my party decided to drop on me that I would be the DM for a campaign, 2 DAYS BEFORE THE FIRST MEET. anyway, this is helping me remain sane with these guys
I wish I would have watched this video before starting. The beginning of the adventure, as-written, is so counterintuitive to the player's motivations to save Elturel.
What an awesome video! I an currently running this Campaign with my group, which formed from members of my WoW guild back then. None of us plays WoW any more.. but Oh Boy, do we play D&D 😬 The first Campaign ended after ‘bout 45 sessions, near Elturel right before it vanished. I kinda used this video to change our first Campaign, to make the beginning of DiA easier. It has worked flawlessly to this point. Thank you SO MUCH! I never would have done this without this video.
Awesome video, I'm about to run this campaign next month and while reading BGDiA, I felt the same with it's hook. The whole, "Do as I say or die" will definitely cause a fight between my party and the Flaming Fist within the first 10 minutes of the game haha. I knew I needed to change things up and all of your ideas are great. Gives players a reason to care and justifies going to hell; because of it's story... not because the book is called Descent into Avernus and we get to fight cool demons!
Running this game in the PF2e system. Been using a lot of your advice as I plan through the adventure. After running Fall of Elturel I immediately backed it up with the Adventurer's League Baldur's Gate tiny adventures (Season 9 Episode 1) that cause the PCs to help save citizens in the outskirts of Elturel from the fallout. While Reya has no clue of Thavius Kreeg's betrayal, the Planetar (I made it a Solar) of the Companion is one of my PC's Patron and has given them hint that Thavius Kreeg is a slimy individual.
Having Run this I think your ideas for streamlining the baldur's gate sections are a very good step. Having not done this the whole baldur's gate sections really felt like a waste of time and where just about leveling enough to be ready for candle keep. The key missing thing for me was the dead 3 and the vanthampers were not tied to the loss of elturel in strong enough ways to make those early levels seem connected to the story enough.
I dealt with characters motivation by cursing them during fight with Duke Vanthampur. That way they been HIGHLY motivated to travel to Candlekeep and then to Avernus in order to identify infernal curse which could be lifted only by high level magic (Wish) or by comfronting reborned Duke's soul in 9 Hells.
Hey man I loved the video. I used the same sources and completely agree with what you have to say. I kept elfsong tavern as a side quest. My pc’s love baldurs gate so I connected them with the threat of the city being brought down with elturel. Just wanted to share my experience. Thanks for all your content man. 👍🏻
I'm seeing this already a few sessions deep already and your first set of advice its to connect em to elturel and reya! I started the adventure with the players in elturel as its being drug into hell! LOL
Mike: In order to fix this flaw you need to just make sure your characters are strongly bound to Eltural in order to give them a motivation to do this quest. Me: Ill give you- no wait- the city will give you as much gp as you want when you return from avernus
@@SlyFlourish because baldur's gate is going to be the next city dragged into avernus. That's the justification I emphasised. My characters lived in baldurs gate so they were motivated to prevent the same thing happening to baldurs gate, which morphed into "save elturel" along the way
Very good video, 45 min flew by. Personally, as a new DM, planning on keeping the Flaming Fists, mostly because I'm unsure when to do leveling otherwise
My group never found Mortlock. I homebrewed a section as they hunted the dead three around the lower city until they got beat by the Myrkul necromancer (again) and were kidnapped and brought to the low waters for questioning
So one thing on top of all the stuff you point out I haven't liked is that they just got a powerful magic user to send them to to hell. Rather than getting a plane shift spell I was thinking something like a magic portal or magic mirror was in the study of one of the key characters.. and they had another study at the other city .. . So basically they get to the wizard the wizard has a magic mirror that is the frame is wavy it's constantly shaping it's hot to the touch and occasionally blinks in and out. And then the party steps through the portal to get to the city rather than some super powerful magic user who why isn't he helping come along is how they get there
Use demon ichor to power engines. Store in special metal drums and pour cans. Oil/gasoline stand in from mad max and irl. Differenciate the war machines from spelljammers and their helms. Include a spelljammer. Include Krynn tinker tech, Theros monsters and ruins that radiate (nongood) holy, Izzit guild Chem magitech, perhaps even special warforged from Eberron that have to be powered by a soulcoin(because magic is fundamentally different there) and are like soul-energy vampires that can be turned like undead. Baator is one of the places that every material plane eventually gets in contact with one way or another. Even if you run them as separate Baators they(the Hells) may be in contact with eachother. How else would they be infinite without coming from an infinite protoplane?
