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I've DM'd Goblin Arrows many, many times as a training exercise for new players. My latest group was torn as to whether to follow the goblin trail or move the horses and push the cart on to Phandalin. They worried if they left the cart it would get pillaged. Their solution was to write "CURSED" in horse blood on every inch of the surface of the cart in every language they knew. I'm so excited for them to haul it back to Phandalin!
You know one thing you can do: Play with pronunciation of names. Rather than saying it as "klarg" extend it. "My name is 'Klaaaaaaarg'" "Klaarg?" "No, not 'klarg' 'KLAAaaaarg.' 'Klaarg' means strong, and I am more than strong, I am 'KLAAAAARG!'" It can give an NPC some personality, especially a strong, dumb enemy.
Love the tutorial, but I disagree with cutting a lot out. This may be the first time for many players. The Traps for example, can be used to teach mechanics players may not think of on their own. Ex. Passive Perception to investigation to disarm trap. How to safely get free using team work, how to avoid a pit after sprung, looting a disarmed trap, luring enemies into trap etc.
Just ran the hideout with my group of 6. I had them level up after the ambush and buffed the encounters in the hideout. The druid wildshaped into a spider and started exploring the cave, relaying the location of everything, unfortunately for her she rolled a nat1 on stealth and some Gobbos spotted the spider and attempted target practice on the spider in the ceiling. I had the Gobbo roll at disadvantage since he was aiming at fast spoder but he got a nat20 and a nat18 so he sniped the spoder reverting the druid back to herself, alone, in the deepest part of the hideout (by the pools). She entered combat by herself, Klarg got allerted and joined the fight, but miraculusly, the Gobbos missed 5 attacks in a row, so she managed to wildshape into a falcon and fly the fuck out of there. I love D&D :)
@@raccoon3164 A lot. We actually turned the campaign into Waterdeep: Dragonheist (An extended version with all villains from level 5 - 14) after they finished LMoP. We have played every other week for over two years and we have about 4-5 sessions remaining of it. One of the final boss battles today actually
Hey that's cool, hope everything turned out chaotic good! I actually had the same idea as you about leading into Waterdeep : Dragonheist just cause it sounds fucking cool, even though we just barely started Lost Mines. From one GM to another, any tips on how you segwayed from LMoP to Dragonheist would be super appreciated dude!@@reinpogo4601
I'm running my first campaign as a DM tomorrow and these videos have been suuuuper helpful. I saw this cave and was like ummm I'm not super confident they're gonna get through all of this hahaha. Great videos!!
I've played LMoP as a player and as a DM, and let me tell you, the new approach you gave us on the "script" and the change on the NPC's, and mostly, the keys to twist and change the story is actually priceless. Thank you. (Subscribed and liked)
Picked up this mod to introduce my boys to they game. I havent since 3.5 and never really dm'ed before. Thanks for the review and all the RP ideas along the breakdown! Great work!
Personally, I've ran a session 1 where the players try to get the Puzzle Box but cultists prevent them from getting it, capturing them instead. By escaping the cultist hideout and defeating the head cultist, the players gain access to the Puzzle Box and venture forward into Goblin Arrows. I did this so my players had a better incentive to hit level 2 before they arrived at Goblin Arrows, while obtaining more basic knowledge about the game. It made it easier for me as DM to play around with the Goblins' and Klarg's power level.
That ending bow and foreshadowing section was awesome I'm stealing that for my own games going forward! I ran this a few years ago as my first time DMing and I wish I had seen these back then some great tweaks!!
Oh rad Butcher! It's a real handy trick to keep all the crucial information compartmentalized and stoke the players' interest for next session. Also it's super fun doing an over-the-top narrator thing :D If you're subscribed, keep an eye out for the rest of the series because I've just crossed the halfway point -- I'm writing about the Redbrands right now! Hopefully it's helpful if you decide to run Lost Mines again
Yeah keep it up man! enjoying the content! Found your channel when I was working out cool ways to run chase scenes and now im just binging your full catalogue in the background when doing prep
@@heyitsMattyP It's okay, I was only one session in and I managed to incorporate most of your suggestions and I'm working on fitting the rest of them in as well.
This was a good one. really teaches you how to adjust any prewritten adventure. I am really curious how you are going to change the wave-echo cave. Because in my experience, it was too big and had the "many unrelated monsters hanging out in rooms" Syndrome.
Thanks! I've tried a few ways to run it: with a map visible, without a map visible but using location cards, and I think the way to do it is to delineate the dungeon, add a more concrete goal/direction to the dungeon and (of course) cut half the encounters. Though I haven't written that episode yet clearly, hence the vague answers :)
@@heyitsMattyP I will patiently await. If i would do it again, that would probably be the biggest thing I would change. And i would let the Redbrands behave more like an authoritarian police force.
Welcome back! The production value has gone way up with the benefit of more free time in the covid lockdown and better gear from Patreon support :) I'm so glad you noticed the improvement!
This is great! I think it's the best guide on Lmop and I've seen many. Love the way you tweak stuff, for example how to make the hideout a one session lenght dungeon to keep a good pace. How you describe teasing Phandalin in the end was an amazing cliffhanger I definitely will use that in my own campaign. Keep up the good work! :)
Agnar that's such a kind thing to say - thank you! If this series became the go-to guide for Lost Mines, I'd be stoked. I haven't seen the competition though, so I'll take you at your word and make sure the later episodes keep the standard high :)
Thank you! Yeah I've got a series on SKT to finish over the next two months, but THEN there's a new Starter Set coming out on August 1. I'm going to take the month off and run the adventure for three groups simultaneously, learn it back to front and make a new series all about the new starter set adventure (which I currently know nothing about).
When I DM Lost Mines I will have Sildar join the party on the trip and partake in the Goblin Ambush. Replace him with Glass Staff in the cave. That makes it so when the party saves the "captured" man, Sildar is grateful and can potentially join the party. Additionally this will make the players feel completely betrayed when they discover the true identity of the towns bBeG.
My party freed the wolves and then climbed the chimney. My bard then charmed Klarg and through a series of checks and saves got the VIP tour through the hideout and walked out with Slidar...
