You're such a great source for all things D&D, I appreciate you! TWBTW is my first adventure as the DM and I think it's a perfect campaign for a new DM to run.
My group is still in Hither. I originally felt like things were going to be too linear but my group keeps proving that there are always options. In fact, they just made a deal with Bavlorna to go get her picture from her sister. Originally it sounded like they were going to fight her and I was all prepared for the next session and having Charm in the room distracted them enough, especially as my characters realized she was up to something, that they decided to deal instead. I appreciate all your content on WBtW!
Currently doing Ghosts of Saltmarsh with your incredibly helpful advice from your blog, and hesitated to go for this one after with my group. You convinced me. Thanks for the high quality content as alsways!
This amazing & awesome video review of Wild Beyond the Witchlight really helped me so much. I can't thx you enough. You are very articulate & detailed. Thx again! Happy Thanksgiving.....👽👽👻😉
Got this the other week, skimmed through and I'm super exited to run it as my third campaign with my group after I wrap up Tomb, not my aesthetic but it's on the level of Strahd.
I've found WBtW to be a real gem and was pleasantly surprised with the consistent theme, balance, and flow. For those same reasons I'm very surprised that you think Saltmarsh is at the same level. I'm just finishing running a 2-yr campaign and I've had to change so much to make it work. The town itself is pure gold but I've found everything else pretty mediocre for various reasons. I dont understand the hatred people have for WBtW; I found almost every part of it great and I consider myself to have high standards for official published works. That being said, I highly value your suggestions re: fixing underwhelming adventures.
Just picked this up in the D&D Beyond sale and really appreciated this review. As a new DM having this adventure as an option for my players will be great. I am making 3 campaign pitches to see which my players want to play through. WBtW, Eberron and a DCC adventure series a friend recommended since we all also love DCC.
In hither now, I'm pretty sure my players would have been happy with me just throwing the carnival in as a random side adventure, they loved playing around there.
I've been running this campaign with a group myself and they're enjoying it although I think it may have lingered in the carnival a bit too long to be honest. They finally arried in the Feywild at the end of last session so they'll start getting to experience the adventure proper now. I liked your idea of dreadful incursions and decided to do something similar based on mentions of how Prismeer is in danger of falling apart. In the case of my campaign, I'm going to have some instances where the party is at risk of getting dragged into the ethereal plane as the fading magic of Prismeer causes some overlap between that domain and the Ethereal. I'm also planning on having Graz'zt make an appearance at the very end of the campaign if the players succeed in freeing Zybilna, because how could you not have him show up given the history between those two characters. So there will likely be some demonic encounters that foreshadow this event.
I'm running a group through this module. They are currently in Thither, the 3rd act. I'd give this module a grade of an A-. It's fantastic and entertaining in a lot of regards, but it does have a few critical flaws that will really trip up an inexperienced DM. Example: the Carnival Map. There's a hidden puzzle in the figures arranged in the border of the map, the puzzle reveals a character's name, and the PCs really need to know that name to resolve the climatic conflict late in the campaign. Any DM who relies on this puzzle will face incredible frustration. The way that it's supposed to work is that drawing lines from figure to character as the figures point at each other will give letters of a name and their sequence. But! Even if they solve it, this is meta knowledge known to the players but not the PCs who don't even have a map. Many (most?) players will be super-hesitant to take in-game actions based on this kind of metagame knowledge. Also, I tried drawing the lines, and they look to me like they are pointing in different directions than they are supposed to point. A DM needs a warning label to rely on different clues and just pretend that this puzzle doesn't exist.
The Pros 1. Best artwork ever, I seriously think this book has taken the Number One spot for greatest art collection in any single RPG book. 2. Mini-games, players seem to love mini-games, and I was already starting to incorporate more in my games before I read this module which has a lot. 3. Pretty good villains and plot twists. I will not expand on that point because spoilers are a thing. 4. Learning Curve, the lack of any real danger in the first act allow new players to experiment a little and learn the system before facing any lethal situations. They also get to see some game mechanics like saving throws introduced as mini-games. It's not a thorough tutorial, and the learning curve is steep, but it's there.
