❔What did you think about Wild Beyond the Witchlight❔ 🐲Don't forget to check out this video's sponsor, the Delver's Guide to Beast World on KS: bit.ly/3lOGeaN 🎪And check out the preview for Issue 5 of SIDEQUEST which is packed with Carnival themed goodness: th-cam.com/video/Qks8FXxhUc4/w-d-xo.html
@@xGarrettThiefx care to elaborate? And I am not sarcastic, I am really interested as to why this is your opinion since I am thinking about buying this.
I recently came back to D&D for the first time in almost 30 years because my 9 yr old daughter expressed interest in learning how to play. We have had some fun with Icespire Peak, but this looks absolutely perfect. I am about 2/3rds through it and I can’t wait to run this for her and her friends. I already know they are going to love it. I fully anticipate spending 2 or 3 sessions just to get through the carnival.
The carnival is odd because the book mentions it being there for several days, but there feels like this implied pressure get everything done in one night!
So did I! My grandson wanted me to run his buddies thru an adventure and now I have his and an adult campaign going in. This adventure will integrate nicely into my adult game. I might even parallel the kid's game into this as well!
I'm going to be a first time DM while running this module for our group. This video helped me preparing! I was fumbling around a bit trying to get everything done, but having the information that I can take it easier and prepare one chapter at a time makes it a lot easier! Thanks!
Just read and before I watch this video. THIS LOOKS SO COOL. I will immediatly buy this even if it takes years before I find a group for it as soon as the german translation comes out.
i'm running witchlight and i love seeing what players put for their thing that their character has lost. Some of my players have lost their innocence, their way back home, their ability to shift (as a shifter) and is permanently stuck, or all their memories entirely. i really like that hook bc its a very creative backstory that allows a lot of freedom
It's nice that they have flexible fey bargains. I recently ran raven loft. My players huddled around the light of isolde's carnival. One of my players traded their ability to speak goblin. To a fey of the litwick market, for a toy doll that functioned as a mist talisman.
I really wanna run this for my D&D group. We've been playing together since 2018, and have done a lot over the years. I think this would be really fun. I've only DMed 2 one-shots, but I wanna get better at DMing, so I think this would be a great adventure for that.
I disagree. This book was a mess. Chapter one requires extensive revision to even resemble what you described. You DO, in fact, need to go back and forth through this book to run this adventure, especially chapter one. It's so frustrating I have shelved the whole campaign that it had become a side quest in. The side quests and diversions (rides) don't tie into the plot, and that's a missed opportunity. Each ride should have had a list of ways it could remind a character of what they lost. For instance the Mystery Mine (which looks an awful lot like the Dungeons & Dragons ride from the 80s cartoon) could remind them of the doll they clung to when they were freighted by it last. (BTW there's a 50-60% chance that this ride causes a LETHAL amount of exhaustion) The problem is there's nothing in the story that actually tells the characters they have any chance of getting back what was lost in the first place. The free tickets, and Ellywick in general, are a waste of ink. Her only purpose is to railroad the group into Prismeer. How does her lute know about the party? How does Nikolas know who the tickets are for? If he does, why does he not immediately offer them to the party? Ellywick is a Planeswalker and is so powerful that she doesn't get a stat block (implying she's more powerful than gods dragons archdevils etc). She just disappears if threatened. But there's no explanation why SHE isn't dealing with this ridiculous threat to Tasha, herself. Yes she's letting 1st lvl characters face someone who overcame the incredibly infamous TASHA and are actively stealing from and abducting children. Yes, THAT TASHA. Ellywick's presence actually HURTS the story and whatever character she had beforehand. Thaco was an amusing reference but it would have been nice if he was more than the dumb thug by the door. Burly's Plan: It's funny how the party could very easily only meet Witch, Light and Burly AFTER the Big Top Extravaganza but that's when Burly wants to steal the watch. Why is theft the only option written into the module anyway? Why not an investigation and then a logical civil confrontation with Witch and