide by Mr Worldbuilder himself! As a forever GM trying to start his own thing, I can really get behind a message to support the “mom and pop” shops of online DnD.
Cannot recommend Bob’s work and sites likes drive thru rpg and dmsguild enough! Bob, we gotta get you an interview with Brennan Lee Mulligan’s Adventuring Academy, for real
That's high praise! Thank you very much :)
I enjoy all the lore the bigger campaign books give, most of players are new and really love the lore they learn. The work is worth it for that. Great video brother
Yeah I think that can be valuable to help flesh out a DMs personal setting. Ultimately writing your own lore with your players will make the best works for your group!
I concur. I still have all of my old AD&D modules or pathfinder adventure paths and enjoy digging them out and cobbling together new stories for my 5e campaigns.
I have Rime of the frost maiden. I do like the detail of the towns and a few other elements, but I'm sure that the story it's self isn't necessary. So far I might just get Candlekeep and see how that one works out, because it's a collection of modules.....I hope. lol
Yeah, really looking forward to what Candlekeep Mysteries has in store!
Well.... I saw only Cons of D&D Campaign Books... Apart from art+maps.
But I agree in part with that. I still love campaign books even though they are a lot of work do digest when compared to smaller campaigns. But what I usually do is break the main story, pick all the material that I want and change what needed so the world can adapt to my players. With RotF I'm doing that so that my players have a deep connection with the place, being through backstory or other story elements. That way, they'll get a special motivation when the towns are at danger.
Also, I'm using this stories with small elements that are building to my homebrew campaign that I started years ago so when we finish this and/or other campaings, I'll have a lot of lore for my campaign. For example, the motivation of Auril to do the everlasting Winter is because she's trying to imprison the BBEG of my homebrew world and Icewind Dale was the location that she chose. My players don't know that saw there's a very high probability that they will accidentality set free the BBEG.
On a final note, the start of RotF is really very daunting with too much options for the players that don't connect to the main story. But I believe that the idea of the writers was to have "time" for the players to create a connection with the place. But the way it transits to the plot it's a little too lose. But that gives some freedom for the DM to connect the story the way it wants. :D
Yeahhh this ended up being pretty con-heavy for the big books. The main pro is just getting a lot of material to work with, but I prefer getting a little because it's easier to find the good stuff!
I'm running ice spire but changing some details i think would be cool
Love this idea of using the module as a catalyst or inspiration. I am currently “running” DoIP, however one of my PC’s died at the foot of the altar of Savras. After rolling and desperate attempts from his party, Savras decided to charge him with the fate of the sword coast so they found a dungeon under the dwarven graveyard on Umbrage Hill. Now I guess it is time to plan out a dungeon crawl.
What a great detour from the campaign! :)
I'm running my first big module (Dragon Heist) and I toooootally hear you. It's required a ton of work to adapt the events in the module to fit better with the story of the characters, and combining events to not have my players suffer from plot hook paralysis. Good video!
Glad to hear you can relate to this! Funny enough, others in the comments have said that DH is one of the easier big books to adapt! I hope to try that one out in the future
That Kickstarter looks awesome! Im new to the game, and to DMing.. I backed it based off of your recommendation! Looks like a cool world to explore!
Great! I really appreciate you supporting the sponsor!
When I first started DMing using one of these books I found myself so overwhelmed and with not enough time to prep, to the point where I would get teased about it by my players. "Notitas Alex, Notitas!" they would say. I'm taking a new approach now which involves making the plot more character centered, so I use some of the big book but definitely not all of it to make the price worth it. I even found myself hopping on to the DM's Guild to find some supplements to help me out during those sandbox moments these books tend to have just to make the story a bit more cohesive for my players.
I think that's really one of the best ways to use these books! Well done :)
I really like some of the 5e campaign books but I think you hit it on the head. Small modules are great for there flexibility and ease of use. I've been really surprised they don't also make small modules that are stand alone or even connect to their larger story's.
The good news is that they may return to making smaller modules in the future! There are so many great ones available on DMs Guild, but with D&D's popularity continuing to grow, eventually they'll probably start churning out shorter books
I use the big campaign books as templates and then I substantially revise multiple elements to my liking. That said, I still spend vast amounts of time digesting the original content before I even get to the point of revision. I appreciate all of the information, but I can also appreciate the value of starting with a smaller, modular adventure as a template and then revising that to my liking.
Yeah, that's a fine way to do it, but time consuming for sure. I prefer to start smaller
I'm a new DM I've been preparing my own homebrew campaign for some close friends/ family. I didn't have any plans on using the premade stories until someone I hardly knew expressed interest in playing all of a sudden I started feeling insecure abut sharing my world with anyone I didn't know.
Share that world!!!
I wish that statement at 5:06 was still true in 2023
I absolutely love playing modules but I’m very invested in the established lore from these settings
Yeah if Faerun has become your groups preferred setting, these books are a goldmine!
I love the modularity of Icespire Peak, and, to a lesser extent, the follow-up modules. It got me interested in starting to write my own modules, and I was able to join a project that was all about that.
Also, that Kickstarter looks cool!
Totally! DoIP feels like there's room to add stuff because some of the locations aren't too important. In RotF is a tougher to distinguish the signal from the noise
LOVE your content!
Thank you! And thanks for commenting, it really helps!
@@BobWorldBuilder seems like you always have to lean to avoid the mic...!? :-)