Behind the Screen - End of Chapter 1

Hello & Welcome!

We have finally reached the end of Chapter 1 in Rime of the Frostmaiden! If you've not yet caught up on all that has happened, please read the previous posts as this will give away many spoilers of what has happened so far.

And now that we are done, I wanted to take this opportunity to write about how it has been to DM this first chapter and my thoughts on the Adventure Book and what tweaks I decided to do. 

First off let me just say that I am glad that Adam and Stuart have been enjoying adventuring with Aldrick, Grom, Shayde, & Tor with the new Party Members Halfdann and Nemia joining in. Their characters and back stories are really integral for how the story has been developing. 

So first, regarding the Adventure Book. I have to say the book is written fairly well. But, the beauty of this game and for being the DM is that we can use the story as written as a framework and expand where necessary. And I do fancy myself as a bit of a story teller so I view the fact that the book does leave quite a few loose ends and undeveloped aspects in chapter 1 as an advantage / opportunity to spice things up.

As such, I think one of the great elements in the story book are the Character Secrets that are provided. They are a special set of extra background elements to infuse with the character's overall backgrounds to add an extra bit of storytelling fun to the campaign. 

We decided with Adam to allow him to select them himself. We thought this was best as initially it was just the two of us playing so there was not much point in terms of having secrets kept from different people sitting at the table and how that plays out. So instead, they were a vehicle for me to use to weave them into the story. Now that Stuart has joined us though the situation is a little different to where now there are two players. Ahem, actually, Stuart still hasn't selected his Secrets - I'll need to bug him about that!

So, with the secrets, I think if you have multiple people at the table, these are fun things to add a little extra fun to the interplay between the characters and the story development so I strongly recommend them. To be fair, some of the secrets are not so good or boring if I am being honest, so indeed, I would do as the book suggests and allow them to select a second time (or do as we did and allow them to pick one themselves, or in case Stuart doesn't actually pick ones for his characters, they will be assigned one - maybe some of the not so nice ones!). I think I'll definitely use this dynamic in future games - just come up with campaign appropriate options.

Speaking of secrets, we got to use one of them - Shayde's. This was a really fun secret to use (An NPC will be a past lover that will provide help to the players). This was a fun one for me to work into the story. Shayde was the obvious character to use - her mysterious past and Roguish nature really leant into this Secret. Which brings me to one of the main open points in the Adventure Book that I really wanted to expand on.

The book alludes to the Zhentarim taking a foothold in the Ten-Towns and they provide a few hooks where some of the NPC's are part of this group. They had already dealt with Prudence and so that was useful to plant the seeds that the Zhentarim were a side threat in the story. So I wanted to expand this and use it as the climax to the end of Chapter 1. And this was how I was able to lean into Speaker Maxidillnar from Luskan as the Speaker of Targos. 

Maxidillnar allowed me to really expand his role and create an extra story element to give the Party an extra threat. Plus, I was able to create an additional link with him and Avarice. I tweaked this a bit from the Adventure Book because the Black Sword Cultists she was aligned with originally were dispatched quite quickly, so Avarice needed some other linkage to weave her plans. This was a way to really expand her role as a main threat within the main story arc. She made a brief appearance early on and so I felt I had bring her back and more strongly establish her threat to the Characters within the story.

And within that climactic end, I was able to use additional fun game mechanics such as poisoning characters, the mechanic on how long it takes to don Armour, and being shoved down the stairs (which was good fun).  And we left the session with the Luskan Arms on fire so we'll see how that plays out.

Plus, we'll need to see how Avarice continues her scheming - no spoilers, sorry Adam & Stuart - we'll need to see how the future chapters develop. And have the Zhentarim fully been disrupted? Hmm - let's roll and find out!

The other great hook that I was able to expand on was the Stones of Thruun in Dougan's Hole. The Adventure Book made this place a thing and described on the map but then didn't further expand on it. So I decided to take this opportunity to further expand this and link Auril's threat deeper into the Party. And what better character to use than the Druid Tor. Auril's perverse view of Nature and the way to preserve everything was a great way to link the two of them together. This turned out to be a great encounter and a way to provide some deeper plot elements to the Party.

