It’s time for the big finale, but the players just called Elminster and now an NPC is enjoying the end of the story. How did it all go so wrong? And how can we fix it?
After a long hiatus, the Alexandrian Youtube channel is back in action. Last week I filmed raw footage for a dozen new videos and I have a new editor working on the videos now. If all goes well, we’ll have new videos every week (plus a few new surprises, too!).
Good gaming! I’ll see you at the table!
SPOILERS FOR DESCENT INTO AVERNUS
Descent Into Avernus begins by having the PCs stand around doing nothing while the GM describes an NPC doing awesome stuff.
It then proceeds to “if they don’t do what you tell them to do, the NPCs automatically find them and kill them.”
It’s not an auspicious start.
EVERYBODY INTO THE HANDBASKET!
Although titled Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus, this adventure has very little to do with Baldur’s Gate.
It does begin in the city, however, with Baldur’s Gate being overrun by refugees from Elturel, a city further up the River Chionthar which has mysteriously vanished from the face of Toril. The PCs will spend a couple of days investigating Zarielite cultists in the city, discovering that they may have something do with Elturel’s disappearance. They will then be sent to Candlekeep to research an infernal puzzlebox they’ve recovered during their investigation, and Baldur’s Gate is never seen again.
A scholar at Candlekeep opens the infernal puzzlebox for them, revealing that Elturel has been taken to Hell as the result of a pact signed between the High Observer of Elturel and Zariel, the Archduchess of Avernus. The PCs are then sent to a different wizard, further down the road from Candlekeep, who can take them to Hell.
Arriving in Hell, they discover that Elturel is floating above the hellish plains of Avernus and slowly sinking into the River Styx. Jumping through a number of hoops, with NPCs sending them hither-and-yon, they eventually encounter an NPC who tells them that he’s had a vision from the god Torm, and the PCs are supposed to go forth and find the Sword of Zariel if they want to save the city.
So where is the Sword of Zariel?
Well, back in Candlekeep they were also introduced to a small, golden, flying elephant (technically an angelic being known as a hollyphant) named Lulu. Lulu came with them to Hell and it turns out she used to be Zariel’s warmount, but she’s lost all of her memories. She does remember one thing, though: She was at a place called Fort Knucklebones, and she met a couple of kenku there.
So the PCs leave Elturel and journey across Avernus to Fort Knucklebones. It turns out the kenku don’t know anything, but by a stroke of luck the hag who runs Fort Knucklebones has a machine that can restore Lulu’s lost memories. So Lulu gets strapped into the machine, she recovers her memories, and remembers where the Sword is!
… or, at least, that’s what Descent Into Avernus claims will happen. We’ll come back to this, but the reality is that Lulu has no idea where the Sword. Fortunately the PCs can jump through some more hoops and eventually claim it.
With the Sword in hand, they can confront Zariel and either redeem her, make a deal with her, or decide to join her. The last of these is rather unlikely (although good show to the book for considering the possibility), while either of the former two result in Elturel being saved and the PCs escaping from Hell triumphant!
THE REST OF THE BOOK
While the adventure may not be overly concerned with Baldur’s Gate, the same is not strictly true for the book. About fifty pages are given over to the Baldur’s Gate Gazetteer, detailing the city as it exists in 1492 DR. (Oddly, the campaign itself is described as taking place two years later in 1494 DR. There have been some recent indications that the campaign is canonically being moved back to 1492 DR in order to maintain continuity with Baldur’s Gate III… so we’ll just mark this down as “thoroughly confused.”)
The Gazetteer itself is quite serviceable, although much like the gazetteer of Waterdeep found in Dragon Heist, it pales in comparison to previous sourcebooks detailing the city. It notably includes a number of player-facing options, including customized backgrounds for characters from Baldur’s Gate.
The oddity here is that the discordance between the focus of the background material and the actual content of the campaign (in which the PCs are likely to only spend 48 or maybe 72 hours in Baldur’s Gate) renders the gazetteer largely useless for anyone actually running Descent Into Avernus.
