Tyranny of Dragons was the first long campaign I ran, and the intro to D&D for many of my players. I think you're right in that while it may not be the best module, there's potential for a lot of fun with the right group. The Dragonborn Paladin chose a background where he was the reincarnation of one of Bahamut's divine champions, sent to Faerun to learn some humility. With some crazy natural 20's in the kobold cave outside Greenest, he wound up convincing one of the kobolds to become his follower, who later renounced ties to Tiamat and converted to worshipping Bahamut (and eventually became a cleric). That little fellow wound up becoming the party mascot, and lead to some amusing and world shaping repercussions.
I just started running this campaign after finishing the Lost Mines of Phandelver. The way I did it, since the players are already level 5 is that I changed Greenest to Phandalin and the players have been informed about the attack 10 days in advance. So now they are preparing for the attack and trying to deal with the main camp before the attack happens which has been a lot of fun. (I should also mention that I seeded one of the dragon masks as a loot reward in the mines, which made the players a lot more involved in the cult)
Advice for new DMs thinking about running this: ToD was the first Adventure module I ran. In my opinion, it's the best module idea, but one of the worst (if not the worst) executions. Dragons, cultists, many different places, a war at the end. It's got everything. But it's not really well written. It can be blast to play in, but you're gonna have to adapt it a lot. It's definitely good, but it's not your 'go-to' when you just want to pick up a book and start running a game.
Small correction: the lich Iniarv was once the royal advisor to the human family that ruled the human area in Phalorm. When the orcs attacked, the descendants of the royal family sought out Iniarv and demanded that he destroy the invading orcs. So Iniarv, being a lich, killed the orcs - and everyone else - by flooding the land, thus creating the Mere of Dead Men. (Dungeon Magazine #68-73) *pushes glasses up nose*
Jorphdan you’re welcome :D FWIW, I’m been running a Tyranny of Dragons campaign for the last four years, and you’re absolutely right that it can go off the rails at a moment’s notice if the players decide to zig when you want them to zag. In the case of my campaign, though, it’s been an incredible experience, and even though running ToD can be a lot of work for the DM, it’s worth it.
I'm currently running Tyranny of Dragons. I do agree with the fact that the module is quite railroady, but I've gotten away with it by creating an illusion of choise and circumstance, when the party seems to derail. They also have strong investments to either finding out about the cults plans or they are loyal to the factions, who definitely want to find out what's going on. At times there are questions that the module doesn't answer, so there's quite a lot of heavy lifting for the DM, but as long as the characters are invested in the story, the module is a lot of fun.
Like this concept. Although 1 thing to mention. The red wizards helping the cult are descendants of Thayans that fled Thay when Zass Tam took over. They are hoping that Tiamat will help them defeat Sass Tam in return for helping return her to the material plane.
I have been running ToD for the last 4-5 months. We are almost finished with Rise of Tiamat. The biggest hurdle for me was figuring out a way to railroad the players while still giving them free choice. This was my first time being a DM and I have learned a LOT. To anyone wanting to run the campaign, I HIGHLY recommend reading Skyflourish's guide to HotDQ, and also picking up a copy of "A Guide to Tyranny of Dragons" on DMSGuilde. Super fun adventure and I am excited to see how it concludes!
This cant be overstated. My group and I have been running the ToD campaign for almost 2 years now. Between Skyflourish's guide and some DM homebrew stuff it has been an epic journey. I only recently found the the DM's guild guide, but it is wonderful for organizing the sometimes chaotic book that is Rise of Tiamat.
I definitely struggled running HoTDQ. The high level story was definitely there but the expectation on the DM is rather high. We played through some of it and eventually decided to shelf the module and play something else. I definitely want to try to run it again in the future with a different group. I have learned a lot since then and may be able to do a better job keeping the players engaged. This is a tough one to run if you have players that want the story to make them care rather then just going along with what is presented. There were a bunch of moments when I got “why would my character care or want to do this?” The only response I could think of was “Because we are playing dnd...” As always Jordon, great video!!
Brian Wisniewski I had the same thing happen to my group. We ended up shelving the book as well. I think you really have to have a group make characters specifically for this adventure. Otherwise they will not care by the time you get half way through “The Rise of Tiamat”.
@@Quinthous The recommended plot hooks help and you can certainly craft others using those examples. But that's really going to happen with every campaign if you don't work with your players to develop their backstory to tie to the story; it can feel like you randomly dropped them into a world and they have no idea why they should follow your plot thread specifically because they have no personal stake.
I use mostly modules and my groups tend to go off on their own adventure, which requires knowing a lot of background. So I've used your videos many times to catch up. But this series is SO HELPFUL. Thank you so much! You've made me a better DM and have helped me enjoy nights with my friends.
Currently running it. You have to be okay with adding in your own stuff and giving secondary plots that you make up yourself. It's been a challenge, but so far my players are enjoying it. I am feeling a little railroaded as a DM by the story, since I want to explore the world of Faerun more, so I'm planning on making random things happen to the Cult to slow their roll north (we're on the Trade Way right now in Chapter 4). Hopefully it feels natural and not too contrived. :)
Thanks for this video! Just in the middle of HotDQ as a player and having a blast. We're mostly new players (for some it's our first D&D campaign ever) but we have a very experienced DM. I really like it because we get to see a lot of Faerûn's locations and lore (which I love from books I've read) and I also like the mission-based railroad-style campaign. I think for beginner players like us, a sandbox would be too overwhelming. Finally, I think ToD is the only WotC adventure that offers such a long character arc from Level 1 to 15.
Currently co-DMing Tyranny of Dragons (almost done with Hoard of the Dragon Queen) and it's going quite well. For each of our campaigns we delve into the lore a bit to see how our characters might come across and get invested in the adventure (these videos are great for that) AND us co-DMs try to work their backstories into the narrative where it adds to the story and further motivates the characters to pursue the main story. We're also planning on going through the FR campaigns in chronological order with an overarching, off-screen home-brew villain that influences each campaign as part of some master plan so the players are all pretty invested in it. Also really helps that almost half of us are english majors and love storytelling.
