TOMB OF ANNIHILATION IN 8 – SESSIONS 1 & 2
In my last post I outlined a preliminary plan to get my group through the Tomb of Annihilation adventure in 8 sessions. Here is a link to that post, in case you need to refresh your memory. The campaign is now over and it was a ton of fun, though not exactly how I had envisioned it – isn’t that always the case? It is, so I don’t mean that to sound like a complaint – I’ve had a ton of fun prepping and running this adventure, but there are a lot of things I would change if I did it again. And there are a lot of things I will port over to different games I run, even if I don’t run this specific full campaign again.
In this post I plan to talk about the first 2 sessions, mention a couple of items I created during my prep for those sessions, and give the low down on what I think would have improved my game. THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE! Read at your own risk.
Session 1: Port Nyanzaru & the Death Curse
Patron – The party needed a reason to undertake the task at hand, so I needed a patron for them. I defaulted to using Syndra Silvane because it was easy. If I was running this in a longer form campaign (that is, not trying to finish in 8 session or less) I would have worked in a patron with a more natural relationship to the group. It worked fine and it allowed us to get the game off the ground, so I am generally happy with the way it played out, but would run it differently if I got a do-over.
How Much to Tell? – One of the issues with just popping the PCs into an area and having them meet up with a mysterious benefactor is that there is no real reason for the patron to give them a ton of extremely valuable information. The patron has heard of them, but isn’t necessarily thrilled about giving some raw newbies a go at such an important task and she doesn’t really trust that they will succeed. So I had Syndra tell the group the bare minimum they would need to get going, but I knew that I had to find a way to provide them with more information later. This would be no problem in a drawn-out game, but since I only have 8 sessions to pull this off, it is a slight problem. More on this later.
Dinosaur Races – I was surprised that my players wanted nothing to do with the Dinosaur races in Port Nyanzaru! I thought the races were a nice touch added to the city that would give it some memorable moments and possibilities. My players wanted nothing to do with it, so we skipped it.
Princes – I had the group meet two or three of the Princes of the Port, and it went very well. The roleplaying opportunities here are abundant and I tried to ham it up as much as possible, giving each Prince a different voice, speech cadence, or turn-of-phrase. I also really played up the power struggle between a couple of the Princes and let the players know that at least one of them wasn’t exactly a decent person (they witnessed one of the Princes overseeing the punishment of a servant and quite enjoying the pain the servant was experiencing).
Getting Goods and a Guide – Because the group wasn’t from the Port, they needed to seek out a guide and a set of traveling goods. This involved dealing with some of the Princes and also interviewing a few guides. Because I didn’t have a ton of time to run through the campaign I shortened the options in terms of available guides. That also reduced the likelihood of the group visiting certain locations, and that is the point. During my prep I had to whittle down the options and prep only what I thought would be the most interesting choices for my group, so when I presented the possible guides to them, I only had specific ones available.
What could I have done better?
Factions – Though I had the group build faction membership into their backgrounds during character creation, I did not rely heavily on the factions or contacts therein to feed the group information in this first session. If I could do this again, regardless of timeline, I would definitely do so.
PC Creation Help – I had a player who wanted to create a spellcaster PC. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to be a wizard or a sorcerer. This player had not played a spellcaster in 5e previously – he had been focused on brute force martial characters (barbarians & fighters, mostly). This should have been a red flag for me. The truncated time schedule I was pushing the group through required that they start at level 3 and then level up at the beginning or end of every session. A person who hasn’t yet played a spellcasting focused PC needs to be able to grow into that role. I did a dis-service to my player by not steering them toward a class they could more easily run through this quick advancement schedule. His lack of experience with casting spells and managing spell points led to frustration and eventually the introduction of a new PC.
Town Information Gathering – I did not prep this in the way I should have. Since I had made the decision to NOT have Syndra Silvane be a huge font of knowledge and spill all of the secrets of the Death Curse, Atropal, and Soul Monger in the first session, I should have prepped situations IN TOWN where they could find out more. Then I should have presented those informational encounters DISTINCTLY and PURPOSEFULLY. As it was, the group really didn’t know what to do or who to ask, other than the Princes. I had expected them to meet some people at the races, but then they didn’t want to explore the town at all, so I had left myself very little opportunity to provide them with more info before leaving town. This was entirely my fault and I would have run a completely different session 1 if I had another chance.