It can also actively mislead DMs and put them on a bad footing. For example, the gazetteer includes a section on Dark Secrets:
During character creation, once players have developed their characters, they should collectively choose a dark secret shared by the entire party. Every member of the party is entangled in this dark secret, regardless of how new they are to the city or how incorruptible their morals. Maybe they’re merely witnesses, maybe they’re covering for a friend’s crimes, or maybe they’re deep in denial. Regardless, in the eyes of the law, they’re guilty. Each dark secret shares a number of elements. Players should work with you, the DM, to customize these particulars to the group.
These dark secrets include Conspiracy, Murder, Theft, and a Failed Coup. Each type of secret has multiple versions, and also details the PCs’ roles in the secret, the consequences of what they did, and who in Baldur’s Gate knows their secret.
This is a really cool concept and, for any campaign set in Baldur’s Gate, it’s a fantastic way of giving the PCs deep and meaningful ties to the city (and to each other).
The problem, of course, is that Descent Into Avenus ISN’T set in Baldur’s Gate.
So you get the players invested in these connections to Baldur’s Gate and lay down the seeds of what seems like an epic campaign. (For example, you want to overthrow the patriars and lead an egalitarian revolution.) Then, after just a couple sessions, the PCs blow town and leave all that stuff just dangling in the wind.
And some Dark Secrets are completely incompatible with the campaign. For example, the primary campaign hook is the PCs getting hired by the Flaming Fist to investigate some cult-related murders. One of the Dark Secrets is, “The Flaming Fist is corrupt. You turned against your commanding officer, seeking to take the Fist in a new direction. Now you’re branded a traitor.”
AMAZING IDEAS, FAILED EXECUTION
Unfortunately, a lot of Descent Into Avernus is like this: There’ll be an amazing idea, incredibly cool concept, or breathtaking revelation, but then the execution of that idea will be broken or simply lackluster.
For example:
DIA: Do you want to play MAD MAX IN HELL with infernal muscle cars fueled by the souls of the damned?
Me: Fuck yes, I do!
DIA: Just kidding. We’re not doing that.
Me: …
These infernal war machines were actually hyped quite a bit in the pre-launch marketing for Descent Into Avernus. In the book itself, there are two and a half pages which are the introduction to a Warlords of the Avernian Wastelands campaign. It is straight up cooler than anything else in the entire book.
And then it just… vanishes.
There are a couple of scenes where an infernal motorcycle is parked nearby because that’s how an NPC showed up.
That’s it.
It’s really weird.
My best guess is that this was a really cool idea that somebody had really late in the development of the book and they just couldn’t integrate it?
But maybe not. Because, like I said, this is kind of a pervasive problem for the book.
DIA: Do you want to explore HELL ITSELF ON THE WAR-TORN PLAINS OF AVERNUS?
Me: Fuck yes, I do!
DIA: Just kidding. We’re not doing that.
Me: … stahp.
The book frequently talks about how the PCs are going to be “exploring” Avernus. But then it goes out of its way to stop them from doing that in almost every way possible.
For example, it’s impossible to make a map of Avernus. Apparently the Lawful Evil plane of Avernus is so chaotic and ever-shifting that anyone trying to map it goes insane.
(This is, it should be noted, something that was made up specifically for this adventure. It not only doesn’t make sense — read my lips: Lawful — it explicitly contradicts preexisting lore.)
The reason they don’t want you making a map is because navigation is meaningless. If you want to go somewhere, it’s completely random whether you get there or not:
Using the map to chart a course from one location to another is unreliable at best… When charting a course through Avernus, ask the player whose character is overseeing navigation to roll two dice:
- Roll 2d4 if the characters are traveling to an unvisited destination marked on their map.
- Roll 2d8 if the characters are returning to a destination they’ve visited previously.
- Roll 2d10 if a native guide is leading the characters to their destination.
