I think it is hard. Not for lack of resources, but for amount of content to juggle. The party can do a lot and you have to be prepared for anything. There’s also a ton of factions to manage. It’s definitely advanced.
DoD is somewhat sandbox'ish, which does add an element of difficulty. But it's so well structured and the areas very well defined that it's pretty easy for a sandbox style game.
There are a lot of factions to manage, for sure. Again though, the dudes do a great job of giving each faction concrete goals and clear views on important elements of the campaign. You can introduce the factions over time.
I agree with this. Five factions with their own NPC's and locations and strongholds, plus an entire city of shit to learn. >!Buckledown row is almost a city in itself. !!Why do the characters care about the scepter? Doesn't say. What is the scepter? Oh you'll find that buried in the appendix, instead of next to the description of the room it's in. !<
It's an awesome adventure, the material is really fucking cool and the sandbox style makes it easy for PC's to stay engaged. It's a bitch to run though. Once you figure it out it gets easier, but it's still a ton of prep time.
I've tried to make it a little easier on myself by occasionally presenting characters with choices and asking them to decide which path to choose *before* the next session. I don't think I could manage if I didn't.
>Why do the characters care about the scepter? Doesn't say. What is the scepter?
This part is dependent on the three factions hiring the PCs to specifically recover the Scepter. However, my issue is that it doesn't specify if the NPCs give them a description of the Scepter. (also the image is of something Rod-sized but then says can be wielded like a quarterstaff).
My PCs almost left with the Immovable Rod because the Queens Men claim it's the Scepter. Some of them had misgivings out of game because there was obviously a lot more to the Chapel that would be missed from essentially completing Encounter 1, but their characters wouldn't know that. I had to add in "Oh, the Silver Order provided you with this drawing/description of the scepter so you know that rod in the statue isn't it.
I had a similar issue with the Hypnotic Eldritch Blossoms this past session. "They're often mistaken for Eldritch Lilies". Well, the scenario where you find them right before the Queen's Grotto could potentially be lethal (they charm anyone who fails the Saving Throw into entering the Contaminated water as well as tossing out Contamination themselves (on top of the fact the PCs likely have some Contamination already since this is in the Deep Haze) if the PCs don't quickly pick up on the "these are NOT the flowers you're looking for" and try to snag one or two before fleeing from the already formidable Shambling Mounds.
Setting up a situation where the PCs are deliberately given a lethal misdirect that they wouldn't likely anticipate is almost Tomb of Horror-level shenanigans.
What to do with the scepter? Do the third option my players did. Inadvertently circumnavigate the scepter puzzle and toss it into a bag of holding before breaking the weight enchantment.
For the most part I would say it's in the medium to hard range DM. It can be tricky to balance with more than four players at the table. There are also a few spots that you need to add quite a bit to make work. The Inscrutable Tower is the biggest culprit of a lot going on, but lacking substance in the module. Gameplay is heavily impacted by the factions so if your group is the more beer and pretzels type that just wants to get in combat and ignore social interactions the game can bog down. That being said it is fun to play and DM. There's enough in the module that the combat oriented players can enjoy as well.
From experience, 7 players, especially if you’re a newer DM, will be incredibly difficult compared to normal. Pretty much every encounter will need to be rebalanced as well as social/combat encounters will take a LOT longer
I would highly recommend splitting the groups 3/4 if possible however in the end it’s up to you. Just a word of warning
Thank you for the suggestion. I'm used to balancing 7 players. And for social encounters, you always have 3 or 4 characters that are more social than others but for sure will need to watch out for that.
One thing about running that many players is that the module encourages your PCs to have their own goals and personal quests and faction relationships, which might be a lot to handle/squeeze time in for seven players. This adventure really rewards smaller groups with lots of RP opportunity. That doesn't mean you can't make it work with 7, but you might have to cut some of that short and miss out on some of its potential.
Oh my. There are a lot of campaigns that can be run for a large group, but i do not think DoD is good for such a large group, for many reasons. Not that it will be 'hard' for you - it might be hard for 'them'. Although the material provided is mostly combat-focused, in practice the campaign puts a lot into politics between factions and the Party. Maybe your group is different to my groups though, and they would be able to create a coherent party
It's relatively easy to DM out of the book as each "adventure location" is described separately and it's pretty much a sandbox with no fixed "path or trail" through the connected adventures. As a DM, I'd just be sure to ask my players to give me a heads up where they want to go next so I can prepare. If you just sit down and try to play and see where the players go, it could be quite intimidating I think.