One final big tweak that I did was to expand on the Dwarven Valley. Not only did this allow me to link Grom's backstory to the overall Adventure Book, but this was something else that the book referenced but otherwise left totally untouched. And in fact the Adventure Book alludes to the Dwarven Valley being an important part so I felt then that it needed to feature more prominently within the story. I was able to expand an entire visit and create some new NPC's for the story which was fun. It gives the Party an extra diversion from the Ten-Towns - a sort of alternate setting. Plus, it helps evolve the overall plot points into new and interesting ways. Clearly, the Dwarves would have a stronger incentive to deal with the Duergar threat, not because of the Ten-Towns, but more so out of principle. So it will be interesting to see how this totally new element will feature into the overall story development (yes, I have some plans so let's see how they play out depending on what the Party and other NPC's decide to do!).

I wrote earlier about Sephek Kaltro (and early Zhentarim agent, also from Luskan ...) and that played nicely. And as I wrote earlier, it was necessary for me to change a bit how the Adventure Book provides the default Rumour mechanic to drive the characters from one town to the next. The early Town adventures I linked together into a more focused set of adventures to make it less random. See, Aldrick and Shayde travelled there specifically to hunt the Arcane Brotherhood and search out the lost ancient Netherese city so it would otherwise not fit so well for them to just randomly move from town to town. Once we linked them with Tor and Grom and got the baseline plot elements going, then the team could naturally travel from town to town (levelling up) and then I could rely on Rumours where needed to add in extra Plot elements as needed.

Regarding Levels, the Adventure book says to cap the team at Level 4 within the first Chapter, but I decided to follow normal XP advancement and not milestone and not follow the cap. They finished all the adventures (plus the extra bits I added) and they are just over Level 5, so its still holds ok. Plus, it allows me to expand the encounters, which is always fun.

Other small tweaks I've done as is customary for individual points to either simplify the story or streamline it to generally fit into the story as it was developing. I would say definitely read the book a few times and see how it flows for you and your party.

With the encounters I scaled them to match the power of the Party. This is something we always have to adjust and manage throughout the entire game. Size of party, classes, level, etc all influence this and its the balance of making each encounter fun, engaging, and dynamic while not having them finish in one round nor having them all take hours and hours. 

Related to the above, I tweaked most of the maps in order to use the Dungeon Blocks I had but I was able to maintain the spirit of the encounters as written just with some tweaks to keep the gameplay fun and use the Blocks.

Also related to the above, I have Homebrewed some items for the Characters to make stronger links between the Players and the story and give them better gear early on. The Adventure Book is a bit light in terms of giving items to the Heroes so I thought I'll add a few in to make it interesting and dive deeper into the story (the mysterious unidentified purple stone found in the gem mine is one such item which Avarice gave a bit more insight into helps tie into the deeper aspects of the wider story arc). Also, I have Homebrewed some Monsters, because, well, if I have some great models from the different artists I support and they would fit perfectly into the Campaign, then I cannot help but use them!

The tweaks I did are of course what makes our campaign ours and as noted in the beginning of this post, this is what makes this game the best adventure game in the world - the ability to adjust each adventure as it evolves and though the source material may be reused multiple times which establishes a baseline framework, each playthrough is different and all options are fun and great. So these are just the tweaks we've done so far and I give them as suggestions which may hopefully inspire you to make your own adjustments to make your Adventure that much more unique and special. Or make your own - as we know, players can bring all sorts of surprises to the Tabletop so who knows and why can't it be the case that the Party just wants to instead become expert Knucklehead Trout fishermen? 

All in all though, I am quite pleased with how the Adventure Book is written. It plays quite well and can honestly function even just as written literally (ok, still with a little tweaking and weaving, but not much) but I am enjoying expanding it and making it our own. And I know Adam and Stuart are enjoying it.

There is a lot that has happened so far and it has given me some inspiration for further tweaking / optimisation for Chapter 2 (and beyond) but I'll let the game carry on for a bit and I'll follow-up with another recap post in a little bit to further describe the adjustments I've made. But suffice to say, I've got a lot of exciting twists and turns and epic battles planned for the Party, so Adam & Stuart, gear up and get ready to roll!

Until then, happy continued gaming and painting!

-Pete (& Mitz & Simz)