If the rolls of both dice don’t match, the characters arrive at their destination as intended. If the dice match, they wind up somewhere else: pick one of the other locations.
Despite maps being both impossible and useless, the adventure nevertheless gives the players a poster map. It’s unlabeled and, again, the spatial relationships it depicts don’t actually exist, so it’s utterly useless for literally anything you might actually use a map for. But it is very pretty, so it has that going for it.
(Astonishingly, neither Elturel nor Fort Knucklebones — the two places the PCs would start navigating from — are depicted on the map. The DM is told that they can put them anywhere on the map they want, but — once again! — this is pointless and has no meaning.)
The one thing the map does do is magically talk to the PCs: Every time they go somewhere, the map tells them exactly what it is and where they are before they have a chance to explore and find out.
“Okay, we’ve made sure it’s impossible to run an exploration scenario on Avernus.”
“But what if the players nevertheless accidentally discover something for themselves and feel a momentary frisson of delight at exploring the unknown?”
“Oh shit! We gotta put a stop to that!”
Without actually seeing it in the book, I think it’s difficult to really believe the lengths Descent Into Avernus goes to in order to make sure that the players absolutely cannot explore Avernus in any possible way.
Even the smaller cool ideas in the book are often mucked up. For example, there’s a Zarielite cultist in the first part of the adventure whose dying words are, “See you in Hell!”
Which is so goddamn clever, right? Because the PCs are going to go to Hell later on and then — presto! — there she is.
… she doesn’t show up in Hell.
THE WEIRD RAILROAD
DIA: Do you want to play a nice game of CHOOSE. THAT. RAILROAD?!
Me: Fuck no!
DIA: All aboard! Let’s GO!
Me: Goddammit.
The problem with shouting, “It’s time to explore Avernus!” but then blocking any and all attempts to actually explore Avernus is that you’ll need some other mechanism to move the campaign forward. Descent Into Avernus chooses to do this by presenting the players with the choice of two different railroads they can follow.
It’s difficult to explain how poorly this is done.
We start with Lulu getting her memories back. She wakes up from the procedure and shouts, “The sword! The sword! I know where it is!”
Spoiler Alert: She doesn’t.
Instead, her “dreams lead the characters on a wild goose chase to Haruman’s Hill.”
There are a couple problems with this. First, there’s no clear reason given for why Lulu thinks Haruman’s Hill is where the Sword of Zariel is. Second, given the timeline presented in the book, it’s fairly clear that Haruman’s Hill did not and could not exist when Lulu was in Avernus.
But, OK. Fine. This thing that makes no sense happens.
So the PCs go adventuring at Haruman’s Hill for a little while, they figure out that Lulu took them to the wrong place, and then Lulu says: “I’m so sorry! My memory is a little hazier than I thought! Having pondered my dreams further, I think there are two sites in Avernus that are important to finding the sword! Choose between a place where demons manifest and one where demons are destroyed.”
But, once again, there’s no reason given for why Lulu thinks either of these locations have anything to do with the Sword of Zariel.
And that’s because they don’t.
They have nothing to do with the Sword. They have nothing to do with Lulu’s memories. There is absolutely no reason for Lulu to say that the PCs should go there. And if you do go to either location, it becomes immediately and abundantly clear that this is the case.
Despite Lulu telling the PCs to go to the wrong place and then immediately doing it again, the book assumes that the PCs will just continue blithely along the “path” they’ve “chosen,” even though there’s no discernible reason for them to do so.
This is not the only example of weird scenario structures in Descent Into Avernus. At the beginning of the campaign, for example, the PCs have followed a lead to the Dungeon of the Dead Three. In order to the adventure to continue, they have to speak with a specific NPC. But:
Assuming the PCs agree to help this guy for some reason (and, remember, they MUST do this in order for the adventure to continue), he tells them that they should kidnap his brother so that they can use him as leverage while negotiating with their mother.
But negotiating with their mother to do… what?