Light? Why isn't the impetus for doing the rides and side quests investigating what's going on and getting the hands to back you up when approaching Witch and Light? Why are Kettlesteam and Madryck two different characters? They're both Zybilna's warlocks. They have the same goals. Neither one can go to Prismeer. Kettlesteam's antics make no sense. Drop Mardyck and Ellywick and have Kettlesteam at the gate, with the tickets, looking for help. She already has skin in the game and can keep the party on track organically, instead of Ellywick-Ex-Machina. Have one of the witches' thieves steal Candlefoot's voice because he knows part of the words to open the portal or he traded it to breathe water to be with his love, or more likely, because he was cursed to not talk about the coven like Diana. Why did the halfling choose to propose right in front of the mannequin of "Tasha the Wizard- Known for Her Hideous Laughter" and not put 2 & 2 together? The coven thieves should also know when someone doesn't get their tickets punched, or break any rules really, or have a thief at every ride. Every ride should have a moment where characters without tickets are abducted. "Everything goes black/ there's a flash, and so-and-so is gone! So-and-so's hears "Hither, thither ... Show me where" as their vision returns, and they find they're standing in a dark room before a bright swirling portal. As the rhyme ends they are pushed in!" Part of the reason you can do this adventure with so little combat is because of the three Rules of Conduct in Prismeer. Too bad the characters have no way of knowing about them. They aren't on a sign. They aren't the moral of any side quests. There is no exposition, that I can find to tell the players the rules even exist. Surprise! Everything that they told you to note in the story tracker has influence in Prismeer but they didn't explain the rules for those other 3/4 of the adventure. It's almost like you didn't try running the adventure before you reviewed it.
Just ran the second chapter... one player sort of... rushed things along... players got bored as they rushed passed the talking heads, the soggy court storyline, and the rest of it by going straight to the cottage, busting in the door, forcibly searching everything, and then going straight to the hag to fight.. no sneaking or exploration. I felt like I failed somehow, two players just said there wasn't anything to do after the first two hours, and she zoned out. One wanted to rush to combat. And one was new. One was fine with everything.
I think this was a question of expectation. I must admit I was underwhelmed by the book, mainly because I wanted it to be ‘more’. I was hoping for a resource which was less whimsical and more a delve into the Fey Wilds as a setting; otherworldly, bleak, bizarre, a land where nothing is as it seems. Instead we got a Carnival, which in my view was done better in the 2nd Edition book ‘Carnival’. Then a number of light hearted characters that were more daft than deep. I think, as you state, this is more an adventure for children; the humour is more child centric. Thankfully, for me, a number of third party resources that fulfil what I wanted are due to come out (Crown of the Oathbreaker by Elderbrain). But then I like bleak, Cthulhu Mythos, otherworldly adventures. This book merely wasn’t for me. There are still a couple of tidbits I can nab.
I have the book and me and some friends are going to play it. I'm going to dm it with them being lv 10 characters. Just because with most of the encounters are already entertaining
I’m all in favour of less combat options, and I think that’s a really cool thing to bring into more adventures. But the game is built around combat, almost all of the character options at creation and level up time are centred around combat, especially if you’re not a caster. Seems like this is an adventure to play as a bard or Druid or rogue in, rather than Barbarian, or battle master. Would love to see more or better rules to support this style of gameplay. Do you know of any good third party material that tries to treat this?
I would remove the 3 rules of the feywild. They just remove tension and add some really strange and disintereting Hag meetings. But the rest is really good.
could you give me little advice? so The Wild Beyond the Witchlight is an adventure for players between lvl 1-8, do you know if the adventure could work for a party of only two players? I was thinking of leveling them up to lvl 3 staring on a different setup and then get the characters sucked up into the feywild world of The Wild Beyond the Witchlight so the players would be up to the challenge and run the encounters as written on the book... do you think its a good Idea?