The biggest piece of advice I would give is to try and be sure to hook your players into supporting one faction or another. My gang just ran around sandboxing and didn't really explore the "story" of the campaign much. They were more interested in killing monsters and gathering loot than helping to solve the problem (somehow and in some way.) It was still a great campaign, but lacked the special something to really tie it all together.
As for resources, there are tons on this sub. In particular u/cordialgerm has done a lot of work. He has an index of his homebrew additions but I am not sure if it is up to date.
[https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/6W2VX9YP1bos](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/6W2VX9YP1bos)
Yes I'm keeping that index up-to-date! I've finished my core Drakkenheim campaign and have moved to a "world of Drakkenheim" campaign set in the Eastern Vale now. So the stuff I'm working on now is expanded lore for various locations in the Eastern Vale
My players just made it to the inner city for the first time and it’s been an absolute joy to DM. I love how the book is organized and structured. It’s been so much fun to DM and a breeze. Familiarizing yourself with the sections on the factions and exploration are essential. But you can get away with reading the sections for the locations your group is going to right before they get there. I don’t know what your experience level is with DMing, but I’d say it’s very open ended and being comfortable with improving a good bit is helpful. I haven’t used any supplements at all and am just running it as written. It doesn’t really need anything else in my opinion. My players have described their experiences with the campaign as “peak D&D” “challenging, exciting and terrifying” and “the most fun they’ve ever had playing D&D” and half the time I’m just running it as written or adapting on the fly. Knowing the factions and their objectives well makes this a lot easier to do. It’s honestly the most fun I’ve ever had DMing. I definitely recommend it.
Yeah, you can get away with doing the deep read on each section right before the PCs go into those locations on their next session. Maybe do a casual browse of some of the *likely* locations they could visit at the moment. In my response to this topic, I did recommend trying to set it up whenever possible so that the DM knows where the PCs intend to go before each session, as each location can typically last *at least* one session, if not 2-3. Of course, those tables that run marathon 8-hour sessions or whatever might have more problem with this.
The book is very well structured and the Dungeon Dudes have done a great job of supporting it with videos. It's easy to DM but challenging for the players.
I’m finding it quite fun to run. For my group once they hit level 5 the outer city was fairly trivial but there’s plenty to do inside the walls that they’ll find challenging. I haven’t had to tweak very much to have a great time so far.
I'm DMing this as a first time dm, my biggest complaints are in the book structure, art for important NPCs is rarely next to the actual NPC description or stat blocks, and the random tables were hard to locate at first. Other than those I've had nearly no issues.
I like the adventure a lot so far, but I think it's **quite** difficult to run. Reasons:
You have a ton of NPCs, many of whom are really important. Do a bad job roleplaying a faction rep in Emberwood Village, for example, and your players will have a wrong impression of a faction, which will impact the entire rest of the adventure.
It's very sandboxy, so it can be hard to predict where your players will go/do next, which makes it very difficult to prep.
Frankly the book is not well-organized. I'm constantly searching for a piece of important info and finding it in a strange place -- or not finding it at all. Example: the first time my party went searching for delerium, I set the DC wrong, because the book has a certain DC listed for searching in the ruins in one page, but then a different harder DC for searching for delerium in particular on *the next page.* Not the sort of thing you want to be on two different pages. I've run into lots of little frustrations like that which make my job harder.
Still really enjoyable to run. But certainly not easy. I have 40-ish years of experience as a DM and this book is really challenging me.
At first i thought that it is easy - the Locations are well prepared, and the NPC have good sections that explain their wants and methods - but after running 3 groups thorugh about 60-70% of the content - It's most definetelly not easy to run! The book is well written, and you need no additional material (outside of the stat-blocks that have not been supplied); maybe the battlemaps, but Dungeon Dudes have them in the shop. But i will give you more detail.
WHY IS IT EASY?
- The factions are unique, clearly defined.
- There are suprisingly little NPC for each faction to remember.
- The locations are already prepared, and they are prepared well.
- Plot hooks for locations are provided, and make sense.
WHY IS IT HARD?
- The campaign can be LETHAL. There are a LOT of deadly encounters, the enviroment itself is really dangerous. And this is not the type of campaign that will work well when the characters will be swapped - a character death in DoD might seriously halt the pace of the adventure.