Descent Into Avernus doesn’t seem to know. And promptly forgets the idea except to briefly tell you it definitely won’t work (because their mother will “happily watch any of her sons die before consenting to ransom demands”).
The failure of the scheme doesn’t bother me. (“Go ahead and kill him, I don’t care,” is a perfectly legitimate moment and builds pretty consistently from her known relationship with her kids.) What bothers me is that there doesn’t seem to BE a scheme.
The PCs are, once again, told to do a thing, but given no coherent reason for doing it.
This happens again when an NPC tells them they should teleport to Hell and save Elturel. They’re 5th level characters who have no special abilities, knowledge, or resources teleporting to a city which has been established to be filled with high level arcanists, clerics, and warriors who obviously haven’t solved the problem. What are they supposed to do, exactly? And why does that make more sense than investigating the Elturel crater or seeking a cure for Lulu’s amnesia?
Later Lulu tells them that she remembers meeting some kenku at Fort Knucklebones. Maybe they’ll know about her lost memories?
So the PCs go to Fort Knucklebones, they meet the kenku, and the adventure says, “The kenku Chukka and Clonk instantly recognize Lulu, since they’ve met her previously.”
And then… nothing. Literally nothing. The kenku remembering Lulu is never mentioned again.
What is going on here?
It’s a cargo cult.
THE CARGO CULT
Let’s take one step back: RPG adventures are built using scenario structures. A dungeoncrawl is one type of scenario structure. A mystery is another. There are many others, including things like heists, hexcrawls, raids, etc.
A significant problem in RPG design is that these scenario structures aren’t really talked about. DMs and even designers just kind of pick them up (often imperfectly) by osmosis. Most of them are limited to just dungeoncrawls, mysteries, and railroading.
What’s happened with Descent Into Avernus is that the designers have sort of flailed their way into a malformed scenario structure which consists of, “An NPC tells the PCs where to go and then the PCs go to there.”
Once you realize that, you can’t unsee it: The entire campaign is just that one structure repeated infinitely. An NPC tells you where to go, you go there, and you find another NPC who tells you where to go.
Because this malformed structure is apparently the only thing they have, it seems to have become a kind of cargo cult for them: They know that NPC A has to give some sort of “explanation” for why the PCs need to go to NPC B, but they don’t actually care what that explanation is.
And they assume the players won’t care either. The presumption is that the players are onboard and the words coming out of the NPC’s mouth are just, “Blah blah blah Vanthampur Villa blah blah blah.”
So why do they put essential encounters behind secret doors? Because if the PCs haven’t found the NPC to tell them where to go next, clearly the players will know to keep looking until they find them!
Why are the PCs told to go talk to people without being given any coherent reason for doing so? Because the reason is irrelevant. It’s just white noise around the person’s name.
Why does the adventure assume the PCs will plane shift to Hell without having any reason to do so? Because an NPC told them to!
Why doesn’t the adventure tell you what the kenku remember about Lulu? Because the writers don’t care. “The kenku might remember Lulu” was just the blah-blah-blah dropped around “Fort Knucklebones.” Once the kenku tell the PCs that they should “blah blah blah talk to Mad Maggie blah blah blah,” the writers assume that you will no longer care about the previous blah blah blah.
It’s a cargo cult because the designers have seen PCs talking to an NPC and then going where that NPC tells them to go. But this interaction has become ritualistic. The designers repeat the form, but with none of its semantic content. It’s a hollow shell lacking meaning and seemingly ludicrous to anyone seeking to rationally understand it.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
So what is Descent Into Avernus, exactly?
First, it’s a pretty good gazetteer for Baldur’s Gate.
Second, it’s a big ol’ bundle of cool concepts studded with memorable moments, evocative lore, and epic stakes.
Along with a gaggle of vivid dungeons crammed with flavor and featuring unique gimmicks (sewer temples, ghost prisons for damned souls, floating hellwasp nests, a crashed Avernian warship, etc.).