I've been really thinking about running this. However... I've also been thinking about running it NOT in D&D. A customized version of Dungeon World, maybe? Adding in some of the stuff like the Harengon, re-working some of the moves to have a more feywild feel to them. And also altering or swapping out available playbooks. Combat-focused ones (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin) would be a bad fit unless I reworked them into something with combat as a secondary focus. But maybe add in a "Sherlock Holmes" type. A Witch, for sure. A village doctor? Rework the "Ranger" to just be a Hunter. But I'm not even sure if I'm set on DW. Maybe a World of Darkness Mortal game (re-flavor a couple things)... tied into Changeline? Call of Cthulhu already has some very great scenarios written for it so it'd feel wrong to use that. Fate is pretty good as an all-purpose narrative system, but I'd need to customize it really well to fit properly. And of course I could just stick with 5E and just encourage players to think "outside the box" of D&D tropes and player characters. Anyway, though, a first browse through does make it seem very interesting.
Long-time DM here, and I absolutely love this book! Stumbled upon it at Walmart and got it at a discount, and am so glad that I did. Been itching to run a published module again, and when I looked back to my old Expedition to the Demonweb Pits I found it was more grimdark than Warhammer! While I can see where some may not care for the tone of Witchlight, for me it's such a breath of fresh air and I can't wait to run it!
I think it should be pretty portable. It seems that the non violent options are intended as the first option for conflict resolution, so you'd mainly be porting story and a then skill checks.
I like this concept but not as a whole campaign.... I mean when I herd we where going to get stuff about the feywild I thought it would be about the world not just a carnival.... Love this as a few sessions but could never play it for a long time.
The Adventure takes place mostly in the Feywild in a realm called Prismer. Only like 1-2 sessions take place in the actual carnival. The rest of the game is exploring the actual Feywild realm.
While much of this adventure is fantastic, the person they're supposed to ultimately save is chaotic evil. I'm sick of adventures that give the characters a choice between two evils and ask them which they want to serve.
I got the book and read through it but it really isn't for me...feeling more and more disconnected from 5E with every release and that's fine, they're doing really well as a brand and it is encouraging me to explore other systems.
Feel the same way - last 5 announced products don’t hold much interest for me. We already have other games going though, so not a big deal for my group either.
@@bluebird3281 already picking up all the latest WFRP, Delta Green, StarFinder and Pathfinder 2 releases. Not sure if I want to go down the 3rd party wormhole too heh.
It's a pass for me. I am up all for combat not being the only solution (I play more BX now) but this adventure was too off from what I read at the bookstore.
Consider a game where all the peaceful options are swept aside like so much spilt pop corn and fairy dust. Attack at every opportunity ! There is no better cover for murder hobos then part-time carny.
You can just alter it to be scary, ie make your party all evil characters and destroy everything, remove the 3 rules of the feywild and have the most funny time being the villans of a story for once.
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❔What did you think about Wild Beyond the Witchlight❔
🐲Don't forget to check out this video's sponsor, the Delver's Guide to Beast World on KS: bit.ly/3lOGeaN
🎪And check out the preview for Issue 5 of SIDEQUEST which is packed with Carnival themed goodness: th-cam.com/video/Qks8FXxhUc4/w-d-xo.html
The book is complete and utter garbage...
@@xGarrettThiefx care to elaborate? And I am not sarcastic, I am really interested as to why this is your opinion since I am thinking about buying this.
I recently came back to D&D for the first time in almost 30 years because my 9 yr old daughter expressed interest in learning how to play. We have had some fun with Icespire Peak, but this looks absolutely perfect. I am about 2/3rds through it and I can’t wait to run this for her and her friends. I already know they are going to love it. I fully anticipate spending 2 or 3 sessions just to get through the carnival.
The carnival is odd because the book mentions it being there for several days, but there feels like this implied pressure get everything done in one night!
So did I! My grandson wanted me to run his buddies thru an adventure and now I have his and an adult campaign going in. This adventure will integrate nicely into my adult game. I might even parallel the kid's game into this as well!