Session 2: Travel in Chult
Wilderness Exploration – Since the party was leaving Port Nyanzaru as quickly as possible, and the next several in-game days would be a basic wilderness crawl, I needed to figure out several pieces of information and have them at my fingertips while running the game. There are several things going on with this wilderness portion of the campaign with which the DM has to become familiar. As a DM running this hex-based wilderness exploration, I answered several questions as part of the prep for this part of the adventure:
- Where are the dangerous creatures found on the map?
- Where are the dangerous villages found on the map?
- Where are the various wrecks and outposts located?
- Where are the interesting topographical features?
- What are the goals of the expedition? (in other words – where are they trying to go?)
- What is the weather like each day? I made a d8 weather table to roll on each travel day – this was based on the information in the book, but with embellishment.
Zombies – One of the really fun aspects of the death curse is the proliferation of zombies and other undead monstrosities roaming the wilderness. My favorite is the zombie Tyrannosaurus Rex who vomits more zombies. When the party encountered one they came across it laying on the ground in a clearing in the rain-forest, being eaten by a group of zombie goblins. The party attacked and tried to drive away the zombies only to be surprised when the T-Rex rose and started attacking them! It was great fun! The beast was defeated when the druid polymorphed the T-Rex into a snail and threw it down a hole in a tree trunk. These are the memorable moments of D&D and I don’t think anyone in the group will forget the snail T-Rex.
Deck of Many Things – One of the players had never been faced with a Deck of Many Things in his time playing D&D and asked me if we could use it at some point during this game. I had the group come across a group of Yahcha Beetles (harmless, hand-sized beetles that live on Chult) running around in a sandy spot of the ground. After watching for a few minutes one of the PCs noticed that the beetles were creating a pattern. An arcana check led them to seeing that the beetles were drawing what amounts to an arrow toward a particularly healthy looking tree. When the group approached the tree a door appeared in it. They opened the door to a room with a square table with three chairs on one side and one chair on the other side. Sitting in the single chair was an animated skeleton shuffling a deck of cards. He politely introduced himself as Gaston, invited them each to sit, and asked them how many cards they would like. Gaston is, of course, dealing a deck of Many things to the group. Whatever number they name is the number of cards they must draw. Colleen, the Human Ranger draws 1 card, Greenshanks the Firbolg Druid opts for 2 cards, and Nadarr the DragonBorn Sorcerer asks for 4 cards! Everything went very well, for a deck of many things… Until the last card, that is. The Void. Off goes the Sorcerer, disappearing in the blink of an eye, and since it was the last card drawn, the table, chairs, and Gaston went away as well. As the remaining party members exited the tree-house, they found themselves in an entirely different part of the forest.
Loss of a PC and a Guide – The party had opted to leave the guide behind when they decided to enter the tree and since they were inexplicably transported to an unknown location, they lost not only the sorcerer in this encounter, but also their only guide. The party was now down to two. I ended the session there so that the sorcerer’s player could draw up a new PC.
What could I have done better?
Oh so many things! Well, maybe not – this session went well and everyone had fun. Part of what needs to happen in these sessions is that the players need to get comfortable with their skills and abilities. Part of this hex crawl was about that experience. Leveling these PCs so quickly was causing problems – not just for the players, but for me as well. Just as they need to understand and learn their abilities, the DM needs that time as well. I tried to focus on making the land mysterious, dangerous, and full of interesting people/creatures/places. I’m not sure I succeeded at that, but I think I came close.
I spent a lot of time adding the Deck of Many Things to the situation and resolving the issues created by such. Am I sorry? Do I regret it? Heck no! It was a blast and I now have a player who has experienced the triumph (briefly) and tribulations (everlasting) of the deck.
What I would change… I think not much about this session. The group experienced goblins, goblin zombies, T-Rex zombies, rain-forest travel, poor weather, Wukka Nut Trees, a Jaculi, a Kamadan, they saw Pterafolk and Eblis (not at the same time), and found themselves at the base of the Heart of Ubtao. I think for a one session hex crawl we accomplished a lot of mood and atmosphere that supported the setting.
Stay tuned for my next post, in which I explain how the Heart of Ubtao became the Judd Apatow.
What would you like to know about these sessions? Do you have any questions about how I handled something tricky? If so, let me know in the comments!
Until Next Time, I Wish You Good Gaming!
~DMSamuel