Each time a campaign ends, I try to learn from it. This will be about my Storm King’s Thunder campaign.
About the Group and Selection of the Campaign
If my memory serves, this might’ve been the first 5e campaign adventure I ran with a regular home group. I had DMed “Hoard of the Dragon Queen” with a drop-in organized play group at the local game store and my own homebrew Ravenloft campaign.
The players included my old college friend I’d been gaming with for around 20 years, who is kind of a casual player. Another was a friend from community theater who really enjoyed story and role-playing opportunities. A third player was new to D&D but organized a lot of local board game clubs. Two other guys I had met through local organized play and were very much good support-style players. Lastly, I brought in a girl I was dating - we later got married (no big deal).
This was one of those issues where I was running for players who had been in other campaigns, so I had to pick an adventure none of them had played yet. Storm King’s Thunder it was!
Preparation
This was during the era when I foolishly thought campaign adventures would be well structured, logical, and would need a minimal amount of preparation (I was just coming off Pathfinder, so I assumed the streamlined rules would make 5e a cinch to run). You’ll see how wrong I was. So no real preparation work besides reading over the first chapter of the book to prepare for the first session.
The Mega-Plot
It didn't take too long for me to get completely overwhelmed with a vast conspiracy plot involving noble politics, shape-changers, ancient history, and stuff that didn’t really concern the party at all. This wasn’t going to be a simple adventure to fight giants. By the time I got going, making up details as needed to keep the story going, I had no clue what was going on. Which was probably fortunate because….
Literally the Dumbest Info-Dump I’ve Ever Seen in a Modern Adventure
The writers thought it was a good idea to front load the adventure with all the plot elements and the only source of this information was going to be from a source the party would absolutely not trust. The party comes to a ruined town where rocks had been dropped from the sky by flying giants. And the person who comes to share information with the party in the town is … right, a flying giant.
Like any sensible group of adventurers, they hid from the giant. And the plot of the campaign flew right past them, disappearing into the clouds, never to return. I’d use what adventure locations I could, but I’d write my own plot. If what was written by WotC didn’t make sense to me, had been misconstrued to the players already, and the only info dump wasn’t going to happen, it was up to me to convey something to the group that worked.
The New Plot
Dragons and giants have been enemies for a long time. The copper dragon in the adventure decided to weaken the giant tribes by pitting them against each other. How would he get them to fight? Obviously, there were going to be hidden artifacts that needed to be uncovered. In ancient times the giants banded together to fight the titans and were only able to defeat them using weapons tied to each clan (hill, fire, stone, frost, etc.) After the titans were defeated, each giant swore an oath that the future of their clan would be tied to the weapon. It would be protected and never used.
Millennia later, a scheming dragon found the location of the hidden artifacts, scattered across the North. The dragon “slipped” this information to the different giant clan leaders. So, for example, the fire giant leader would want to get the axe of the fire giants and use it to destroy the weapons of the other giant tribes. This would allow him to channel the strength of his tribe in a powerful magical weapon while denying the other giants their source of power - and if the artifacts were destroyed, the other giant tribes would physically wither and die.
New Source of Information
Who knew this, since a flying giant wouldn’t be trusted? The titan oracle!
Inspired by an image I found online of a titan skeleton staked to a mountain by an enormous sword, I created a series of skill challenges for the party to climb the mountain and conduct a ritual to reawaken the skeletal titan, who knew the location of all the artifacts. During this time the dragon started attacking, but they got enough information and fled to safety.
The giant artifacts were hidden in dungeons. The party had to find them, deciding which giant tribes to trust, which to fight, which to pit against each other. Leading an epic attack with Harshnag the mammoth rider leader of the Frost Giants against the fortress of the Fire Giants, witnessing the heartbreaking withering of the Hill Giant steading when the party destroyed their artifact - all made for memorable scenes.
What I Learned
The players ended up having a great time, not knowing that we had gone so far off the rails. A simple story eventually worked better for us than what a team of WotC writers tried to convey in epic paragraphs of convoluted backstory.
As a DM I don’t need all that stuff. The story is what happens at the table. No one remembers legends and ancient backstory. The players walk away with memories of the moments that mattered to their characters. I wish more adventure writers would just get out of the way and let the adventure happen.