I’ve also been pretty pleased with it, although it’s definitely not without issue. I’ll mention a couple small changes I would make to the carnival off the top in case anyone might run it. First, there’s an NPC centaur named Diana Cloppington; change her name to something not goofy. Her story is actually pretty tragic, the goofball name undercuts that. She runs a carousel that’s also a puzzle the players are supposed to figure out, but the puzzle doesn’t do enough to set a context that’ll let most groups actually solve it. You can set that context by giving the carousel a name - “The Turn-Of-Phrase Carousel.” That’s a big hint about what the players should be thinking about in order to solve the carousel’s puzzle.
agree with the carousel but Diana doesn't really need a name-change, you can just say "my name's Diana" and leave it at that. 99.9% of players won't ask for a last name and to those that do she can make some exasperated comment about how her goofy last name is a bit ironic in hindsight
could you give me little advice? so The Wild Beyond the Witchlight is an adventure for players between lvl 1-8, do you know if the adventure could work for a party of only two players? I was thinking of leveling them up to lvl 3 staring on a different setup and then get the characters sucked up into the feywild world of The Wild Beyond the Witchlight so the players would be up to the challenge and run the encounters as written on the book... do you think its a good Idea? what caught my attention of WBW is that you can solve most encounters also by Roll playing. Looking forward to your replay, and thanks for the awsome content
I concur. This was an excellent module and I also used your dread incursions to good effect (though I didn't tie them into the main storyline other than "Zybilna is gone and now her realm is unraveling" motivation). I think this is also a fairly forgiving module for a newer DM because it's not too sandbox-y but not completely linear either (like the most recent Light of Xaryxes Spelljammer adventure), it's heavy on roleplay but the book makes it pretty easy. I wouldn't recommend it as the very first module to run, but it could be a great one for a second or third campaign a new DM could run.
Awesome review and content as ever! Any chance you’ll run Odyssey of the Dragonlords some day? It gets wildly good reviews and the quality seems superb.
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I am currently playing and my first instinct would be yes, it suits children very well. The entire adventure is whimsical and full of wonder and you can make things as scary or as funny as you like it to be. However, there isn't much combat and I've heard children are prone to be murder hobos. This campaign is not made for fighting your way through (although there definitely is combat)
My group has two kids, 7 and 10, and they are really enjoying it. They do love combat though, and there isn't a lot, which I solved by including dreadful incursions.
How old are these children? I mean, it is still D&D 5e, and that has a lot moving parts as a game. You'll need to streamline quote a lot. There is somewhat of a learning curve built into The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, but it's a steep curve. By that, I mean that the first act is quite safe as adventures go. There is almost no way for a character to die regardless of how badly the die roll. There is also some introduction to some game mechanics like saving throws in the form of mini-games that the PCs may play in the carnival. It isn't a tutorial dungeon though leaving huge gaps in the lessons like how combat works for instance. Very quickly in the 2nd act, they face enemies who will attempt to knock them out and capture them. I'm currently running the game for some new players (all young adults), and their characters are in Thither, the 3rd Act.
Two points I reached after being a player in this campaign: 1) It's too whimsical. Playing the campaign ends up feeling something between a bad drug trip and a moderately entertaining sketch comedy. 2) A campaign with little to potentially no combat doesn't work well with D&D 5e. 5e is a wargame in it's heart and core. Of all the rules of the three pillars, a laughable majority is spent on combat stuff. It was still a nice little campaign with some good points.
hard disagree here. The adventure is good but the setting leaves me scratching my head. A magic carnival full of whimsy sounds good but everything is magical in 5e. What sort of entertainment do the denizens of forgotten realms get? Magic is a every day occurrence.
@@harmless6813 I never said that's why they go to the magic carnival. But the carnival as an idea loses it's point. What does the carnival have that the players don't?
You're such a great source for all things D&D, I appreciate you! TWBTW is my first adventure as the DM and I think it's a perfect campaign for a new DM to run.
Thank you! Welcome to the hobby!
This is so helpful! Thank you for your review and the planning you put into this video!
Thank you for this review! So many reviewers just read the book and are unable to give an informed opinion
Love this review and the Van Richten one you did. Please do more!
My group is still in Hither. I originally felt like things were going to be too linear but my group keeps proving that there are always options. In fact, they just made a deal with Bavlorna to go get her picture from her sister. Originally it sounded like they were going to fight her and I was all prepared for the next session and having Charm in the room distracted them enough, especially as my characters realized she was up to something, that they decided to deal instead. I appreciate all your content on WBtW!
Currently doing Ghosts of Saltmarsh with your incredibly helpful advice from your blog, and hesitated to go for this one after with my group. You convinced me. Thanks for the high quality content as alsways!
