D&D 5E Having trouble with SKT (SPOILERS)

[Retreater]

I am a fairly experienced DM, 6 sessions into Storm King's Thunder. Things aren't clicking together well, so I wanted to come here for your suggestions and support.

I have six players: two that I have been gaming with for nearly 20 years; one that I have been gaming with for nearly 5; another player who I've known for a few years, but who isn't the biggest fan of the D&D system; and another two players who are relatively new to the hobby (including my girlfriend). The characters include a fallen aasimar barbarian, wood elf ranger, dwarf cleric of life, dwarf weapon master fighter, human wild magic sorcerer, and half-elf bard. Our sessions take place every two weeks and last about 4 hours.

Due to a busy work schedule and not knowing a lot about 5E, I decided to run a pre-written module instead of creating a homebrew campaign. SKT wasn't my first choice of module, but after piecing together my group, I found this was the only one that no one had played, DMed, or read extensively.

We started at 1st level since several of the players are relatively new to 5E. The first session, investigating Nightstone, went well. But I started changing things I didn't like about the module, and I have a feeling this might have been the start of the problems I'm having now.

Instead of having the flying Deus Ex Machina tower with the stone giant come to the party's aid, I decided the party could go on foot to their next destination. (The party was very nervous about giants in flying castles having just attacked Nightstone, so I thought it would further complicate the adventure.) I did put in an option for them to ride on giant eagles borrowed from the elves of Ardeep. The dwarven cleric had received a vision of Goldenfields under attack, so they headed there in haste.

I ran the Goldenfields attack by the book with one exception: I didn't give the characters the NPCs to control in the side fights. It seemed confusing to new players and had little to do with the focus of the adventure. Likewise, the side quests seemed really tangential; plus the characters so concerned with the giant raids that they had no interest in doing anything other than trying to track down where the giants came from.

At this point, I introduced Harshnag, the frost giant. SKT is written so the group wanders aimlessly in the Savage Frontier for weeks and levels up before finding him. I wanted to give the party something to work towards, trying to find out what's going on with the giants. Harshnag agreed to meet them in Bryn Shander far to the north. He claimed he needed this time to research the location of an Oracle.

At this point, the party is leveling up multiple times per session - basically after each fight. I'm just trying to keep pace with the module so they'll be ready to go to the Oracle within a couple sessions. Because there's basically nothing else going on in the module until they go to the Oracle.

The group reaches Triboar, and I decide to play out the Fire Giant fight. Otherwise I would just have to handwave the travel and levels 4-6. It was a cool fight, but some of the players expressed frustration that it was an overly difficult fight that seemed too repetitive with the Goldenfields fight.

A couple of random encounters on the road and stopping at a few towns along the way to roleplay, the group finally got to Bryn Shander. I was going to have Harshnag meet the group outside and take them to the Oracle. Because of a player's unexpected absence, I did not want to run the Oracle fights and info dump without him, so I decided to run the Bryn Shander chapter a little "off the cuff." And the session went badly.

The group could not find Artus Cimber or his stolen ring. Because he's not there. He's supposed to be in ... Waterdeep? The group tries to parlay with the giants, swindle them, etc. There is next to no information presented on Bryn Shander. I got completely lost and now the Frost Giants are attacking the party - because "that's what the module says." We ended with Harshnag having found the group as all hell breaks lose outside the gates of Bryn Shander.

The characters are now 7th level. The players have no connection to anything going on in the adventure. Honestly, even after they find the Oracle they have to wander through the wilderness to try to find artifacts to find a clue that might lead them to a giant chieftain.

I'm just at a loss on how to salvage this. Everything seems so loosely connected (if at all). The characters have little motivation.

This has easily been the worst campaign I've run in the past 15 years. It's frustrating that I'm disappointing my players like this.

 

[CapnZapp]

You're not missing anything. SKT doesn't have a plot that makes sense.

What it does have is good gazetteer information on the Savage Frontier, but that's no campaign.

I have no advice for you other than to abandon SKT. It is poorly suited to a pick-up-and-run DM, especially one with pretensions on an engaging story.

Fighting giants *is* the story. You speed-levelling past the content there is does not help.