We should also not discount the huge cast of varied, larger than life characters (broken families, nefarious cultists, magical shields, maniacal scholars, proud leaders, pitiful victims).
Third, it’s a couple of pretty fantastic poster maps.
Unfortunately, all of this is wrapped up in a completely dysfunctional package. The intriguing characters and big ideas are hopelessly morassed in the broken logic of the campaign and crippled by a careless disregard for continuity. The cool set pieces are sapped of meaning, frequently broken by poor execution, and almost universally left as hollow disappointments of unrealized potential.
Would I recommend it?
Unfortunately, no. The amount work required to salvage Descent Into Avernus is, sadly, staggering in its scope. Despite its potential, there are simply so many better adventures out there that do not need to be completely revamped from the ground up to make them work that it’s impossible to say that you should spend your time grappling with this one.
(Unless, of course, some hopeless fool has already done a bunch of that work for you.)
Style: 4
Substance: 2
Story Creators: Adam Lee (lead), James Introcaso, Ari Levitch, Mike Mearls, Lysa Penrose, Christopher Perkins, Ben Petrisor, Matthew Sernett, Kate Welch, Richard Whitters, Shawn Wood
Story Consultants: Joe Manganiello, Jim Zub
Writers: Bill Benham, M.T. Black, Dan Dillon, Justin Donie, James J. Haeck, James Introcaso, Adam Lee, Chris Lindsay, Liane Mersiel, Shawn Merwin, Lysa Penrose, Christopher Perkins, F. Wesley Schneider, Amber Scott, James Sutter
Developers: Jeremy Crawford, Dan Dillon, Ben Petrisor, Kate Welch
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Cost: $49.95
Page Count: 256
A thousand years ago, we built twelve giant mecha to fight a cataclysmic war. We call them Thrones. Each was unique, a paragon of war…
Down the generations since the Great War, dynasties have formed, each drawing its legitimacy from the ownership of a surviving Throne. These titans are ancient weapons with grand legacies of battle and betrayal, but they are also symbols of dominance and entitlement. Possession of a Throne bestows wealth, power, authority over whole solar systems, and a seat on the Galactic Council.
That’s why you’re going to steal one.
Stealing the Throne is a storytelling game by Nick Bate. It is GM-less, and can be played by 3-5 players in 1-3 hours. (The game I played with four players lasted for one hour and fifteen minutes.)
The core concept of the game is evocatively summarized above, and your reaction to it probably makes this review superfluous: If stealing a giant mecha in a heist with galactic stakes makes you say, “Hell, yeah!” then you should buy this game, play this game, and love this game.
Taking a closer look, we’ll discover that the game is broken down into four phases:
In Building the Throne, the players will follow a simple collaborative process that will establish the scene of the crime (where the heist will take place), the history of the Throne, the look of the Throne, and the major subsystems which define the Throne’s capabilities.
You will also, in a step whose importance may initially slip by you, establish at least three Reasons why you want or need to steal the Throne.
During the Heist, each round of play begins with a player volunteering to be the Throne — a GM-like figure who gets things rolling by establishing the next seeming insurmountable challenge in the Heist. Once the challenge has been established, a different player will take on the role of the Thief by saying, “This is what I’m here for. I’m ________, and I’m the master of ________.”
In creating your Thief, you can specify any area of expertise you can imagine, but examples include cracking impossible locks, precision timing, and forbidden technology. The Throne and Thief roleplay through the challenge, eventually reaching the Pivotal Moment in which you determine the outcome of the challenge.
The Pivotal Moment is fail-forward, with a very clever mechanic that results in one of four results:
In play, this process is tense, exciting, and has just the right amount of mechanical richness wed to narrative truth to relentlessly push your story right to the edge.
Each player gets one turn being the Thief and one turn being the Throne, at which point the Heist draws to a close and the Throne is seized!