I'm going to be a first time DM while running this module for our group.
This video helped me preparing! I was fumbling around a bit trying to get everything done, but having the information that I can take it easier and prepare one chapter at a time makes it a lot easier! Thanks!
How did it go?
Just read and before I watch this video. THIS LOOKS SO COOL. I will immediatly buy this even if it takes years before I find a group for it as soon as the german translation comes out.
same - unfortunately I couldn't find any information on when that may be. 😞
I can't wait to read through this adventure myself!
There are a lot of really charming elements to it, and plenty to steal for homebrew games too!
i'm running witchlight and i love seeing what players put for their thing that their character has lost. Some of my players have lost their innocence, their way back home, their ability to shift (as a shifter) and is permanently stuck, or all their memories entirely. i really like that hook bc its a very creative backstory that allows a lot of freedom
Amnesia is a "very creative backstory"?
There is always one
It's nice that they have flexible fey bargains. I recently ran raven loft. My players huddled around the light of isolde's carnival. One of my players traded their ability to speak goblin. To a fey of the litwick market, for a toy doll that functioned as a mist talisman.
Our group is just entering Thether and every single session has been absolutely fantastic. Highly recommended.
Without giving it away, would you describe the ending you liked as melancholic and nostalgic?
So much is based on your group's actions, and how you handle things it's impossible to say!
@@IcarusGames Fine, hopefully it's far enough down so people hopefully won't see it. Is it the one where they're turned into children again?
You can rescue an adorable talking coeurl kitten. How can you NOT love this module?
I really wanna run this for my D&D group. We've been playing together since 2018, and have done a lot over the years. I think this would be really fun. I've only DMed 2 one-shots, but I wanna get better at DMing, so I think this would be a great adventure for that.
You got this!!
@@Raiinbowchu Thank you! 🥰
I’m prepping to run this and feel the same way about inspiration- I might make it that you have to use a d4 instead of a d6 or a d6 instead of a d8.
I disagree. This book was a mess. Chapter one requires extensive revision to even resemble what you described. You DO, in fact, need to go back and forth through this book to run this adventure, especially chapter one. It's so frustrating I have shelved the whole campaign that it had become a side quest in.
The side quests and diversions (rides) don't tie into the plot, and that's a missed opportunity. Each ride should have had a list of ways it could remind a character of what they lost. For instance the Mystery Mine (which looks an awful lot like the Dungeons & Dragons ride from the 80s cartoon) could remind them of the doll they clung to when they were freighted by it last. (BTW there's a 50-60% chance that this ride causes a LETHAL amount of exhaustion) The problem is there's nothing in the story that actually tells the characters they have any chance of getting back what was lost in the first place.
The free tickets, and Ellywick in general, are a waste of ink. Her only purpose is to railroad the group into Prismeer. How does her lute know about the party? How does Nikolas know who the tickets are for? If he does, why does he not immediately offer them to the party? Ellywick is a Planeswalker and is so powerful that she doesn't get a stat block (implying she's more powerful than gods dragons archdevils etc). She just disappears if threatened. But there's no explanation why SHE isn't dealing with this ridiculous threat to Tasha, herself. Yes she's letting 1st lvl characters face someone who overcame the incredibly infamous TASHA and are actively stealing from and abducting children. Yes, THAT TASHA. Ellywick's presence actually HURTS the story and whatever character she had beforehand.
Thaco was an amusing reference but it would have been nice if he was more than the dumb thug by the door.
Burly's Plan: It's funny how the party could very easily only meet Witch, Light and Burly AFTER the Big Top Extravaganza but that's when Burly wants to steal the watch.
Why is theft the only option written into the module anyway? Why not an investigation and then a logical civil confrontation with Witch and Light? Why isn't the impetus for doing the rides and side quests investigating what's going on and getting the hands to back you up when approaching Witch and Light?