Why in the Nine Hells would i want to go to hell as a 5th lvl character!?!? I've just finished reading the first chapter, and that was the question that was boggling my mind before watching this video =) Really helpful, thank you!
@@SlyFlourish I would want to go and kill a bunch of devils or other evil bad guys but maybe that is why I like Paladins :-). One of my characters is a Drow spy working for Arkhan so she has a connection to Tiamat. I think it will be interesting. I think my players will want to go to save Elturel because they just are mostly really nice...except for the spy ;-).
Okay, not watching this video as I don't want spoilers, but I'm playing in this game and our characters are having one heck of a time, we have tons of info and are sure the Vanthampurs are behind all this, but the Fists seem to be setting us up as the fall guys, we can't get any sort of back up, and everytime we do anything we have been questioned harshly, the last time with a zone of truth spell, now are characters are to afraid to move on the villa (as we think we could end up getting arrested). Any advice?
I find the biggest issue to be how to give the characters room to roam in Avernus. They get there and get their infernal machine. They're going to want to explore. However, they're given two paths that they have to follow pretty tight. How do you plan on handling this?
If the characters have no motive to care about BG, why not make it Thalamra's plan to just corrupt it instead of dragging it to Avernus? Since BG is a city full of evil people, having a ruler that makes it even worse wouldn't be a good thing to Zariel?
Also the Gods are eventually going to be like "Hey you can't literally drag cities into Hell, this is not what we're about" and smack Zariel down HARD. In fact it's not even really believable that they wouldn't have done that with Elturel, unless they d idn't know.
@@davidpeters6743 well they don't interfere mostly cause they can't. There's an order of Ao, the god that's above all other gods, that prohibits them from interfering directly into stuff, that's why they use champions (paladins, clerics, etc) to do stuff outside of their planes. You could say to the party that a deity asks them exactly that, go down to hell, bonk Zariel's head and save Elturel
@@drive_6665 It prevents them from interfering directly with stuff ON THE MATERIAL PLANE. The Outer Planes are a different story entirely. Not to mention that Ao wouldn't be with the way Zariel is messing with the Pact Primeval, I think it's a thing that can be addressed, but it needs to be.
Hi Sly - I did exactly the same as you suggested back in March (including running the Fall of Elturel, which is great btw!), we only got through that before we went into Lockdown here in the UK - looking forward to getting back to it. Check it out here: th-cam.com/video/_HUUFmEobxA/w-d-xo.html Always looking for helpful constructive feedback and since lockdown we moved some gaming tables online and I've been running some 'Avernus' related mini campaigns - looking forward to getting back to the table though. All the best!
With the pre -Adventure you are suggesting this maybe wothewhile but without it...this campaing fails to totaly give the characteres a reason to care a dame about Elturell...it is suggested that Baldurs Gate is threatend to go the same way as Elturell...why that should happen, why the villan is interested in Baldurs Gate, why the Vanthrampurs is interested in a deal with the villan? No information what so ever...first campange I have ever thrown the towel on. Beeing faire, part is surely to blame on me suffering on a severe case of gm burnout but still....the campaing is one railroad with not a lot whay around it...it bored my players and me aswell...you need to change alot to make this work.
my party decided to drop on me that I would be the DM for a campaign, 2 DAYS BEFORE THE FIRST MEET. anyway, this is helping me remain sane with these guys
how did it go?
I wish I would have watched this video before starting. The beginning of the adventure, as-written, is so counterintuitive to the player's motivations to save Elturel.
What an awesome video!
I an currently running this Campaign with my group, which formed from members of my WoW guild back then. None of us plays WoW any more.. but Oh Boy, do we play D&D 😬
The first Campaign ended after ‘bout 45 sessions, near Elturel right before it vanished.
I kinda used this video to change our first Campaign, to make the beginning of DiA easier.
It has worked flawlessly to this point.
Thank you SO MUCH! I never would have done this without this video.
SIX SESSIONS for Fall of Elturel?!?! HOW?!
