D&D 5E Running Rime of the Frost Maiden

[Burnside]

I haven't read every single 5E hardcover, but I have read, run, or played most of them. From the ones I've read, run, or played, the only ones that I would say don't carry the "a good DM needs to fix it" caveat are Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Annihilation, and Lost Mine of Phandelver.

 

[Burnside]

I did find it tricky in the initial Ten Towns sections to limit the players' exposure to plot hooks. The tricky part is that they're only really supposed to follow up the quests at a few of these locations before they level out of these quests and are supposed to move on to the wider world, but in a lot of cases the quickest way to get to the next quest objective from town A is to follow the road through towns B, C and D, and then it's "do I drop the plot hooks for these towns and see what they nibble, or do I make this the one town where mysteriously nothing interesting is going on and then they'll obsess about it?"

Just by virtue of how they have moved through the towns and which ones they visited and spent time in, my players are well into the duergar storyline and haven't encountered ANY of the awakened animals/evil druids stuff.

They are super into it, but I do think they are starting to feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of quests and subplots on offer.

 

[tetrasodium]

I haven't read every single 5E hardcover, but I have read, run, or played most of them. From the ones I've read, run, or played, the only ones that I would say don't carry the "a good DM needs to fix it" caveat are Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Annihilation, and Lost Mine of Phandelver.

Rhime takes it to another level by hiding it from a gm trying to figure out what to fix in ways that make correcting "it" needlessly opaque when it comes to simply discovering what "it" is rather than just rewriting the whole thing and scratching your head when suddenly duergar or whatever

 

[Burnside]

Rhime takes it to another level by hiding it from a gm trying to figure out what to fix in ways that make correcting "it" needlessly opaque when it comes to simply discovering what "it" is rather than just rewriting the whole thing and scratching your head when suddenly duergar or whatever

Absolutely, but if you look at stuff like Out of the Abyss or Tyranny of Dragons, in comparison Rime does a great job of letting the DM know what's going on. Those adventures conspire to conceal that information from you.

On the other hand, Storm King's Thunder lets you know what's going on. It's just that what's going on is lame.

 

[MarkB]

Just by virtue of how they have moved through the towns and which ones they visited and spent time in, my players are well into the duergar storyline and haven't encountered ANY of the awakened animals/evil druids stuff.

They are super into it, but I do think they are starting to feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of quests and subplots on offer.

Hah! My players got through a couple of the duergar encounters, but they've encountered so many awakened animals that it's become a running theme, and the party druid - who rejected an Auril druid's attempts at recruitment - is starting to feel personally targeted.

One of the funniest of those moments was from the random wilderness encounters. I rolled an encounter at night, that would feature an awakened animal, and the randomly-rolled animal I got to work with was... a snow hare. So I figured "okay, what the heck can a hare do to a 6th-level party?", and had it sneak in past their posted watch, acing its stealth checks, and tuck a chunk of chardalyn under the druid's pillow, giving him a random insanity when he woke up.

That hare had a charmed life. It was in and out of there without any trouble, and only got spotted the next night, when it came back and tried to slip some poison into their evening meal. And then it lasted two rounds of combat against the paladin who was on watch at the time, and managed to miss four greatsword attacks against it as it hopped away at its full 20-foot speed.

When he finally connected he sunk a max-level Smite into it just to make sure.

 

[Burnside]

Hah! My players got through a couple of the duergar encounters, but they've encountered so many awakened animals that it's become a running theme, and the party druid - who rejected an Auril druid's attempts at recruitment - is starting to feel personally targeted.

One of the funniest of those moments was from the random wilderness encounters. I rolled an encounter at night, that would feature an awakened animal, and the randomly-rolled animal I got to work with was... a snow hare. So I figured "okay, what the heck can a hare do to a 6th-level party?", and had it sneak in past their posted watch, acing its stealth checks, and tuck a chunk of chardalyn under the druid's pillow, giving him a random insanity when he woke up.

That hare had a charmed life. It was in and out of there without any trouble, and only got spotted the next night, when it came back and tried to slip some poison into their evening meal. And then it lasted two rounds of combat against the paladin who was on watch at the time, and managed to miss four greatsword attacks against it as it hopped away at its full 20-foot speed.

When he finally connected he sunk a max-level Smite into it just to make sure.

Amazing!

I am stealing this evil bunny. I will give you no credit and my players will think it was my idea.

 

[Retreater]

Just by virtue of how they have moved through the towns and which ones they visited and spent time in, my players are well into the duergar storyline and haven't encountered ANY of the awakened animals/evil druids stuff.

They are super into it, but I do think they are starting to feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of quests and subplots on offer.

My party hasn't encountered any of the duergar stuff, and if I sprang it upon them now (at 4th level) it would definitely feel tracked on and disconnected.

On the other hand, Storm King's Thunder lets you know what's going on. It's just that what's going on is lame.

Agreed. I took the sites out of that one and wrote my own story.

Honestly, my experience with this adventure is pushing me over the edge to not want to run any more WotC campaign adventures - after I've run many others and seen their failings too. I'm not a bad writer at all and I'm confident that I could write something better for my table and easier for me to run than most of WotC's offerings.
The only problem would be putting it all onto a VTT.

 

[Reynard]

My party hasn't encountered any of the duergar stuff, and if I sprang it upon them now (at 4th level) it would definitely feel tracked on and disconnected.

My players got involved with the duergar almost first thing and have decided it is the most important thing in the world so they have focused all their efforts on stopping them. It has worked out very well (although the duergar themselves as presented are pretty boring, so I have had to make them more interesting).

 

[Retreater]

My players got involved with the duergar almost first thing and have decided it is the most important thing in the world so they have focused all their efforts on stopping them. It has worked out very well (although the duergar themselves as presented are pretty boring, so I have had to make them more interesting).

Are you tying the duergar into the ongoing snowpocalypse and two years without a sun? For my group, there is nothing that can be more important than that.

 

[Reynard]

Are you tying the duergar into the ongoing snowpocalypse and two years without a sun? For my group, there is nothing that can be more important than that.

Nope. I am not a big fan of campaigns that are just one big adventure. I like the fact that Rime is a messy sandbox with a bunch of disconnected mini-adventures. I also think it is silly to have 1st level characters to take on a "save the world" quest right out of the gate. They're 1st level? Why would they head off into the ice to kill a goddess? If the campaign continues after they raid the duergar HQ (I am ambivalent about the campaign overall and need to trim some gaming from my schedule; also, potential TPK) they have gathered a few hints about the Netherese city, and have a bunch of personal stuff they might need to get done that they have pushed off to deal with the duergar. This style of play is more interesting and fulfilling IMO than a huge singular quest with a clock.