[5th Ed] Running My Dragonlance Campaign - Where Did I Start? 

*Thanks for watching!* How would you run the campaign? Would you run it like I've done it or as written? Let us know in the comments below!

For my campaign session 0, I started with the PC's as children, before they had rolled their characters. They simply were out playing with wooden swords and shields or bags of sawdust for spells, running around the town of Volger along with their npc friend Ispin, the eldest of them. Here they also met the other towns npcs as, yes, they all are from the same starting town, and I expect will be both shocked and angered during chapter 2. (They had basic fighting skills here and the spellcasters discovering their first cantrips when they were endangered later on). It's here they decided what their future character will be through the role-playing, and gained their HP. When outside of town, Ispin falls into a hole, revealing a hidden cavern that leads to an underground complex. The engravings describe the cataclysm and the history of Ansalon (inserted any lore for them here), along with hidden traps and creatures. Here Ispin finds the Green Shield, and after escaping a great evil, they barely escaped to safety before the tunnel collapses, sealing the way in. It was very Goonies. Each player then had their own game session, set years later, to build and establish their 1st level character, choosing a background and feat, travelling along with Ispin, who tells them tales of his own adventuring, with a human knight and a dwarven warrior. (Including a brief mention of one of the other PC's game sessions) Also one of the players also briefly meets Becklin and another meets Cudgel towards the end of their session. They quite enjoyed the change to how everything started and made learning about Ispins death all the more remorseful, especially when they got ahold of the shield, as they all remembered the moment when they were there when Ispin found it. They were actually close to tears because they felt like they had experienced it first hand. I changed Ispen's retirement to having died whilst adventuring near their home town. Also, I had a PC reference sheet for each player which had all the races, languages, calender, currency, regions, religions and gods for 5e, but we're all already acquainted with Dragonlance.

More, more, more! I can’t wait to run this for my players - I think this is my favorite module WotC has put out for 5e. I love the attention to detail you give in fixing what is DOESN’T do well - really helpful. Excited to see where you go with the series!

One of players was mentioning how they wanted to have their character start adventuring later on in life, so I thought it would be cool to have them be drinking buddies with Ispin, Becklin, and Cudgel. They finally felt the call and have great mentors to get started.

Actually, for a one-shot, I'd welcome the suggested approach of players going wild on their previous exploits with Greenshield, cosequences be damned. For a campaign, however, I'd opt for some more structured approach, for the sake of future narrative.

Guy, having first watched your first solo adventure and then this video, I must say I loved how you introduced Ispen and co. as well as how the possible importance/value of the greenshield was introduced. Fantastically done. And as a viewer without seeing you forming plans in this video, I was drawn to the character of ispen and definitely want to see him succeed, well done. In mentioning the possibility of the gods being involved, but seeming to have disappeared I have a couple lore notes you might be aware of (spoilers for M. Weiss and T. Hickman books): The idea of having the gods walk among the characters was done in the early books. To twelve year old me, it was beautiful and I never saw it coming. The god of good was a bumbling wizard that seemed to show up at decent times, but almost caused more chaos than good, but always was very subtly (again, to 12yo me) bending the characters into a path, or revealing knowledge before being whisked away by battle, or falling in a hole, or some random way that gave you the idea you might not see him again. Even today, I loved this idea so much, I incorporate my own take on it in my campaigns. Random aside on the thought of Mages and the towers of sorcery. Generally, those who pass the tests are still seen within the mages as people on the lower rungs, when thinking of mage importance. To the people as a whole, I’m sure seeing a wizard/mage of one of the three robes could result in them thinking the mages are higher up in the mage society than being merely those who just barely got their robes. And finally, I don’t know if you have any PC’s planning on playing the Kender class, but wanted to give an idea of flavor, if the character - and you - wanted to go that route. Most rpg’s I see who play in Krynn treat Kender as halflings in Faerun. In Krynn, the flavor is that they are so communal as a society and all items are shared between them that they are known to be pickpockets and thieves. Not that they’re malicious, they just don’t understand the idea of ownership, to the point that in town there’s natural wariness around Kender. Though people tend to understand they mean no harm, they still hold their belongings a little tighter when around a Kender. Anyways, to the person who actually ends up reading this, happy holidays, have a good day!

I am adding Ispin to a different adventure I am running first, so that he is an established NPC. I plan to make him as loveable as possible (Dick Van Dyke style) so I can make them cry when I brutally kill him later

I started with a zero level flashback five years earlier at the Kingfisher Festival in Vogler when they all meet for the first time as well as Ispen.

Just finished reading chapter 4 with Soths backstory. It's laughable how they covered his history. Completely glossied over the part were he murdered his infant son to prevent him from growing up to be him.

Excited to watch this, love your advise videos, and this will be the next campaign I start next month!