I ran this adventure as the DM and had a great time and experience with it. I will definitely say that it does feel like a little "railroadie" but it is really more of a linear storyline than say Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden
I've been running Tyranny of Dragons for the past few months as a first time DM and your Forgotten Realms videos have been a huge help, so thanks again for that !
Started playing when released. It took our group 86 weeks to do both Horde an Rise w/ some not written side quests. Our DM did great job.Also season one of Adventure League has ties to both rise an horde.
Thank you very much for the "Necesary information" part of the video. Just the idea of a 1000 year war that involves hundreds of Elemental Godzillas vs Kongs sounds like the most badass thing to happen in history. But also, opens the door to make "dragon-giant duels and players are caught in the middle of it" encounters happen all the more epic
You kow what ive never seen a dnd lore channel do? The origins of the deck of many things. Id love to see that explored. Who invented it, how and why they did it, what it was intended for. Thatd be amazing
I'm running a campaign where we have reached the end of Hoard and are about to start Rise. This has been our second campaign, the first of which was Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus. ToD felt like the perfect follow up because my players followed the Devil path in DIA and gave an Orb of Dragonkind to Tiamat. TOD seemed perfect as these orbs are serving a purpose in my campaign in the process of summoning Tiamat.
Out of all the adventures I've ran, I have to say Tyranny of Dragons probably have one of the better setups. Yes, it's a bit railroad-y but you're supposed to talk about this kind of stuff in session 0 anyway. The plot hooks in the back of the book is really meaningful. It's not perfect, as some of them are one-time things (having connections with a NPC you'll meet a few times is not a strong plot hook), but they're the best ones out of all the published adventures. As a DM, I've always worked with my players to offer suggestions to their backstories so their characters are tied to the campaign - what personal stakes do they have? ToD really set the example for it in 5E and I am kind of sad they didn't follow through with that in later adventures. Because if you don't do this, as a player it feels like you're dropped onto a random part of the world and things are moving and you're just expected to follow along until at some point you start to care. Anyway, the campaign isn't perfect but it's one of the top ones for me (the others being Curse of Strahd and Out of the Abyss). It's definitely also up there in terms of how world-shattering it is, compared to some of the other campaigns which feel more like a regional problem (e.g. Princes of the Apocalypse, Waterdeep).
Doing my background reading to run ToD as DM for my kids! They are excited to play it so I’ll let you know how it goes. Thanks for the great content! You’re always very informative and insightful!
I have tryed running this campain three times now and not once have I finished this one tryed but the players I have ran this for left interest within the first half of the campain.
Love your content. I mod for NWN, and I'm always enjoying the Faerun adventures. I've modded the Accursed Tower & FA1 - Halls of the High King. Peace J, B
I'm a new DM running Dragon of Icespire Peak for my new players right now. I'm working in a few bits from Lost Mine of Phandelver to add some depth to the story and once we finish I plan on taking the story straight into Rise of Tiamat.
I think the published adventures and the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide add a lot of interesting factions, ones that are separate to the normal 5 factions. I.e. Ytepka Society from Tomb of Annihilation. It may make for interesting videos to go over those
I'm still a fairly new player, and this was one of my first DMing experiences. Had a larger group with mixed player experience levels. Didn't go very well, so handed it off to a more experienced DM. Also want to say thanks for doing these videos. I really enjoy them all. Honestly think you would be a fun guy just to hang out with.
I am running Tyranny of Dragons for 4 teenagers and a pre-teen and they are having a blast. I kinda cut down the months of travel and let them do a few side quests but other that I have stuck to th book.
Me and my friends are new to dnd. We started just last year and decided to start with the starter set Lost Mines of Phandelver. I being the DM while my friends made their own characters (an old human monk who is not so sane like bumi from avatar the last air bender, a female air genasi blood hunter with a haunted past, a female red dragonborn sorcerer and a human that comes from 1,000 years from the past and is a fighter) After playing LMoP (1-5) we went to what is rn my first original campaign (5-8) and I got the idea to run Tyranny of dragons. While their characters are on a new continent playing my original campaign at the same time back in Faerun the "npcs" they met (I homebrewed LMoP a bit) could be a new party that goes through the Hoard of the Dragons (1-7) and then once thats done the original party returns and takes over after being briefed on what happened and they take on the Rise of Tiamat starting at lvl 8 which they already are to I think its 15? and after that who knows. I might do a new original campaign to let them finish at lvl 20 before ending those characters' story. Edit: The "NPC" party will consist of Reidoth an old man also crazy Druid they met on the abandoned town during LMoP. Xavier a 10 year old necromancer who they found on Old Owl Well, Gina a female goblin barbarian with a giant snake pet they met during their assault on Cragmaw Castle and the sister of one of the original party members.
It's a fine module for experienced DMs as it needs adjustment. Adding a named charismatic but selfish mid-level cultist to the travel sections was definitely a player-favorite. Fleshing out Waterdeep with a thieves guild, corrupt guards, and a band of lvl.0 orphans was a fun side-adventure. In the Mere, I changed the Bullywogs to Ratmen to help differentiate them from the Lizardmen, and really drive home the distrust between the two groups. In RoT I plan on adding a chapter set in Mulhorand to account for the Blue Dragonmask bearer. Finally, I think it's appropriate for the cult to summon abishai to counter the players once they're considered legitimate threats. As you said, it's great if you have the right group.
Going to be running ToD after Phandelver because one of my players is a Dragonborn prophet of Bahamut and I think it will be a great pivot to the dragon cult story and opportunity for my players to explore the large world.
Damn you Jordphan. Me and a buddy were planning on doing a podcast series like this. Bah, I can't stay mad at you. Lemme grab the snacks for the video.
I am running ToD along side Storm King Thunder as it suggests in the appendix in the STK thunder printed material. There 2 settings can run concurrently as long as you put your time in preparation. Have fun.