For context, my party is new to dnd, and so am I, I'm a first time Dm. We're all freshemn in high-school. So my party decides to go to Cragmaw Cave after skipping it and going straight to Phandlin. They make their way brutally killing Yeemic and reach their way to the water holding area. The Druid decided to use mold earth to try and capture the goblins in that room. 1 of them is captured and the other two escape but are then killed by the claric and Rouge. After this they try to befriend the one that they did capture. They end up making friends with her and she is now the party wizzard. They then stormed clargs room with their goblin friend. I explane how clarg was smoking before I could explane further my party cut me off and in unison exclaimed that they wanted to smoke with him. I asked them to roll persuasion and they all rolled below the DC, but then the bard asks if their goblin friend can roll. I sad yes, and then watched in awe as the goblin friend rolled a Nat 20. They ended up smoking with him and hotboxing the whole cave.
At my table, Yeemik became the big bad of LMoP. He believed that goblins together = strong, and after the party created a power vacuum in the Cragmaw tribe, he seized power and united a horde of communist goblins who attempted to take Wave Echo Cave and establish a permanent goblin settlement.
I've got six players and they absolutely STEAMROLLED the whole hideout and the battle with Klarg, but haven't gotten to the Yeemik room yet. I'm thinking about adding a hobgoblin attempting to make a deal with Yeemik. Only by teaming up can the hobs and gobs defeat the Bugbears. But the hobs plan to subjugate the goblins when the bugbears are out of the way, and vice versa. Only the players can tip the balance...
I like the idea of leading them right to the Cragmaw hideout, but what would the players do with the wagon of goods they are supposed to take to Phandalin? I can see that as a hindrance to going right to the hideout especially knowing that Goblins are on the prowl.
Awesome stuff! Been looking forward to this video for a week now. I just finished my session zero. The players got to create their own prologue for how they got the magic box. Then the session ended with a collective dream the night before setting out for Phandalin, where a dark figure (the black spider) realized the box had slipped from his grasp. Very excited to run session 1 with most of these recommendations soon!
@@heyitsMattyP Long wall of text incoming: Following your advice from the first video, each character had a connection to Gundren. He called them together and explained that he had been tracking down this artifact that contains a magical secret to unlocking "an important opportunity." Recently he learned that it would be up for auction by a woman with no clue what it really was. Gundren sent the party to the auction with twice the gold they would need, but were outbid nonetheless by a bored nobleman. The wizard's familiar and the Ranger kept eyes on the nobleman. Meanwhile, the rest scrambled to create a replica box, utilizing the fighter's proficiency in Jeweler's Tools to affix the large emerald (which they paid for with the money left to them by Gundren). The wizard then magically sealed it in a manner similar to the original (I made the box be sealed so that I didn't have to deal with them eventually opening it). At night, the Rogue went sneaky-sneak to swap the boxes while the nobleman, who looked less ornate than before, slept at his campsite. (Rightfully, the players wondered why a rich guy would camp out instead of buying lodging.) The party returned safely to Neverwinter with the box and instructions to deliver the wagon to Barthen's Provisions in Phandalin where they would meet up with Gundren. BUT that night they all had a dream of the nobleman walking through a cave with the box. As the nobleman went deeper, his features melted until he was a feature-less mass of black muscle and skin. The creature presented the box to a figure obscured by shadow (the Black Spider), who magically unlocked the box, then screamed in rage as the party's remaining gold pieces tumbled out. TLDR; The party lost an auction, so they made a replica box and swapped it with the real thing. The man with the fake ended up being the doppelganger, whose master was enraged at having been conned.
@@heyitsMattyP I haven't thought much about that. Off the top of my head, probably a fighter. He's the one who trained our fighter in the ways of the warhammer.
Yes! He's a big stoner with a goofy, gravelly laugh - he laughs a lot. Very chill. So I imagine Klarg as being a very affable doofus who is super casual about all the evil stuff he does.
I'm getting ready to dm this adventure after a hiatus of, oh, hmm 40 years (Advanced Ediltion)? I've watched a number of other videos covering this adventure, and while some are quite good, man, yours are the best. I love your ideas, and personality. I do see how these would take a lot of work. Good luck man! I'll be looking for more from you
Yep! So, I just mean Seth Rogen's personality, but evil. Seth Rogen usually plays dopey stoner types, with a deep gravelly voice and a super dopey laugh. So I take that energy, but he talks about robbing and killing, and he's very casual about the whole thing.
Thank you so much for this series! I think for my campaign, I'm gonna turn the little teasers at the end of the session into prophetic dreams for our Paladin? I did something similiar in the previous campaign and the players got really hyped about it.
so many great ideas in this series! running my first campaign as a DM and this has helped me a lot and gave me many ideas of my own. one of my players is a female drow sorcerer who is deathly afraid of spiders (also summons a spider randomly when casting spells) and ik she'll be freaking out when i bring up the black spider earlier than usual, cant wait for her to find out the black spider is also a female drow, i might even make her the reason she got cursed in the first place 🤔
Oh nice! Quick question: the CHARACTER is scared of spiders, not the PLAYER, right? Because if your player is scared of spiders, you should replace the Black Spider with the Black Caterpillar or something haha
First time DM here. Love this series! I've been using a lot of your ideas as well as a few of my own and my players love it. Figured you might appreciate a quick story from our run through Cragmaw Hideout: One of my players calmed the wolves in the kennel with Animal Handling and the group explored the chimney on the other side. One of my dumber fighter players climbed up the chimney and saw Klarg sitting in his office. He decided that right then, with his head peeking out of the chimney, was the best time to strike up a casual conversation with Klarg. Klarg, obviously alarmed by the intruders, later ended up fighting them in the twin pools room, which led to some really interesting combat theatrics. Our wizard ran distraction and used minor illusion to distract Klarg while the Rogue hid behind one of the larger stalactites in the room. Klarg landed a critical hit on our fighter and dropped him to 0 HP, but the Rogue answered with a nat 20 sneak attack of his own, decapitating a weakened Klarg. I'm so excited for Yeemick to rise to power in Cragmaw Castle, and to potentially being back the tamed wolves in a street fight with the Redbrands in Phandalin! Thank you so much for all of the great content.
Woof! Love that clutch crit after the fighter drops. Thanks for sharing! My last group had a different no-name goblin they ended up convincing to believe in himself and let him leave the Cragmaw Hideout,. He ended up becoming Job the Goblin King. They fought him as he rode an owlbear in the second-last session at the Cragmaw Castle.