- There is a LOT to manage in and out of the game. A ton of politics between the factions; which have to be not only reactive to players, but also to each other, and pro-active in their goals in Drakkenheim.
- Party conficts may easily arise over ideological decisions and alliances.
- There is no 'linear path' through the campaign, for good and bad. There is no provided structure, although there is a 'logical' stream of events.
Best advice I can give is tell your player up front: This is NOT a sandbox game, this is a story based game with freedom to choose which faction/s you align with. Let the player know they will be playing the adventure out with the Two questions to be aswered as they progress through the story: What should be done about the Delerium? Who should sit on the Throne of Drakkenheim? The whole adventure (as written) revolves around answering those questions.
I made the mistake of giving my players the impression that they could do this adventure by themselves and they ignored all the factions and got annoyed when the factions 'interfered ' with their adventures. Of course every DM will tweek the adventure to suit their players, but AS WRITTEN, The factions and answering those 2 questions are very necessary for a conclusion to the story.
Good luck! 😄👍
I haven't run it yet but maitaining the focus on those two questions seems really important. The players of my current campaign have lost focus of some of the overarching story and it has spiraled into dungeon crawling and monster slaying. That's partly on the material, but also on me and my players.. We are having fun, and it is less work for me, but I feel we are missing out on something that might have made for a richer experience. I wouldn't want to miss out on this in Drakkenheim
It's my second game I've ever DM'd it's pretty hard for me to keep track of everything going on sometimes, but I'm new to both DMing and DnD. I'm sure a more experienced DM would be fine running it.
Would you recommend renaming NPCs, factions, locations to avoid players looking them up?
I don't really have that problem but it's been an issue in a friend's campaign (not DoD)
I add NPCs and Monsters to shake things up and bring to life things I would like to see in the game. As far as the factions, they have very distinct traits and ideals so it would be difficult to hide which factions they really are. If a player wants to meta game there isn't much to do against it, they are ruining their own experience, just don't let it ruin the tables experience at the same time.
I think the solution to that kind of issue is an out of game conversation, as opposed to you/them as a DM trying to compensate for it. Players certainly have that ability, but it's not a good trait and a frank and open conversation might be all that is needed. If not, that player ight not be a good fit for the group or the DM specifically. As already mentioned you can change things, and in this campaign especially you should, but if you have a player who's going to go read the book while you are running it that's kinda like cheating and really shouldn't be happening.
If you have run other modules before then you will probably find this one well structured and "easy" in that regard. The combat can be difficult or easy, personally I made mine hard for most of the campaign because that's the setting. The challenge comes from understanding the motivations of the various factions and RPing them in ways that make sense and make them different, and adapting to player choices. If you have done that type of thing before it wouldn't be hard, but if you haven't if might be challenging. Also even having DMed for 7 players I think that would be too many in this campaign, I'm running 5 and IMO it's too many, but you do you.
What makes it harder specifically in this module to have 7 players? Is it the different relations that the party can have to the factions? Different views in the party could cause a clash?
Yes, that is definitely part of it. If you have one guy join the Falling Fire and two who are with the Silver order and two more Amethyst Academy who all hate each other then now you have a lot of potential player conflict, but what you want if *faction* conflict. The party should be united, which is why session zero requires them to create connections and bonds between each other, and then manage the faction conflict as a group, not all go their own way. This leads to you having to change the factions personalities to make the story work, such as letting the Silver Order and Academy work together, which they absolutely wouldn't except for maybe single, short-term goals. Drakkenheim is written to have a bunch of difficult, morally gray choices where there is no right answer, and where you *can't* get all the different groups to agree because that's how people are, just like real life.
Also, and this is more my opinion, Drakkenheim should be dangerous and there is not that much that can realistically threaten 7 players, even at low levels. You end up having to have huge battles with tons of creatures or buff those creatures way higher than normal, which leads to long, drawn out combat that takes hours or a very real risk of player death happening often. If you set that expectation and like that type of combat this can be fine, but we have had multiple sessions that were just random encounters and I think that gets boring when the story isn't progressing.
Moderate difficulty. It's very much a sand-box (but written so much better than the official WotC sandboxes), so it's going to require some challenge out of the gate. There's a LOT of page flipping in the book, so if you're so inclined you can print out (or save as Handouts) certain appendices like Contamination, Delerium, etc.