About the Group and Selection of the Campaign
If my memory serves, this might’ve been the first 5e campaign adventure I ran with a regular home group. I had DMed “Hoard of the Dragon Queen” with a drop-in organized play group at the local game store and my own homebrew Ravenloft campaign.
The players included my old college friend I’d been gaming with for around 20 years, who is kind of a casual player. Another was a friend from community theater who really enjoyed story and role-playing opportunities. A third player was new to D&D but organized a lot of local board game clubs. Two other guys I had met through local organized play and were very much good support-style players. Lastly, I brought in a girl I was dating - we later got married (no big deal).
This was one of those issues where I was running for players who had been in other campaigns, so I had to pick an adventure none of them had played yet. Storm King’s Thunder it was!
Preparation
This was during the era when I foolishly thought campaign adventures would be well structured, logical, and would need a minimal amount of preparation (I was just coming off Pathfinder, so I assumed the streamlined rules would make 5e a cinch to run). You’ll see how wrong I was. So no real preparation work besides reading over the first chapter of the book to prepare for the first session.
The Mega-Plot
It didn't take too long for me to get completely overwhelmed with a vast conspiracy plot involving noble politics, shape-changers, ancient history, and stuff that didn’t really concern the party at all. This wasn’t going to be a simple adventure to fight giants. By the time I got going, making up details as needed to keep the story going, I had no clue what was going on. Which was probably fortunate because….
Literally the Dumbest Info-Dump I’ve Ever Seen in a Modern Adventure
The writers thought it was a good idea to front load the adventure with all the plot elements and the only source of this information was going to be from a source the party would absolutely not trust. The party comes to a ruined town where rocks had been dropped from the sky by flying giants. And the person who comes to share information with the party in the town is … right, a flying giant.
Like any sensible group of adventurers, they hid from the giant. And the plot of the campaign flew right past them, disappearing into the clouds, never to return. I’d use what adventure locations I could, but I’d write my own plot. If what was written by WotC didn’t make sense to me, had been misconstrued to the players already, and the only info dump wasn’t going to happen, it was up to me to convey something to the group that worked.
The New Plot
Dragons and giants have been enemies for a long time. The copper dragon in the adventure decided to weaken the giant tribes by pitting them against each other. How would he get them to fight? Obviously, there were going to be hidden artifacts that needed to be uncovered. In ancient times the giants banded together to fight the titans and were only able to defeat them using weapons tied to each clan (hill, fire, stone, frost, etc.) After the titans were defeated, each giant swore an oath that the future of their clan would be tied to the weapon. It would be protected and never used.
Millennia later, a scheming dragon found the location of the hidden artifacts, scattered across the North. The dragon “slipped” this information to the different giant clan leaders. So, for example, the fire giant leader would want to get the axe of the fire giants and use it to destroy the weapons of the other giant tribes. This would allow him to channel the strength of his tribe in a powerful magical weapon while denying the other giants their source of power - and if the artifacts were destroyed, the other giant tribes would physically wither and die.
New Source of Information
Who knew this, since a flying giant wouldn’t be trusted? The titan oracle!
Inspired by an image I found online of a titan skeleton staked to a mountain by an enormous sword, I created a series of skill challenges for the party to climb the mountain and conduct a ritual to reawaken the skeletal titan, who knew the location of all the artifacts. During this time the dragon started attacking, but they got enough information and fled to safety.
The giant artifacts were hidden in dungeons. The party had to find them, deciding which giant tribes to trust, which to fight, which to pit against each other. Leading an epic attack with Harshnag the mammoth rider leader of the Frost Giants against the fortress of the Fire Giants, witnessing the heartbreaking withering of the Hill Giant steading when the party destroyed their artifact - all made for memorable scenes.
What I Learned
The players ended up having a great time, not knowing that we had gone so far off the rails. A simple story eventually worked better for us than what a team of WotC writers tried to convey in epic paragraphs of convoluted backstory.
As a DM I don’t need all that stuff. The story is what happens at the table. No one remembers legends and ancient backstory. The players walk away with memories of the moments that mattered to their characters. I wish more adventure writers would just get out of the way and let the adventure happen.
