I'm running two Frostmaiden campaigns (paid) and I 100% agree with all of these tips except for Cult of Auril. I didn't think of it at the time, but I did give more weight to the frost druids. When one party killed Ravisin and just left her corpse lying in the snow, I brought her back as a terrifying "It Follows" revenant and now my party are absolutely terrified of frost druids and see Auril's hand in everything. Easthaven was also a good starting point (I started one group on the road to Bryn Shander, the other in Easthaven); I came up with a simple local quest in Easthaven to get them to level 2, then toned down the hag quest a bit, and it worked out very well.
Great video as always. I added a couple of things myself, I hope you don't mind: Three Beginning Tips for Running Rime of the Frostmaiden 1.Reinforce the Right Motivation “Your characters work together to help the people of Ten-Towns survive the endless night.” *You are a cohesive group. *You want to help the people of Ten-Towns in many different ways possible. *Your goal isn’t to end the endless night which would make you question many of the quests that seem unrelated to this problem. 2.Start i Bryn Shader “A meeting is requested with all speakers regarding the issues that arose in Icewind Dale since the Frostmaiden made herself present in the region.” *Nice hub town in the center of Ten-Towns. *Great 1st level starter quest: “Foaming Mugs”. *Players get to come from different towns in order to work together as a collective effort.
3.Add the Cult of Auril *Divert the sacrifices from the Speakers to the cult. *Gives the characters a cold war enemy. *Adds lots of further adventure options.
Just killed the RoF campaign I was trying to run because none of my players had any motivation to continue after they did the Lonelywood quest (I may have accidentally overdone the Bremen quest where they started that pushed them towards there) I let my group make characters with no cohesion and I don’t think a single one of them even had a reason to go out to try and help ten towns let alone risk their lives in chapter 2. A mistake I will not make again as we swap to Tomb of Annihilation which I think will fit them better while I figure out some stuff for a retry of RoF in a year or so. Excellent tips, as a relatively new DM your stuff has been super helpful in diagnosing why some of what I’ve tried hasn’t worked out
I started the players in Caer Konig- only 1 direction to go, made it much easier to anticipate where they’d go as a first time DM. Also made an NPC with the express purpose of healing them and being a mouth piece if needed. But, he also was intended to die near the end of the session to drive home how deadly the world was. He covered the cost of the dog sled (they didn’t have enough money) and thanks to his proficiency bonus they barely made it through into the fortress undetected. Combat combat combat, he uses 3rd level Inflict Wounds to delete a Duergar, takes the fighter from 2 HP back to full, and then dies. That was a 7v5. The party nearly got wiped by the 3v4 that followed. Also, turned delivering his body to Bryn Shander to bring him to his people (which turned into his small band of followers + his brother, which later turned into PC when a new player joined). That meant they had a set path for a few sessions- return to Caer Konig, go through Caer Denival and all sorts of shenanigans, then go to Bryn Shander and speak with the group he’d cultivated. That took 3 main sessions plus a mini session, and really helped me understand the mechanics, read up on the rest of the world, and let the players figure out their characters before the world truly opened up.
Your first point is so important. I wish I gave them the motivation to help the people of ten towns. Instead, many of my players are there to end the rime. And it turned into my players only helping around the towns to kill time and earn some money
Glad to see im not the only one thinking about a lot of this. I feel like Auril needs more presence in the story for sure. I’m planning on running things very sandboxy and having the characters be sent to Icewind Dale on behalf of a guild to create a foothold and gain some notoriety there. I was thinking as an ironic twist their supervisor hates them and sent them to Icewind Dale because of how awful it would be to live there. They even are given a property deed and upon arrival find the property has been destroyed and so they have to travel around to make money and/or find a different location to make into a base. My only concern is that i want to run a lot of the quests but they will likely overlevel with all of the content i put out so i may need to scale things up a bit. Anyways, going to not make the mistake i made with DotMM and actually fully read the module before running. Currently starting the second chapter and i am wondering with all these wuests how the players will feel considering the main threats will be put to the side for these side stories, but my hope is that if i read more it will turn out to be more connected somehow.
Best tips I've seen, thanks. About to start this for my teenage kids and friends.
I'm running two Frostmaiden campaigns (paid) and I 100% agree with all of these tips except for Cult of Auril. I didn't think of it at the time, but I did give more weight to the frost druids. When one party killed Ravisin and just left her corpse lying in the snow, I brought her back as a terrifying "It Follows" revenant and now my party are absolutely terrified of frost druids and see Auril's hand in everything. Easthaven was also a good starting point (I started one group on the road to Bryn Shander, the other in Easthaven); I came up with a simple local quest in Easthaven to get them to level 2, then toned down the hag quest a bit, and it worked out very well.