Hi Matthew! Here is a recap of my first session of LMoP written by a party member. Most of us are not english native speakers but we play the module in english cause we got one party member from Portland. At a cold but sunny late summer morning the band of noobs started their adventure by escorting a cart to Phandalin as an assignment for Gundran Rockseeker, when Anton spotted some dead horses in the morning mist. As the band of noobs started to investigate the carcasses, they found an empty map case with Gundran's name on it. Soon they were attacked by three goblins, two of them almost immediatly lost their lives to Anton's and Pyroxenia's rage about this ambush, but the third one could be captured while he attempted to flee. Under the pressure of Funan's forceful Darth-Vader-style interrogation he told that Gundran and his componion were captured by goblins and brought to Klarg, a dubious mobster with an reputation for ambushes of all sorts. Strengthened by their successful first encounter, the band of noobs hid the cart in the bushes and made their way to the cave where Klarg and his entourage was hiding. The group managed to enter the cave unseen and met three very unhappy and mistreated goblins holding Gundrans companion Zilda hostage, but also willing to raise a mutiny against their oppressor Klarg. A deal was made - death of Klarg against the freedom of Zilda. They went to war against Klarg with Zilda at their side - a long and dangerous battle with almost everyone looking death in the face. Finally Klarg was defeated dying in the knowledge of his misbehaviour leaving a treasure of 600 copper, 120 silver, two healing potions and a mystic frog sculpture behind. Thankfully for the death of their bully the goblins gave them some prey of their ambushes and letting them spend a well-deserved and restful night in the cave.
My first LToP goblin cave experience as DM: 1) The players surprise, kill, then revive one of the goblin sentries, roll Nat 20 and he joins their side. He is called Dugg. 2) Nat 20 animal handling check on wolves. The party now has wolves… 3) The Cleric (using the chr sheet that CAME WITH THE BOOK) rolls Nat 20 on a Guiding Bolt and 1 hit kills Klarg the bugbear leader. 4) After rescuing Sildar and being warned by Dugg that more goblins are on the way back to the cave (I needed more enemies at this point…), the party Home Alones the cave. 5) The one goblin that escaped to tell the tail of their victory is felled by a trap the party set rolling yet another Nat 20. I gave them my dice.
Keep *CLAP* it *CLAP* UP! *CLAP* I started running this campaign this week with one group and will be using your videos for another group. It'll be a fun experiment.
Hi Matt, just wanted to thank you so much for these videos, I ran my first ever session as a DM last night and used several of your tips and they really gave me confidence and the whole thing went over so well! In particular the players loved the little prologue before starting the adventure. Really useful for a brand new DM! Thank you!
About the wolves, they will be worgs. My PC's will be very likely level 3, because I will play DoSI first where they get the puzzle box from the compass rose. If my pc's leave the puzzle box in the cart, they will find it missing after they leave the hideout. It will not be hard to follow the footprints and find two goblins and little further away they see a female Drow with some spiders. It will be the 2nd time seeing her. First time will be in the Dragonbreath Brewery. All PC's standing in front of the door and nobody opens. They find spiders in the brewery and after the fight. Some guys and a female drow try to move Gundren in a box out of the cellar entrance. I hope I will find more reasons to let Nezznara appear.
Gotta say, I wish this was out 4 years ago when I ran LMoP for my players. Very helpful content, have been watching it over the past few days. Finally subscribed. Please keep up the good work and make the same style videos about other adventures, Wizards' or otherwise.
Zach! That's rad - you gotta let me know how you go. All these changes have worked really well for me, and I'd encourage you to make even further changes if you reckon it would work for your group
@@heyitsMattyP Will do! I am currently running two different campaigns - both in homebrew settings - so it may be awhile! BTW - I loved your Wild Sheep Chase video and pulled it out for our group when we were missing some players and I could tell we just needed a fun one-shot to break up the intensity of the campaign - we all had a blast :-D Thank you for the content you are creating for the community!
Um. Omg. Yesterday I dmd my first game- I was feeling super stressed about it and have been spending weeks looking at different videos and reading up how to run it and just how to do the whole terrifying dm thing. Yesterday morning as a last minute desperate attempt to figure out all out I searched goblin arrows on TH-cam and found your series on lmop. Holy crapballs you saved my game! I was totally overthinking everything and just having you talk about it all so simply and the ideas for swapping things up and removing stuff was such a frigging relief! I actually had fun and I think the players did too!!! Thank you sooooooo much, I can't wait to watch all the whole series and continue the adventure!!!!!!!!!! 🙏🙏🙏🙏
Good advice all around and with a great sense of humour. I can't stres enough what you said about Room 6. Five goblins and Yeemik are far too many for four 1st lvl characters if you want to run this dungeon without the group having to stop for a long rest and drag the whole session down.
This content is great... And terrible. Terrible because I'm a first time DM and my players are arriving in Phandalin next session, and I want to adopt your approach, but I've been running the campaign by the book so far. I don't know what to do! I do know my players definitely don't even remember Gundren's name or that they even took a job for him. Ugh. This is gonna be tricky to rescue.
My dude, I got you :) Take half an hour at the start of the session for a flashback. "Guys, I want to do a flashback now to establish some backstory stuff now that we've already played with these characters a bit and you know your characters a little better. So lets flash back one week ago..." If you want to adopt the puzzlebox idea too, you can roll that into the flashback. If anyone gets confused as to why you didn't give them the puzzle box earlier, just say you forgot - they won't mind. I would recommend blitzing through all of these videos before you decide to adopt the ideas or not, just so you've got a complete picture of this kind of story I'm suggesting. And thanks for the kind comment!
@@heyitsMattyP This is good! I'd love to hook them with a flashback. Speaking of the puzzle box, another scenario I was considering was having Bart give it to them. Like picture the players have just told him that they learned of his capture. Bart, looking distraught and troubled, says something like "Well... the last time Gundren was here, he gave me something. A package. He said if I should ever seemingly run into trouble, find someone who can help and give them this." And obviously the puzzle box is inside. Is that problematic for the story in any way? I'm still wrapping my head around the story you constructed, and haven't watched all the videos. ALSO. If you want proof that you're onto something here, I quizzed myself while getting ready today. I was like "name one Phandalin NPC from the official campaign" and I couldn't. But after just watching your video once, I remembered Bart, Molly, Sister... something, but I knew her defining characteristics well, and the townskeeper. So the fact that I absorbed that much is definitely saying something. So keep up the good work!
