I like the group finding clues or rooms with nothing of interest. They obviously always can see something, and you can give them some random information which coul lead to a new great plot or situation or just make them wondering what's going on! Or even if there're things which don't have importance for their goals it's ok too. They could do something or not, it's up too them. I'm grateful because you're making videos like this helping DMs without much time to prepare so it's really helpfull so I'll keep in mind your ideas of deletling some rooms or parts the adventure when I read but for know I do not thing I'll erase them. I'll see. Thanks for sharing!
totally agree, some rooms are not very important and routine to run, as there is not much role play happening, untill DM introduce any. So, i believe adding any kind of things DM wants to add to increase roleplay is cool here: goblin comes to pee into the room with adventurers; rats running from the dungeon, and twigs are following them; screams of fight and dying someone, who can tell some story about the fruit, or some dragonstory and hidden door with a map, where players missed it(my players ignored all secret doors btw); and get ready to have all kind of random items generator which players are willing to find in every place of such semi-empty-rooms. By the way instead of spiders there can be Giant Centipede in any hole as their lair , they can paralyse, or poison players. Though they die in one hit.
2024 and there are still people learning from your ideas (me)! Thanks a lot mate! I'm trying to expand on the ideas specially about the town. In my table, the people from Oakhurst know the fruit is evil, they have been getting their supply for a while now, enough time for some curious mind to suspect something, and eventually investigate the magic behind the fruit. As Gulthias was a vampire, it's not far fetched to find necromantic magic inside the fruits after a good analysis. The people from Oakhurst, however, chose not to stop selling as it has become the biggest attraction for the town, bringing some tourism and interested investors, after all how many backwards villages have wonder fruits? The economy, before primarily plant based, has now grown due to the fruits, and the townfolk is hard to go back to the old ways. So, for my players, there are basically 2 ways to finish the quest: - they destroy the tree, its fruits are now gone as it will be their offspring in a day or so. However you have just awakened a dark force (Gulthias) and the people from Oakhurst hate your guts, even threatening to complain to the elite of Neverwinter (you can use it as a hook); - they do not destroy the tree. The villagers thank them and show their true colors (i'm not gonna tell my players the villagers know anything, they are gonna play dumb). They say they are going to start a bigger exploration project of the tree and the citadel because, now that the druid is gone, the only obstacle are simply a few goblins and kobolds, nothing that the elite from Neverwinter wouldn't be able to pay their way through.
As for the size of map and printing a player copy: we use a whiteboard. I draw it roughly, showing doors and corridors etc. I read the room description, as well as maybe use different coloured pens for texture and effect, and it worked out pretty well
Thanks for the HUGE tip to cut down the dungeon. Running it tonight with a completely new group of 5 and one veteran, and I wasn’t sure if keeping everything in would be better for the new players. I already cut this in half too because I’m running it in conjunction with the ice spire peak beginner campaign, so the white dragon from this adventure ends up being the white dragon that terrorizes the neverwinter area, and it escapes thanks to the party hehe. For this first part, I cut the dungeon off at area 30, and the underground area is going to be a separate thing in the future because I still very much like the lore behind the Gulthias tree.
I really like the idea of a reward from the dragon to the dragon priest, But fire breath for everyone with a final boss involving a....Big Tree....well I know what I'd suggest to the party when I see it
Going to run this in a few days. found this review simplifying and the tips game-changing. Thank you so much! Liked and subscribed to encourage more content like this from you. this is gold!
I do like the way that The Yawning Portal streamlined the Sunless Citadel dungeon section of this module for 5th edition play. I am a little disappointed however in how much of the story was cut down. Mostly, just as you said in the video, the information about Oakhurst being very minimalistic. The original 3rd edition module however has way more detail on the town and the overall story going on in this adventure. There are actually things from this adventure that tie into later modules that just get kind of overlooked in the Yawning Portal remake. I'm currently running this adventure for a group (I played through it as a player back when we played 3rd edition), and I'm using both books as references to kind of help me shape the overall story a bit better
Really enjoyed your review and the advice. A few of us are old time D&D players and are looking for a one-off adventure, and had thought about this. I see exactly what you mean with it being a bit of a dungeon crawl and that the newer games emphasise the role playing side more.