Good idea.
Great video as always. I added a couple of things myself, I hope you don't mind:
Three Beginning Tips for Running Rime of the Frostmaiden
1.Reinforce the Right Motivation
“Your characters work together to help the people of Ten-Towns survive the endless night.”
*You are a cohesive group.
*You want to help the people of Ten-Towns in many different ways possible.
*Your goal isn’t to end the endless night which would make you question many of the quests that seem unrelated to this problem.
2.Start i Bryn Shader
“A meeting is requested with all speakers regarding the issues that arose in Icewind Dale since the Frostmaiden made herself present in the region.”
*Nice hub town in the center of Ten-Towns.
*Great 1st level starter quest: “Foaming Mugs”.
*Players get to come from different towns in order to work together as a collective effort.
3.Add the Cult of Auril
*Divert the sacrifices from the Speakers to the cult.
*Gives the characters a cold war enemy.
*Adds lots of further adventure options.
Just killed the RoF campaign I was trying to run because none of my players had any motivation to continue after they did the Lonelywood quest (I may have accidentally overdone the Bremen quest where they started that pushed them towards there) I let my group make characters with no cohesion and I don’t think a single one of them even had a reason to go out to try and help ten towns let alone risk their lives in chapter 2. A mistake I will not make again as we swap to Tomb of Annihilation which I think will fit them better while I figure out some stuff for a retry of RoF in a year or so.
Excellent tips, as a relatively new DM your stuff has been super helpful in diagnosing why some of what I’ve tried hasn’t worked out
I am sorry to hear it. Good luck with Tomb of Annihilation!
Thanks so much for all these tips! I was looking at the premade and was having a hard time figuring out what to do in session 0! This really helped!
I started the players in Caer Konig- only 1 direction to go, made it much easier to anticipate where they’d go as a first time DM.
Also made an NPC with the express purpose of healing them and being a mouth piece if needed. But, he also was intended to die near the end of the session to drive home how deadly the world was.
He covered the cost of the dog sled (they didn’t have enough money) and thanks to his proficiency bonus they barely made it through into the fortress undetected.
Combat combat combat, he uses 3rd level Inflict Wounds to delete a Duergar, takes the fighter from 2 HP back to full, and then dies.
That was a 7v5.
The party nearly got wiped by the 3v4 that followed.
Also, turned delivering his body to Bryn Shander to bring him to his people (which turned into his small band of followers + his brother, which later turned into PC when a new player joined).
That meant they had a set path for a few sessions- return to Caer Konig, go through Caer Denival and all sorts of shenanigans, then go to Bryn Shander and speak with the group he’d cultivated.
That took 3 main sessions plus a mini session, and really helped me understand the mechanics, read up on the rest of the world, and let the players figure out their characters before the world truly opened up.
Your first point is so important. I wish I gave them the motivation to help the people of ten towns. Instead, many of my players are there to end the rime. And it turned into my players only helping around the towns to kill time and earn some money
Yep! That’s what I was worried about.
Motivation is key to a successful game! Awesome stuff!
Went with the cult idea but named them the “Sowers of Frost” for a thematic feel and to prevent the cult feel
Great advice, as always!
Glad you think so!
Glad to see im not the only one thinking about a lot of this. I feel like Auril needs more presence in the story for sure.
I’m planning on running things very sandboxy and having the characters be sent to Icewind Dale on behalf of a guild to create a foothold and gain some notoriety there. I was thinking as an ironic twist their supervisor hates them and sent them to Icewind Dale because of how awful it would be to live there. They even are given a property deed and upon arrival find the property has been destroyed and so they have to travel around to make money and/or find a different location to make into a base. My only concern is that i want to run a lot of the quests but they will likely overlevel with all of the content i put out so i may need to scale things up a bit.
Anyways, going to not make the mistake i made with DotMM and actually fully read the module before running. Currently starting the second chapter and i am wondering with all these wuests how the players will feel considering the main threats will be put to the side for these side stories, but my hope is that if i read more it will turn out to be more connected somehow.
Damn. Another great video. What can we, the community, do to get you more subscribers? Shameful to be less than 20,000.
I’m fine with things growing as they grow. I’m happy.
Share with context to relevant people.
Nice!
Mike Shea te amo :v gracias por tus videos!
Gracias!