That's a good idea! But I would make it be one of the Rockseeker Brothers who gave it to Bart. So this way, you're establishing Gundren with your flashback, then you're getting extra juice out of the puzzle box by seeding the fact that his brothers are out there somewhere
So i made some tweaks like you said. The goblin holding sildar talked to save his hide and that of his friends after watching one get instantly killed. Told the party about klog and 2 party members downed by him and 3rd ran away to catch up with sildar and the 4th party member that was away. Both members down by klog rolled nat 20 death saves. Klog didn't like the dearf but tiefling he liked and agreed to spare their lives and take them to the castle to meet the king as lvl2. Im going to use the black spider story hook to entice the 2 free party members she can get their compaions free for a price. Will do a mini session with 2 players to try and make the regular session all 4 at one place.
I love the idea of playing Klarg as an evil Seth Rogen 😂 Great series on how to run this module. I used your session 0 tips last night, and my players loved the addition of the puzzle box! They decided it was going to be like the puzzle box in Hellraiser, which was great because I love when the players add their own ideas into the mix and make the thing their own.
Man huge fan!! About to DM for the first time pretty much. This has been awesome! What’s a good way to get the box thingo? Obvs don’t want it to level them or anything but what’s a good simple way to get it
At 9 minutes into the video he says don't worry about the traps, that's in between the ambush and Cragmaw hideout. Instead of skipping over something that was small I used the opportunity to create a whole other battle map using Dungeon draft to give my players more things to do. Why make things as short as possible? If there was a way for me to add a picture I would show you the map that I made but there isnt
Hey Matt! Just finished this video and your first on LMoP. I’m about to start DMing for the first time for my nephew and a couple of his friends. They’re excited to play and I’m excited to DM. These videos have been great! I was feeling nervous about running and now I am utterly inspired. Thank you for your work and your approach to describing the scenes and options for modifications. Can’t wait to watch more :)
Gotta say my dude, loving this series of videos. Soooooo much useful info and the format that you use to break it up and extract the "Point" of each part of the adventure can be used for literally any published adventure. Keep up the hard work mang!!!
My favorite thing about your videos is how quick you jump into the good stuff. Really helpful ideas to help struggling dms prioritize and organize scenes
Late to the party, but I just wanted to share my appreciation for this video. I'm a relatively new DM and this guide has helped me to find that right balance between a pre-written campaign and homebrew. My players are loving the experience and I know its because the story is compelling and they feel a part of it. Plus the pre-written stuff (and these videos) make prep minimal.
This video is so helpful - I've only ran these encounters once and it felt really long winded in parts, but would never have considered getting rid of the traps or making the wolves encounter less combat focussed. Really great stuff and entertaining to boot :)
been a player for years and just recently decided to DM for a group of my friends that have always wanted to play. this has been SUUUPER helpful. thank you!
Matt, my dude... you are SO right. The Goblin Arrows is surprisingly lethal. Everyone thinks, "Oh, Goblins... they're not hard, right?" Wrong. They can, and often DO, kill 1st and 2nd level characters. And there are a LOT of them in this scene. And don't forget the Bugbear!
I'm about to start running my first ever game with the starter set and I'm a bit nervous. I'm over-analyzing and I love that you keep pointing out things that I noticed after my first read-through of the book. I'm going to be sure to watch as many of these videos as I can!
Cheers Chris! The general consensus I've gotten from people about this videos is something like, "Even if I don't agree with every suggestion, the videos kept me calm about running D&D." I'd recommend banging out the whole lot of videos before acting on my advice, because I there are some bits of information I forgot to front-load and it all makes better sense in context. You're gonna love LMOP! It's great :)
On their way to Phandalin, players meet Sir Baric Nylef, a friendly Paladin who is heading North to respond to some call about troubles with the Frost Giants there, as well as searching for a criminal called "Weevil". He shares some general info about Phandalin and offers an Aid spell to 3 of the players. Just a little bump for that first Goblin encounter ;)
I forgot to post in the last video how excited I am for this series. Ive also run it many times, but starting out with some new players and will wait til the end of this series.
I feel like there's a weird cognitive dissonance in describing Bugbear's in 5e. Everyone goes with the big and strong description, but the character only has a 15 strength and it's most notable tactics are stealth and surprise attack, not face to face fighting. It' also has a 16 AC, for something so big and strong the abilities seem to work against that. Sure there is the Brute feature, but I don't know it's really a hard sell on strength over stealth.
Rather than a description of bugbears, it's a description of the role Klarg is meant to play in the story. If Klarg were a kobold I'd be describing him in a similar way - to make him intimidating, to signal "this is the boss!"
The thing is...why, oh why do you tell the players something the characters don't or can't see? The cut away scenes sounds really off for me. Too much like a movie. Just my taste.
That's fair enough! All this stuff is 70% style, so some of it won't translate. Making the game feel like a movie is exactly my goal - sometimes in descriptions I'll even frame it as a camera shot.