Why are Kettlesteam and Madryck two different characters? They're both Zybilna's warlocks. They have the same goals. Neither one can go to Prismeer. Kettlesteam's antics make no sense. Drop Mardyck and Ellywick and have Kettlesteam at the gate, with the tickets, looking for help. She already has skin in the game and can keep the party on track organically, instead of Ellywick-Ex-Machina. Have one of the witches' thieves steal Candlefoot's voice because he knows part of the words to open the portal or he traded it to breathe water to be with his love, or more likely, because he was cursed to not talk about the coven like Diana.
Why did the halfling choose to propose right in front of the mannequin of "Tasha the Wizard- Known for Her Hideous Laughter" and not put 2 & 2 together?
The coven thieves should also know when someone doesn't get their tickets punched, or break any rules really, or have a thief at every ride. Every ride should have a moment where characters without tickets are abducted.
"Everything goes black/ there's a flash, and so-and-so is gone!
So-and-so's hears "Hither, thither ... Show me where" as their vision returns, and they find they're standing in a dark room before a bright swirling portal. As the rhyme ends they are pushed in!"
Part of the reason you can do this adventure with so little combat is because of the three Rules of Conduct in Prismeer. Too bad the characters have no way of knowing about them. They aren't on a sign. They aren't the moral of any side quests. There is no exposition, that I can find to tell the players the rules even exist. Surprise! Everything that they told you to note in the story tracker has influence in Prismeer but they didn't explain the rules for those other 3/4 of the adventure.
It's almost like you didn't try running the adventure before you reviewed it.
Just ran the second chapter... one player sort of... rushed things along... players got bored as they rushed passed the talking heads, the soggy court storyline, and the rest of it by going straight to the cottage, busting in the door, forcibly searching everything, and then going straight to the hag to fight.. no sneaking or exploration. I felt like I failed somehow, two players just said there wasn't anything to do after the first two hours, and she zoned out. One wanted to rush to combat. And one was new. One was fine with everything.
I think this was a question of expectation. I must admit I was underwhelmed by the book, mainly because I wanted it to be ‘more’. I was hoping for a resource which was less whimsical and more a delve into the Fey Wilds as a setting; otherworldly, bleak, bizarre, a land where nothing is as it seems.
Instead we got a Carnival, which in my view was done better in the 2nd Edition book ‘Carnival’. Then a number of light hearted characters that were more daft than deep. I think, as you state, this is more an adventure for children; the humour is more child centric.
Thankfully, for me, a number of third party resources that fulfil what I wanted are due to come out (Crown of the Oathbreaker by Elderbrain). But then I like bleak, Cthulhu Mythos, otherworldly adventures. This book merely wasn’t for me. There are still a couple of tidbits I can nab.
I have the book and me and some friends are going to play it. I'm going to dm it with them being lv 10 characters. Just because with most of the encounters are already entertaining
I’m all in favour of less combat options, and I think that’s a really cool thing to bring into more adventures. But the game is built around combat, almost all of the character options at creation and level up time are centred around combat, especially if you’re not a caster.
Seems like this is an adventure to play as a bard or Druid or rogue in, rather than Barbarian, or battle master.
Would love to see more or better rules to support this style of gameplay. Do you know of any good third party material that tries to treat this?
Check DM's Guild
I would remove the 3 rules of the feywild. They just remove tension and add some really strange and disintereting Hag meetings. But the rest is really good.
could you give me little advice? so The Wild Beyond the Witchlight is an adventure for players between lvl 1-8, do you know if the adventure could work for a party of only two players? I was thinking of leveling them up to lvl 3 staring on a different setup and then get the characters sucked up into the feywild world of The Wild Beyond the Witchlight so the players would be up to the challenge and run the encounters as written on the book... do you think its a good Idea?
I've been really thinking about running this. However... I've also been thinking about running it NOT in D&D.