This amazing & awesome video review of Wild Beyond the Witchlight really helped me so much. I can't thx you enough. You are very articulate & detailed. Thx again! Happy Thanksgiving.....👽👽👻😉
Well I wasn't going to run it because it didn't look like D&D to me. But this is a really great recommendation. Maybe I'll change my mind.
Got this the other week, skimmed through and I'm super exited to run it as my third campaign with my group after I wrap up Tomb, not my aesthetic but it's on the level of Strahd.
I've found WBtW to be a real gem and was pleasantly surprised with the consistent theme, balance, and flow. For those same reasons I'm very surprised that you think Saltmarsh is at the same level. I'm just finishing running a 2-yr campaign and I've had to change so much to make it work. The town itself is pure gold but I've found everything else pretty mediocre for various reasons.
I dont understand the hatred people have for WBtW; I found almost every part of it great and I consider myself to have high standards for official published works. That being said, I highly value your suggestions re: fixing underwhelming adventures.
Just picked this up in the D&D Beyond sale and really appreciated this review. As a new DM having this adventure as an option for my players will be great. I am making 3 campaign pitches to see which my players want to play through. WBtW, Eberron and a DCC adventure series a friend recommended since we all also love DCC.
In hither now, I'm pretty sure my players would have been happy with me just throwing the carnival in as a random side adventure, they loved playing around there.
Then don't forget to really play up all the little nods back to the carnival that the adventure makes! Donno why but i just love that it does that
I've been running this campaign with a group myself and they're enjoying it although I think it may have lingered in the carnival a bit too long to be honest. They finally arried in the Feywild at the end of last session so they'll start getting to experience the adventure proper now. I liked your idea of dreadful incursions and decided to do something similar based on mentions of how Prismeer is in danger of falling apart. In the case of my campaign, I'm going to have some instances where the party is at risk of getting dragged into the ethereal plane as the fading magic of Prismeer causes some overlap between that domain and the Ethereal. I'm also planning on having Graz'zt make an appearance at the very end of the campaign if the players succeed in freeing Zybilna, because how could you not have him show up given the history between those two characters. So there will likely be some demonic encounters that foreshadow this event.
This looks like its a great campaign to play with kids. It also seems like it would be easy to port over to a simpler system like Knave
I'm running a group through this module. They are currently in Thither, the 3rd act. I'd give this module a grade of an A-. It's fantastic and entertaining in a lot of regards, but it does have a few critical flaws that will really trip up an inexperienced DM.
Example: the Carnival Map. There's a hidden puzzle in the figures arranged in the border of the map, the puzzle reveals a character's name, and the PCs really need to know that name to resolve the climatic conflict late in the campaign. Any DM who relies on this puzzle will face incredible frustration. The way that it's supposed to work is that drawing lines from figure to character as the figures point at each other will give letters of a name and their sequence. But! Even if they solve it, this is meta knowledge known to the players but not the PCs who don't even have a map. Many (most?) players will be super-hesitant to take in-game actions based on this kind of metagame knowledge. Also, I tried drawing the lines, and they look to me like they are pointing in different directions than they are supposed to point. A DM needs a warning label to rely on different clues and just pretend that this puzzle doesn't exist.
The Pros
1. Best artwork ever, I seriously think this book has taken the Number One spot for greatest art collection in any single RPG book.
2. Mini-games, players seem to love mini-games, and I was already starting to incorporate more in my games before I read this module which has a lot.
3. Pretty good villains and plot twists. I will not expand on that point because spoilers are a thing.
4. Learning Curve, the lack of any real danger in the first act allow new players to experiment a little and learn the system before facing any lethal situations. They also get to see some game mechanics like saving throws introduced as mini-games. It's not a thorough tutorial, and the learning curve is steep, but it's there.
I’ve also been pretty pleased with it, although it’s definitely not without issue.
I’ll mention a couple small changes I would make to the carnival off the top in case anyone might run it. First, there’s an NPC centaur named Diana Cloppington; change her name to something not goofy. Her story is actually pretty tragic, the goofball name undercuts that.
