D&D 5E Full Review of Storm King's Thunder

[LexStarwalker]

I've noticed that a lot of reviewers online really phone in their reviews, often giving you little more than a lengthy description of the table of contents.

I spent a lot of time on this review of Storm King's Thunder. Within the blog post you can also find links to a couple podcast episodes I did on the subject, and a link to a YouTube video of my group and I playing through the first adventure of the campaign.

The point of this review is to let you know what this product is or isn't, share my opinions on it, and hopefully empower you to make your own informed decision. I don't just gush about the book, and I don't just say I liked or didn't like it. I hope you enjoy the review and find it helpful.

UPDATE: Michael Schmidt wrote this blog post in which he supplies some more hooks for the adventure. These hooks are far superior to the ones give in the book, and you definitely want to check them out if you're going to run this campaign.

 

[robus]

Cool. Are you going to contribute a summary (and rating) to the Enworld reviews for SKT?

 

[LexStarwalker]

I'm not planning on it, no. I think the review speaks for itself quite well.

 

[Daern]

While I disagree that writing "Roll on treasure table B" instead of "444gp and a solid bronze" cat is a good thing (adventure writers, please don't make me go on a surprise dmg tour in the middle of a session), I do appreciate the heads up that the NPC set up in the giant attack scenes is counter productive. I suspected as much and wonder what would be a better way to use those npcs.

 

[delericho]

Good review.

 

[John R Davis]

Tempted with the npcs just to have the players play them separately for maybe an hour against some of the attacks and see who survives, rather than playing pc and npc at the same time.

I like that treasure isn't set. Means the GM can pick useful stuff for the party to find, as there are no magic shops

I start running this next Tuesday and all are looking forward to it

 

[Arial Black]

Option to Start at 5th Level

I hate having to start every adventure as a farm boy. I want to have a PC who is already cool.

'Wasted' Material

Totally okay with this, because the unused material isn't really wasted! It's always there for future use in your FR campaign, or any other campaign with the tiniest work. This book is not only an adventure, but also a gazeteer! How cool is that?

Hooks

It is not possible for a published adventure to know your PCs well enough to give them personalised hooks. That's what the DM's for! Every DM who wants to run this or any other campaign should know enough about the PCs to come up with appropriate hooks, either because the DM is familiar with those PCs, or because character creation was done with the DM saying what kind of adventure it will be and what kind of PCs would be appropriate, or (preferably) both.

When I ran it I did what you did: session zero/character creation. I told the players what the creation parameters were in crunch terms (starting level, magic items, any houserules), and also the fluff things like how/if they know each other already, make sure you make a PC who would be motivated to do this stuff. If you have a brilliant idea for a PC but there's no way this PC would go on this adventure, then make a PC who will and save the first idea for another adventure.

So by the end of session zero, each player had a PC who they thought was cool (the most important motivation for a player!) and who would be motivated to go on adventures like this (saving the North). Since I was involved in character creation, each player and I could discuss each PC's hook.

This isn't some special thing you need to do for SKT specifically, it's something that should be done at the start of every campaign. There should be no expectation that a published adventure could possibly do that for you!

(all that said, I watched your videos of SKT and enjoyed it. The idea I liked best, and one I'll definitely steal, is using the at-will disguise self to have an illusory fighting persona where the humble halfling becomes The Death Jester when going into combat!)

 

[LexStarwalker]

Well, a prepared DM figures out the treasure before a session, not during it. If the hobgoblin warleader has a potion of superior healing, he might just want to drink it while fighting the PCs, so the DM had better know he has it! Whether a published adventure spells out treasure for you or gives you guidelines, neither removes the need for the DM to prepare for the session.

 

[LexStarwalker]

Just because the writers don't know the specific PCs doesn't mean it's ok for them to phone in the hooks. You don't need to know specific PCs to come up with evocative hooks. At the very least, decent hooks serve as an example for new or inexperienced GMs. The hooks in this adventure serve better as an example of what NOT to do.

 

[LexStarwalker]

UPDATE: Michael Schmidt wrote this blog post in which he supplies some more hooks for the adventure. These hooks are far superior to the ones give in the book, and you definitely want to check them out if you're going to run this campaign.