D&D 5E Rime of the Frostmaiden Post-Mortem (Spoilers)

[Paul Farquhar]

I always find different players experiences with the hardcovers interesting. I have to admit, I don’t regard CoS as highly as many of the players here.

I've never run CoS, but I have heard bad experiences of it.

Lost Mines is polished, but very vanilla. I prefer to pay for interesting ideas, generic stuff I can rattle off myself in 5 minutes.

 

[Burnside]

As I have pointed out several times, the fact that the Ten Towns has survived for years of eternal winter proves the sacrifices DO work. Auril, in her role as preserver, is preserving the towns. Not to mention she is using the sacrifices to power her divine batteries.

The book explicitly tells you that the sacrifices do nothing and are meaningless. You can change it so they work, but again that’s you fixing the adventure.

 

[Scott Christian]

Why, as a writer, would one choose something like that? Because it would be more mysterious? It would seem more of a reason to motivate the party? (Even though the party is supposed to trek around and do pointless side quests for the first half of the book.)

Because if world fidelity is in fact you, and your players thing, you would change it. Easy. A simple one word change changes all these "glaring plot holes" for you and your group. Something any experienced DM would recognize were they to know their group.
And for the other 90% of groups, they wouldn't notice.
And for the 1% of groups who notice, yet the DM didn't know them well enough to obfuscate, oh well. The DM made a mistake. WotC apologizes that it ruined the other 100 hours of playtime because you saw through our logic plot mistake.

 

[Scott Christian]

All I am/ others are asking for is that WotC, who are the megacorp of Rpg companies, sort this out since it improves player & GM experience:
A. Not all GMs are experienced like you Scott - read earlier thread
B. Some are like me time poor
C. Some errors are so numerous & fundamental they make running it difficult/ impossible (I am referring here to BG: DiA & W: DH not Rime which is mainly fixable) . Granted, JA has done remixes of 2... these are longer than the originals. Without his help you would've been better off writing your own campaign. You've wasted your money.

Time poor is a thing. A real thing. And it hampers everything, including creating worlds, DMing, RPing, etc. I did not mean to call you out as if in parliament. And I agree with you, WotC is a mega-corp, that should catch things.

I just feel, RotFM didn't need to be caught. They are not errors, they are accordion style adventures. Use them as you will. If you play them straight up, without the luxury of time, it's best to let everyone know this. Players can be very forgiving. If you need to play them with some modification, then allow for the time. If you can't, repeat to everyone you are running as is. This often means you cannot tailor it to the individual players too. It can still be fun. And if their is a chorus of complaints, turn the reigns over. They want time and effort that cannot be given. I have been there, and it was the best thing I ever did - "Here you go. Will you please run the next AP? I have no time."

Prep = time. It is often what makes a good adventure. Sometimes (and I mean everyone) can't devote the time needed. I can't always do it. And I have never met anyone who always has. So an AP is exactly what someone expects - based on what the DM tells them to expect. A tailored adventure with character arcs or a straight up adventure as written. (And to be truthful, I still have not found a single player that has objected to either one.)

 

[Retreater]

And for the other 90% of groups, they wouldn't notice.

I find it improbable that 90% of groups don't notice this. Groups, after all, are constructed of individuals. And I'm sure that any individual, given months of gameplay in the setting, will ask questions about that world. But if you and WotC are happy putting out material that doesn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny, well, I can't help there.
The nitpick of the illogical climate is just one issue endemic across the entirety of Rime of the Frost Maiden - one of carelessness, lack of structure, and editorial oversight. I've spoken to other DMs (not on this board) who trash on this adventure, so it's not just me.
So yes, you can easily fix the timeline of the weather. You can clear up the confusion of the human sacrifice. You can fix the timeline of traveling across the continent. You can add story and reason to go to the different sites (aside from just "level grinding.") You can tie in the lost city to the rest of the adventure so it's not a disconnected anti-climax. You can create your own maps for the various sites that aren't detailed. You can search for other resources to fill in the gaps for the skeletal structure provided for the Ten Towns region.
You can do all this stuff, but why? What is honestly worth keeping once you've done so much work to it? The excellent plot (that doesn't matter)? The barebones setting? The stereotypical northern barbarian tribes? The Frost Maiden who barely plays into the adventure - or her castle with like one room in it? The random adventure locales of crashed baby gnome mind flayers or the submarine whale (that honestly could've been put in any adventure to the same effect)?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The book explicitly tells you that the sacrifices do nothing and are meaningless. You can change it so they work, but again that’s you fixing the adventure.

You must have a different version, because mine doesn't say that.

 

[amethal]

I had the sacrifices actually work. In other words, Auril hasn't completely obliterated the Ten Towns because of the sacrifices. This explains why the non-insane leaders of the Ten Towns are running them - they are making a grim calculation to sacrifice a few to save many. Creates a legit moral dilemma for the characters. The other obvious option is that the sacrifices do nothing and either a powerful/charismatic Jim Jones-types cultist is instigating them OR the Speakers have been compromised by a devil (Asmodeus or Levistus, who as written both exist on the periphery of the adventure anyway - in particular, this fits the M.O. of Asmodeus).

Sacrifices to Asmodeus should definitely work, after a fashion.

I don't own the adventure (somewhat counter-intuitively, this threads has made me more likely to get it - it is an excellent sandbox, it has a submarine whale!) but could you make it fit that the towns with the human sacrifices are actually warmer than the others, or that it's subtly heating up the whole Vale?

This would make the cult of Asmodeus into another faction determined to foil the PCs efforts (since they want the need for sacrifices to continue).

 

[Retreater]

I don't own the adventure (somewhat counter-intuitively, this threads has made me more likely to get it - it is an excellent sandbox, it has a submarine whale!) but could you make it fit that the towns with the human sacrifices are actually warmer than the others, or that it's subtly heating up the whole Vale?

Hey that's cool. I know I'm harsh on it because it wasn't to my taste, but I'm glad you've gotten something positive from this thread.
The original point wasn't to scare away people from the adventure but to let them know about issues I found.

 

[MarkB]

This is true, but I find it helps to not buy the adventure through the VTT, rather to transfer it over from another medium. Then you can do the customisation at the same time. It's a lot more work that way though.

I bought the adventure twice over - on Roll20, and on D&D Beyond. Expensive, but was the better experience running it. It would've been a serious pain importing all the maps and handouts into Roll20 myself, but when it came to actually running the campaign, having it open across several tabs in D&D Beyond was far easier than trying to access the content via Roll20's interface.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I bought the adventure twice over - on Roll20, and on D&D Beyond. Expensive, but was the better experience running it. It would've been a serious pain importing all the maps and handouts into Roll20 myself, but when it came to actually running the campaign, having it open across several tabs in D&D Beyond was far easier than trying to access the content via Roll20's interface.

Thanks to lockdown I ended up transferring most of the campaign from the print book to R20!

You can include data entry in my skillset!