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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 9, 2014 8:52:18 GMT -6
Okay, so I think I'm gonna sound like a total newb here ... but here goes.  When I bought my 5E Player's Handbook I also got a copy of the new module Hoard of the Dragon Queen. (I got a pre-order deal through my game store where I could save 20% by ordering both; I figure it's like getting the PH at regular price and the module at half off.) Anyway, I'm looking at this thing and it's not like my usual sandbox game. Nor is it like the classic AD&D monochromes, which are also very sandbox-ish. What I see here is a very linear (railroad?) sequence getting the players through a lot of adventures. (1) What's the best way to prep for running this? Do I read the thing like a novel? Do I skim and try to "wing it" as I get to each encounter? What do folks do when they run these things? (2) The adventure is broken up into eight "episodes." Do I assume that each episode is a single play session? (That would make prep easier.) (3) The adventure is based in the Forgotten Realms and anything I ever owned in the FR world is long gone from my shelves and mostly forgotten. What resources should I track down if I want to run a game in the Realms? (Or, should I not bother at all to put it there. I could just make up my own world.) Any advice here would be appreciated. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2014 10:00:17 GMT -6
I don't have Hoard, so I can't provide any guidance on running it. However, for the Forgotten Realms issue, if you don't want to spend money on re-buying stuff, you could just use the online wiki to look up info. forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Main_PageThe nice bonus is that it typically footnotes the source the info comes from so that if you notice hey everything I look up mentions this book, then you can always track that book down if you want. |
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 9, 2014 10:27:29 GMT -6
Thanks for the link. No, I'd rather not re-buy anything for the Realms. The reason I got rid of what I had was that I didn't like it as well as Blackmoor, Greyhawk, the Wilderlands, etc. I finally said "I have too many worlds that I'll never run" and off it went.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2014 10:32:13 GMT -6
(2) The adventure is broken up into eight "episodes." Do I assume that each episode is a single play session? (That would make prep easier.) This is what I'd do. I'd tell my players "this could be a long session, it could be a short session, we play until we reach the end of the episode." That way you can break prep into smaller bits rather than reading the whole thing like a novel. |
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Post by battlebrotherbob on Aug 10, 2014 7:17:33 GMT -6
I believe the intent was each section was an evenings play. You add and subtract from there.
As for the FR content, I'd ignore it. I too am not a fan of the FR. I'd read through it and see what absolutely needs to be there and adjust to my preferred setting.
And yes most modules today seem to be railroady. Thank 3.5 and Pathfinder for that. The adventure path system tends to foster that play style.
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Post by jeffb on Aug 10, 2014 7:42:59 GMT -6
Well , my Kids love the realms, and I do too, OGB version, and have tons of stuff.
But the assumption with the new adventures and the starter set is to sit down and play, and not bother with massive amounts of world details, or prep.
Read the first adventure section, know where to find things in Hoard and the rulebook quickly, and PLAY. Provide world details as necessary in the adventure as advised. The Starter Set is also set in FR with a sandbox map, but you don't need to know much if anything about the realms. I have not messed around with any of the multitude of FR books I own, and have not felt the need. Hoard is supposed to be the same. Unless your players are clamoring for massive detail, why bother?
What detail was there in The Steading about GH? How much world detail was there on The Realm of Mankind in B2? We all ran those and had a blast. Hoard should be no different.
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Post by jeffb on Aug 10, 2014 8:53:58 GMT -6
PS. Not meaning for my post to sound Harsh. Throw some smiley faces in there.
Do not sweat the details and HAVE FUN is the message I was trying to get across.
Kids are assembling now for next session of LMoP!
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Post by robertsconley on Aug 10, 2014 10:14:41 GMT -6
The Horde of the Dragon Queen is an adventure path. The best ones ably manipulate the players into following the path. Generally they do this by assuming that the players are playing "good" character with slight amount of appeal to their greed. Mostly in the form of a choice or offer that make more sense than walking away and doing their own thing.
For example in Horde of the Dragon Queen. The adventure is launched when the players are walking along and see a village being attacked by a dragon and the cultists. The situation is setup so that obviously even first level characters can help by having a large number of lower challenge creatures running amuck. That encounter can go in a lot of ways but if the players are playing good characters who are truly trying to help in the end they will likely wind up in the good graces of Governor Nighthill.
How happens to offer them 250 gp each to go and find the raiders camp. During which they rescue Leosin Erlanthar and find some details on what the cultists are doing. Which establishes they are doing a very bad thing indeed.