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[MonsterEnvy]

You're not missing anything. SKT doesn't have a plot that makes sense.

What it does have is good gazetteer information on the Savage Frontier, but that's no campaign.

I have no advice for you other than to abandon SKT. It is poorly suited to a pick-up-and-run DM, especially one with pretensions on an engaging story.

Fighting giants *is* the story. You speed-levelling past the content there is does not help.



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Disagree SKT does have a plot that makes sense.

I would say the OP's biggest problem is like you said is speeding through the content. Also you were only supposed to one of the big giant attacks you were only supposed to do Goldenfrields, Bryn Shandar or Triboar not all three that is why the party likely felt it was repetitive. The fact you did not have them interact with Giants or any of the NPCs likley hurt this a bit more.

You should have read the Byrnn Shandar chapter ahead of time. Artus Cimber is in Chult nowhere near the location of the adventure one of the NPC's the party can join with his that chapter is one of his descendants and thats who the giants detected. The gaints think he is there however. Which is why they attack.

The traveling chapter is only supposed to last until Harshnag shows up and shows them to the Oracle. Doing all Three Giant attacks especially with heavily changing it made things harder for you and less enjoyable for everyone I would say.

Also I would say removing the Tower was a mistake. Zepherous is an interesting meeting for the party.

 

[Greg Benage]

SKT definitely has a narrative spine. You could write it up like this:

"Giants have emerged from their strongholds to threaten civilization as never before. Hill giants are stealing all the grain and livestock they can, while stone giants have been scouring settlements that have been around forever. Fire giants are press-ganging the small folk into the desert, while frost giant longships have been pillaging along the Sword Coast. Even the elusive cloud giants have been witnessed, their wondrous floating cities appearing above Waterdeep and Baldur’s Gate. Where is the storm giant King Hekaton, who is tasked with keeping order among the giants?

The humans, dwarves, elves, and other small folk of the Sword Coast will be crushed underfoot by the onslaught of these giant foes. The only chance at survival is for our heroes to work together to investigate this invasion and harness the power of rune magic, the giants’ weapon against their ancient enemies, the dragons. Can our heroes restore order by discovering and turning the giants’ own power against them?"

Okay, that's just paraphrased from the product description. Now, that narrative spine runs through a big sandbox, and it takes some work on the DM's part to engage the players in that sandbox and to prevent that narrative spine from getting lost in it. This seems to be where you've fallen a little short. It seems like the players likely have no idea what they're doing or why.

I can't think of anyway to make the aftertaste of this speed-leveling and skipped content go away. But at this point, I think you can possible salvage the campaign by picking the characters up and placing them solidly on the narrative spine. They're supposed to piece together the narrative while playing in the sandbox, but that's not really an option now. They need to discover what the problem is and how they can solve it. Harshnag and the Oracle can do that, if the players still care at this point. Alternatively, and perhaps more ideally, you can set things up for Harshnag and the Oracle by using the giant chaos as an obstacle to something the players do care about, assuming there's something they care about. "We want X, but we can't have X because giant chaos, so we need to find out what's causing giant chaos and put things right."

 

[Demetrios1453]

As others have said, where things sort of got off the narrative spine was in skipping the sandbox part. While having new players run extra NPCs might well indeed have made things a bit harder, you might have just introduced them before the giant attack, and then, appreciative, given them the sidequests. That is where you introduce the real meat of the campaign; the party will stumble over farmsteads recently wrecked by giants, hear rumors of various giant attacks around the North at taverns and inns, and (what I did) hear stories about a frost giant who is being helpful instead of attacking. Plus they should get some interesting items as a reward from the quests.

How to salvage it now? I can only say continue on to the Oracle and go on from there. At least raiding Uthgardt burial mounds will give them a break from nonstop giants!

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[hastur_nz]

Indeed, what is done is done, so onwards and upwards. My best advice is that SKT does actually require some work in preparation and thinking, every session, especially in the initial chapters. Unfortunately, as you've found out, trying to just wing it as you go along, reading as you go along, is doomed to failure, it's not well enough structured for that. So you just have to make sure you find some time to read ahead enough, and come up with some ideas for how to structure the upcoming session, so the players have enough structure but not a complete rail-road. Don't stress over the whole book's content, just what you need for the next session.