Roger, it's a banger :) PLUS, because so many people have played Starter Set, it shifts your experiences closer to the centre of the D&D venn diagram of shared D&D memories so you can compare stories with practically any D&D fan
Yes, you should! You'll love it. My group is mid-module and we're having a complete blast. It dove-tailed nicely into my homebrew that's going to culminate in "Rise of Tiamat"... with a twist. :) Next after this (which will easily take use another 6 months) is Strahd. After that... either Icewind or Underdark. Or ... more homebrew. I'm not a bad writer! :D
Again, thanks so much for this! I just DM'd my 2nd ever proper session (1st was a bastardisation of Matt Colville's Delian Tomb) and it went really well (by that I mean nothing went to plan and I had to learn to improv very early on, but I think it went well!). The guys all loved it though and gave me awesome feedback, which made all my prep (of which there was way too much) worth it. The party chased the fleeing Gobbo from the ambush site (and had a cool chase scene thanks to your alternative chase rules) and interrogated him. All but 1 one the party felt sorry for him, as he was such a grunt of a Gobbo, he didn't have a name, so they named him Steef (was Steve, but when I asked them to spell it, this is what it turned into!). Steef led the party to the Cragmaw hideout and told them about Yeemik's desire to over-throw Klarg. After the Ranger tamed one of the wolves on the way in, Steef took the party directly to Yeemik's den. Yeekmik, not happy with Steef for bringing outsiders in,, shot and downed Steef, to the parties anguish. They then tried to bargain with Yeemik, but a bad persuasion roll led to a fight. Ranger went first targeting Yeemik and rolled a Nat 20 on his animal handling for the wolf, so I let the wolf give advantage AND attack for 1d4 +1 piercing damage with a bite and the Ranger also hit hard, so Yeemik was forced to call a truce super quick. He offered to let Sildar go, in exchange for Klarg's head. The party accepted this. Yeemik, now not wanting the burden of a Gobbo he believes to be insubordinate, let the party heal Steef and accompany them. They struggled in the Twin Pools fight, with the Rogue being downed twice and ending the fight stable, but unconscious. We ran out of time there, so the party, with no spells left, no healing pots, have dragged the Rogue's body under the bridge and are going to attempt to rest and recoup for the battle against Klarg. Not sure how happy Yeemik is going to be with this, as he is impatient, so I may have to let out a cry or some noise that Steef knows signifies a sacrifice has begun in Yeemik's den (e.g. they are about to eat Sildar) and then the party will have to go deal with that first. I can give them a level up after that to lvl 2 and then they can go and try and beat Klarg, his Worg, 2 hidden Gobos, but with a pretty strong party of 4 PC's, Steef, a wolf (yet un-named) and an injured Sildar! I have said that after each session, the players vote the MVP and that person gets inspiration at the beginning of the next session and I've also used an alternative inspiration spending system (lots of cool options to choose from), so they can at least get buffed a little from that, even if they don't manage to get a full rest in, so with that and hitting lvl 2, they should hopefully be well equipped to defeat Klarg! 1 month between sessions to plan the next one! Wish me luck!
I cannot tell you how much I enjoy your style. There are a large number of great content creators teaching this adventure, but I love your approach. I am a new DM and I feel you have given me the tools to run this module the way the author intended, while leaving me the flexibility to maximize my players' enjoyment. I am planning on running my first session one on one with my girlfriends Rouge and her Wizard sidekick tongiht! Thanks for all your hard work.
Oh wow, thanks! My gameplay style hasn't changed since making these videos, but my video and presentation style has changed quite a bit as I've gotten more practice. I'm about to dip back into LMOP content this month though, so hopefully the new videos are helpful too!
Hey there, I found your guide while preparing this as my first D&D campaign. I've always only played The Dark Eye, coming from Germany, so this is my first toe-dipping here - Thanks for the invaluable resources! My players (First time PnP-players, my Wife and 3 kids, 12-15) have deceived Yeemik into thinking they're supposed to get the hostage for King Grol, which he didn't really buy, but he struck a deal with them to dispose of Klarg. Then they deceived Klarg into believing them as well. Unfortunately, he went with them to Yeemik, to get the hostage, so he was pissed to see Klarg alive. Klarg knew, Yeemik was up to no good, so the boss fight of this cave was Klarg and the Players against Yeemik an his cronies. Not quite as I had planned, but funny nonetheless. They nearly managed to talk themselves out of everything, really good for first time players.
Oh wow! They smooth-talked their way into an impossible situation haha :) Well done! Also: since you're from Germany, you may like this free combat cheat sheet my community translated into Deutsch - www.patreon.com/posts/5e-combat-cheat-37395490
my party had someone scream at the beginning of the dungeon and dressed our sorcerer up as she speaks goblin. She tried to negotiate with the group of goblins from room 6 that ran out, and when that failed the party, who hid in the wolf cave (after freeing them thanks to speak with animals) That way the encounter in room 6 was way easier, which they deserved with such a daring plan. the rogue one shoted Yeemik tho with a crit +sneak attack from the shadows. Yeemik never saw it coming :)
OOOF the ol' rogue crit is so rare and so satisfying. The moment when new players go, "Wait, do I roll my Sneak Attack damage twice too?" I love rogues!
I discovered your videos 2 sessions into LMoP…and have been binging and craving the next session ever since! I’m excited to alter some of the pre-written info now that you’ve given “permission” to go rogue. Haha. My first session was a doozy, I misunderstood the “charm” spell and let the players take a Goblin friend who through a series of. AMAZING persuasion checks, became their friend. This goblin (Jeff) was later instated as the new leader of Cragmaw cavern as a thanks for his help in battle. Session 2, one of the players insisted on buying a goat, and because the image is so funny, I am allowing the goat to be large enough/the dwarf to be small enough that they ride the goat in battle. Hahahaha
Thanks for the amazing content! I'm prepping for my first ever session of DnD, with 4 friends who have also never played. I've picked up the mantle of DM, as I have been the keenest to get a session scheduled. My question would be for less imaginative people (like myself) who struggle to make things up on the fly; what would you have behind your DM screen and how would you go about organising everything? Should I take the original LMoP text, throw it in a Word doc, chop and change the bits as per your vids / my taste and then use that as my "guide" when Dming on the day?
Hey mate! I might not be the best person to ask, because I generally improvise a session within a framework. In my notes, I usually just have dot-points and little diagrams and doodles to tell me what I want to happen in the session, and then I ad-lib all the roleplaying and descriptions.
I decided to play through this with a solo Fighter to see if One D&D characters are really that much stronger than base 5e. In short they kind of are but I kinda went against the spirt of the challenge by recruiting a Goblin from the initial ambush. (For context: she realized my fighter had an aversion to killing and figured she’d be easy to manipulate with a sob story about how badly Klarg and Yeemick treat the goblins. After watching the Fighter successfully kill Klarg she started having second thoughts about betraying her to take over the hideout.)
My group of first timers barely managed to escape the ambush alive, after which they were SUPER careful and paranoid for several sessions >:( Encounter definitely needs to be nerfed!
After a whole bunch of careful DM prep, my party of 2, circumvented the whole thing and was able to walk in and out with Sildar without a single combat encounter. One of my PCs cast Charm Person on the goblin that ran away from the ambush and asked him to take them to Klarg. Then every time there was a deception or perception check against the helper goblin or the PCs the Cragmaws blew it (seriously, the goblin on the bridge rolled a nat 1, "go right on in, man"). Then they cast Charm Person on Klarg, who was attending to his loot pile. Klarg takes them to Sildar. Yeemik, who is highly suspicious, blows SEVERAL intuition checks, and the PCs walk out with Klarg, his wolf, their Goblin friend and Sildar. It's not until they got back to their cart and got 30ft away that they had to fight their way to actually escape (they were able to ice Klarg from the moving wagon).
