D&D General About to run Storm King's Thunder; Any tips ?
- Thread starter S3PTI4N77
- Start date
Reynard
aka Ian Eller
I mean, don't?
Joking aside, I feel like with SKT you need to really read it and ingest and decide what you want it to look like. TO me, the sandbox in the early levels does not really work, and the overall quest levels later are a bit of a mess. There is a lot you can use as tools, but you kind of need to decide whether what you really want is to run Against the Giants, which changes things up a bit. If not, you should focus on NPCs and factions and be ready to bounce when the PCs make decisions you did not expect.
Long story short: SKT makes a better collection of useful vignette's around which you can build a campaign, than a pre written campaign. As opposed to, say, Icewind Dale, which is a much better pre defined adventure that feels like a CRPG structurally, but is harder to make your own.
Joking aside, I feel like with SKT you need to really read it and ingest and decide what you want it to look like. TO me, the sandbox in the early levels does not really work, and the overall quest levels later are a bit of a mess. There is a lot you can use as tools, but you kind of need to decide whether what you really want is to run Against the Giants, which changes things up a bit. If not, you should focus on NPCs and factions and be ready to bounce when the PCs make decisions you did not expect.
Long story short: SKT makes a better collection of useful vignette's around which you can build a campaign, than a pre written campaign. As opposed to, say, Icewind Dale, which is a much better pre defined adventure that feels like a CRPG structurally, but is harder to make your own.
pukunui
Legend
I have played through SKT and run it once. I love it. One of my favorites.
For my run-through, I made the PCs all be Lords' Alliance agents based out of Waterdeep. I ran "Trouble in Red Larch" from Princes of the Apocalypse and then followed that with a slightly beefed up version of Scourge of the Sword Coast to set the scene and give me time to set up some foreshadowing. (For instance, during Scourge, the PCs found some magic beans. I arranged it so when one of the beans was planted, it did the giant bean stalk thing. That led to the cloud giant's Mickey Mouse tower from the opening SKT scenario. He was able to give them some foreshadowing about the SKT events as he flew them to the dwarf temple-fortress.)
Some of my players are big Skyrim fans, so they loved the open world "exploring the Savage Frontier" aspect of that part of the adventure. I ran the Goldenfields encounter, and they went and defeated the hill giants at Grudd Haug. They also passed through Triboar on their way elsewhere, so I ran the fire giant encounter there. One of the PCs was a ranger, and they knew about the Mielikki shrine in the nearby woods. She went and spent the night there, and I gave her a prophetic dream showing the storm giant queen dead on a beach and the other giant lords scheming.)
I'd be happy to share my notes.
Here are our session recaps: SWORD COAST ADVENTURES
For my run-through, I made the PCs all be Lords' Alliance agents based out of Waterdeep. I ran "Trouble in Red Larch" from Princes of the Apocalypse and then followed that with a slightly beefed up version of Scourge of the Sword Coast to set the scene and give me time to set up some foreshadowing. (For instance, during Scourge, the PCs found some magic beans. I arranged it so when one of the beans was planted, it did the giant bean stalk thing. That led to the cloud giant's Mickey Mouse tower from the opening SKT scenario. He was able to give them some foreshadowing about the SKT events as he flew them to the dwarf temple-fortress.)
Some of my players are big Skyrim fans, so they loved the open world "exploring the Savage Frontier" aspect of that part of the adventure. I ran the Goldenfields encounter, and they went and defeated the hill giants at Grudd Haug. They also passed through Triboar on their way elsewhere, so I ran the fire giant encounter there. One of the PCs was a ranger, and they knew about the Mielikki shrine in the nearby woods. She went and spent the night there, and I gave her a prophetic dream showing the storm giant queen dead on a beach and the other giant lords scheming.)
I'd be happy to share my notes.
Here are our session recaps: SWORD COAST ADVENTURES