I'm running it for my group. I didn't like much HotDQ, so I just went with LMoP, then I ran a dungeon from TYP changing a bit to put the Cult of the Dragon in the end, then started Rise of Tiamat. We Just arrived at the Fourth Council Reunion and things are building up for an epic finale
this was really helpful Jorphdon, Im currently preparing TOD and needed some info so thank you. I think im going to use the Boon system of travel for this adventure and see how that turns out. Plan on having a lot of fun with my group, thanks again :)
I had a few problems with this hardcover, one the dungeons and their lack of traps, two very unbalanced encounters probably because it was released before the MM. Played a Rouge for both hardcovers, it was amazing. He's literally built to fight dragons, resilient feat for con throws, get wisdom save prof because he's a Rouge. You DO fight dragons just not a wide variety of them. The Council of Waterdeep sections are amazing.
Love the videos! I'm a first time DM and currently running the Adventurers League, Defiance in Phlan module first. I'm reading the later modules in the Adventurers League to try and understand the story better, so I can weave lore into the sessions more naturally, this video helped! If you happen to be taking recommendations for videos? I would really like to see one that goes into more depth about the lore surrounding these modules and how the events/NPC's etc link from Defiance to Phlan all the way to Escape from Phlan. It would be crazy useful for myself as DM on this campaign! :) Thank you!
Loving your videos. Keep it up! Planning to run hotdq in a few weeks. I'm planning a one shot to tease the cult's plans to the players that will likely end in a tpk. I felt like the module needed something more to show the intensity and danger right off the bat.
it's funny how i started i found some mini modules and used them for 1 to 2 nights of play. Then I worked in to a dragon mini module which then i herd of Tyranny of Dragons and as i'm not fully into the module as a whole i'm using a lot to craft a story into what i already started. Since I only have a 3 person group I have given them young dragons to have and they are now dragon riders which they grabbed onto quickly. Now the story is mostly led by adult dragons wanting to raise their queen and then they recently found out they are guided by the cult wearing the masks. so i'm building off that. but it makes them interested in wanting more.
I'm currently running Tyranny of Dragons, it's been over a year now and we're at Rise of Tiamat. I have to say I do not recommend it to beginner DMs since you need to modify (mostly add) quite a lot for the campaign to run smoothly. It can be a lot of fun since there's a lot of major players from the Coast, you get to really know the lore and all the organizations which can be useful for future campaigns. Also: dragons!! I have to add I was super disappointed that the newest "revamp" of Tyranny of Dragons was not a revamp at all, despite what Wizards advertised but a reprint. No promised changes were made even though all the stores selling it still have such promises in item's description :D
I am running it currently for my first group. It is a bit on the dull side for a while and the travel time is long! I'd suggest shorting the travel encounters. My group has made it to Waterdeep and half have been hired by the Harpers while a few others are looking into the Zehntarim. lol It's going to get fun now!
I haven't ran this yet but I'm close. I do plan on changing stuff a bit though. I'm going to introduce Null the Dragon God of Death/Undeath who was the being that taught Samaster how to create Dracoliches and who the well of dragons was actually built for. Some might recognize one of his aspects, Falizure, from the D&D movie Wrath of the Dragon God.
If I had just one wish for you to do an episode about...Baba Yaga. Once in Dungeon (Maybe Dragon?) Magazine(way back when(maybe 1980ish)) there was a layout of her 'hut' and many rooms withing. Her picture was scary too...
When I started my LMP/SKT campaign i was trying to run a second group and I considered running tyranny of dragons at the same time and have the two kind of overlap a bit. But, the second group didn't work out. We just didn't have the time to do both.
So I plan to shorten Hoard of the Dragon Queen to serve as a bridge between Lost Mines and arise of Tiamat. I’ll keep all the cool stuff and make it take them from lvl 5 to lvl 8 then go into Rise of Tiamat and run that mostly as written.
i help run an Adventures league group in indy and once or twice a year i run the attack on Greenest from this modul up to the duel which is very interesting to see how each group handles it
I started dming Hoard of Dragon Queen last year and has been like 14 sessions and we are at the end. Because the group is too big (7 players) and I think the campaign is too long, I shortened the adventure. There is some boring parts for news players who is trying to learn how to role play, like too many plots and too many misteries, making the group do not know what to do and I have to make a NPC give them missions. I really wanna use the background of every PC, since last adventure was in Sunless Citadel, I cut a lot of npcs, put some personal vendettas on cult of Dragon back. Especially because no one cares about the Cult, except when they killed or abducted some from past of the pcs. Since the players started at 5 level, now at the end they reach 13 level. I change to have a fast pace, sense of urgence, spies, assassins tracking the group and powefull priests and creatures working with the Cult. Less encounters but all hard ones. Huge fire elementals serving priests, white dragon working with the cult, deadly bountry hunters and creepy dead elementals swamp things living in the cursed swamps around the hideout of the cult. They leveled quickly. I change the reward, I do not give xp, I give full levels at end of every chapter or deadly boss encounters. The problems: Campaign is to long, you have to cut some parts and npcs (to many). To many low level boring random encounters - better you make one big fun and interesting encounter than 3 or 2 random with no story purpose. The plot us complicated, like you said depends heavily on their curiosity - instead use the bg of the characters to drive in direct into the cult, they have to want to find them. good points: road trip adventures is so fun, so many different places you can describe and new allies have. The dragons are amazing for roleplay and a challenging showdown. I prefer a encounter with a few as possibly enemies but powerfull ones. Easier to manage and faster combats. My suggestion: keep the group at 4 players maximum. Its too hard to scale above that. I have to change every npc CR to match the group level an size. This is pretty hard. The party now is like near unkillable. I love you adventure reviews Jorphdan. I m dming Tomb of annihilation and my next will be Ravnica(homebrew) Abyss (love underdark) and Storm king thunder.
So this module is actually what my current group was playing when I joined. It was a lot of fun for us as a group, and still has some of our funest moments. Also had a weird problem though, we became really, REALLY good at fighting dragons. But absolutely AWFUL at fighting literally anything else. No joke we could beat or have a dragon on the ropes less than 3 rounds into combat. A group of random monsters though would become a slap fight that went on for ages. Not sure if we over specialized, or the DM held back with the dragons, or it could just be boiled down to a bunch of 5e noobs having fun.
