D&D 5E Retrofitting SKT for a monstrous party (or, how Volo's guide ruined my campaign idea)

[Remathilis]

This has frequently bothered me - a party with a human or two at most. Defintely a bunch of strange folks...

... but strange folks with a somewhat decent reputation. Dwarves are surly and greedy to be sure, but they aren't accused of stealing babies to eat them. There is a whole new level of problem here, esp the kobold, bugbear and goblin.

If it was a solo goblin or kobold, the NPCs could tell themselves "well he can't be *that* bad if the elf and dwarf tolerate its presence" but if it's the whole lot of them...

That was my initial concern.

Most places in the Realms have humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings living in them. They don't have orcs, goblins or kobolds in them. Even the stranger non-evil races (like dragonborn or goliaths) might get stares, but if they were mixed in with common races they'd probably not be considered a threat.

But when a goblin, bugbear, kobold, dragonborn, tabaxi, and kenku all walk into a town, smart people hide the silver and call the guards. Nearly all those races have a reputation for thievery and/or violence. One or two of those races might cause concern, a party of them can cause alarm...



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[MonsterEnvy]

Yeah most people would probably think it's a raiding party.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I would just make NPCs, while suspicious and wary, not automatically murderous. It's one thing to chase the goblin away from your apple-cart and another to pull out your crossbow.

You wouldn't want the kobold, goblin, and bugbear to show up in town togther, though. Not until people know them.

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[bganon]

It doesn't sound like your group is particularly attached to FR lore, so why not just change it a bit?

It doesn't have to be entirely option 1, but you could invent a version of Faerun with a bit more interspecies mixing, and not really have to change too much in the AP. Maybe a few hundred years ago the goblin hordes just got tired and decided to settle down a bit. So the party still turns heads quite a bit on entering town, and runs into a lot of opposition, but things are more "we don't serve their kind here" and less "grab the pitchforks and torches".

 

[Savage Wombat]

I think either 2 or 4. I'd suspect that anyone playing a goblin PC wants to play a goblin, not a human with goblin powers. Being a mistrusted monster is part of that.

You probably want to figure out - perhaps with your players - what the group's "story" is. Are they misunderstood heroes overcoming prejudice, antiheroes in a world that fears them, or simply heroes of a radically different culture?

 

[Demetrios1453]

You know, I just realized that "a hero being misunderstood as a monster due to his species" is actually the storyline of a rather important NPC in the adventure, Harshnag. Perhaps you should introduce him earlier in the adventure than recommended, as he can take the party under his wing and mentor them as they level? Or have him give them letters of recommendation that can be indisputably shown as his (likely through some sort of magical means)?

 

[Satyrn]

They sound like good targets for drow slavers.

You could run them through Out of the Abyss I think. (Although you'd probably have to change up the second half)

 

[Hawk Diesel]

Perhaps they have a Patron of some renown that announces them and ensures they are hassled minimally. That way people still look at them funny, are hesitant to interact with them, and throw some minor racism (specism?) their way, but overall they are treated fairly and even given opportunity to work some jobs.

 

[Creamsteak]

I'm running (now 1) PbP of SKT as well as one face to face game and one Roll20 game. On the Roll20 game everyone went monstrous, and since I had already used the other three Chapter 2 intros from the books I decided to run the monstrous game as a bit of a "reverse" adventure. Luckily I guess they have a "face" in the serpentperson that goes by "Hugh Man".

By reverse I mean I kinda took bits and pieces of the plot and gave them insider information as if they were working for the Zhentarium alongside dragon cultists that were trying to earn Klauth's favor. Then I strung them along with gold, an old abandoned keep near Klauth's territory, fighting against the barbarians (for the giant artifacts that come up later in the adventure) and so on. So in some ways they're doing the module out of order, and that's working fine. Instead of being good samaritans standing up for justice and stability, they're raiding barbarian tribes, stealing artifacts, and assassinating giants.

 

[pming]

Hiya.

I opened the game to any of the main books out so far: PHB, SCAG, VGtM, and EEPG. UA playtest upon request with some heavy cavaets. We didn't have a session 0 per se, but we did discuss character ideas for the game.

And that's when the wheels fell off.

Actually, I think where the wheels fell off was with the sentence: "I opened the game to any of the main books out so far..."

Y'see, you want to play through a pre-defined story via an AP. That's what they are, lets face it, a pre-written story outline that the players get to fill in some blanks...but the story is already done. Not my cup 'o joe (and definitely not my players), but they can be used as "adventure filler" for the more standard open-ended type campaigns.

What I would do is go for your Option #2. As [MENTION=6788312]Greenstone.Walker[/MENTION] said...choices have consequences. If you don't have the world react accordingly, then you may as well just say "everyones human, but you can pick a racial background and get all that stuff...but you're human". But if you do that, then every other monster out there is also, effectively, reduced to "just humans in funny suits" (as is the saying, I believe).

So, yeah, Option 2. If/when the players get annoyed that they are fighting on two fronts (giants on one, civilized folk on the other), you'd probably get a lot of requests to 'change' PC's. Unless your players are into that kind of masochism...

Anyway, you could take Option 2 and then just use the 'mechanical innerds' of the AP to build your own adventure(s)...it wouldn't be SKT anymore, but it has the potential to be much more rewarding and memorable! (hey, remember that time when we played almost all goblinoid bad guys and had to fight a bunch of giants who wanted to turn all our tribes into slaves to fight the humans?...man...that was fun!...good times...good times...). IMHO it would sure beat out "Hey, remember the time we played goblinoids and everyone was against us? The giants and the humans? Man...we got the stinky end of the stick constantly on that....lets not do that again, kay?"

^_^

Paul L. Ming