A customized version of Dungeon World, maybe? Adding in some of the stuff like the Harengon, re-working some of the moves to have a more feywild feel to them. And also altering or swapping out available playbooks. Combat-focused ones (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin) would be a bad fit unless I reworked them into something with combat as a secondary focus. But maybe add in a "Sherlock Holmes" type. A Witch, for sure. A village doctor? Rework the "Ranger" to just be a Hunter.
But I'm not even sure if I'm set on DW. Maybe a World of Darkness Mortal game (re-flavor a couple things)... tied into Changeline? Call of Cthulhu already has some very great scenarios written for it so it'd feel wrong to use that. Fate is pretty good as an all-purpose narrative system, but I'd need to customize it really well to fit properly. And of course I could just stick with 5E and just encourage players to think "outside the box" of D&D tropes and player characters.
Anyway, though, a first browse through does make it seem very interesting.
Long-time DM here, and I absolutely love this book! Stumbled upon it at Walmart and got it at a discount, and am so glad that I did.
Been itching to run a published module again, and when I looked back to my old Expedition to the Demonweb Pits I found it was more grimdark than Warhammer! While I can see where some may not care for the tone of Witchlight, for me it's such a breath of fresh air and I can't wait to run it!
How do you feel about characters with the Witchlight Hand background and incorporating them into the story with the Lost Things adventure hook?
I did something similar under 2E in the early 90s. Mine was much darker, and combat was inevitable. Or running.
How portable do you think it would be to other systems? I'm intrigued by the concept and options to avoid combat, but I run 3.5/Pathfinder, not 5e.
I think it should be pretty portable. It seems that the non violent options are intended as the first option for conflict resolution, so you'd mainly be porting story and a then skill checks.
Carnival theme? Add Rakdos!
I’ve not heard much about it surprisingly! I’m intrigued...
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it!
Hi I’m planning on playing a character based on Jim Carey as the grinch do u think it would work for wild beyond the witch light
100% I would love to have a grinch in a witchlight campaign!
good module to run entirely in the theater of the mind? (other than using the poster map in the back of the book of course)
Because non-violent resolution is the default, running entirely theatre of the mind would be quite easy!
I like this concept but not as a whole campaign.... I mean when I herd we where going to get stuff about the feywild I thought it would be about the world not just a carnival.... Love this as a few sessions but could never play it for a long time.
The Adventure takes place mostly in the Feywild in a realm called Prismer. Only like 1-2 sessions take place in the actual carnival. The rest of the game is exploring the actual Feywild realm.
While much of this adventure is fantastic, the person they're supposed to ultimately save is chaotic evil. I'm sick of adventures that give the characters a choice between two evils and ask them which they want to serve.
I got the book and read through it but it really isn't for me...feeling more and more disconnected from 5E with every release and that's fine, they're doing really well as a brand and it is encouraging me to explore other systems.
Feel the same way - last 5 announced products don’t hold much interest for me. We already have other games going though, so not a big deal for my group either.
3rd parties have some great 5E stuff
@@bluebird3281 already picking up all the latest WFRP, Delta Green, StarFinder and Pathfinder 2 releases. Not sure if I want to go down the 3rd party wormhole too heh.
perfect for my madcap players
It's a pass for me. I am up all for combat not being the only solution (I play more BX now) but this adventure was too off from what I read at the bookstore.
Thanks.
I don't particularly like the tick-tocking in the background. Other than that good review buddy.
I love combat. Probably not buying this then
Consider a game where all the peaceful options are swept aside like so much spilt pop corn and fairy dust. Attack at every opportunity !
There is no better cover for murder hobos then part-time carny.
Such an easy read and play. Though Tasha was a weird twist.
SPOILER ALERT!
Tasha
Yeah I'm looking for more its dangerous to go out side stuff I'll pass. But thanks for doing the video my friend.
Yeah, the adventure as written is not the scary feywild, it's much more the children's fable, Alice in wonderland, labyrinth feywild.
You can just alter it to be scary, ie make your party all evil characters and destroy everything, remove the 3 rules of the feywild and have the most funny time being the villans of a story for once.