I’m starting session zero for this game today. The party is favored by demonlords and sent to stop the dragon queen. I’m trying to set it up like a Team Rocket (bad guys that do good) kinda thing hahaha
Hi! I started ToD as my first campaign and with little actual DM experience and I gotta say, HoTDQ isn't easy on you as a DM. It requires a lot of prep and doesn't answer a lot of questions. If anyone reading this is looking for some help: slyflourish.com/greenest_in_flames.html slyflourish has some ideas and things to consider. Thinking back I might have changed the intro part to the players being in Greenest at the time the city is attacked, maybe have a relative captured, a parent figure killed or an important item stolen. All in all great video! And it reminded me to refresh a bit on the factions. Hope you have a great day :3
Personally, I'd replace Hoard with some other low level adventure(s) for the levels before Rise of Tiamat; using a few NPCs from Hoard to get the players familiar with what's coming up in Rise.
Lost Mines of Phlandelver from the starter set is from levels 1-5 and is a better written adventure. From there just do a small homebrew dungeon delve to get them to 7th level to help tie in Lost Mines to Rise of Tiamat. Maybe raid a Cult base or something.
What would be probably the easiest pre-written campaign for a newer DM? Our party will probably be a barbarian, a ranger, a sorcerer, and maybe some sort of healer. And then probably a drow. Idk what class. Any suggestions or tips?
Have you or would you do a video about Ashardalon? His stats are not 5e, but he was akin to Tiamat in 3e. There's even board games about him! However the lore about the standing stone in 5e doesn't seem to relate to the druid Dydd like they did in 3e in the adventure The Standing Stone.
I can tell you what you should NOT do. Do NOT make your players go through every optional fight without long or short rests and do NOT roll for every NPC's hit points literally before combat when everyone is rolling initiative. I speak as the player in those circumstances.
If you have players at your table that know a bit about the lore of Faerûn, just don´t run this adventure. There are just so many logical errors in it that are like "uhm, why didn´t the hobbits just ride on some giant eagles to mordor and dive bomb the ring into the lava?". The factions of the sword coast are WAY too passive in their efforts to rescue THEIR land, and seem to completely rely on a handful of unknown adventurers to do that job for them. The chapters in Rise of Tiamat seem like someone rolled on the most unfitting random encounter table and just shoved the results into the book. I´m talking especially about the chapter that leads into the sea of moving ice. Some random chick stops you to tell you that you NEED to find a lost member of the arcane brotherhood, who is most likely to be dead, in the sea of moving ice, because that exact person is the only one who might know enough about a completely trivial item that has long been sent to the well of dragons. Is the arcane brotherhood that incompetent? And don´t even start to think about bahamut ignoring his biggest rival, his arch enemy, being summoned back from hell. There should be at least a reason in the books for why he is not getting involved. It is NOT the job of the dungeon master to come up with explanations that the authors of an adventure should have at least considered when writing the book. And my favorite: From Hoard of the Dragon Queen pg. 5 "When all five [dragon masks] are brought toether, they magically merge into a single Mask Of The Dragon Queen. With the assmbled mask, the cult can release Tiamat from her prison in the Nine Hells." Vs. From Rise of Tiamat pg. 94 "When two or more of the dragon masks are assembled, however, they transform magically into the Mask Of The Dragon Queen." Checkmate!
Quick UA-cam Search came up with three videos. 1) ua-cam.com/video/SWHjWGfBp8M/v-deo.html 2) ua-cam.com/video/zha4miIbPFg/v-deo.html 3) ua-cam.com/video/NwURlsflmzU/v-deo.html
You bitch, you stole the green I wanted for my eyes....... I will take the very green of your eyes for my own, and you will just have to assume there is a "Ph". HAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!! I shall best you and that green shall be mine.................. MINE! Clearly I was joking, thank you again for another great video.
Why choose one of the least popular modules to do this campaign explained series on first after the box set? You should do these videos in order of popularity of the module.
Tyranny of Dragons was the first long campaign I ran, and the intro to D&D for many of my players. I think you're right in that while it may not be the best module, there's potential for a lot of fun with the right group. The Dragonborn Paladin chose a background where he was the reincarnation of one of Bahamut's divine champions, sent to Faerun to learn some humility. With some crazy natural 20's in the kobold cave outside Greenest, he wound up convincing one of the kobolds to become his follower, who later renounced ties to Tiamat and converted to worshipping Bahamut (and eventually became a cleric). That little fellow wound up becoming the party mascot, and lead to some amusing and world shaping repercussions.
That's amazing :D love it!
I just started running this campaign after finishing the Lost Mines of Phandelver. The way I did it, since the players are already level 5 is that I changed Greenest to Phandalin and the players have been informed about the attack 10 days in advance. So now they are preparing for the attack and trying to deal with the main camp before the attack happens which has been a lot of fun.
(I should also mention that I seeded one of the dragon masks as a loot reward in the mines, which made the players a lot more involved in the cult)
Advice for new DMs thinking about running this: ToD was the first Adventure module I ran. In my opinion, it's the best module idea, but one of the worst (if not the worst) executions. Dragons, cultists, many different places, a war at the end. It's got everything. But it's not really well written. It can be blast to play in, but you're gonna have to adapt it a lot. It's definitely good, but it's not your 'go-to' when you just want to pick up a book and start running a game.
Great advice, thanks for sharing :D
Small correction: the lich Iniarv was once the royal advisor to the human family that ruled the human area in Phalorm. When the orcs attacked, the descendants of the royal family sought out Iniarv and demanded that he destroy the invading orcs. So Iniarv, being a lich, killed the orcs - and everyone else - by flooding the land, thus creating the Mere of Dead Men. (Dungeon Magazine #68-73) *pushes glasses up nose*
:D Thanks for the update!
Jorphdan you’re welcome :D FWIW, I’m been running a Tyranny of Dragons campaign for the last four years, and you’re absolutely right that it can go off the rails at a moment’s notice if the players decide to zig when you want them to zag. In the case of my campaign, though, it’s been an incredible experience, and even though running ToD can be a lot of work for the DM, it’s worth it.
I'm currently running Tyranny of Dragons. I do agree with the fact that the module is quite railroady, but I've gotten away with it by creating an illusion of choise and circumstance, when the party seems to derail. They also have strong investments to either finding out about the cults plans or they are loyal to the factions, who definitely want to find out what's going on. At times there are questions that the module doesn't answer, so there's quite a lot of heavy lifting for the DM, but as long as the characters are invested in the story, the module is a lot of fun.