Great ideas and tips!! If Belak came from Oakhurst it had to at least 12 years in the past, not recently. I think yur suggestion to have townsfolk wary of spellcasters and reference trouble with Belak a dozen years past is a wonderful idea. The adults can tell the kids where PCs overhear, "It was before your time!"
If running this in the Forgotten Realms setting, why not replace the town in the adventure with Thundertree? I would say that after Wave Echo cave is reopened near Phandalin, the Kucrele family is looking to re-establish the town and the two siblings go missing, so Kerowyn sends the party to find out what happened to her children. The town is in the middle of rebuilding and the town people from the adventure could be placed in Thundertree. Just an idea.
Where there are lots of empty rooms with similar mood and feel its nice to describe to the players them moving through them in sections or groups at a time. With the odd shapes too that makes theatre of the mind descriptions easier too.
Just stumbled upon your vids, but this is the absolutely best, well-paced, well-spoken DM guide for this module. Thankyou, my players will have more fun because of you.x
I'm 4 years late so I can forgive the delay 😜 I'm planning on running the original so wanted to see what some of the changes are! Thanks for the vid! 😃
Great way of accomplishing your tasks. Would love to see visual aids such as suggested maps. I dig the run through as a DM trying to get more experience.
Thanks for the video! I am going to run some new players through this in a few days. Going to be their first time, so hopefully a Zoom Corona session works!
When I ran this for my party, they rolled 2 nat 20's in a row to befriend Calcryx, so me being the inexperienced DM I was let her join the party. Now they have a dragon. What have I done.
That's how the game goes. You have to go with the flow! On the bright side (for you) dragons take hundreds of years to grow a size - so if they have a wyrmiling it'll only ever remain a wyrmiling
Really cool video! I've played this before, and I'm about to start running it this weekend, I think I'm gonna use some of those tips. Also, as a side note, if you get tales from the yawning portal on DND beyond, you get DM and player maps, so that's something to consider that'll make things easier. :)
I haven't finished the video, but what I suggest is actually running Thundertree before this one. They get to see what kind of destruction is happening here.
The town could be phandalin or new conyberry. The plot fits perfectly the DoIPs anchorite Plot. As one of the anchorites has planted a gulthias tree from seeds he most likely got from an apple
yeah, I was baffled at the idea of drawing this map. luckily I find a blank template of both maps without marks as to visual help. and used the first level print out with a grid, forget about the grove, its way to big with much space between. Im to DM this dungeon in a week or so and Im just going to print the grove on one single paper sheet and obscure it with another as fow and cut it open once each area is discovered. if any encounter happens Ill just have it played on a grid. good tips
Very helpful video gave me a lot of insight as to what other DM's would do. Still fairly new to the whole DM side of the story, so it helped me out a lot. Thank you
Adventure hooks are not boring. They are classic. Yes, nowadays they look not than interesting. But remember, you are playing adventure from 2000s. You are replaying experience from golden time of DnD.
thanks for the video have just purchased the book. Am looking to start a game after not playing for some years. This looks a great starting point and you have given a good overview. Will bear your tips in mind.
Can’t believe you would imply Calcryx would be unfaithful to Meepo, his onlyest friend in the world. I mean, they are both evil, but that doesn’t mean they are bastards.
(insert: never played D&D before since it wasn't popular in Germany compared to our big RPG "The Dark eye") what i definitly will do: CHANGE THE FRIGGN MAP. The whole place doesn't make ANY sense therefore i will try to find a map of a castle/keep something and just by "destroying" some rooms it will be more "real" than this since the placement of the rooms are pretty random
@@NerdKingdom2018 Cool, thanks for the reply. I think I'm going to run this campaign. One player will get that letter. One player (a lawful good player) will be guilted by the merchant to find his two kids, and hopefully the others will do it for adventure and I'm going to spin it so it sounds like the tree is full of apples and if they go get them all they can bring them back.
Thats a terrible gift especially if you have any dragonborn in your partu. Negates their usefulness and uniqueness. New DMs, i would take this video with a heavy grain of salt. Instead of cutting down rooms you could also perhaps make them interesting.
