D&D 5E Help with HotDQ Chapter 4

[SuperTD]

Possible spoilers for HotDQ ahead.


So my players are about to go on the caravan journey following the cult in chapter 4, and I've never really run any scene like this before. From reading the chapter it feels like running it how it's presented in the book would feel very forced for the players. "You travel for days. Event A. You travel for days. Event B". I usually skip over travel scenes to get to the real action as fast as possible. Whilst my players have agreed to a certain amount of railroading from chapter to chapter to keep the adventure going, these planned events on the road don't feel right for me. How have people run this chapter and kept it interesting for the players, as well as letting it feel fluid and natural?

 

[Prism]

In the end its what most long distance overland journeys are like and you need to use the normal techniques to keep things interesting. So a few interesting encounters, scenery, locations and people will all help. I have played this section and it was fairly enjoyable

We had some light roleplaying trying to enlist on the caravan which ended up getting the party split between two caravans. Our grumpy dwarf druid wouldn't even try so followed the caravan on foot for the first part - until he proved himself as a valuable addition

The DM spent the first couple of days on the road describing some of the other people on the caravan and we interacted with them a little. Every day he described the landscape, the camp site and any minor things that happened like when the travellers were nervous of an area, when a wheel came off a wagon - small stuff like that that.

Our first combat encounter came after a few days and after this we gained some more recognition from the others so we could start to find out what they were carrying and where they were going. To be honest had we not cared about all this stuff then it might well have been - 3 days encounters, 5 days encounter, 7 days encounter....

In total on the whole journey I think we had three combat encounters, an argument in an inn, and several non combat ones. For me the non combat was most memorable

 

[Rocksome]

It is an usual episode, it's just filler but that's kind of the point. It took us three session to get through and whilst we had a great DM and enjoyed it thoroughly, it could easily become very boring in the hands of the wrong DM or with players that don't want to get into it.

I feel the purpose of this section of the adventure is to give the impression that they are travelling a LONG way. By the end of the episode we were so glad our journey was over, and there was a sense of relief that we'd finally gotten to our destination. In that sense it worked well.

It does however take a well prepped DM who is willing to play scenes out and add all those little touches to personalise the story to the characters, and a group of players willing to role-play the guarding of the caravan etc. In some ways that episode really cemented the relationships between the characters of our party, who was travelling with whom, who slept where, and what the PCs thought of each other.

 

[KarinsDad]

Possible spoilers for HotDQ ahead.


So my players are about to go on the caravan journey following the cult in chapter 4, and I've never really run any scene like this before. From reading the chapter it feels like running it how it's presented in the book would feel very forced for the players. "You travel for days. Event A. You travel for days. Event B". I usually skip over travel scenes to get to the real action as fast as possible. Whilst my players have agreed to a certain amount of railroading from chapter to chapter to keep the adventure going, these planned events on the road don't feel right for me. How have people run this chapter and kept it interesting for the players, as well as letting it feel fluid and natural?

Our DM skipped this. She thought that it would make for a very boring scenario for her and the players. She probably ran into similar difficulties to what you have. Course, our group is not known for drilling down into heavy duty hours on end roleplaying. Roleplaying for us is the glue between action scenes and gives us our reasons for adventuring, action scenes are not the glue between our roleplaying sessions.

She created a series of side quests to replace this with.

 

[Rocksome]

Our DM skipped this. She thought that it would make for a very boring scenario for her and the players. She probably ran into similar difficulties to what you have. Course, our group is not known for drilling down into heavy duty hours on end roleplaying. Roleplaying for us is the glue between action scenes and gives us our reasons for adventuring, action scenes are not the glue between our roleplaying sessions.

She created a series of side quests to replace this with.

Sounds like your DM is doing it right. You've gotta match any scenario to your player's styles.

 

[Ezequielramone]

this was one memorable chapter. My group enjoys interpretation.
my advise is to select the scenes depending on your characters. I have a half orc who get crazy easily. So I run the scene in which a guy trays to buy his bow and then it get stolen. Epic.
they also show interest in the scene. Changed their names and used disguises. So I leT them play with that.
One of the playes have a flaw with women. So he intended to score With janma.

 

[Vael]

Our DM skipped this. She thought that it would make for a very boring scenario for her and the players. She probably ran into similar difficulties to what you have. Course, our group is not known for drilling down into heavy duty hours on end roleplaying. Roleplaying for us is the glue between action scenes and gives us our reasons for adventuring, action scenes are not the glue between our roleplaying sessions.

She created a series of side quests to replace this with.

I'm planning something similar. I've asked my players for help though. I'm hoping to do some more character-based sidequests. Either a quick story or two in Baldur's Gate, or even a dungeon or two as they shadow/escort the caravan.

But first my PCs have to escape. The second battle with Cyanwrath went poorly, the conscious PCs had to surrender to avoid a TPK.

 

[KarinsDad]

But first my PCs have to escape. The second battle with Cyanwrath went poorly, the conscious PCs had to surrender to avoid a TPK.

Our group had two PCs fighting Cyanwrath and the cleric (have no clue what her name was) in fight A, two PCs hundreds of feet away fighting 4 guards in fight B, and two PCs a few hundred feet away fighting 3 guards in fight C.

The only reason they won fight A is that the DM had the captured Monk escape and help the first two PCs starting in round 3 or 4. It was at this point in time that our party Bard discovered that the Silence spell is so watered down in 5E that it doesn't stop NPCs from casting. In fact unless the NPCs have extremely limited movement, it is just a total waste of an action and a spell by a PC.

 

[Vael]

^ Split the party, huh?

My party froze, and all of them got caught in a lightning breath for their troubles. I'm actually glad Cyanwrath has managed to defeat the Paladin twice, it'll hopefully be quite satisfying for the player to get him next time. Also, I'm no longer worried about the Moon Druid. Yes, his HP is beastly in bear form, but after blowing a concentration save on Barkskin, everyone and their blind aunt can hit him.

 

[Khasimir]

I"m looking forward to this episode. I'm planning on throwing in something for Dragonspear Castle since it's right on the way, looking up the area on the internet has given me ideas for a number of minor encounters. There are all sorts of smallish things I plan on running as well: Hunting for food, beggars panhandling to them, another faction of guards there that end up antagonizing the party, bored strong guys issuing wresting challenges, archery contests between various guards, etc.