Ideally, you should try to arrange it so that you handle the "What do you want to do next?" at the ending of sessions (or sometime between sessions) so you are best prepared to run any individual location as opposed to trying to run one on the fly. Some of the details going on can be tricky to understand.
Be sure to read up on many of the monsters you'll be using before you use them, as their abilities can be pretty potent. This very much includes the variants of the standard monsters. For example, the Haze Husks are a clone of the standard zombie, but they *explode* when they reach 0 HP instead of doing the "I get knocked down/then get up again" routine of the latter.
Make sure the PCs understand they have a lot of agency in this adventure and choose where to go next. The first few levels are pretty much On Rails as a tutorial so they understand somewhat of what's going on, but it opens up after that.
So here is my take. It really depends on what you consider hard. DoD does an amazing job of creating interesting locations and fun combats. If map and combat design is hard for you, DoD does a lot of that heavy lifting.
Also, the locations are self contained. Sure the context of why you are in a location may change based on who sent the group, but the encounters and exploration remains the same. So no matter what the players standing is with the factions, the various locations remain relatively unchanged which is nice.
I would say the hardest part of the adventure is what happens outside of those quest locations. The faction interactions, the plotting, backstabbing, rewards, etc. There is some guidance but so much is left up to you. Knowing how to balance faction interactions so the party can eventually meet them all. Naturally working in jobs and quests the factions give them. If that sort of thing is difficult for you, then yea. DoD can be challenging. However if you enjoy that aspect, its super fun and rewarding.
I'm running DoD now, though I'm running it for a much smaller group. The adventure itself is sandboxy and has a lot of moving parts as others say, definitely meant for experienced DMs, but on the positive side, I haven't yet had to rework anything as much as I have for other adventures, while if you want to add something extra, there's plenty of room to do so. Its advanced, but well-written for a DM to run.
There's a few things I wish all adventures would do - the personality traits given to both individual NPCs and factions really help RP NPCs efficiently for example.
Sliding scale
Jumping in as a new DM this is campaign suicide
Once you are comfortable, have a few under your belts, it's really easy. It's well written, lays out the stakes and key players. With but a few seconds to think, regardless of what shenanigans my players pull, I know how each of the factions will feel about it etc
It's sandboxy enough to implement players into the plot/story while providing a method to reward them for doing so
I've run a few other published 5e modules, as far as I'm concerned, this is the gold standard for me, and Hasbro should be poaching the Ghostfiire Games/Dungeon Dudes for their teams
Not very if you're willing to unpack it properly. The encounters are a bit vague sometimes, you'll need to adjust their content to fit your party a bit more often than other modules, but usually you'd be wanting to ADD to or upgrade the creatures, so it's not a risk of TPK so much as being too easy sometimes.
DOD is not necessarily "easy" to DM because there are a lot of moving parts, and a lot of factions to keep track of. You can't pick it up and play it super easily, and you have to make sure your players are doing missions on level, if they head into the inner city when they are not high enough level its going to be a TPK.
That said there is a suggested structure and I spent time flushing it out so I knew what the party was doing before each game session, and I kind of had to put them on rails a little for planning purposes but there were also a lot of spontaneous things that could happen, and I needed to have some ready stats for those things too.
Some big things like big battles also need more flushing out so you don't go into a battle with hundreds of combatants without a plan of how to run it
Overall though DOD is super fun and very well done and highly recommended
It's hard, because it's a playground where players *might* go anywhere, so a lot of prep work is needed. And it wants you to introduce a few named NPCs for each faction + village + people in the city, but you don't want to overwhelm people by piling them all on them at once, so then you're second-guessing your pacing skills and...
It's a lot to manage.
It's a lot of up-front prep. Once you have a good understanding of the adventure, it runs itself. Start by understanding the factions and the story structure. Then, play reactively: present new hooks to your players, and follow-up on the things they've done.
For a new supplement, try my [Drakkenguide](https://www.reddit.com/r/dungeonsofdrakkenheim/comments/s0y6sw/drakkenheim_resurrection_master_table_of_contents/). Commentary, notes, expansions, and tips for every part of the adventure, 9 new adventure sites, and Appendices with new subclasses, magic items, spells, mutations, and arcane anomalies.
I think it is hard. Not for lack of resources, but for amount of content to juggle. The party can do a lot and you have to be prepared for anything. There’s also a ton of factions to manage. It’s definitely advanced.