BTW, I can't say enough about how much I like/appreciate the chapters! Every time I have a question I go to the chapter I need. ...I watch these videos a LOT 🙂
I play a lot of board games with my now teenage daughters, they mainly go for worker placement Euro-games like Agricola. We were researching what game to get this Christmas and with nothing grabbing us they asked ‘What did you mostly play when you were our age’…. ‘D&D’ said I. Golly they got excited once I’d explained it a bit. So 45 years since I last painted up a mini here I am. I’m certainly going to play the wolves as potential pets and cut out most of the traps. Really liking your ideas, having a ‘cipher’ treasure box that they’ll really want to solve- that’s genius. Also going for a rogue widowed wife Bugbear somewhere in the plot later on…. I’m actually getting a tad excited.
Mr. Perkins, I presume? Hey Matt, just wanted to thank you SO much for this series of vids you've created on the LMoP! I've never DM'd before, but am very excited to do so for my buds. So I've been searching on "how to's" and stumbled across your channel. Let me tell you, you've got another subscriber, my dude! These vids are well done and I am excited to make similar changes to this starter set, to make my first time DM'ing a sure success!
HI! Just discovered your videos as I'm about to run LMOP for a relatively new group of players. I find the "cutscenes' and narration a departure from any other D&D game I've been in or ran. I'm concerned about giving away info to the players about what's to come or spoiling the surprise of the doppelgangers or even player knowledge versus character knowledge meta gaming issues. Have you had issues doing this? Great videos, very helpful!
Hey Joe! I don't personally mind about giving the players too much information. I see it like a movie: extra context helps people follow the story. And in the case of D&D: extra context helps the actors make meaningful decisions.
I am planning on running my youngest daughter and a few sidekicks through this very soon. We are both so very excited! Thank you so much for making this video series helping to break down the key moments and give new DM's pointers for these adventures. The module isn't always so clear cut as you explain things to be. I appreciate your work with all of your module guides. I can't wait to pour through them and get to adventuring!
How would you recommend handling the jump to level 2 with new players? I'm worried that dumping another adnin session onto them right after their first combat encounter would be demoralising.
For brand new players, you could either: A) not do the early level up if they're super struggling with the rules and instead drop the power level of some of the encounters for balance (level up at the end of the session instead) B) use pregens that have already been leveled up so you can straight swap their character sheets
second video i enjoy bro! starting my DM experience shortly and using this to help me. Thanks very much my dude. Have added a few more things ontop of your suggestions as well :)
I came very close to getting killed right from the word go due to Goblin Arrows. 1st level Rogue with not a ton of hit points...3 Goblin archers all gunning for him. He did a great Porcupine impression.
Haha, oh no! The first fight can get a bit rough, especially when the DM focus-fires. I try to *not* declare all my targets for my attacks all at once, so if the first few hit, I can redirect my last attacks to reduce lethality.
@@heyitsMattyP He rolled randomly and three of them came up with my very tall Rogue as the target. Thankfully the Bard had some Healing word ready to go.
Great video series! Your little jokes about the players and the game show-esque music with "What's the point of ?" got a laugh out of me. More importantly, these are super helpful for a new DM like me. Thank you!!
I mean this as friendly constructive critcism, please take with a grain of salt. I stopped watching your video when you told me how not to role play a goblin. Your dislike of a shrill voiced goblin is subjective and your opinion. I clicked your video for suggestions on running the game but in this instance your telling me how to run my game. Guess what, I do a shrill voice when I run my goblins because I would imagine them having shrill voices despite your disdain. Maybe offer up advise without bringing up what you specifically hate other DM's do because maybe some of the DM's watching this actually do the things you hate. If you get an opportunity check out Verdigris Table"s videos on the same subject, I was able to watch the whole video without being insulted and came away with really good advise.
In most of these videos I say, "If you disagree with the book, follow your gut - you're right. If you disagree with me, follow your gut - you're right." It doesn't bother me what you do in your game, but I still have preferences and my own style, and these videos advocate my preferences and my style. I trust people to take what's useful to them and leave the rest.
If you like this kind of content, please let me know by liking, subscribing, commenting! Watching this video without feeding the algorithm is illegal, and you WILL be arrested. Also: please share this with your players after the campaign finishes :)
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My wife can't tell the difference between any of the dice. She just knows she HATES the d4.
@@lashwrithe01 Remember the simpler days when every dice was a cube? Cubes all the way down, like it should be.
@@heyitsMattyP YAHTZEE!
Yahtzee.
Is the western style Fandlynn Map by Gaston on your Patreon?
I've DM'd Goblin Arrows many, many times as a training exercise for new players. My latest group was torn as to whether to follow the goblin trail or move the horses and push the cart on to Phandalin. They worried if they left the cart it would get pillaged. Their solution was to write "CURSED" in horse blood on every inch of the surface of the cart in every language they knew. I'm so excited for them to haul it back to Phandalin!
Horse blood!? Oh man, that's actually brutal!
How did this turn out?
@@jenoneonone The townsfolk were understandably wary of the cart once the sun rose, but by then so much else had happened that it was a non-issue, lol
@@benvoliothefirst Haha thanks for the update!
I love this that they’re smart enough to do this to ward of goblins but not smart enough to know it’s gonna be horrifying for the towns people
Including a section with RP tips is a great idea! Great presentation, Matt :)
Cheers Bob!
You know one thing you can do: Play with pronunciation of names. Rather than saying it as "klarg" extend it.
"My name is 'Klaaaaaaarg'"
"Klaarg?"
"No, not 'klarg' 'KLAAaaaarg.' 'Klaarg' means strong, and I am more than strong, I am 'KLAAAAARG!'"
It can give an NPC some personality, especially a strong, dumb enemy.
Love the tutorial, but I disagree with cutting a lot out. This may be the first time for many players. The Traps for example, can be used to teach mechanics players may not think of on their own. Ex. Passive Perception to investigation to disarm trap. How to safely get free using team work, how to avoid a pit after sprung, looting a disarmed trap, luring enemies into trap etc.