After returning to Greenest with the information and Leosin in two. Guess what eventually happens? Leosin needs to travel to Elturel to consult with his allies. And guess he approaches first with a job offer. The PCs of course and he offers them 150 gp to accompany him north. In addition he want the players to check out the camp again to see how fast the raiders are recovering.
And that how the rest of the Horde of the Dragon Queen continues. Each episode follows on based on the most logical choice resulting from the successful conclusion of the previous episode. If well plotted then the players will happily ride the rails to the adventure's conclusion. Heck if you manage to conceal the fact you are running a published anyway there is a good chance they will think it is their idea anyway.
If it not well plotted then it will feel incredibly forced and the players will soon chafe at being on an obvious railroad. I haven't processed enough of the adventure to judge whether it is well plotted or not.
If you want to make a true sandbox campaign out of it then you need to go through the adventure and strip out all the locales and npcs. Line up the NPCs and look at their plans, goals and motivations. Make a timeline out of that and figure out who is where and when. This is of importance for NPCs in the later episodes as you need to backtrack their personal timelines to the beginning of the adventure. You will also to need to flesh out the general area of the adventure (the southern Sword Coast of FR) and be prepare to run other adventures. It likely that the first three episode will run as is and things will start to diverge on the way to Elturel.
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 10, 2014 14:21:59 GMT -6
PS. Not meaning for my post to sound Harsh. Throw some smiley faces in there. No offense taken. I was mostly trying to get a feel for how much prep I had to do for each session. If I have to read the whole thing and become familar with it for a single session I'm not likely to ever play it, but if I can break it into eight chunks and read each one at a time I might actually be able to pull it off. |
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 10, 2014 14:23:27 GMT -6
If you want to make a true sandbox campaign out of it then you need to go through the adventure and strip out all the locales and npcs. Line up the NPCs and look at their plans, goals and motivations. Make a timeline out of that and figure out who is where and when. This is of importance for NPCs in the later episodes as you need to backtrack their personal timelines to the beginning of the adventure. You will also to need to flesh out the general area of the adventure (the southern Sword Coast of FR) and be prepare to run other adventures. It likely that the first three episode will run as is and things will start to diverge on the way to Elturel. I'm not sure I want it to be a sandbox; I was saying that sandbox play is pretty much all I ever run but I'd like to try doing it the "right" way just to see how it goes. If I hate it, I can always default back to sandbox mode.  |
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Post by Falconer on Aug 10, 2014 14:32:51 GMT -6
Maybe wait for some of the Frog God or Goodman modules, instead? They aren’t likely to have the same problems (railroady, Realmsy).
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 11, 2014 5:19:00 GMT -6
Maybe wait for some of the Frog God or Goodman modules, instead? They aren’t likely to have the same problems (railroady, Realmsy). That's probably the smart plan. Problem is that I have this hardback Hoard fo the Dragon Queen already paid for and sitting here on my desk. I'd sort of like to give it a test-drive and get some value out of it. |
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Post by sulldawga on Aug 11, 2014 11:24:19 GMT -6
I don't own this module but I own a couple other 5e modules. As far as the Realms are concerned, it's just background. There's very little, if anything, in any of the modules where you'd say "Oh, that would make no sense at all if I didn't know X about the Realms". It's a non-issue.
As far as the railroad-y concern, I read a review on Reddit where they said the module had sandbox elements and railroad elements. Here's the relevant comment:
"It's definitely divided into a few distinct chapters/episodes. The first chapter is a really interesting looking "town under siege" bit, where you have lots of different "missions" you can do to help the town in any order you would like. Plenty of opportunity for stealth, diplomacy, and various knowledge checks. Heck, there's even a bit where the Mending spell can shine -- how often do you see that?
Plenty of combat, of course, but surprisingly a lot of it is driven via random encounter tables (due to the non-linear nature of this first chapter.) That's a nice old-school throwback.
Actually, there's a lot of not-so-linear bits in the adventure, though there is at least one proper dungeon crawl."
I know WotC got a fair amount of feedback from gamers that their 4e adventure, The Slaying Stone, had a pretty good feature. It was still railroad-y in the sense that you started at Point A and needed to get to Point B (find the Slaying Stone). But the module gave the DM a bunch of encounters along the way and let the players choose the path that got them from A to B. It felt sandbox-y because there was no one right path from A to B. From the 5e adventures I've seen, they are trying to feature more of this.
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