DoD is somewhat sandbox'ish, which does add an element of difficulty. But it's so well structured and the areas very well defined that it's pretty easy for a sandbox style game. There are a lot of factions to manage, for sure. Again though, the dudes do a great job of giving each faction concrete goals and clear views on important elements of the campaign. You can introduce the factions over time.
I am not criticizing the campaign. But I think it is objectively a lot of work to run.
I agree with this. Five factions with their own NPC's and locations and strongholds, plus an entire city of shit to learn. >!Buckledown row is almost a city in itself. !!Why do the characters care about the scepter? Doesn't say. What is the scepter? Oh you'll find that buried in the appendix, instead of next to the description of the room it's in. !<
It's an awesome adventure, the material is really fucking cool and the sandbox style makes it easy for PC's to stay engaged. It's a bitch to run though. Once you figure it out it gets easier, but it's still a ton of prep time.
Yes, I have to a tremendous amount of prep because the PCs can choose to go a ton of different directions.
I've tried to make it a little easier on myself by occasionally presenting characters with choices and asking them to decide which path to choose *before* the next session. I don't think I could manage if I didn't.
>Why do the characters care about the scepter? Doesn't say. What is the scepter? This part is dependent on the three factions hiring the PCs to specifically recover the Scepter. However, my issue is that it doesn't specify if the NPCs give them a description of the Scepter. (also the image is of something Rod-sized but then says can be wielded like a quarterstaff). My PCs almost left with the Immovable Rod because the Queens Men claim it's the Scepter. Some of them had misgivings out of game because there was obviously a lot more to the Chapel that would be missed from essentially completing Encounter 1, but their characters wouldn't know that. I had to add in "Oh, the Silver Order provided you with this drawing/description of the scepter so you know that rod in the statue isn't it. I had a similar issue with the Hypnotic Eldritch Blossoms this past session. "They're often mistaken for Eldritch Lilies". Well, the scenario where you find them right before the Queen's Grotto could potentially be lethal (they charm anyone who fails the Saving Throw into entering the Contaminated water as well as tossing out Contamination themselves (on top of the fact the PCs likely have some Contamination already since this is in the Deep Haze) if the PCs don't quickly pick up on the "these are NOT the flowers you're looking for" and try to snag one or two before fleeing from the already formidable Shambling Mounds. Setting up a situation where the PCs are deliberately given a lethal misdirect that they wouldn't likely anticipate is almost Tomb of Horror-level shenanigans.
What to do with the scepter? Do the third option my players did. Inadvertently circumnavigate the scepter puzzle and toss it into a bag of holding before breaking the weight enchantment.
For the most part I would say it's in the medium to hard range DM. It can be tricky to balance with more than four players at the table. There are also a few spots that you need to add quite a bit to make work. The Inscrutable Tower is the biggest culprit of a lot going on, but lacking substance in the module. Gameplay is heavily impacted by the factions so if your group is the more beer and pretzels type that just wants to get in combat and ignore social interactions the game can bog down. That being said it is fun to play and DM. There's enough in the module that the combat oriented players can enjoy as well.
Thanks a lot for your input. Will most likely run it for 7 players, that love social interaction. I'll have to improve my voice acting haha
From experience, 7 players, especially if you’re a newer DM, will be incredibly difficult compared to normal. Pretty much every encounter will need to be rebalanced as well as social/combat encounters will take a LOT longer I would highly recommend splitting the groups 3/4 if possible however in the end it’s up to you. Just a word of warning
Thank you for the suggestion. I'm used to balancing 7 players. And for social encounters, you always have 3 or 4 characters that are more social than others but for sure will need to watch out for that.
If you’ve found it works out for you in the past then ignore me lol. Of course you can see how it goes. Best of luck!
One thing about running that many players is that the module encourages your PCs to have their own goals and personal quests and faction relationships, which might be a lot to handle/squeeze time in for seven players. This adventure really rewards smaller groups with lots of RP opportunity. That doesn't mean you can't make it work with 7, but you might have to cut some of that short and miss out on some of its potential.