Like this concept. Although 1 thing to mention. The red wizards helping the cult are descendants of Thayans that fled Thay when Zass Tam took over. They are hoping that Tiamat will help them defeat Sass Tam in return for helping return her to the material plane.
Now would she actually do this is the real question.
I have been running ToD for the last 4-5 months. We are almost finished with Rise of Tiamat. The biggest hurdle for me was figuring out a way to railroad the players while still giving them free choice. This was my first time being a DM and I have learned a LOT.
To anyone wanting to run the campaign, I HIGHLY recommend reading Skyflourish's guide to HotDQ, and also picking up a copy of "A Guide to Tyranny of Dragons" on DMSGuilde. Super fun adventure and I am excited to see how it concludes!
This cant be overstated. My group and I have been running the ToD campaign for almost 2 years now. Between Skyflourish's guide and some DM homebrew stuff it has been an epic journey. I only recently found the the DM's guild guide, but it is wonderful for organizing the sometimes chaotic book that is Rise of Tiamat.
I definitely struggled running HoTDQ. The high level story was definitely there but the expectation on the DM is rather high. We played through some of it and eventually decided to shelf the module and play something else. I definitely want to try to run it again in the future with a different group. I have learned a lot since then and may be able to do a better job keeping the players engaged. This is a tough one to run if you have players that want the story to make them care rather then just going along with what is presented. There were a bunch of moments when I got “why would my character care or want to do this?” The only response I could think of was “Because we are playing dnd...” As always Jordon, great video!!
Brian Wisniewski I had the same thing happen to my group. We ended up shelving the book as well. I think you really have to have a group make characters specifically for this adventure. Otherwise they will not care by the time you get half way through “The Rise of Tiamat”.
@@Quinthous The recommended plot hooks help and you can certainly craft others using those examples. But that's really going to happen with every campaign if you don't work with your players to develop their backstory to tie to the story; it can feel like you randomly dropped them into a world and they have no idea why they should follow your plot thread specifically because they have no personal stake.
I use mostly modules and my groups tend to go off on their own adventure, which requires knowing a lot of background. So I've used your videos many times to catch up. But this series is SO HELPFUL. Thank you so much! You've made me a better DM and have helped me enjoy nights with my friends.
Great! Happy to help :D
I'd just like to share that the generated subtitles at one point interpret dracolich as "Dracula jizz".
That is all.
Currently running it. You have to be okay with adding in your own stuff and giving secondary plots that you make up yourself. It's been a challenge, but so far my players are enjoying it. I am feeling a little railroaded as a DM by the story, since I want to explore the world of Faerun more, so I'm planning on making random things happen to the Cult to slow their roll north (we're on the Trade Way right now in Chapter 4). Hopefully it feels natural and not too contrived. :)
Just getting a mixed group of experienced and new players started in ToD. Thank you for the overview and advice!
Thanks for this video! Just in the middle of HotDQ as a player and having a blast. We're mostly new players (for some it's our first D&D campaign ever) but we have a very experienced DM. I really like it because we get to see a lot of Faerûn's locations and lore (which I love from books I've read) and I also like the mission-based railroad-style campaign. I think for beginner players like us, a sandbox would be too overwhelming. Finally, I think ToD is the only WotC adventure that offers such a long character arc from Level 1 to 15.
Currently co-DMing Tyranny of Dragons (almost done with Hoard of the Dragon Queen) and it's going quite well. For each of our campaigns we delve into the lore a bit to see how our characters might come across and get invested in the adventure (these videos are great for that) AND us co-DMs try to work their backstories into the narrative where it adds to the story and further motivates the characters to pursue the main story. We're also planning on going through the FR campaigns in chronological order with an overarching, off-screen home-brew villain that influences each campaign as part of some master plan so the players are all pretty invested in it. Also really helps that almost half of us are english majors and love storytelling.
Extra points for "The Lore You Know" !!
Cheers!
The Lore you know *musical chime*
I ran this adventure as the DM and had a great time and experience with it. I will definitely say that it does feel like a little "railroadie" but it is really more of a linear storyline than say Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden
I've been running Tyranny of Dragons for the past few months as a first time DM and your Forgotten Realms videos have been a huge help, so thanks again for that !
Started playing when released. It took our group 86 weeks to do both Horde an Rise w/ some not written side quests. Our DM did great job.Also season one of Adventure League has ties to both rise an horde.
Thank you very much for the "Necesary information" part of the video. Just the idea of a 1000 year war that involves hundreds of Elemental Godzillas vs Kongs sounds like the most badass thing to happen in history. But also, opens the door to make "dragon-giant duels and players are caught in the middle of it" encounters happen all the more epic
You kow what ive never seen a dnd lore channel do? The origins of the deck of many things. Id love to see that explored. Who invented it, how and why they did it, what it was intended for. Thatd be amazing
good idea, I'll see what I can dig up :)
Please finish this series! Or do one for "Storm King's Thunder."
I'm running a campaign where we have reached the end of Hoard and are about to start Rise. This has been our second campaign, the first of which was Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus. ToD felt like the perfect follow up because my players followed the Devil path in DIA and gave an Orb of Dragonkind to Tiamat. TOD seemed perfect as these orbs are serving a purpose in my campaign in the process of summoning Tiamat.
Out of all the adventures I've ran, I have to say Tyranny of Dragons probably have one of the better setups. Yes, it's a bit railroad-y but you're supposed to talk about this kind of stuff in session 0 anyway. The plot hooks in the back of the book is really meaningful. It's not perfect, as some of them are one-time things (having connections with a NPC you'll meet a few times is not a strong plot hook), but they're the best ones out of all the published adventures.
As a DM, I've always worked with my players to offer suggestions to their backstories so their characters are tied to the campaign - what personal stakes do they have? ToD really set the example for it in 5E and I am kind of sad they didn't follow through with that in later adventures. Because if you don't do this, as a player it feels like you're dropped onto a random part of the world and things are moving and you're just expected to follow along until at some point you start to care.