But seriously, this is REALLY REALLY helpful. Thanks for your time and effort on this!!
I had a player who was a paladin of Torm from Elturel for this adventure. It totally does help.
You can always just grant advantage to any good Cleric or Paladin and not worry about the Torm part.
Awesome video, I'm about to run this campaign next month and while reading BGDiA, I felt the same with it's hook. The whole, "Do as I say or die" will definitely cause a fight between my party and the Flaming Fist within the first 10 minutes of the game haha. I knew I needed to change things up and all of your ideas are great. Gives players a reason to care and justifies going to hell; because of it's story... not because the book is called Descent into Avernus and we get to fight cool demons!
Running this game in the PF2e system. Been using a lot of your advice as I plan through the adventure. After running Fall of Elturel I immediately backed it up with the Adventurer's League Baldur's Gate tiny adventures (Season 9 Episode 1) that cause the PCs to help save citizens in the outskirts of Elturel from the fallout. While Reya has no clue of Thavius Kreeg's betrayal, the Planetar (I made it a Solar) of the Companion is one of my PC's Patron and has given them hint that Thavius Kreeg is a slimy individual.
Currently planning this adventure for my group & this is very helpful, thanks.
Thanks Mike, this is a totally brilliant guide to running Avernus. Appreciate your thoughts and it's helped me to clarify my plans well.
This video series is such a good resource! Thanks a lot!
Just finished running Fall of Elturel, and it really did make a huge impact on the players. Great recommendation, thank you.
Having Run this I think your ideas for streamlining the baldur's gate sections are a very good step. Having not done this the whole baldur's gate sections really felt like a waste of time and where just about leveling enough to be ready for candle keep. The key missing thing for me was the dead 3 and the vanthampers were not tied to the loss of elturel in strong enough ways to make those early levels seem connected to the story enough.
I dealt with characters motivation by cursing them during fight with Duke Vanthampur. That way they been HIGHLY motivated to travel to Candlekeep and then to Avernus in order to identify infernal curse which could be lifted only by high level magic (Wish) or by comfronting reborned Duke's soul in 9 Hells.
This is fantastic, you are fantastic. Thank you very much good sir.
This was brilliant, I will use the pointers and get back to you on how it went 👌🏼
Hey man I loved the video. I used the same sources and completely agree with what you have to say. I kept elfsong tavern as a side quest. My pc’s love baldurs gate so I connected them with the threat of the city being brought down with elturel. Just wanted to share my experience. Thanks for all your content man. 👍🏻
Great content as usual Mike, thanks a lot!
I'm seeing this already a few sessions deep already and your first set of advice its to connect em to elturel and reya! I started the adventure with the players in elturel as its being drug into hell! LOL
Mike: In order to fix this flaw you need to just make sure your characters are strongly bound to Eltural in order to give them a motivation to do this quest.
Me: Ill give you- no wait- the city will give you as much gp as you want when you return from avernus
Why would Baldurs Gate care?
@@SlyFlourish because baldur's gate is going to be the next city dragged into avernus. That's the justification I emphasised. My characters lived in baldurs gate so they were motivated to prevent the same thing happening to baldurs gate, which morphed into "save elturel" along the way
Very good video, 45 min flew by. Personally, as a new DM, planning on keeping the Flaming Fists, mostly because I'm unsure when to do leveling otherwise
My group never found Mortlock. I homebrewed a section as they hunted the dead three around the lower city until they got beat by the Myrkul necromancer (again) and were kidnapped and brought to the low waters for questioning
So one thing on top of all the stuff you point out I haven't liked is that they just got a powerful magic user to send them to to hell. Rather than getting a plane shift spell I was thinking something like a magic portal or magic mirror was in the study of one of the key characters.. and they had another study at the other city
.. . So basically they get to the wizard the wizard has a magic mirror that is the frame is wavy it's constantly shaping it's hot to the touch and occasionally blinks in and out. And then the party steps through the portal to get to the city rather than some super powerful magic user who why isn't he helping come along is how they get there
Well done and helpful to a DM.
Use demon ichor to power engines.
Store in special metal drums and pour cans.
Oil/gasoline stand in from mad max and irl.
Differenciate the war machines from spelljammers and their helms.
Include a spelljammer.
