D&D General How Do You Fix a Campaign? (Rime of the Frostmaiden spoilers)

[Paul Farquhar]

This adventure really needed a relationship web overlaid on the map to show where things are and how they interact.

You could certainly turn it into a conspiracy board. Red string links the Black Cabin to Oyminartok to Wilderness Encounters to the Cave of the Berserkers etc.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And in some cases the connection feels very forced (the duergar and the Frostmaiden, for instance.)

They aren't aligned.

The duergar connect to Asmodeus, who connects (antipathetically) to Leveistus, who connects to the Knights of the Black Sword, who connects to Avarice who connects to the Arcane Brotherhood which connects to Luskan.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Why is it always red string, anyway? I suspect that all these conspiracy theories are created by a conspiracy of red string manufacturers in order to sell more string.

 

[Yora]

Because of Theseus and the Minotaur.

 

[Steampunkette]

So... here's my suggestion.

Stop running the Adventure. Start playing a campaign.

Instead of your players rushing to the next quest, take some downtime in-character. Have them stuck in a given town for a week or two because a pass they need to cross is blocked and there's a terrible storm and it's just appropriate to stay in that town. Have them RP with each other, with the locals. Give the region some color through character-interaction. Let them recharge their "Adventure Batteries" by interacting with the world outside of combat for a while.

Maybe introduce another NPC "Party" of similar adventurers who are following their own leads to end the Eternal Winter and might be willing to "Compare Notes" to provide that greater insight. Even better if the party hits it off with them before they head in separate directions and then later finds members of that party dead or gravely wounded because it will give them context rather than just being some bodies in a hallway.

Make space for RP and pull it forward. The Winter's gone on for years at this point, another week won't matter.

 

[robus]

Unfortunately that all sounds par for the course for WotC adventures. My approach, these days, is to use the adventure as inspiration for an interesting story and assume that the adventure as written is unrunnable.

Now, with my story in mind, I’m much better prepared to run the adventure for my players.

Also a near-TPK at the beginning is pretty demotivating for all involved, so I’m sorry to hear that happened.

 

[robus]

Typically there is an: "Enhancing XYZ adventure" thread here on EnWorld, but I couldn't find it for Rhime. Sly's post as links to more suggestions, so I would check that one out first

I used to be a big supporter of those but the lack of being able to wiki-edit the first post to build an index in the forum update, and my growing disdain for WotC adventures (I haven’t bought one in a while) made me give up.

 

[Reynard]

Now, with my story in mind, I’m much better prepared to run the adventure for my players.

I prefer to make room for the players to make their own stories, and I think Rime does a pretty good job of presenting a location and situation to allow that to happen. But the DM needs to be prepared and have a pretty solid understanding of the scenario for that.

 

[jayoungr]

I don't know if you've checked out this thread. It might have some ideas you can use.

D&D 5E - Running Rime of the Frost Maiden

I decided I was definitely going to be running Rime of the Frostmaiden for my next campaign. I am running it biweekly via Fantasy grounds, for reference. Anyway, i thought we could start a thread ahead of its release to talk about prepping for running Rime (RotFM? What are we going with here?)...

www.enworld.org

 

[Paul Farquhar]

An ancient prayer had been composed that can destroy Auril (the Rime/Rhyme of the Frostmaiden). It must be performed on her island to seal her for good. The pages of the poem were scattered and have found themselves in the possession of several power groups (the Bear Clan, the Dwarves, the Goblins, Bryn Shander, and the last is on Auril's island). The dead rider on the back of the white dragon can animate in the presence of the berserkers' brazier and tell them this information, because he was the original writer.

It's a lot of extra work. I did a "end the endless winter" throughplot without needing additional content. Early on (but after I had done team building RP stuff) the party met Copper Knobberknocker in search of healing. He sent them to the Black Cabin, where they learned of a device that could break Auril's spell "if only it where bigger". Soon after they are investigating The Lost Spire when they learn about Mythlars from the books there, as well as that the arcane brotherhood are looking for one. From there it is a straight line (with interruptions for dragons) to chapter 7.

Alternatively, you could focus on the duergar (and rival devils), or the Incantations of Iriolathas (for less altruistic players) as the arc-plot.