D&D 5E Previews of Rime of the Frostmaiden

IGN has posted a preview of Rime of the Frostmaiden, including some preview pages (I've put one below). They will also be posting more previews tomorrow!

Exclusive: Get An Early Look Inside D&D's Rime of the Frostmaiden - IGN

We've got an exclusive early look at pages from D&D's newest adventure, Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden.

www.ign.com

 

[Reynard]

Every encounter (with a particular emphasis on numbered rooms in a dungeon, but not exclusive: a shopping trip or meetup at the inn could be an encounter, negotiating with the Duke could be an encounter, etc.) is worth 0-4 XP, at DM discretion. Doesn't matter what happens: combat, social engagement, trap, puzzle poking a wall with ten foot poles for fifteen minutes, etc. It's worth 0-4 XP: The average is assumed to be 2, and the book recommends basing the judgement on the difficulty of what was accomplished. The amount is determined by DM adjudication, of whatever standard seems to apply. They get through the trap in a businesslike manner, 1 XP. If the party does something off the wall and so amazing people are snorting Mountain Dew and high giving each other, maybe 4 XP. The XP doesn't come from particular activity, but from playing the game, and incentives engagement with what will make for cool moments rather than maximizing combat kills or loot.

The big question for 5E adaption would be the math: max level in DCC is 10, which is 1090 XP.

Huh. I don't like giving more XP for the same challenge just because someone made an extra hilarious Princess Bride reference, but YMMV.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm not a fan of how this starts. I like more "solid" hooks. These seem to be optional for the players. Why are they even there? That could already part of the hook. These starting adventures are like the heroes are sitting in a pub and someone is complaining that some iron is missing. Ok? Let's have another beer and that was it. These reek of being side-quests.

That's the nature of a sand box structure. But it's easy enough for the DM to create motives for PC involvement. Tying it into player backgrounds works well. Maybe the bard's grandmother was killed by an evil moose?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I guess I know that I'm starting the campaign in Lonelywood. How could anyone resist the opening hook of "evil white moose?"

I want to know more about this evil moose.

 

[Parmandur]

Huh. I don't like giving more XP for the same challenge just because someone made an extra hilarious Princess Bride reference, but YMMV.

We'll, no, not like that. Thinking on it, an example would be if a DCC party made their way to the end of the Tomb of Horrors: if they use a Spell to escape with what they have at that point, they could get 1 XP. If they repurpose one of the traps from earlier in the dungeon as a weapon and kill Ackerack (which reportedly happened in the original tournament), they would get 4 XP (and mad loot).

 

[Parmandur]

That's the nature of a sand box structure. But it's easy enough for the DM to create motives for PC involvement. Tying it into player backgrounds works well. Maybe the bard's grandmother was killed by an evil moose?

It seems there is a section on character creation that focuses on providing rationales for player involvement.

 

[Reynard]

We'll, no, not like that. Thinking on it, an example would be if a DCC party made their way to the end of the Tomb of Horrors: if they use a Spell to escape with what they have at that point, they could get 1 XP. If they repurpose one of the traps from earlier in the dungeon as a weapon and kill Ackerack (which reportedly happened in the original tournament), they would get 4 XP (and mad loot).

Ah. Gotcha. I thought you meant in game rewards for table behaviors, of which I am not a huge fan.

 

[Reynard]

It seems there is a section on character creation that focuses on providing rationales for player involvement.

I picked up "Players Guide to Icewind Dale" on DMsGuild and it has a great "lifepath" section in the back. Well worth a look.

 

[Parmandur]

Ah. Gotcha. I thought you meant in game rewards for table behaviors, of which I am not a huge fan.

Oh, yeah, it's about in character stuff: the idea is to incentevise big, bold action rather than a grind.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

XP is a great way to incentive certain behavior. When 1XP=1GP, the game was all about amassing treasure. When things changed and CR -> XP, then it was all about killing monsters. I liked 4e, in that there was a system for non-combat encounters to assign XP. The system itself wasn't great, but it was pretty good.

I use XP at the encounter scale, as opposed to the entire adventure scale (which is what I feel like milestone advancement is).

Milestone advancement doesn't work in Sandbox, imo. The milestones aren't well defined, so your players wander around. I guess maybe if it's discussed in Session 0 and expectations are set that there's not really an overarching story to discover, then that's ok. But if that's the case, then what's the point of the entire book. Just create stuff based on your players; and give them agency to create stuff in the setting as well.

Like the sandboxy Chapter 3 in Storm King's is the weakest part of that module. As a GM, give me a set of throughline stories through the whole adventure. If I want to do sandbox, I can, and ignore the stuff between L4 and L7; but the reason I buy pre-published adventures is so I don't have to create on the fly.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I like shorter adventures with a loose connection. I have tried a few of the big books and because we don't play as much as we wished, tgey are just too overwhelmingly long.