Wizards of the Coast have put out several big campaign adventures for D&D. And many of them left some DMs wondering “How the eff do I run that?” It’s important to note that this feeling is not confined to their products. It’s true of every adventure publisher, but people are most likely to have seen those big campaign adventures for D&D. I believe that some … Continue reading Adventures, Designer Assumptions, and GM Capabilities
Our play of Storm King’s Thunder saw the adventurers choose to take on the cloud giants, at least partly because they had a lot of fire spells which would be ineffective against the fire giants, and they wanted a challenge. So, taking the airship, they flew to the Cloud Giant castle to find the object they needed to reach King Hekaton’s court. This is an … Continue reading Running Storm King’s Thunder: Castle of the Cloud Giants
After 20 three-hour sessions, we have finished Storm King’s Thunder. We started in February; we finished in the last week of June. It was an enjoyable experience. The final session consisted of the six adventurers accompanying five storm giants as they attacked the Ancient Blue Dragon responsible for the chaos in the Storm King’s demesne. The session could have been better. I should have excluded … Continue reading Ending Storm King’s Thunder
Over the past few weeks, the adventurers have recovered all the giant relics from the Uthgardt spirit mounds. This probably took us a week or two longer than I wanted, because it delays the story and a few of the mounds aren’t that interesting. In a lot of ways, this is like recovering the puzzle cubes from Omu in Tomb of Annihilation. Each spirit mound … Continue reading Running Storm King’s Thunder: The Spirit Mounds
My game of Storm King’s Thunder has just begun Chapter 4. Most of the session was the adventurers meeting Harshnag and travelling to the Oracle, with just the opening part of the exploration. This was a three-hour session. With breaks, we probably got in about 150 minutes of play. In that time, we had the following encounters: Meet Harshnag and aid him against 6 Hill … Continue reading Running Storm King’s Thunder – Fast and Deadly Combats
My current campaign of Storm King’s Thunder is run using the D&D Adventurers League rules. One of the aspects of those rules is that I can’t use milestones. XP must come from the players overcoming monsters, whether through negotiation or combat and set XP awards in the text. In the case of SKT, it’s almost entirely overcoming monsters. The little quests in the adventure don’t … Continue reading Running Storm King’s Thunder – Wilderness Encounters in Chapter 3
In this chapter, it’s all about the pacing. The end of Chapter 2 gives the adventurers several adventure hooks; missions suggested by the NPCs they’ve saved that give treasure and other rewards. Chapter 3 is the “sandbox” chapter, where the players can explore the Sword Coast doing little missions on the way. It’s all very Baldur’s Gate. The DM’s role here is to maintain the … Continue reading Running Storm King’s Thunder: Chapter 3
We ran our Session 0 of Storm King’s Thunder last night. Six players all rolling characters at the same time, creating a party of adventurers that would work together and would be fun to play. The result: A Warlock, a Paladin, a Barbarian, a Monk, a Druid and a Wizard. Covers all the bases! “Hang on!” I hear you cry. “What about the Rogue?” The … Continue reading Storm King’s Thunder – Outrunning the Barbarian