Excellent. I just got done with our first session and I did something similar, not wanting to roll on a table for contrived connections to Ispin. I helped my players write their backstory, taking their builds and high level goals into account and I built Ispin prominently into most. One is a sea elf who left home to tour the new post-cataclysm topography as a 400th b-day gift to himself. He met Ispin, who hired himself as a guide, but was trouble-prone and got them both cursed so that this experienced druid had no more magic until Ispin died. Now, it gradually returns. Another is a nomadic hill dwarf who raged out on some eminent domain enforcers trying to evict a family by burning out their field. Ispin was drawn to the scene by the same smoke as the PC, and helped pull strings to get her into the Knights of Solamnia. (Becklin administered her oath.) Another is training for his Black Robes and was secretly doing shady (but ultimately harmless) stuff in a village's gardens in the middle of the night. Ispin's party of adventurers was hired by the village to investigate the mysterious phenomena and when they caught him, they resolved the matter as friends. And so on. I have 6 players, but you see the direction. I had Ispin cremated due to the amount of time it would take to bring friends from across Solamnia for a funeral, so now the players are working themselves up on whether he faked his death. So I love the idea that Ispin should play a bigger role fleshing out Kinsaldi's plot. I will certainly start writing that in.

So, I've broken this down quite a bit. I did a groups session 0 where we all just made our characters, I gave some general lore about the world, and we talked about kinda what each player wanted from the campaign. Then I did a 1 on 1 session with each of them, this was to flesh out their character and root them into the world. As well as set up two things, 1. They were present at the first attack of the dragonic army. 2. They were saved by Ispan Greenshield during the attack and Ispan Greenshield is also the one helped get each of the player to where they are at the start of the campaign. Something I didn't tell the players was that Session 1 we were actually going to play in the first attack of the dragon army and gave them Level 0 characters basically. I also made a change to Ispin Greenshield, he is Paladine. Realizing that the bind on Takish has weekend, he sent an avatar of himself back which took the form of Ispan. While Ispan saved alot of people, he saw the potential in each of the players to become legendary heros. I like to think the gods pretend like the don't directly influence the world as much as they do, especially Paladin. I want the players to feel special, but not the "You are the only ones who could save the world" more, "You have the power to change the world, I just wanted to make sure you went down the right path." Finally, I wanted to learn much more into the war aspect of the game. They aren't the end all be all, just a coge in the larger picture. They will slowly rise up in rank and build their own little group of soilders that they will have to fight in long scale war battles. I've been working on the mechanics for nearly 4 months now. With that too. Wars take a long time, and the continent we are on is massive. So this campaign won't span like a couple of in game months, but 15 plus years. I want them to have like 2 years of downtime here and there to actually do alot of those bigger projects/spells.

Can someone guide me to the video where Guy discusses the four quest types mentioned here (thwarting, exploring, delivering, discovery)? Much appreciated!

SPOILERS - I think the convoy of Knights was out looking for the mysterious creatures that have been sighted in the area (the Draconians). At least that is what I am planning to do in my campaign. I am also setting up that the Knight of Solamnia characters are actually squires to two of the knights that got ambushed and also setting up that Ispin helped them get accepted to the order of Knights.

I like a lot of your ideas, they are interesting. I did think this was a bit overthought though. I just finished reading chapter 3 and I don't have a group planned yet so I'm just initially taking notes right now. I think the book has a good balance of provided information while encouraging the players to fill in the gaps. I do agree some ends are looser than others!

This is awesome! I’ve seen a lot of suggestions in the comments section as well. I love all these suggestions.

How would I run this? Well, knowing my players, I would do something similar to what you are planning. When it comes to creativity, they are amazing at figuring out how to mess up my best plans.. but if I ask them to come up with a creative story of how they know this guy, they will stare at me with blank eyes.... They are just now starting to come along and come up with interesting descriptions of combat encounters LOL! It's fine, it's the nature of the group. They are in it for the story but not as interactive with telling the story as I would like.

I wonder if this video has spoilers. 😜

Hey Guy, where'd you get your t-shirt from? I love it.

Not to be that guy but I think you misunderstood the role that Cudgel plays in the first chapter of the adventure and how she is expected to help and be helped by the PCs. There's already a foil (Lord Bakaris and his son) who are very much the embodiments of hubris and entitlement. Also, for Greenshield - how about they get a piece of the famous Greenshield, and that piece can be worn as an amulet and confirms protective magic. Another way (that I'm using in my Dragonlance campaign) to make Ispen play more of a part in the story is to start with an individual flashback (as a mini-adventure) for each PC and how Ispen came to their aid. Then, once the first chapter is concluded I'm going to have the PC who is carrying the shield be gently haunted by Ispen who might provide advice and running commentary;.

Wait! Are there spoilers?

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may be change it to ispin greenstaff

Nom nom noms

Dragon lance where dragons died off lol

Not trying to be edgy or , that guy (hahaha), but doesn't the book tell you what to do? Isn't that one of the main selling points of a module? That you don't need to think/plan near as much because the book does it for you. I've never used one so I'm not totally sure. I like to home brew as much as possible. Am I completely wrong here?

Dude. You are awesome. Every video I try to soak in your knowledge and experience. BUT I am not loving the costume thing. Isn’t there another dnd guy who does that? 🤔 Yeah. Pretty sure. DUDE - you don’t need the getup. Distracting.