As is my new tradition, each time a campaign ends, I'm trying to learn from it. This will be about my Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign.
About the Group and Selection of the Campaign
The group contains a “seasoned” casual player who’ve I’ve been gaming with for over 20 years. I put seasoned in quotes because he regularly confuses 5e with rules from Pathfinder 1e and 2e (though he only played a handful of sessions with that system over a year ago), and he’s been playing 5e twice a week for over two years now.
The three other players include another casual player who is starting to DM for his family, and another two players who watch online power-build tutorials to come up with some brutal combos.
We had put on hold an OSR game that ended in a TPK, and at their request, went back to 5e after having completed Curse of Strahd around 4 months prior. They wanted to do an official WotC mega adventure (along the lines of Curse of Strahd) but avoiding ones that none of the players have previously read or played (even in part), which left the following choices: Descent into Avernus, Tyranny of Dragons, Tomb of Annihilation, and Rime of the Frost Maiden.
After a little debate RotFM won.
Preparation
I knew that this was a sandbox campaign, and I wanted to be well prepared. In addition to purchasing the module on Roll20 (since we play online), I also purchased the hardcover adventure for reading away from the computer, read numerous guides, watched videos on YouTube, and downloaded a DMs Guide on DriveThru. The DMs guide ended up being very helpful as it provided additional encounter maps that aren’t included in the hardcover (or on Roll20).
Using the various resources, I followed the advice for presenting the best starting quest and Ten Towns quests from the beginning.
A Rocky Start
The first session the party went after the goblins from Bryn Shander. Using ranged guerilla tactics, the goblins killed most of the party (effectively a TPK). This set a grim tone for the rest of the campaign. The players had invested those characters in the setting and as a party, only to be cut down in their first fight. (In hindsight, it was largely the blame of players’ forgetting their abilities and one of the players making some terrible tactical blunders.)
The Pointless Sandbox
The bulk of the adventure is a sandbox that isn’t connected to the main story. Going from town to town without any direction or purpose got very boring. On top of it, the players didn’t want to focus on travel or survival in our limited, short sessions (about 2 hours per week). So, it became “you find your way to town X and have to do Y.” It was repetitious, and often the challenges were well beyond what the party should’ve been able to defeat. One example I previously ranted about on these boards was being assigned to clear out a cave of an opponent who had to have a Dispel Magic cast to keep him from regenerating – when the party was too low of level to have access to the spell. Another insurmountable challenge was a 1st-2nd level adventure that required a Knock spell to get past a door.
Adding Content
Realizing that much of the content wasn’t linked, I decided to add an overarching plot to the locations to give the party a reason to explore other than “go here, kill everything there.” I added an NPC that directed the party to find a Macguffin that could be used to defeat the Frost Maiden. It would need to be assembled, scattered across the remaining Ice Wind Dale adventure sites. This added purpose and gave new life to the campaign. Unfortunately, after finding the four pieces, the party was dismayed that they inadvertently destroyed the Macguffin with a cursed magic item (essentially putting them in a bag of devouring).
Climax-Change
RotFM has no lead-up to any climax other than taking out the Frost Maiden and ending the curse, so along with the rest of the players, we decided that would be a good place to end the campaign after 6 months of play. So, the party decided to end the campaign (for better or worse) with a direct frontal assault on the Frost Maiden’s palace. Amazingly, the place is pretty much empty, so they walked right into her throne room to defeat the deity.
Lessons Learned
Many readers consider RotFM a top-tier campaign adventure. To me, it is far below “Curse of Strahd” or “Tomb of Annihilation” (two that I’ve run to completion). I have run nearly all the official WotC adventures [at least in part]: Strahd, Tomb of Annihilation, Phandelver, Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Dragon Heist, Undermountain, Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Tales of the Yawning Portal, and Storm King’s Thunder. Of the ones I’ve run, I consider only three of them to be “good” (Strahd, Tomb, and Phandelver).
I think it’s (finally) time to consider that the mega-adventures just aren’t for me.
What’s Next?
Honestly, I have no idea. I’ve been largely running modules since 3rd edition. When I started in 2e I wrote my own material mostly. Since that time, as life has gotten busier and the games more complex (and on top of it, I’m also running games for more groups than ever), it’s difficult to make the time to curate custom experiences for my players. When you run for a group that is comprised mostly of casual players, you often don’t get the feedback you need to tailor an adventure to their interests. They are there to go on quests, kill monsters, loot treasures, etc.
None of the official adventures seem appealing to me – and the players have shot down all of them last time they were presented. It seems like doing a few one-shots until we find something that sticks is the way to go.