But just because you’ve taken control of Throne, doesn’t mean you’ve managed to escape. In the Getaway, players have the opportunity to power up the Throne and then attempt their escape. (This is also when all sudden-yet-inevitable betrayals will play out with, in my experience, usually devastatingly amazing results.)
If any of the Thieves manage to survive the Getaway, then the Finale wraps things up. A secret vote is conducted as everyone indicates what Reason for stealing the throne is obviously the most important and must be pursued first. The almost unavoidable disputes which result inform a brief epilogue. (An alternative structure is given for epiloguing a scenario in which only one Thief escapes.)
The only other thing to mention here is that the rulebook includes several playsets, each describing a Throne. These playsets are optional, but provide a little extra structure and a fodder of creative ideas that can subtly shape and inform play in order to create unique experiences. I’m looking forward to experimenting with these playsets in the future.
There is only thing I would change about Stealing the Throne: As written, you only utter your introductory statement (“I’m ________, and I’m the master of ________.”) when it’s your turn as the Thief. I would tweak this to say that you should utter the introductory statement at whatever point your Thief makes themselves known in the narrative (including when they’re offering assistance during another Thief’s turn).
I mention this mostly because I think this minor (and only!) tweak is actually the strongest indication of just how great Stealing the Throne is. It’s smooth, it’s fast, and it’s satisfying.
(The speed of gameplay here should not be ignored: Being able to pick up a storytelling game and have an experience this rich in just over an hour is phenomenal. My guess is a typical session will be about 90 minutes long, which makes the game incredibly appealing as something you can pick up and play more or less on a whim. Or as a deeply rewarding filler on boardgame night.)
Stealing the Throne will be entering my gaming rotation. I think it should enter yours.
Style: 4
Substance: 4
Author: Nick Bate
Publisher: ickbat.itch.io
Price: $10.00
Page Count: 40
Disclaimer: I have worked with Nick Bate previously, having hired him to work on Infinity, Over the Edge, and Feng Shui.
Thanks to Heather, Erik, and Allen for playing this one with me.
We’ve analyzed the revelation lists of Storm King’s Thunder and we’ve revised those revelation lists by adding and enhancing clues throughout the campaign.
Before we move on, I want to talk for a moment about the fact that what we’ve seen so far is not what my typical revelation list looks like. In the middle of a session, of course, you don’t want to have to remember that there’s a clue on the revelation list that you need to inject into a particular scene or location. You want that information to be at your fingertips and ready to go.
So although we’ve been detailing what our revised clues will be on the Remix’s revelation lists, what I would do in actual practice is:
The revelation lists that we’ve presented here in the Remix, therefore, are best thought of as worksheets or to-do lists. The expectation here is that you’ll add this material to your prep notes, develop it where necessary, and distill a final revelation list for use in actual play (that isn’t bloated with the now extraneous details).
MAKING THE REVELATION LIST
Let’s consider the revelation list for Deadstone Cleft. In Part 3B of the Remix, our worksheet list for this revelation looked like this:
DEADSTONE CLEFT – CANYON OF THE STONE GIANTS
- Uthgardt Blessings (Stone Stand). Members of the Blue Bear tribe, which has recently formed an alliance with Kayalithica of Deadstone Cleft, seek blessings from the Grandfather Oak at Stone Stand for their efforts. They do so by describing their endeavor on the tanned hide of a bear, which is then tied with blue gut-string in ceremonial knots and left within the clefts between the old oak’s roots. One of these was left by Kriga Moonmusk (p. 66) seeking blessing for her alliance with Kayalithica. The document includes a reference to Deadstone Cleft as Kayalithica’s fortress. (The PCs should be able to make inquiries to identify the location of Deadstone Cleft.)
- Silixia (Grayvale), p. 88. This young brass dragon will point the PCs towards Deadstone Cleft.