Man. Super love how you break down missions and add/delete portions. Well done, super excited to run this! 👏
Mate! Glad you're keen - I love cutting content haha
Just ran the hideout with my group of 6. I had them level up after the ambush and buffed the encounters in the hideout. The druid wildshaped into a spider and started exploring the cave, relaying the location of everything, unfortunately for her she rolled a nat1 on stealth and some Gobbos spotted the spider and attempted target practice on the spider in the ceiling. I had the Gobbo roll at disadvantage since he was aiming at fast spoder but he got a nat20 and a nat18 so he sniped the spoder reverting the druid back to herself, alone, in the deepest part of the hideout (by the pools). She entered combat by herself, Klarg got allerted and joined the fight, but miraculusly, the Gobbos missed 5 attacks in a row, so she managed to wildshape into a falcon and fly the fuck out of there. I love D&D :)
Scouting missions often end up being combat missions - classic D&D :)
It's been a long time but what happened next !?
@@raccoon3164 A lot. We actually turned the campaign into Waterdeep: Dragonheist (An extended version with all villains from level 5 - 14) after they finished LMoP. We have played every other week for over two years and we have about 4-5 sessions remaining of it. One of the final boss battles today actually
Hey that's cool, hope everything turned out chaotic good! I actually had the same idea as you about leading into Waterdeep : Dragonheist just cause it sounds fucking cool, even though we just barely started Lost Mines. From one GM to another, any tips on how you segwayed from LMoP to Dragonheist would be super appreciated dude!@@reinpogo4601
I'm running my first campaign as a DM tomorrow and these videos have been suuuuper helpful. I saw this cave and was like ummm I'm not super confident they're gonna get through all of this hahaha. Great videos!!
I've played LMoP as a player and as a DM, and let me tell you, the new approach you gave us on the "script" and the change on the NPC's, and mostly, the keys to twist and change the story is actually priceless.
Thank you.
(Subscribed and liked)
Glad to help :)
Picked up this mod to introduce my boys to they game. I havent since 3.5 and never really dm'ed before. Thanks for the review and all the RP ideas along the breakdown! Great work!
Cheers Michael! Hope you and your boys have a great time :)
You got me hooked at the end with your cut away. Now I definitely want to play in your game
Personally, I've ran a session 1 where the players try to get the Puzzle Box but cultists prevent them from getting it, capturing them instead. By escaping the cultist hideout and defeating the head cultist, the players gain access to the Puzzle Box and venture forward into Goblin Arrows. I did this so my players had a better incentive to hit level 2 before they arrived at Goblin Arrows, while obtaining more basic knowledge about the game. It made it easier for me as DM to play around with the Goblins' and Klarg's power level.
That ending bow and foreshadowing section was awesome I'm stealing that for my own games going forward! I ran this a few years ago as my first time DMing and I wish I had seen these back then some great tweaks!!
Oh rad Butcher! It's a real handy trick to keep all the crucial information compartmentalized and stoke the players' interest for next session. Also it's super fun doing an over-the-top narrator thing :D If you're subscribed, keep an eye out for the rest of the series because I've just crossed the halfway point -- I'm writing about the Redbrands right now! Hopefully it's helpful if you decide to run Lost Mines again
Yeah keep it up man! enjoying the content! Found your channel when I was working out cool ways to run chase scenes and now im just binging your full catalogue in the background when doing prep
Exceptionally well thought out and delivered. Thank you.
I really wish I'd discovered these videos *before* I started running TLMoP. 🙃
Guess you'll just have to run it a second time :D
@@heyitsMattyP It's okay, I was only one session in and I managed to incorporate most of your suggestions and I'm working on fitting the rest of them in as well.
Defo the best DM's guide on YT for the starter set!
This was a good one. really teaches you how to adjust any prewritten adventure. I am really curious how you are going to change the wave-echo cave. Because in my experience, it was too big and had the "many unrelated monsters hanging out in rooms" Syndrome.
Thanks! I've tried a few ways to run it: with a map visible, without a map visible but using location cards, and I think the way to do it is to delineate the dungeon, add a more concrete goal/direction to the dungeon and (of course) cut half the encounters.
Though I haven't written that episode yet clearly, hence the vague answers :)
@@heyitsMattyP I will patiently await. If i would do it again, that would probably be the biggest thing I would change. And i would let the Redbrands behave more like an authoritarian police force.
You might be the best. Definitely considering your patron. Would be my first
Thank you!
I wish I had actually understood how to dm when I dmed this, I accidentally ended up teleporting my characters all over the place
I messed up my first time too! Complete train wreck... But it felt really good to go back and run it again years later and knock it out of the park
teleported? how?
Wow Matthew, been a little while since I caught one of your vids and the production value has skyrocketed, so good man!
Welcome back! The production value has gone way up with the benefit of more free time in the covid lockdown and better gear from Patreon support :) I'm so glad you noticed the improvement!
So Good!!! Thank for for this!
This is great! I think it's the best guide on Lmop and I've seen many. Love the way you tweak stuff, for example how to make the hideout a one session lenght dungeon to keep a good pace. How you describe teasing Phandalin in the end was an amazing cliffhanger I definitely will use that in my own campaign. Keep up the good work! :)
Agnar that's such a kind thing to say - thank you! If this series became the go-to guide for Lost Mines, I'd be stoked. I haven't seen the competition though, so I'll take you at your word and make sure the later episodes keep the standard high :)
This series is phenomenal any plans to do it for other adventures? Getting a lot of useful tips and ideas.
Thank you! Yeah I've got a series on SKT to finish over the next two months, but THEN there's a new Starter Set coming out on August 1. I'm going to take the month off and run the adventure for three groups simultaneously, learn it back to front and make a new series all about the new starter set adventure (which I currently know nothing about).
My party went STRAIGHT TO KLARG! Really threw me off. lol.
Hey great content! I wanted some nice changes to the campaign and you delivered!
When I DM Lost Mines I will have Sildar join the party on the trip and partake in the Goblin Ambush. Replace him with Glass Staff in the cave. That makes it so when the party saves the "captured" man, Sildar is grateful and can potentially join the party. Additionally this will make the players feel completely betrayed when they discover the true identity of the towns bBeG.
That is a fun alteration
This is great content for a new DM like me. Keep it coming! Subd!
Cheers Lincoln!
