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General Tabletop Discussion
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"Are the Authors of the Dungeon & Dragons Hardcover Adventures Blind to the Plight of DMs?"
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<blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 7376671" data-attributes="member: 20323"><p>I'm prepping to DM <em>Tomb of Annihilation</em>. Our first game is this Sunday. It's a fantastic adventure, but preparing has been challenging...</p><p></p><p>{SPOILERS}</p><p> </p><p>There is *a lot* of hidden story for the DM to tease out, which could have been elaborated in the intro (and lightened the DM's burden). For example, the Red Wizards in Omu are searching for puzzle cubes led by a sinister mage who possessed her own granddaughter. The adventure suggests negotiating with these Red Wizards, yet roleplaying guidelines (i.e. what will they ask for in a negotiated truce? will they keep their word? will they team up with the PCs to enter the tomb together?) are practically non-existent. Only by reading several other sections of the book do I get a clear picture of how the Red Wizards operate.</p><p></p><p>To be fair, the adventure lacks an index and Chapter 2 (with many sites in Chult) gets all of three lines in the table of contents, so I knew I was getting a book that didn't have <em>ease of DMing</em> as a selling point.</p><p></p><p>Also, there are a fair number of dangling threads that go nowhere. This is both a blessing and a curse. Minotaurs used to dwell in Omu as protectors of the royal family! Wow, that's an interesting detail. Aren't minotaurs usually evil? How'd that come to be? No real answer is given, but you do run across minotaur skeletons. And the King of Feathers, a magical teleporting, insect-breathing t-rex? Surely there's a story behind this thing? Nope, none that I've been able to find on my first read-through.</p><p></p><p>While there are definitely some story elements that connect to one another, finding them can be a bit of a chore. Mostly, I've found my prep has focused on making more connections that evoke a stronger sense of meaning in the narrative & do a better job of foreshadowing. For example, there is an underlying theme of forbidden magic that lies outside normal spellcasting – it's never explicitly stated like in the AD&D <em>Jungles of Chult</em>, but it can be felt with Ubtao's abandoning his <em>barae</em> (and how the only "barae" we see is Ras Nsi), Nanny Pu'pu (creating sentient zombies by invoking Myrkul), Asharra (the Dance of the Seven Winds, which invokes the Wind Dukes of Aaqa), Zagmira (the Red Wizard in Omu possessed her own grand-daughter), even the Nine Trickster Gods (which can inhabit the PCs). There are probably more examples I'm overlooking. Here's what I'm doing, and wish the writers had included something to this effect: Chult has a history of <em>matumbe</em> (forbidden magic) which is considered secret/sacred knowledge; during the days of Omuan royalty, such magic was controlled, but with the rise of the merchant princes <em>matumbe</em> is being unleashed upon Chult again.</p><p></p><p>While ToA is hard to prepare if you're looking for a "run out of the box" game, it has so far been an <em>excellent</em> adventure creation toolkit for me.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Quickleaf, post: 7376671, member: 20323"] I'm prepping to DM [I]Tomb of Annihilation[/I]. Our first game is this Sunday. It's a fantastic adventure, but preparing has been challenging... {SPOILERS} There is *a lot* of hidden story for the DM to tease out, which could have been elaborated in the intro (and lightened the DM's burden). For example, the Red Wizards in Omu are searching for puzzle cubes led by a sinister mage who possessed her own granddaughter. The adventure suggests negotiating with these Red Wizards, yet roleplaying guidelines (i.e. what will they ask for in a negotiated truce? will they keep their word? will they team up with the PCs to enter the tomb together?) are practically non-existent. Only by reading several other sections of the book do I get a clear picture of how the Red Wizards operate. To be fair, the adventure lacks an index and Chapter 2 (with many sites in Chult) gets all of three lines in the table of contents, so I knew I was getting a book that didn't have [I]ease of DMing[/I] as a selling point. Also, there are a fair number of dangling threads that go nowhere. This is both a blessing and a curse. Minotaurs used to dwell in Omu as protectors of the royal family! Wow, that's an interesting detail. Aren't minotaurs usually evil? How'd that come to be? No real answer is given, but you do run across minotaur skeletons. And the King of Feathers, a magical teleporting, insect-breathing t-rex? Surely there's a story behind this thing? Nope, none that I've been able to find on my first read-through. While there are definitely some story elements that connect to one another, finding them can be a bit of a chore. Mostly, I've found my prep has focused on making more connections that evoke a stronger sense of meaning in the narrative & do a better job of foreshadowing. For example, there is an underlying theme of forbidden magic that lies outside normal spellcasting – it's never explicitly stated like in the AD&D [I]Jungles of Chult[/I], but it can be felt with Ubtao's abandoning his [I]barae[/I] (and how the only "barae" we see is Ras Nsi), Nanny Pu'pu (creating sentient zombies by invoking Myrkul), Asharra (the Dance of the Seven Winds, which invokes the Wind Dukes of Aaqa), Zagmira (the Red Wizard in Omu possessed her own grand-daughter), even the Nine Trickster Gods (which can inhabit the PCs). There are probably more examples I'm overlooking. Here's what I'm doing, and wish the writers had included something to this effect: Chult has a history of [I]matumbe[/I] (forbidden magic) which is considered secret/sacred knowledge; during the days of Omuan royalty, such magic was controlled, but with the rise of the merchant princes [I]matumbe[/I] is being unleashed upon Chult again. While ToA is hard to prepare if you're looking for a "run out of the box" game, it has so far been an [I]excellent[/I] adventure creation toolkit for me. [/QUOTE]
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