So for example, at level 7 I'd say get them into Chapter 4 (find the Path / Uthgardt Mounds), then on to one (or more) of the Giant Strongholds for level 8 - don't rush them up levels any more, the giant strongholds can be great fun. Motivation shouldn't be too hard, they have spent loads of time already seeing giants attack the towns of the North.

Personally I've run bits of it, and lots from other sources, all part of a big arc of "troubles in the north", which will eventually converge into at least some of the PC's 'solving the giant problems'; we may even extend it out from there to cover higher levels. But after many months we haven't actually played more than bits of 3 chapters, as I heavily padded out the early levels. I ran an initial group straight from Nightstone to Goldenfields then on to Grudd Haug, which was a very natural plot progression; I didn't actually use chapter 4, as I'm using that later on with a second group of PC's who are running "in parallel" - that's my main change-up from what's published.

Anyway, if you are willing to change things to help make them better, you are totally on the right track. Good luck - it's a decent adventure book with loads of cool ideas etc, but you definitely need to put your own twist on it to make it run well for your own group of players.

 

[robus]

In the future, if you’re not willing to read the book, then at least read a detailed overview such as Powerscore: http://thecampaign20xx.blogspot.com/2016/09/dungeons-dragons-storm-kings-thunder.html

It would have given you a decent look at what’s in store with the adventure. Others have given good advice, but only you can salvage this campaign. It’s time for Harshnag to announce he’s discovered the location of the Oracle and move on.

Or admit you f’d it all up. Apologize and ask the group if they’d like to continue, promising that the adventure will be more focused and engaging. But if they’re sick of it perhaps it’s time to pack it in, learn your lessons and move onto something else.

ToA has just been released, though again you can’t just wing it. Really you must be able to at least get a handle on the major aspects of a published adventure before running it. A little bit of prep goes an awful long way!

Sorry it’s come to this. Good luck!

 

[Ovinomancer]

As has been noted, in varying degrees of kindness, SKT takes a bit of work. It's designed as a sandbox, and the first half is supposed to be wandering that sandbox. Even then, it takes work to reinforce the nature of the plot. The summary of the plot above is pretty good, so keep that in mind from here on out: the North is suffering under the depredations of the giants. The why of this is what you're going to get at the Oracle, so that scene is crucial to rerailing your game.

That said, the Oracle set up is intended to flow from the previous chapters, and it looks like you may have skipped some of that setup. That means that the Oracle is going to take some changes. First of these is that the Oracle is entirely passive -- it has a lot of good information, but you have to ask it the right questions to get that information. This isn't a good setup for you, as you haven't prepped those questions for sessions and sessions. So, I'd recommend you change the oracle from a question/answer style into a more engaged and explanatory style. Merge the cloud giant ghost with the oracle -- have his death actually mean that he's now a powerful conduit to the Oracle (which, incidentally, fulfills the prophecy he was murder for). Swap his father, Blagothkus out for a mother, Countess Sansirri. Make promising to deal with her, at some point, a part of the price the ghost negotiates for further details. This does a few things - it gives you a NPC mouthpiece instead of a question/answer format to provide the information to acquaint your players with the storyline AND gives the players some motivation to engage with the giants (if you make the ghost likable, that is).

So, I'd have the ghost provide information on the ordning being broken and what this means for the North -- each of the giant types is now striving for power and prestige to improve their positions. The Hekaton is missing, and there is evil lurking in his court. That the North will not do well under an ordning that does not have Storm Giants partial to smallfolk in charge. But then say that there is a cost for further information -- where and how to access the court of the Storm Giants, root out the evil, and restore the Storm Giants to the head of the ordning. And that cost is the retrieval of ancient giant artifacts. This isn't something the ghost can alter -- it's immutable law from Ammon that assistance requires payment. And so, now you've set up the quest for the artifacts.