- Grudd Haug – Area 13: Prisoner. Gryhawk, the Uthgardt prisoner here, is from the Blue Bear tribe (instead of the Elk tribe). He was a spy sent by Kayalithica, but was captured by the giants. If freed, he will thank the PCs (as described on p. 144) and tell them that he is certain they will also have the thanks of the greater giants that he serves when he returns to Deadstone Cleft.
- Svardborg – Area 1G: Throne Room. Jarl Storvald has correspondence from Kayalithica, in which she proposes, with the Ordning dissolved, an alliance between them — one in which her giants will “tear apart all that the little ones have built, restoring Ostoria to its glory” under her rule, while Storvald’s reavers will “rule the seas.” Her letter notes that she has traveled to consult the oracles of Deadstone Cleft in the Graypeak Mountains, and it has suggested that the All-Father and fortune alike would smile on such an alliance.
- Questioning/Backtracking Giants. Grayvale Run (p. 88), Llorkh (p. 96), Orlbar (Zorkh, p. 103). The origins of the giants in Grayvale Run and Llorkh are not indicated in the text, but are from Deadstone Cleft.
- Eye of the All-Father, p. 151. Oracle gives them directions.
Ultimately, in my prep notes for the campaign this revelation list would look like this:
DEADSTONE CLEFT – CANYON OF THE STONE GIANTS
- Uthgardt Blessings (Stone Stand)
- Interrogating Silixia (Grayvale), p. 88.
- Uthgardt Prisoner (Grudd Haug, Area 13)
- Kayalthica’s Letter to Jarl Storvald (Svardborg, Area 1G)
- Questioning/Backtracking Giants. Grayvale Run (p. 88), Llorkh (p. 96), Orlbar (Zorkh, p. 103).
- Directions of the Eye of the All-Father, p. 151.
It’s not difficult, obviously, to see the rather radical difference between these two lists, and how much easier it would be to reference and use the latter during play. (For more details on this, check out Using Revelation Lists.)
ADDING THE CLUES
In How to Prep a Module, I discuss how I prepare my notes for a published adventure like this. The short version is that, rather than rewriting entire locations, my notes usually consist of a diff doc (which simply notates what changes or new elements are added to the published key).
For example, Area 13 of Grudd Haug (STK, p. 144) reads:
13. PRISON
In the area north of the pigpen, rivulets of water trickle down the north wall and carve shallow ruts in the floor as they snake their way across the room and through openings in the opposite wall. Five wooden cages are arranged about the room. Their doors are situated on top, with heavy rocks placed on them. A creature can use an action to attempt a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) check to knock off a rock or open a cage door that has a rock pressing down on it. The sound of a rock hitting the cave floor alerts the guards in this area.
Three of the five cages contain prisoners destined for Guh’s gullet. Two bugbears guard the prisoners. These bugbears can’t be surprised once the alarm sounds or if they hear combat in area 12.
PRISONERS
Unless otherwise noted, all the adult prisoners are commoners. Child prisoners are unarmed noncombatants with AC 10 and 2 hit points each.
One cage contains human farmers: a father, a mother, and their three children (a teenage girl and two boys).
A second cage holds an unarmed tribal warrior of the Elk tribe, Gryhawk (CN male Uthgardt human). He fights alongside his liberators. If he makes it out of Grudd Haug, he bites the palm of his hand and tries to smear his blood on the faces of those who freed him. Anyone who succeeds on a DC 13 Intelligence (Religion) check realizes that this gesture is a sign of gratitude. Gryhawk leaves to return to his tribe whether the characters accept his gratitude or not.
A third cage holds an unarmed prisoner: Emerald Enclave member Ghalvin Dragonmoor (CG male half-elf scout). If freed, he asks the characters to escort him to Goldenfields, so that he can report to the Abbot what he has seen.
In my prep notes I would simply write:
AREA 13 – PRISON
Gryhawk: Blue Bear tribe member.
- Spy sent by Kayalithica.
- If freed, tells PCs that he is certain they will also have the thanks of the greater giants that he serves when he returns to Deadstone Cleft.
And that’s it. Super simple.