Anyway, the campaign isn't perfect but it's one of the top ones for me (the others being Curse of Strahd and Out of the Abyss). It's definitely also up there in terms of how world-shattering it is, compared to some of the other campaigns which feel more like a regional problem (e.g. Princes of the Apocalypse, Waterdeep).
Doing my background reading to run ToD as DM for my kids! They are excited to play it so I’ll let you know how it goes. Thanks for the great content! You’re always very informative and insightful!
Did you end up running it for your kids? How did it go?
@@ezequielrodriguez8626 yes, sir! They’re enjoying it a lot!
I have tryed running this campain three times now and not once have I finished this one tryed but the players I have ran this for left interest within the first half of the campain.
Love your content. I mod for NWN, and I'm always enjoying the Faerun adventures. I've modded the Accursed Tower & FA1 - Halls of the High King. Peace J, B
I'm a new DM running Dragon of Icespire Peak for my new players right now. I'm working in a few bits from Lost Mine of Phandelver to add some depth to the story and once we finish I plan on taking the story straight into Rise of Tiamat.
I think the published adventures and the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide add a lot of interesting factions, ones that are separate to the normal 5 factions. I.e. Ytepka Society from Tomb of Annihilation. It may make for interesting videos to go over those
Tyranny of Dragons was my first ever DND campaign. its pretty good, i really liked my DM, I had a good time
I'm still a fairly new player, and this was one of my first DMing experiences. Had a larger group with mixed player experience levels. Didn't go very well, so handed it off to a more experienced DM.
Also want to say thanks for doing these videos. I really enjoy them all. Honestly think you would be a fun guy just to hang out with.
You should ask Shadversity about what he thinks of concerning Dragons.
Inefective unaerodynamic horrible seige weapons!!! Macchiculatiooooooooooonnnnns!!!!!!!!!!!!!+
you uploaded this the night of my group running our finale in tyranny of dragons
I am running Tyranny of Dragons for 4 teenagers and a pre-teen and they are having a blast. I kinda cut down the months of travel and let them do a few side quests but other that I have stuck to th book.
So glad you made this video I will be re watching it for a while as I'm going into running this campaign :)
Good luck with the game! Happy Gaming!
Me and my friends are new to dnd. We started just last year and decided to start with the starter set Lost Mines of Phandelver. I being the DM while my friends made their own characters (an old human monk who is not so sane like bumi from avatar the last air bender, a female air genasi blood hunter with a haunted past, a female red dragonborn sorcerer and a human that comes from 1,000 years from the past and is a fighter)
After playing LMoP (1-5) we went to what is rn my first original campaign (5-8) and I got the idea to run Tyranny of dragons. While their characters are on a new continent playing my original campaign at the same time back in Faerun the "npcs" they met (I homebrewed LMoP a bit) could be a new party that goes through the Hoard of the Dragons (1-7) and then once thats done the original party returns and takes over after being briefed on what happened and they take on the Rise of Tiamat starting at lvl 8 which they already are to I think its 15? and after that who knows. I might do a new original campaign to let them finish at lvl 20 before ending those characters' story.
Edit: The "NPC" party will consist of Reidoth an old man also crazy Druid they met on the abandoned town during LMoP. Xavier a 10 year old necromancer who they found on Old Owl Well, Gina a female goblin barbarian with a giant snake pet they met during their assault on Cragmaw Castle and the sister of one of the original party members.
This is a great series, literally just ran a great session of it and I do really love it as a base to do your own thing with it
It's a fine module for experienced DMs as it needs adjustment. Adding a named charismatic but selfish mid-level cultist to the travel sections was definitely a player-favorite. Fleshing out Waterdeep with a thieves guild, corrupt guards, and a band of lvl.0 orphans was a fun side-adventure. In the Mere, I changed the Bullywogs to Ratmen to help differentiate them from the Lizardmen, and really drive home the distrust between the two groups. In RoT I plan on adding a chapter set in Mulhorand to account for the Blue Dragonmask bearer. Finally, I think it's appropriate for the cult to summon abishai to counter the players once they're considered legitimate threats. As you said, it's great if you have the right group.
Going to be running ToD after Phandelver because one of my players is a Dragonborn prophet of Bahamut and I think it will be a great pivot to the dragon cult story and opportunity for my players to explore the large world.
Damn you Jordphan. Me and a buddy were planning on doing a podcast series like this.
Bah, I can't stay mad at you. Lemme grab the snacks for the video.
I bet you can still make it! I haven't cornered the market on helpful podcasts :D
I am running ToD along side Storm King Thunder as it suggests in the appendix in the STK thunder printed material. There 2 settings can run concurrently as long as you put your time in preparation. Have fun.
I'm running it for my group. I didn't like much HotDQ, so I just went with LMoP, then I ran a dungeon from TYP changing a bit to put the Cult of the Dragon in the end, then started Rise of Tiamat. We Just arrived at the Fourth Council Reunion and things are building up for an epic finale
this was really helpful Jorphdon, Im currently preparing TOD and needed some info so thank you. I think im going to use the Boon system of travel for this adventure and see how that turns out. Plan on having a lot of fun with my group, thanks again :)
I had a few problems with this hardcover, one the dungeons and their lack of traps, two very unbalanced encounters probably because it was released before the MM.
Played a Rouge for both hardcovers, it was amazing. He's literally built to fight dragons, resilient feat for con throws, get wisdom save prof because he's a Rouge. You DO fight dragons just not a wide variety of them.
The Council of Waterdeep sections are amazing.
Love the videos! I'm a first time DM and currently running the Adventurers League, Defiance in Phlan module first. I'm reading the later modules in the Adventurers League to try and understand the story better, so I can weave lore into the sessions more naturally, this video helped! If you happen to be taking recommendations for videos? I would really like to see one that goes into more depth about the lore surrounding these modules and how the events/NPC's etc link from Defiance to Phlan all the way to Escape from Phlan. It would be crazy useful for myself as DM on this campaign! :) Thank you!
Loving your videos. Keep it up! Planning to run hotdq in a few weeks. I'm planning a one shot to tease the cult's plans to the players that will likely end in a tpk. I felt like the module needed something more to show the intensity and danger right off the bat.
