D&D 5E Running Tales from the Yawning Portal as a single campaign

[Ashuan21]

Ssssssso, has anybody found out how one could join all of those dungeons in a sufficiently realistic campaign?

The suggestions present in the book don't convince me... Go to the dungeon -- go back to the inn -- hear of the next dungeon -- go to the next dungeon... I don't like this solution mostly because of the evident geographical distance of these places, I know they give suggestions on how to move the dungeons to your world, but the dungeons themselves clearly speak "different languages", so different that I find it repulsing to even try modifying the adventures into a more coherent group.

The only thing I could think of is how wasted was the wonderful story of the Yawning Portal (I am quite new to DnD so this was my first approach to all these traditional elements) inside the inn, and of the barkeeper as well.

Do you think is an option to change the Yawning Portal into a portal leading directly into the dungeons (ignoring the Undermountain part)?

The characters would find themselves with a little knowledge about the place, they would storm the dungeon and find the way back to the portal, coming back full of treasure and glory, as Durnan the barkeeper did twice.
The inn would become the final destination of hundreds of adventurers form many planes, exploiting the portal to get to the richest and most challenging dungeons of the multiverse in order to become the greatest adventurers of all times.
Such a plot would give me a way to use the Inn in a fun way... Durnan would initially ignore the party, it is just a group of dead men walking... Then he would grow curious of the PCs as they start coming back from the Portal once, twice!! Eventually he would become envious of the glory of the PCs, and he could even try to harm them somehow during their dimensional trips! Furthermore the inn would now be full of true NPCs, people coming here to follow the PCs in their deeds, or even trying to challenge or rob them!

What do you think of this idea? I know it may sound as a blasphemy to some experienced players... but the Yawning Portal was there with all of its hooks and not a single one (maybe White Plume) was tied to the dungeons! That really

 

[Oofta]

The modules were never meant to be run together as a single campaign, so if you want some thread to tie them together you're going to have to do it yourself.

So you start with TheSeven Basic Plots

Overcoming the Monster
Rags to Riches
The Quest
Voyage and Return
Comedy
Tragedy
Rebirth


If you decide on Overcoming the Monster, there's some nefarious ne'er do well organization that you need your PCs to hunt down. There are clues to who they are in each of the dungeons and they have to get through all of them to find out who's really behind it all. Personally I think it's Elminister and he's been playing us all along but that's just my choice.

Of course there's just Rags to Riches. Someone sells the group maps to the different dungeons and promises they'll be rich beyond their wildest imagination if they succeed.

Another option would be The Quest. You have to find a piece of a magic gizmo in each of the dungeons.

And so on. If you want an overarching campaign you do have to kind of weave it into the story, adding it on top. I'm debating this myself, I just got the book so one option I'm thinking of is to just tell my players (all experienced players) that we're just doing old school dungeon crawl and not worrying about overall story arch like we usually do.

 

[OB1]

I'm using the Zhentarim as a frame. Starting with Sunless Citadel the PCs have been sent to retrieve the golden apple because they owe a favor to the Zhentarim and it has been made clear to them that their lives will be forfeit if they don't return within a week with it. Of course, completing the first quest only gets them in deeper, as the Zhentarim and their "patron" will continue to send them out after after bigger treasures in more dangerous locations, always holding the favor over their heads (and eventually threats to their family members or other things they may care about if they try to get out of, double cross, or confront their patron directly). This also makes it easy to continue the adventures if a player is killed or the party is TPK'd, as the Zhentarim has plenty of people who owe them favors that they either add to the survivors of an existing party or replace a TPK'd party entirely with.

I'll add a small twist in that Tomb of Horrors is meant to simply kill the party (no treasure) to get rid of them once the Zhentarim has no more use for them. Will have clues to that in the dungeon, and if the party figures it out, will give them a chance to meet and destroy their tormentor and finally being free of the Zhentarim.

 

[Bad Fox]

Ssssssso, has anybody found out how one could join all of those dungeons in a sufficiently realistic campaign?

Sounds like you've already come up with a perfectly serviceable way to tie these together!

But since you're asking for more ideas, if I were trying to do the whole book as a single campaign, I might change the Yawning Portal to an airship and then reskin Durnan into a mercenary captain who's been hired (or otherwise enticed) to fly the party around the world. I mean, you wouldn't even need an big underlying thread to tie the adventures together, you could just run the entire campaign Starship Enterprise-style, with the players having adventures as they travel the world.

That said, if you did want something to tie the individual "episodes" together in a more significant way, Oofta's suggestion of the magic gizmo pieces would be a nice, simple way to go. I mean, seven dungeons practically screams Rod of Seven Parts. Amirite?

 

[Ashuan21]

Mmmm yesss this is interesting!
Made me think of a way to expand my own idea! Since the Portal as I described it is sort of a sentient being it may have its own desires and interests... Right now I have no idea of what a Portal may want but it should be related somehow to the defeat of a mastermind (as you said) or to the retrieval of the different parts of an item (rod of seven parts!)!

This would also explain why the Portal leads every adventuring group to a location matching their abilities! After all it wants them to succeed... and maybe Durnan or someone else want to stop them as soon as they become a serious enough threat, maybe Durnan even built the inn to check on the progresses of the Portal...
Evidence of the sentience of the Portal would grow dungeon after dungeon up to the final climax!

