My campaign of Ghosts of Saltmarsh has been one of the most disrupted campaigns in my DDAL career. Between Magic prereleases, me getting ill, and player unavailability for various reasons, I’m rather glad that it’s only a shorter campaign of levels 1-7 (or thereabouts!)

As a result, my planned session reports are going to more look at the general themes and approaches of the various sections of the adventure, with a few notes as to how they played.

The Secret Caves of the Smugglers – and Exhaustion

The final part of the investigation of the haunted manor takes place in the caverns beneath the house, where several secret doors lead to the smuggler’s dock. I described in the previous notes the party’s initial exploration of this area. Unfortunately, one of the problems facing the group was that they had expended all their spells, and likewise had few hit points remaining.

This is a situation that occurs again and again in D&D. In the old dungeon crawls, it’s easy for a group to leave and return. When you’re dealing with a plot-specific exploration like this, the DM needs to decide what the enemy forces do after being attacked and then the group returning the next day. (Does the DM even let the group leave?)

This is what I had to work with:

• The smugglers knew that several of their fellows, including their alchemist, had been slain by adventurers
• The smugglers knew that their ship, The Sea Ghost, would be returning in a few days
• The smugglers knew that the adventurers hadn’t found the secret door that led to the hidden dock

So, would the smugglers flee, or would they stay?

The decision I made was that the smugglers would stay, hoping that the secret door to the caverns remained unfound, and that the Sea Ghost would return before the adventurers did.

Unfortunately for the smugglers, the adventurers returned and slew them. It wasn’t an easy fight – there are quite a few smugglers and hobgoblins – but the adventurers were able to prevail.

What if the smugglers had fled? Well, the players had already found the notes on signalling the Sea Ghost, plus the tools on how to do so. Thus, a final confrontation wasn’t required. It just felt right to have it.

The Council of Saltmarsh – What to do next?

In some campaigns, there’d be a lot of role-playing with the various members of the Council of Saltmarsh about what steps to take next. Saltmarsh, as described in Ghosts of Saltmarsh, is a fascinating town, with a well-described council and many places of interest.

Running the campaign of the adventures in the book as part of the D&D Adventurers League? At that point you’re pretty much restricted to the adventures in the book, with little additional material. Most of the adventures don’t take place in Saltmarsh – it’s only a place you return to between adventures. I did a little with Saltmarsh in the beginning, but then realised how little it mapped into what came later. (There are DMs who will do a lot with it. This wasn’t the environment for that, alas!)

So, the Council of Saltmarsh, as interesting as they are, deliberated off-screen, then told the adventurers to go investigate the ship the smugglers were waiting for – the Sea Ghost.

Everything that Can Go Wrong… Will, As Soon As Possible!

One of the tightropes you have to walk in these adventures is dealing with a party that doesn’t stuff you don’t expect which can derail the plot. Because Saltmarsh has a plot – and it’s very hard to move onto the next part if the characters fail at the previous instalment.

The first thing that could wrong was the players misread the notes left in the smuggler caves and get the wrong signalling method. (Problem: Boat doesn’t stop!) My group tried to reverse everything – they’d give the signals the Sea Ghost would give! Um… a few helpful words got them in the right direction.

The next thing was the approach to the ship. While I’d probably try to confuse the smugglers (it was even) by going around to the seaward side, my party took a rowboat straight out to the ship and tried to bluff their way past. Unfortunately, they’d made another misconception about the relationship the hobgoblins they’d met in the caverns had with the smugglers. The PCs thought the hobgoblins were the leaders. Unfortunately, the hobgoblins were the slaves. Hmm. Combat ensued.

You want to give the players accurate information. You want them to interpret it properly. However, players are very good at forgetting clues or misinterpreting them. Where do you step in as the DM to explain what the characters would realise, even if the players don’t? It’s something I struggle with constantly. In general, if the players’ misinterpretation kills the adventure, then I try to correct them. If it just makes things harder… I let it play out.

(In a sandbox, I let things play out more. But story-based adventures have problems when they go south…)

Fight for the Sea Ghost!

Want to TPK your group? Have everyone aboard the ship attack them at once!

Thankfully, despite the group not bluffing their way aboard, the crew of the Sea Ghost (as noted in the adventure) were not on alert, and so weren’t able to swarm the group all at once.

The big decision to make when running this is how much you want the fight to be done in waves with the foes coming to them, or to have the party seek out the remaining foes. The good news is that the adventure shows you where everyone starts depending on whether the ship is on alert or not. I chose to have most of the foes coming in waves, with a few stragglers hiding beneath decks. You can adjust when foes arrive to keep the challenge up for the players without overwhelming them. (Too easy or too hard – neither are good! Try to aim for “just right!”)

This isn’t a particularly long section of the adventure and should be possible to finish the entire Sea Ghost in one session. The party should reach level 2 at the end of the Smuggler caves, and level 3 by the end of clearing the Sea Ghost

Lizardfolk and Further Adventures

It’s tremendously important that the characters learn that the smugglers are transporting weapons to the lizardfolk, and the lizardfolk are preparing for war. The main source of this information is Oceanus, the sea elf captive, although corroborating details can be gained from the lizardfolk aboard the Sea Ghost.

What happens if the characters capture the lizardfolk? Will the truth come out? I assume that the Saltmarsh Council take charge of the interrogation… and fail to learn anything useful before sending the characters off to Dunwater, either through incompetence or the lizardfolk remaining quiet (as they should – they don’t trust the humans at all!)