You can run that according to the book, having now rerailed your adventure, and move on, but I find that the Uthgardt mounds are fairly boring, for the most part. If you limit it to only a few options, instead of all of them (only have Harshnag remember the location of a few sites), you can pick some of the more interesting mounds (like the Well). Or come up with a different tack. The thread on improving SKT is excellent for these suggestions.

As a final point, the best parts of SKT are the giant lord lairs. They're well done set-pieces that have a flow to them based on what the party does. They are top notch for published adventure pieces. But the story only requires that the players visit one of them, which is sad. I said that a single conch would only transport 2 persons, not everyone, so my party of 5 had to go to 3 lords to get conchs. But, if you're more interested in finishing, this isn't necessary. I just don't want you to miss the absolute best bits in SKT, especially after your frustrations. That said, though, be aware that the Cloud Giant castle is particularly deadly if run as a frontal assault. Work to allow the party to rescue Felgolos and then use him to even the field. Also, try to have the giants engage in waves - a single cloud giant is a threat, but one easily dealt with by 9thish level characters, but 2 gets dangerous and 3 will kill someone. Throwing them in waves still puts pressure on the party while not overwhelming them with the very hard hitting giants. Use Felgolos to help deal with the open courtyard where multiple giants will congregate.

So, to sum up, sorry you've found yourself in this spot, but use the Oracle to rerail your game. Change the Oracle into something that can converse (from the Q&A format) so that you can lead the discussion and provide information more clearly. Make the threat to things the party cares about if the giants aren't stopped clear using the Oracle. Then get back on the adventure path. Read the improving SKT thread for ideas on how you might want to change the later chapters -- there's great advice from those that have gone through it in that thread that can really improve some of the weaker aspects of SKT.

Good gaming!

 

[Tony Vargas]

I am a fairly experienced DM, 6 sessions into Storm King's Thunder. Things aren't clicking together well, so I wanted to come here for your suggestions and support.

I have six players: two that I have been gaming with for nearly 20 years; one that I have been gaming with for nearly 5; another player who I've known for a few years, but who isn't the biggest fan of the D&D system; and another two players who are relatively new to the hobby (including my girlfriend).

That could be a strike against your campaign, right there.

Due to a busy work schedule and not knowing a lot about 5E, I decided to run a pre-written module instead of creating a homebrew campaign. SKT wasn't my first choice of module, but after piecing together my group, I found this was the only one that no one had played, DMed, or read extensively.

5e is DM-Empowering and a lot of fun to run, but it does require some effort, prep time or being really on-the-ball as you improv at the table. The times I've tried to run even a simple 5e module 'cold' & off my game have been minor disasters.
That could be your second strike.

We started at 1st level since several of the players are relatively new to 5E.

Intuitive as that sounds, IMHO/X, 5e's first level or few are really more there nods to old-school - counting arrows and creeping about dungeons and coping with 'real danger' and "don't even name your character until 5th" - than as a training ground for new players. Starting at 3rd works better for that, IMHO. That or the AL policy of coming back from the dead and re-working your character every session until 4th level.

But I started changing things I didn't like about the module, and I have a feeling this might have been the start of the problems I'm having now.

Maybe, but I think the above factors may have set you up for a hard time, as it was. Don't be too hard on yourself...

The characters are now 7th level. The players have no connection to anything going on in the adventure.

Sounds like they have animosity with giants, some past attacks, and this Harshang fellow - and an appointment for some exposition.

Honestly, even after they find the Oracle they have to wander through the wilderness to try to find artifacts to find a clue that might lead them to a giant chieftain.

I'm just at a loss on how to salvage this. Everything seems so loosely connected (if at all). The characters have little motivation.

I suppose you could use the Oracle to give them more information and reveal connections or destinies or something of the sort - depending on how far you want to go in 'forcing' things.

How are your players handling it? Generally fun? ho-hum? looking frustrated?

 

[Retreater]

How are your players handling it? Generally fun? ho-hum? looking frustrated?

I would say there isn't a blanket description for all of them at all times. After asking their opinions recently most say they're largely enjoying the game but would like to slow down the pacing and levelling and have more time for role-playing and character development.

I can oblige that (and even felt like that was the right path after the quick levelling intro in the module. ) I'm just unsure that there is enough to salvage.