I might try to find ways to pair characters together. Brother/Sister, things like that
Oh my. There are a lot of campaigns that can be run for a large group, but i do not think DoD is good for such a large group, for many reasons. Not that it will be 'hard' for you - it might be hard for 'them'. Although the material provided is mostly combat-focused, in practice the campaign puts a lot into politics between factions and the Party. Maybe your group is different to my groups though, and they would be able to create a coherent party
It's relatively easy to DM out of the book as each "adventure location" is described separately and it's pretty much a sandbox with no fixed "path or trail" through the connected adventures. As a DM, I'd just be sure to ask my players to give me a heads up where they want to go next so I can prepare. If you just sit down and try to play and see where the players go, it could be quite intimidating I think. The biggest piece of advice I would give is to try and be sure to hook your players into supporting one faction or another. My gang just ran around sandboxing and didn't really explore the "story" of the campaign much. They were more interested in killing monsters and gathering loot than helping to solve the problem (somehow and in some way.) It was still a great campaign, but lacked the special something to really tie it all together. As for resources, there are tons on this sub. In particular u/cordialgerm has done a lot of work. He has an index of his homebrew additions but I am not sure if it is up to date. [https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/6W2VX9YP1bos](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/6W2VX9YP1bos)
Oh thanks for the supplements. I'll check them out.
Yes I'm keeping that index up-to-date! I've finished my core Drakkenheim campaign and have moved to a "world of Drakkenheim" campaign set in the Eastern Vale now. So the stuff I'm working on now is expanded lore for various locations in the Eastern Vale
Awesome!! I love your work. Keep it coming! :)
My players just made it to the inner city for the first time and it’s been an absolute joy to DM. I love how the book is organized and structured. It’s been so much fun to DM and a breeze. Familiarizing yourself with the sections on the factions and exploration are essential. But you can get away with reading the sections for the locations your group is going to right before they get there. I don’t know what your experience level is with DMing, but I’d say it’s very open ended and being comfortable with improving a good bit is helpful. I haven’t used any supplements at all and am just running it as written. It doesn’t really need anything else in my opinion. My players have described their experiences with the campaign as “peak D&D” “challenging, exciting and terrifying” and “the most fun they’ve ever had playing D&D” and half the time I’m just running it as written or adapting on the fly. Knowing the factions and their objectives well makes this a lot easier to do. It’s honestly the most fun I’ve ever had DMing. I definitely recommend it.
Yeah, you can get away with doing the deep read on each section right before the PCs go into those locations on their next session. Maybe do a casual browse of some of the *likely* locations they could visit at the moment. In my response to this topic, I did recommend trying to set it up whenever possible so that the DM knows where the PCs intend to go before each session, as each location can typically last *at least* one session, if not 2-3. Of course, those tables that run marathon 8-hour sessions or whatever might have more problem with this.
The book is very well structured and the Dungeon Dudes have done a great job of supporting it with videos. It's easy to DM but challenging for the players.
Second this! It was the first campaign i have run to have a a PC death as well as an ending that was satisfying to players and DM.
Sweet thanks
I’m finding it quite fun to run. For my group once they hit level 5 the outer city was fairly trivial but there’s plenty to do inside the walls that they’ll find challenging. I haven’t had to tweak very much to have a great time so far.
I'm DMing this as a first time dm, my biggest complaints are in the book structure, art for important NPCs is rarely next to the actual NPC description or stat blocks, and the random tables were hard to locate at first. Other than those I've had nearly no issues.
I like the adventure a lot so far, but I think it's **quite** difficult to run. Reasons: You have a ton of NPCs, many of whom are really important. Do a bad job roleplaying a faction rep in Emberwood Village, for example, and your players will have a wrong impression of a faction, which will impact the entire rest of the adventure. It's very sandboxy, so it can be hard to predict where your players will go/do next, which makes it very difficult to prep. Frankly the book is not well-organized. I'm constantly searching for a piece of important info and finding it in a strange place -- or not finding it at all. Example: the first time my party went searching for delerium, I set the DC wrong, because the book has a certain DC listed for searching in the ruins in one page, but then a different harder DC for searching for delerium in particular on *the next page.* Not the sort of thing you want to be on two different pages. I've run into lots of little frustrations like that which make my job harder. Still really enjoyable to run. But certainly not easy. I have 40-ish years of experience as a DM and this book is really challenging me.