This is great. The group I’m running just finished up the Siege of Greenest
Preparing to run SKT. Really hope you cover that soon.
Great stuff. Thanks!
Omg. Please make more of these..
Im really excited for your curse of strahd
so am I!
Do Curse of Strahd next!
it's funny how i started i found some mini modules and used them for 1 to 2 nights of play. Then I worked in to a dragon mini module which then i herd of Tyranny of Dragons and as i'm not fully into the module as a whole i'm using a lot to craft a story into what i already started. Since I only have a 3 person group I have given them young dragons to have and they are now dragon riders which they grabbed onto quickly. Now the story is mostly led by adult dragons wanting to raise their queen and then they recently found out they are guided by the cult wearing the masks. so i'm building off that. but it makes them interested in wanting more.
I'm currently running Tyranny of Dragons, it's been over a year now and we're at Rise of Tiamat. I have to say I do not recommend it to beginner DMs since you need to modify (mostly add) quite a lot for the campaign to run smoothly. It can be a lot of fun since there's a lot of major players from the Coast, you get to really know the lore and all the organizations which can be useful for future campaigns. Also: dragons!! I have to add I was super disappointed that the newest "revamp" of Tyranny of Dragons was not a revamp at all, despite what Wizards advertised but a reprint. No promised changes were made even though all the stores selling it still have such promises in item's description :D
I am running it currently for my first group. It is a bit on the dull side for a while and the travel time is long! I'd suggest shorting the travel encounters. My group has made it to Waterdeep and half have been hired by the Harpers while a few others are looking into the Zehntarim. lol It's going to get fun now!
I haven't ran this yet but I'm close. I do plan on changing stuff a bit though. I'm going to introduce Null the Dragon God of Death/Undeath who was the being that taught Samaster how to create Dracoliches and who the well of dragons was actually built for. Some might recognize one of his aspects, Falizure, from the D&D movie Wrath of the Dragon God.
If I had just one wish for you to do an episode about...Baba Yaga. Once in Dungeon (Maybe Dragon?)
Magazine(way back when(maybe 1980ish)) there was a layout of her 'hut' and many rooms withing. Her picture was scary too...
When I started my LMP/SKT campaign i was trying to run a second group and I considered running tyranny of dragons at the same time and have the two kind of overlap a bit. But, the second group didn't work out. We just didn't have the time to do both.
Looking forward to the review of the new book and finding out what they have changed.
I am going to be running Tyranny of Dragons soon
First thought was: “Did Lindybeige start making DnD videos???”
He wouldn’t be able to do it the way you do tho :3
So I plan to shorten Hoard of the Dragon Queen to serve as a bridge between Lost Mines and arise of Tiamat.
I’ll keep all the cool stuff and make it take them from lvl 5 to lvl 8 then go into Rise of Tiamat and run that mostly as written.
I'm planning a campaign that starts with both starter sets and sprinkling in threads that lead to hoard of the dragon queen.
It annoyed me that this video had 99 comments, so I'm saving the day by making it 100.
I'm seeing it just after watching your series on Warlock Patrons, & now I'm wondering about how would a Pact of the Dragon would be!
currently playing this and i am looking forward to it and going off book
Exactly what i was looking for
i help run an Adventures league group in indy and once or twice a year i run the attack on Greenest from this modul up to the duel which is very interesting to see how each group handles it
I'd love to see one of these for Curse of Strahd!
The plan is to get to all of them eventually 😁
I started dming Hoard of Dragon Queen last year and has been like 14 sessions and we are at the end.
Because the group is too big (7 players) and I think the campaign is too long, I shortened the adventure.
There is some boring parts for news players who is trying to learn how to role play, like too many plots and too many misteries, making the group do not know what to do and I have to make a NPC give them missions.
I really wanna use the background of every PC, since last adventure was in Sunless Citadel, I cut a lot of npcs, put some personal vendettas on cult of Dragon back. Especially because no one cares about the Cult, except when they killed or abducted some from past of the pcs.
Since the players started at 5 level, now at the end they reach 13 level. I change to have a fast pace, sense of urgence, spies, assassins tracking the group and powefull priests and creatures working with the Cult. Less encounters but all hard ones. Huge fire elementals serving priests, white dragon working with the cult, deadly bountry hunters and creepy dead elementals swamp things living in the cursed swamps around the hideout of the cult.
They leveled quickly. I change the reward, I do not give xp, I give full levels at end of every chapter or deadly boss encounters.
The problems: Campaign is to long, you have to cut some parts and npcs (to many).
To many low level boring random encounters - better you make one big fun and interesting encounter than 3 or 2 random with no story purpose. The plot us complicated, like you said depends heavily on their curiosity - instead use the bg of the characters to drive in direct into the cult, they have to want to find them.
good points: road trip adventures is so fun, so many different places you can describe and new allies have.
The dragons are amazing for roleplay and a challenging showdown. I prefer a encounter with a few as possibly enemies but powerfull ones. Easier to manage and faster combats.
My suggestion: keep the group at 4 players maximum. Its too hard to scale above that. I have to change every npc CR to match the group level an size. This is pretty hard. The party now is like near unkillable.
I love you adventure reviews Jorphdan. I m dming Tomb of annihilation and my next will be Ravnica(homebrew) Abyss (love underdark) and Storm king thunder.
Adapt and make the adventure your own I love it :)
Good luck with your Tomb of Annihilation and the Ravnica home brew sounds awesome :D
so weird how different people can make the same adventure, im a few dozen sessions in and were only midway through chapter 4 haha
Jorphdan! Could you do a video on Goliaths of FR? Would love a video on them, I think a lot of people (myself included) could learn a lot from one!
I would love to play in a campaign you ran!
Can you do some more on the abyss?
Sure in a few months I'll be doing more on out of the abyss
This sounds pretty great. I still prefer DM created worlds, but I'm glad things like this are still an option.
So this module is actually what my current group was playing when I joined. It was a lot of fun for us as a group, and still has some of our funest moments. Also had a weird problem though, we became really, REALLY good at fighting dragons. But absolutely AWFUL at fighting literally anything else. No joke we could beat or have a dragon on the ropes less than 3 rounds into combat. A group of random monsters though would become a slap fight that went on for ages. Not sure if we over specialized, or the DM held back with the dragons, or it could just be boiled down to a bunch of 5e noobs having fun.