She runs a carousel that’s also a puzzle the players are supposed to figure out, but the puzzle doesn’t do enough to set a context that’ll let most groups actually solve it. You can set that context by giving the carousel a name - “The Turn-Of-Phrase Carousel.” That’s a big hint about what the players should be thinking about in order to solve the carousel’s puzzle.
agree with the carousel but Diana doesn't really need a name-change, you can just say "my name's Diana" and leave it at that. 99.9% of players won't ask for a last name and to those that do she can make some exasperated comment about how her goofy last name is a bit ironic in hindsight
could you give me little advice? so The Wild Beyond the Witchlight is an adventure for players between lvl 1-8, do you know if the adventure could work for a party of only two players? I was thinking of leveling them up to lvl 3 staring on a different setup and then get the characters sucked up into the feywild world of The Wild Beyond the Witchlight so the players would be up to the challenge and run the encounters as written on the book... do you think its a good Idea? what caught my attention of WBW is that you can solve most encounters also by Roll playing. Looking forward to your replay, and thanks for the awsome content
It can. Here are some articles that may help:
slyflourish.com/running_one-on-one_dnd_games.html
slyflourish.com/balancing_combat_for_one_on_one.html
@@SlyFlourish thanks ill definitely will take a look at that, what about starting at a higher level? do you think is a bad idea?
I concur. This was an excellent module and I also used your dread incursions to good effect (though I didn't tie them into the main storyline other than "Zybilna is gone and now her realm is unraveling" motivation). I think this is also a fairly forgiving module for a newer DM because it's not too sandbox-y but not completely linear either (like the most recent Light of Xaryxes Spelljammer adventure), it's heavy on roleplay but the book makes it pretty easy. I wouldn't recommend it as the very first module to run, but it could be a great one for a second or third campaign a new DM could run.
Awesome review and content as ever! Any chance you’ll run Odyssey of the Dragonlords some day? It gets wildly good reviews and the quality seems superb.
Hey! How could we reach out to you to get in contact regarding sponsor possibilities? We are the team working at the onlycrits website. You can find us on other social media platforms or on our website
wheres the link to the article on dreadful incursions
slyflourish.com/dreadful_incursions.html
I added it to the description. Sorry!
The dreadful incursions sound intriguing, just not sure I want to buy another book... especially in the wake of all the WotC b/s.
Thanks for your review. Would you recommend to play this adventure with children?
I am currently playing and my first instinct would be yes, it suits children very well. The entire adventure is whimsical and full of wonder and you can make things as scary or as funny as you like it to be. However, there isn't much combat and I've heard children are prone to be murder hobos. This campaign is not made for fighting your way through (although there definitely is combat)
I would recommend this adventure the MOST if you are running the game for children.
My group has two kids, 7 and 10, and they are really enjoying it. They do love combat though, and there isn't a lot, which I solved by including dreadful incursions.
How old are these children? I mean, it is still D&D 5e, and that has a lot moving parts as a game. You'll need to streamline quote a lot.
There is somewhat of a learning curve built into The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, but it's a steep curve. By that, I mean that the first act is quite safe as adventures go. There is almost no way for a character to die regardless of how badly the die roll. There is also some introduction to some game mechanics like saving throws in the form of mini-games that the PCs may play in the carnival. It isn't a tutorial dungeon though leaving huge gaps in the lessons like how combat works for instance. Very quickly in the 2nd act, they face enemies who will attempt to knock them out and capture them.
I'm currently running the game for some new players (all young adults), and their characters are in Thither, the 3rd Act.
How long (how many sessions) did the campaign generally take?
About thirty
@@SlyFlourish That's a really good number!! thank you
This is long enough to be added to your podcast feed.
Two points I reached after being a player in this campaign:
1) It's too whimsical. Playing the campaign ends up feeling something between a bad drug trip and a moderately entertaining sketch comedy.
2) A campaign with little to potentially no combat doesn't work well with D&D 5e. 5e is a wargame in it's heart and core. Of all the rules of the three pillars, a laughable majority is spent on combat stuff.
It was still a nice little campaign with some good points.
hard disagree here. The adventure is good but the setting leaves me scratching my head. A magic carnival full of whimsy sounds good but everything is magical in 5e. What sort of entertainment do the denizens of forgotten realms get? Magic is a every day occurrence.
That's an issue with perspective, not the adventure itself.
Why do people go to a carnival in real life? It's not like there's real magic there.
@@pwykersotz No, it's absolutely a short coming of the adventure.
@@harmless6813 I never said that's why they go to the magic carnival. But the carnival as an idea loses it's point. What does the carnival have that the players don't?