At first i thought that it is easy - the Locations are well prepared, and the NPC have good sections that explain their wants and methods - but after running 3 groups thorugh about 60-70% of the content - It's most definetelly not easy to run! The book is well written, and you need no additional material (outside of the stat-blocks that have not been supplied); maybe the battlemaps, but Dungeon Dudes have them in the shop. But i will give you more detail. WHY IS IT EASY? - The factions are unique, clearly defined. - There are suprisingly little NPC for each faction to remember. - The locations are already prepared, and they are prepared well. - Plot hooks for locations are provided, and make sense. WHY IS IT HARD? - The campaign can be LETHAL. There are a LOT of deadly encounters, the enviroment itself is really dangerous. And this is not the type of campaign that will work well when the characters will be swapped - a character death in DoD might seriously halt the pace of the adventure. - There is a LOT to manage in and out of the game. A ton of politics between the factions; which have to be not only reactive to players, but also to each other, and pro-active in their goals in Drakkenheim. - Party conficts may easily arise over ideological decisions and alliances. - There is no 'linear path' through the campaign, for good and bad. There is no provided structure, although there is a 'logical' stream of events.
Best advice I can give is tell your player up front: This is NOT a sandbox game, this is a story based game with freedom to choose which faction/s you align with. Let the player know they will be playing the adventure out with the Two questions to be aswered as they progress through the story: What should be done about the Delerium? Who should sit on the Throne of Drakkenheim? The whole adventure (as written) revolves around answering those questions. I made the mistake of giving my players the impression that they could do this adventure by themselves and they ignored all the factions and got annoyed when the factions 'interfered ' with their adventures. Of course every DM will tweek the adventure to suit their players, but AS WRITTEN, The factions and answering those 2 questions are very necessary for a conclusion to the story. Good luck! 😄👍
I haven't run it yet but maitaining the focus on those two questions seems really important. The players of my current campaign have lost focus of some of the overarching story and it has spiraled into dungeon crawling and monster slaying. That's partly on the material, but also on me and my players.. We are having fun, and it is less work for me, but I feel we are missing out on something that might have made for a richer experience. I wouldn't want to miss out on this in Drakkenheim
It's my second game I've ever DM'd it's pretty hard for me to keep track of everything going on sometimes, but I'm new to both DMing and DnD. I'm sure a more experienced DM would be fine running it.
Would you recommend renaming NPCs, factions, locations to avoid players looking them up? I don't really have that problem but it's been an issue in a friend's campaign (not DoD)
I add NPCs and Monsters to shake things up and bring to life things I would like to see in the game. As far as the factions, they have very distinct traits and ideals so it would be difficult to hide which factions they really are. If a player wants to meta game there isn't much to do against it, they are ruining their own experience, just don't let it ruin the tables experience at the same time.
Good call!
I think the solution to that kind of issue is an out of game conversation, as opposed to you/them as a DM trying to compensate for it. Players certainly have that ability, but it's not a good trait and a frank and open conversation might be all that is needed. If not, that player ight not be a good fit for the group or the DM specifically. As already mentioned you can change things, and in this campaign especially you should, but if you have a player who's going to go read the book while you are running it that's kinda like cheating and really shouldn't be happening.
If you have run other modules before then you will probably find this one well structured and "easy" in that regard. The combat can be difficult or easy, personally I made mine hard for most of the campaign because that's the setting. The challenge comes from understanding the motivations of the various factions and RPing them in ways that make sense and make them different, and adapting to player choices. If you have done that type of thing before it wouldn't be hard, but if you haven't if might be challenging. Also even having DMed for 7 players I think that would be too many in this campaign, I'm running 5 and IMO it's too many, but you do you.
What makes it harder specifically in this module to have 7 players? Is it the different relations that the party can have to the factions? Different views in the party could cause a clash?
Yes, that is definitely part of it. If you have one guy join the Falling Fire and two who are with the Silver order and two more Amethyst Academy who all hate each other then now you have a lot of potential player conflict, but what you want if *faction* conflict. The party should be united, which is why session zero requires them to create connections and bonds between each other, and then manage the faction conflict as a group, not all go their own way. This leads to you having to change the factions personalities to make the story work, such as letting the Silver Order and Academy work together, which they absolutely wouldn't except for maybe single, short-term goals. Drakkenheim is written to have a bunch of difficult, morally gray choices where there is no right answer, and where you *can't* get all the different groups to agree because that's how people are, just like real life. Also, and this is more my opinion, Drakkenheim should be dangerous and there is not that much that can realistically threaten 7 players, even at low levels. You end up having to have huge battles with tons of creatures or buff those creatures way higher than normal, which leads to long, drawn out combat that takes hours or a very real risk of player death happening often. If you set that expectation and like that type of combat this can be fine, but we have had multiple sessions that were just random encounters and I think that gets boring when the story isn't progressing.