I’m starting session zero for this game today. The party is favored by demonlords and sent to stop the dragon queen. I’m trying to set it up like a Team Rocket (bad guys that do good) kinda thing hahaha
awesome! I hope your game is super epic, sounds like a fun twist!
I plan on revamping ToD with lots of the tools and monsters provided in FToD I think it would give much more flavor to the campaign.
Hi! I started ToD as my first campaign and with little actual DM experience and I gotta say, HoTDQ isn't easy on you as a DM. It requires a lot of prep and doesn't answer a lot of questions.
If anyone reading this is looking for some help: slyflourish.com/greenest_in_flames.html slyflourish has some ideas and things to consider.
Thinking back I might have changed the intro part to the players being in Greenest at the time the city is attacked, maybe have a relative captured, a parent figure killed or an important item stolen.
All in all great video! And it reminded me to refresh a bit on the factions. Hope you have a great day :3
Love the use of the images from Flight of the Dragons.
I love that movie 😍
@@Jorphdan it's fantastic, and helped me in my own fiction writing. Though in ways people might not fully expect.
wait, HotDQ was supposed to be a mystery? oh fuck that explains a lot.
Jorphdan. You should do a video on SKT next.
Great video. Thank you.
Thanks!
Thanks for sharing
Personally, I'd replace Hoard with some other low level adventure(s) for the levels before Rise of Tiamat; using a few NPCs from Hoard to get the players familiar with what's coming up in Rise.
Lost Mines of Phlandelver from the starter set is from levels 1-5 and is a better written adventure. From there just do a small homebrew dungeon delve to get them to 7th level to help tie in Lost Mines to Rise of Tiamat. Maybe raid a Cult base or something.
Storm Kings Thunder Please!
What would be probably the easiest pre-written campaign for a newer DM?
Our party will probably be a barbarian, a ranger, a sorcerer, and maybe some sort of healer. And then probably a drow. Idk what class.
Any suggestions or tips?
I'd actually recommend the "Sunless Citadel" in "Tales of the Yawning Portal."
I think it's a great into adventure for DMs and players :D
Jorphdan thanks!
Have you or would you do a video about Ashardalon? His stats are not 5e, but he was akin to Tiamat in 3e. There's even board games about him! However the lore about the standing stone in 5e doesn't seem to relate to the druid Dydd like they did in 3e in the adventure The Standing Stone.
Jorphdan, can you tell us what music is that in the beggining of this video?
It's one of UA-cam's free to use MP3s. It's called Epic Journey.
ua-cam.com/video/nwwfrRg96q0/v-deo.html
I can tell you what you should NOT do. Do NOT make your players go through every optional fight without long or short rests and do NOT roll for every NPC's hit points literally before combat when everyone is rolling initiative. I speak as the player in those circumstances.
If you have players at your table that know a bit about the lore of Faerûn, just don´t run this adventure. There are just so many logical errors in it that are like "uhm, why didn´t the hobbits just ride on some giant eagles to mordor and dive bomb the ring into the lava?". The factions of the sword coast are WAY too passive in their efforts to rescue THEIR land, and seem to completely rely on a handful of unknown adventurers to do that job for them. The chapters in Rise of Tiamat seem like someone rolled on the most unfitting random encounter table and just shoved the results into the book. I´m talking especially about the chapter that leads into the sea of moving ice. Some random chick stops you to tell you that you NEED to find a lost member of the arcane brotherhood, who is most likely to be dead, in the sea of moving ice, because that exact person is the only one who might know enough about a completely trivial item that has long been sent to the well of dragons. Is the arcane brotherhood that incompetent?
And don´t even start to think about bahamut ignoring his biggest rival, his arch enemy, being summoned back from hell. There should be at least a reason in the books for why he is not getting involved. It is NOT the job of the dungeon master to come up with explanations that the authors of an adventure should have at least considered when writing the book.
And my favorite:
From Hoard of the Dragon Queen pg. 5 "When all five [dragon masks] are brought toether, they magically merge into a single Mask Of The Dragon Queen. With the assmbled mask, the cult can release Tiamat from her prison in the Nine Hells."
Vs.
From Rise of Tiamat pg. 94 "When two or more of the dragon masks are assembled, however, they transform magically into the Mask Of The Dragon Queen."
Checkmate!
ouch, yeah you are not wrong. Thanks for the info!
So how does this interact with storm king's thunder?
Many of the Dragons and one Cloud Giant exist in both. SKT is supposed to occur after ToD, however you can combine them both as a super campaign.
@@keiths81ca Thanks. That sounds like a great idea actually.
Jorphdan, you pointed at your “junk”. 🤣😂
woops!
This is heresy. Bel is lord of the first!
Can I give two likes for using the card "Wall of Water" ?? :)
Sorry mate ,somebody can pass me the link about the Red wizards? I can't found it. Thanks a lot
Quick UA-cam Search came up with three videos.
1) ua-cam.com/video/SWHjWGfBp8M/v-deo.html
2) ua-cam.com/video/zha4miIbPFg/v-deo.html
3) ua-cam.com/video/NwURlsflmzU/v-deo.html
6:30 You mean 615 DR.
i dont get the hate for Tyranny of Dragons. It honestly depends on the DM and Players i think
Thumbnail said tryanny
oh snap it does lol! best change it
You bitch, you stole the green I wanted for my eyes....... I will take the very green of your eyes for my own, and you will just have to assume there is a "Ph". HAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!! I shall best you and that green shall be mine.................. MINE! Clearly I was joking, thank you again for another great video.
😬 sorry!
disappointed every time you say the link is in the "description" instead of the technical term, "doobly doo".
I'm 50/50 on this. I've failed you senpai
Why choose one of the least popular modules to do this campaign explained series on first after the box set?
You should do these videos in order of popularity of the module.
Probably because it was the first.
A lot of very BAD editing in Hoard of the Dragon Queen. Do not buy. Unless your a masochist
Grow some eyebrows.
... no...