Wow... now I'm getting quite excited xDD

The Zentharim and the starship ideas are good too! And then you can always run the old dungeon crawl as well... There's nothing wrong about it, but at least you'll miss the final epic climax (I love the final epic climax)

 

[robus]

My two ideas.

1) They find some fragment of an artifact in the first dungeon that causes a benefactor to commission them to seek out the complete item. They embark on a wondrous voyage filled with strange adventures before getting to the final Tomb. Something like the seven voyages of Sinbad.

2) totally crazy idea to run it in a virtual "virtual reality" a la "ready player one" and have the players competing in some challenge against other virtual teams. Not sure how it would work but I find the idea appealing.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I'm using Acererak as the frame - instead of the Red Wizards running the Doomvault, he's the one in charge. And one of the liches was actually the wizard who stole the weapons in WPM.

Luckily for me, one of my players made up a character who was originally an experiment, so making the character an escapee from the Doomvault and having overheard plans about the Sunless Citadel and Khundrukar was a logical next step. I still have to work out reasons for Hidden Shrine and Against the Giants, but I've got most of the dungeons coherently connected at this point.

 

[Quickleaf]

Ssssssso, has anybody found out how one could join all of those dungeons in a sufficiently realistic campaign?

The suggestions present in the book don't convince me... Go to the dungeon -- go back to the inn -- hear of the next dungeon -- go to the next dungeon... I don't like this solution mostly because of the evident geographical distance of these places, I know they give suggestions on how to move the dungeons to your world, but the dungeons themselves clearly speak "different languages", so different that I find it repulsing to even try modifying the adventures into a more coherent group.

The only thing I could think of is how wasted was the wonderful story of the Yawning Portal (I am quite new to DnD so this was my first approach to all these traditional elements) inside the inn, and of the barkeeper as well.

Do you think is an option to change the Yawning Portal into a portal leading directly into the dungeons (ignoring the Undermountain part)?

The characters would find themselves with a little knowledge about the place, they would storm the dungeon and find the way back to the portal, coming back full of treasure and glory, as Durnan the barkeeper did twice.
The inn would become the final destination of hundreds of adventurers form many planes, exploiting the portal to get to the richest and most challenging dungeons of the multiverse in order to become the greatest adventurers of all times.
Such a plot would give me a way to use the Inn in a fun way... Durnan would initially ignore the party, it is just a group of dead men walking... Then he would grow curious of the PCs as they start coming back from the Portal once, twice!! Eventually he would become envious of the glory of the PCs, and he could even try to harm them somehow during their dimensional trips! Furthermore the inn would now be full of true NPCs, people coming here to follow the PCs in their deeds, or even trying to challenge or rob them!

What do you think of this idea? I know it may sound as a blasphemy to some experienced players... but the Yawning Portal was there with all of its hooks and not a single one (maybe White Plume) was tied to the dungeons! That really

Basically you're turning the Yawning Portal into the World Serpent Inn. I think that works absolutely fine.

As an alternative, if you're interested in FR lore, I've thought about using the Citadel of the Bloody Hand as a connecting mechanism for the 7 adventures in Tales of the Yawning Portal.

 

[MNblockhead]

* puts on old-gamer hat *

Back in the day we didn't have APs. If you didn't want to spend the time creating your own adventures, you went to B Daltons or a gaming/hobby shop and bought whatever module had a cool over that was for an appropriate level.

Someone come up to you at an inn, a local noble summons you, or maybe you skipped all that and you start at the gates of the adventure: "Following rumor of great treasure protected by fell creatures and arcane wards, you traveled to the ruined city of Izz'gonna`b-a-tpk...."

If your party really cares about a strong ongoing storyline, well, you have some work to do. Maybe there are pieces of any ancient relic spread throughout these dungeons for some reason and the party is on a lifetime mission to recover all of them for some world-shaking reason.

But there is nothing wrong with a band of misfits seeking adventure where they find it, chasing one lead to the next, across the world, making their own stories.

Most likely the players and the playing will take care of the hard work of evolving the story arcs for your campaign.

Tales From the Yawning Portal is a great way to limit the prep and world building. You don't have to keep in mind great amounts of detail across a campaign spanning a year's worth of game play. You just need to prepare for the specific adventure and keep a select few notes of cool ideas for NPCs to make reappearances or other complications or adventures that occur between the adventures. And if you don't, your players will make up and misremember and have different versions of the same story and that's cool to. Exactly what you would expect to happen with heroic stories.

Prep the adventure, let the campaign take care of itself.

 

[Ashuan21]

The point is that my players specifically asked for a backstory for TftYP so to give their backgrounds some relevance and their actions (and possible death) some true consequences... This was quite good to hear, it means they like being involved, and I felt like I should really do my best to create a coherent plot! (Always keeping in mind that this adventure inherently will have less plot than fights).

The World Serpent Inn story was very helpful!!!! Wonderful!! Truly evocative. A quest for objects (a seven part one probably) promoted by the sentient portal in the planeshifting inn with the misterious barkeeper and the devious interplanar pirates seems like a really cool story to start from!!! Exploring the desires of a sentient portal still looks like a hard hard task though xD