Include Krynn tinker tech, Theros monsters and ruins that radiate (nongood) holy, Izzit guild Chem magitech, perhaps even special warforged from Eberron that have to be powered by a soulcoin(because magic is fundamentally different there) and are like soul-energy vampires that can be turned like undead.
Baator is one of the places that every material plane eventually gets in contact with one way or another. Even if you run them as separate Baators they(the Hells) may be in contact with eachother. How else would they be infinite without coming from an infinite protoplane?
My group tried to eat the otter
Why in the Nine Hells would i want to go to hell as a 5th lvl character!?!? I've just finished reading the first chapter, and that was the question that was boggling my mind before watching this video =) Really helpful, thank you!
You have to make them WANT or HAVE to go there.
@@SlyFlourish I would want to go and kill a bunch of devils or other evil bad guys but maybe that is why I like Paladins :-). One of my characters is a Drow spy working for Arkhan so she has a connection to Tiamat. I think it will be interesting. I think my players will want to go to save Elturel because they just are mostly really nice...except for the spy ;-).
Okay, not watching this video as I don't want spoilers, but I'm playing in this game and our characters are having one heck of a time, we have tons of info and are sure the Vanthampurs are behind all this, but the Fists seem to be setting us up as the fall guys, we can't get any sort of back up, and everytime we do anything we have been questioned harshly, the last time with a zone of truth spell, now are characters are to afraid to move on the villa (as we think we could end up getting arrested). Any advice?
Sounds cool!
I find the biggest issue to be how to give the characters room to roam in Avernus. They get there and get their infernal machine. They're going to want to explore. However, they're given two paths that they have to follow pretty tight. How do you plan on handling this?
Probably not doing that =)
Check out the Alexandrian Remix.
@@XinKotetsu not familiar with that. Do you have a link?
Where is the link to the session 0 file?
slyflourish_content.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/avernus_campaign_one_page.pdf
What’s the link to this session 0 guideline
Just search online. It's on the Sly flourish website.
If the characters have no motive to care about BG, why not make it Thalamra's plan to just corrupt it instead of dragging it to Avernus? Since BG is a city full of evil people, having a ruler that makes it even worse wouldn't be a good thing to Zariel?
Also the Gods are eventually going to be like "Hey you can't literally drag cities into Hell, this is not what we're about" and smack Zariel down HARD. In fact it's not even really believable that they wouldn't have done that with Elturel, unless they d idn't know.
@@davidpeters6743 well they don't interfere mostly cause they can't. There's an order of Ao, the god that's above all other gods, that prohibits them from interfering directly into stuff, that's why they use champions (paladins, clerics, etc) to do stuff outside of their planes.
You could say to the party that a deity asks them exactly that, go down to hell, bonk Zariel's head and save Elturel
@@drive_6665 It prevents them from interfering directly with stuff ON THE MATERIAL PLANE. The Outer Planes are a different story entirely. Not to mention that Ao wouldn't be with the way Zariel is messing with the Pact Primeval, I think it's a thing that can be addressed, but it needs to be.
Hi Sly - I did exactly the same as you suggested back in March (including running the Fall of Elturel, which is great btw!), we only got through that before we went into Lockdown here in the UK - looking forward to getting back to it. Check it out here: th-cam.com/video/_HUUFmEobxA/w-d-xo.html
Always looking for helpful constructive feedback and since lockdown we moved some gaming tables online and I've been running some 'Avernus' related mini campaigns - looking forward to getting back to the table though. All the best!
Run the Dungeon of the Dead 3 as is!!!??? Lvl 2 players it's a total TPK in there. It needs some serious work or walk in there at lvl 3.
With the pre -Adventure you are suggesting this maybe wothewhile but without it...this campaing fails to totaly give the characteres a reason to care a dame about Elturell...it is suggested that Baldurs Gate is threatend to go the same way as Elturell...why that should happen, why the villan is interested in Baldurs Gate, why the Vanthrampurs is interested in a deal with the villan? No information what so ever...first campange I have ever thrown the towel on. Beeing faire, part is surely to blame on me suffering on a severe case of gm burnout but still....the campaing is one railroad with not a lot whay around it...it bored my players and me aswell...you need to change alot to make this work.
Yeah, it takes work.