When running adventures like this, my procedure is simply to check my prep notes first to see if there are any modifications to an area and then refer to the printed adventure. (This means that I have the changes I need to make in mind as I scan the text, and can easily apply them as I go.)
On rare occasions, an area or scene may need to be so completely redesigned that it’s easier to just rewrite the whole thing. If that’s the case, I indicate this in my prep notes (with a tag like [REVISED]) and then I know I can just ignore the printed adventure entirely for this bit.
I also recommend paying attention to opportunities to prep physical props. Kayalithica’s letter to Jarl Storvald is a perfect example of this: Actually writing out the letter will take a little extra effort, but it will be a big value-add for the campaign and pay dividends as the PCs explore the sprawling twists and turns of Storm King’s Thunder.
Techniques like the Three Clue Rule and node-based scenario design can make mystery and conspiracy scenarios a joy to run and play with confidence. These structures are designed to make sure that the players get the information they need to understand complicated enigmatic situations, while also being empowered to make meaningful choices about what they want to do.
But what happens if they forget they have the information?
This generally isn’t a problem in a short scenario or one-shot, but it can be easy to lose track of stuff between sessions. And if a campaign is focused on unraveling a massive conspiracy, the investigation might span months or even years of time in the real world.
Now the Grade-A solution for this is to have at least one player in your group who is engaged, enthused, and rigorously keeps detailed notes. They’ll backstop the rest of the group and make sure fine details don’t get missed.
But while there are things you can do to encourage or even create players like that, not all of us will be so blessed. And there are also a lot of reasons why it’s good to get as much of the group up to speed as possible.
I’ve previously talked about how one of the most potent tools in a GM’s arsenal is a simple question:
What are you planning to do next session?
Because it allows you to focus and target your prep with confidence.
But before asking that question at the end of a session, first ask the players to briefly summarize what they feel their current options are: What do they know? Where do they think they could take the investigation next?
THEN ask them what they want to do next time.
This is the best time to do this, obviously, because the game is still fresh in their minds and they’re engaged in the moment. Take notes on what they say. At the beginning of the next session, ask them to recap the previous session and use the notes of what they said to fill in the gaps.
The best way to do this is as a discussion: Prompt them to provide what they recall, then fill in the gaps as they come up with what their former selves said but they’ve forgotten.
There are a couple reasons for doing this. First, the act of summarizing what they know and what they plan to do at the end of the previous session will, all by itself, improve their recall in the next session. Second, it makes it less likely that you — biased by your own knowledge of what’s important and what the correct conclusions are — will unconsciously put your thumb on the scale when summarizing things for them.
If you make this procedure habitual, it also becomes increasingly likely that the players will start jotting down these notes themselves and possibly even reviewing them between sessions.
(You can prompt this a bit by initiating an e-mail discussion on this stuff a few days before the next session, although this does carry the risk that the players will change their minds about what they want to do next, possibly misfooting your prep.)
TAKING NOTES
Here’s something else to note. Take a look around the table: The players have pencils. They have characters sheets. You may be surprised by how often they don’t actually have any spare paper to actually take notes with!
Provide them with that material. Something I like to do is to buy the players some cheap (but ideally flavorful) pocket notebooks and hand them out in the first session. (For example, stamp TOP SECRET! on the cover for a spy game. Or print a map of the game world and paste it to the cover.) It’s a nice little campaign gift, and also sends a message that they’re going to want to take notes in this campaign!
Another technique you can use is to reward players who prepare campaign journals. (This both encourages note-taking and also creates a shared document that can be referenced.) With receptive players, you can lean into this and create rich bluebooking for the campaign. (I discuss bluebooking in more detail here.)
You can also bypass note-taking entirely by encoding essential clues into props: Letters, business cards, photographs, maps, lore books — whatever you’re comfortable executing. Putting the clue into a physical item that you hand to the players creates a permanent reference. They no longer need to remember the clue; they can pick it up and look at it again at any time.