Moderate difficulty. It's very much a sand-box (but written so much better than the official WotC sandboxes), so it's going to require some challenge out of the gate. There's a LOT of page flipping in the book, so if you're so inclined you can print out (or save as Handouts) certain appendices like Contamination, Delerium, etc. Ideally, you should try to arrange it so that you handle the "What do you want to do next?" at the ending of sessions (or sometime between sessions) so you are best prepared to run any individual location as opposed to trying to run one on the fly. Some of the details going on can be tricky to understand. Be sure to read up on many of the monsters you'll be using before you use them, as their abilities can be pretty potent. This very much includes the variants of the standard monsters. For example, the Haze Husks are a clone of the standard zombie, but they *explode* when they reach 0 HP instead of doing the "I get knocked down/then get up again" routine of the latter. Make sure the PCs understand they have a lot of agency in this adventure and choose where to go next. The first few levels are pretty much On Rails as a tutorial so they understand somewhat of what's going on, but it opens up after that.
So here is my take. It really depends on what you consider hard. DoD does an amazing job of creating interesting locations and fun combats. If map and combat design is hard for you, DoD does a lot of that heavy lifting. Also, the locations are self contained. Sure the context of why you are in a location may change based on who sent the group, but the encounters and exploration remains the same. So no matter what the players standing is with the factions, the various locations remain relatively unchanged which is nice. I would say the hardest part of the adventure is what happens outside of those quest locations. The faction interactions, the plotting, backstabbing, rewards, etc. There is some guidance but so much is left up to you. Knowing how to balance faction interactions so the party can eventually meet them all. Naturally working in jobs and quests the factions give them. If that sort of thing is difficult for you, then yea. DoD can be challenging. However if you enjoy that aspect, its super fun and rewarding.
I'm running DoD now, though I'm running it for a much smaller group. The adventure itself is sandboxy and has a lot of moving parts as others say, definitely meant for experienced DMs, but on the positive side, I haven't yet had to rework anything as much as I have for other adventures, while if you want to add something extra, there's plenty of room to do so. Its advanced, but well-written for a DM to run. There's a few things I wish all adventures would do - the personality traits given to both individual NPCs and factions really help RP NPCs efficiently for example.
Sliding scale Jumping in as a new DM this is campaign suicide Once you are comfortable, have a few under your belts, it's really easy. It's well written, lays out the stakes and key players. With but a few seconds to think, regardless of what shenanigans my players pull, I know how each of the factions will feel about it etc It's sandboxy enough to implement players into the plot/story while providing a method to reward them for doing so I've run a few other published 5e modules, as far as I'm concerned, this is the gold standard for me, and Hasbro should be poaching the Ghostfiire Games/Dungeon Dudes for their teams
Not very if you're willing to unpack it properly. The encounters are a bit vague sometimes, you'll need to adjust their content to fit your party a bit more often than other modules, but usually you'd be wanting to ADD to or upgrade the creatures, so it's not a risk of TPK so much as being too easy sometimes.
DOD is not necessarily "easy" to DM because there are a lot of moving parts, and a lot of factions to keep track of. You can't pick it up and play it super easily, and you have to make sure your players are doing missions on level, if they head into the inner city when they are not high enough level its going to be a TPK. That said there is a suggested structure and I spent time flushing it out so I knew what the party was doing before each game session, and I kind of had to put them on rails a little for planning purposes but there were also a lot of spontaneous things that could happen, and I needed to have some ready stats for those things too. Some big things like big battles also need more flushing out so you don't go into a battle with hundreds of combatants without a plan of how to run it Overall though DOD is super fun and very well done and highly recommended
It's hard, because it's a playground where players *might* go anywhere, so a lot of prep work is needed. And it wants you to introduce a few named NPCs for each faction + village + people in the city, but you don't want to overwhelm people by piling them all on them at once, so then you're second-guessing your pacing skills and... It's a lot to manage.
It's a lot of up-front prep. Once you have a good understanding of the adventure, it runs itself. Start by understanding the factions and the story structure. Then, play reactively: present new hooks to your players, and follow-up on the things they've done. For a new supplement, try my [Drakkenguide](https://www.reddit.com/r/dungeonsofdrakkenheim/comments/s0y6sw/drakkenheim_resurrection_master_table_of_contents/). Commentary, notes, expansions, and tips for every part of the adventure, 9 new adventure sites, and Appendices with new subclasses, magic items, spells, mutations, and arcane anomalies.