How I Changed Adventure One of the Dragonlance Adventure 

Do you plan to move away from the dnd brand after the ogl debacle? ORC looks like a worthy patron

Thank you for these videos. I am an aspiring DM who loves stories and creative endeavors with friends. Your videos help me to try and absolve so many of my needless worries that my anxiety was festering. My home element has always been the written word rather than the spoken. I’m autistic and struggle to articulate clearly what my brain is trying to concoct. As a result of these trivial anxieties, I’ve found myself suffering from stage fright where I’m scared to DM my first and find myself unprepared, despite the premise of the Villains and Vigilantes: Unleashed and trying to blend elements of DC comic and anime shenanigans in spots, is my self-proclaimed wheelhouse.

I disagree with your assessment of this as a railroady campaign, though that is a matter of opinion. If you haven't played modules before, it would definitely feel railroady. But this is NOTHING compared to the original AD&D DragonLance adventures, which are famous for MAKING the players do what the story requires.

@@hawkname1234 I've heard that about the AD&D adventures, but haven't seen them myself. I've played plenty of modules (and actually published several). The majority of my play hours are in Adventurer's League. But I accept railroaded plots in those because of time-bound play. There's "you all need to go here next" type railroading, and then there's "Your character needs to just accept this because I got married to my first draft." type railroading. For an official hardcover, I expect it to look better thought out. Why does the party need to be IN the reenactment? With just another pass through an editor it could have become AT the reenactment. Why does the party need to just accept that the traitorous Ironclad Regiment is defending the town, but also that there's no choice but to evacuate? With just another editing pass you can achieve all your story beats without forcing them to accept illogical direction.

I convert modules all the time, most notably OSR modules to Sword World (a Japanese 2d6 based fantasy RPG). My general rule is figure out what is a light, medium, and high amount of damage in each system for non-combat hazards as well as check DC/target numbers etc so you can simply swap between the systems. So for example, say I'm running a 5e adventure that has a poison dart trap that requires a DC 15 perception to detect, hits on a +6 and deals 1d4 piercing damage and then requires a DC 13 con save to avoid an extra 1d6 poison damage. A 15 is a moderately difficult DC in 5e, so in Sword World I would call for an equivalent detection check at Target Number 13, which I figure is roughly equivalent. 1d4 is pretty low damage, so I would choose something equivalently low, maybe a power level 5 damage roll (would require explaining the SW damage system, but 5 is quite low) or simply deal 1d6 damage to keep it simple if I didn't want to deal with referencing the damage power level chart. Then I would swap out the DC 13 con save for a TN 11 Fortitude check and change the poison damage to either 2d6 (still quite low) or maybe a power level 8-10 depending on how threatening I want the poison dart to be. Most of this can be done in the moment with practice so I rarely write out what I will do for traps and hazards and just do it on the fly based on what the module says and how big of a deal I think the hazard should be. Then for monsters I generally just sub out monster stat blocks for similar ones from the new system. If an encounter is built around specific monster abilities/powers, I try to sub in equivalent ones if available, or simply create the ability for the new system and slap it on the monster. If the power doesn't have strict mechanics, even better since then you can just take it without any change. I have done this in the moment to various levels of success, but generally I would just build a new encounter using the new system that is inspired by the module. Since monster power levels vary, I may use the stats of a more appropriately leveled monster then give them the abilities of a monster that is a closer analogue to the one in the book. I'd generally base my decisions more on my party's power level and what I felt was appropriate to represent the world than trying to match equivalent power levels of monster between systems.

I’m just about to start DMing this module and I will 100% steal your idea and set up Kensaldi immediately from the beginning, so thank you for that!

@@davidsutic9547 It pays off! Especially if she's also the messenger before the attack on Vogler, and visible in the skies in the Wastelands occasionally. Her penultimate moment is fighting on the back of Red Ruin, while flying to the thing that flies end game. As written, quite disappointing, but her thread can be woven in to create anger throughout. (Soth is meant to inspire Vader-like fear and dread).

And I'm definitely going to track down the Dungeon Dudes video.

Strongly disagree. This is a moral panic whipped up by influences over the division of spoils between gaming companies. They're NOT going to "turn off" the back catalogs of all 3rd party publishers, and if they do, you can be mad at THAT time.

@@hawkname1234 I'm sad to see you are poorly informed on the topic.