My party freed the wolves and then climbed the chimney. My bard then charmed Klarg and through a series of checks and saves got the VIP tour through the hideout and walked out with Slidar...
For context, my party is new to dnd, and so am I, I'm a first time Dm. We're all freshemn in high-school. So my party decides to go to Cragmaw Cave after skipping it and going straight to Phandlin. They make their way brutally killing Yeemic and reach their way to the water holding area. The Druid decided to use mold earth to try and capture the goblins in that room. 1 of them is captured and the other two escape but are then killed by the claric and Rouge. After this they try to befriend the one that they did capture. They end up making friends with her and she is now the party wizzard. They then stormed clargs room with their goblin friend. I explane how clarg was smoking before I could explane further my party cut me off and in unison exclaimed that they wanted to smoke with him. I asked them to roll persuasion and they all rolled below the DC, but then the bard asks if their goblin friend can roll. I sad yes, and then watched in awe as the goblin friend rolled a Nat 20. They ended up smoking with him and hotboxing the whole cave.
At my table, Yeemik became the big bad of LMoP. He believed that goblins together = strong, and after the party created a power vacuum in the Cragmaw tribe, he seized power and united a horde of communist goblins who attempted to take Wave Echo Cave and establish a permanent goblin settlement.
I've got six players and they absolutely STEAMROLLED the whole hideout and the battle with Klarg, but haven't gotten to the Yeemik room yet. I'm thinking about adding a hobgoblin attempting to make a deal with Yeemik. Only by teaming up can the hobs and gobs defeat the Bugbears. But the hobs plan to subjugate the goblins when the bugbears are out of the way, and vice versa. Only the players can tip the balance...
I like in this situation the goblins don't know the players have already defeated Klarg.
"We need to team up to defeat Klarg!"
"Yeah about that..."
I like the idea of leading them right to the Cragmaw hideout, but what would the players do with the wagon of goods they are supposed to take to Phandalin? I can see that as a hindrance to going right to the hideout especially knowing that Goblins are on the prowl.
Awesome stuff! Been looking forward to this video for a week now. I just finished my session zero. The players got to create their own prologue for how they got the magic box. Then the session ended with a collective dream the night before setting out for Phandalin, where a dark figure (the black spider) realized the box had slipped from his grasp.
Very excited to run session 1 with most of these recommendations soon!
Jamie that's awesome! Super stoked this video series is chugging along at the same pace as your game :)
What was the prologue your party concocted?
@@heyitsMattyP Long wall of text incoming: Following your advice from the first video, each character had a connection to Gundren. He called them together and explained that he had been tracking down this artifact that contains a magical secret to unlocking "an important opportunity." Recently he learned that it would be up for auction by a woman with no clue what it really was. Gundren sent the party to the auction with twice the gold they would need, but were outbid nonetheless by a bored nobleman.
The wizard's familiar and the Ranger kept eyes on the nobleman. Meanwhile, the rest scrambled to create a replica box, utilizing the fighter's proficiency in Jeweler's Tools to affix the large emerald (which they paid for with the money left to them by Gundren). The wizard then magically sealed it in a manner similar to the original (I made the box be sealed so that I didn't have to deal with them eventually opening it).
At night, the Rogue went sneaky-sneak to swap the boxes while the nobleman, who looked less ornate than before, slept at his campsite. (Rightfully, the players wondered why a rich guy would camp out instead of buying lodging.) The party returned safely to Neverwinter with the box and instructions to deliver the wagon to Barthen's Provisions in Phandalin where they would meet up with Gundren.
BUT that night they all had a dream of the nobleman walking through a cave with the box. As the nobleman went deeper, his features melted until he was a feature-less mass of black muscle and skin. The creature presented the box to a figure obscured by shadow (the Black Spider), who magically unlocked the box, then screamed in rage as the party's remaining gold pieces tumbled out.
TLDR; The party lost an auction, so they made a replica box and swapped it with the real thing. The man with the fake ended up being the doppelganger, whose master was enraged at having been conned.
That's rad! Well done :)
What class do you think your Gundren is?
@@heyitsMattyP I haven't thought much about that. Off the top of my head, probably a fighter. He's the one who trained our fighter in the ways of the warhammer.
Can someone tell me what evil Seth Rogan is like? I dunno my actors that well.
Yes! He's a big stoner with a goofy, gravelly laugh - he laughs a lot. Very chill. So I imagine Klarg as being a very affable doofus who is super casual about all the evil stuff he does.
I'm getting ready to dm this adventure after a hiatus of, oh, hmm 40 years (Advanced Ediltion)? I've watched a number of other videos covering this adventure, and while some are quite good, man, yours are the best. I love your ideas, and personality. I do see how these would take a lot of work. Good luck man! I'll be looking for more from you
May I ask you something?
how it's Seth Rogen Evil? I'm from Colombia and I don't get the idea
Yep! So, I just mean Seth Rogen's personality, but evil. Seth Rogen usually plays dopey stoner types, with a deep gravelly voice and a super dopey laugh. So I take that energy, but he talks about robbing and killing, and he's very casual about the whole thing.
low ambition, wants to tell you a joke and be your friend just so you can become just as lethargic.......but evil like he said.
Thank you so much for this series!
I think for my campaign, I'm gonna turn the little teasers at the end of the session into prophetic dreams for our Paladin?
I did something similiar in the previous campaign and the players got really hyped about it.
so many great ideas in this series! running my first campaign as a DM and this has helped me a lot and gave me many ideas of my own. one of my players is a female drow sorcerer who is deathly afraid of spiders (also summons a spider randomly when casting spells) and ik she'll be freaking out when i bring up the black spider earlier than usual, cant wait for her to find out the black spider is also a female drow, i might even make her the reason she got cursed in the first place 🤔
Oh nice! Quick question: the CHARACTER is scared of spiders, not the PLAYER, right? Because if your player is scared of spiders, you should replace the Black Spider with the Black Caterpillar or something haha
@@heyitsMattyP no its the character haha and hopefully she overcomes that fear before fighting her lol
First time DM here. Love this series! I've been using a lot of your ideas as well as a few of my own and my players love it. Figured you might appreciate a quick story from our run through Cragmaw Hideout:
One of my players calmed the wolves in the kennel with Animal Handling and the group explored the chimney on the other side. One of my dumber fighter players climbed up the chimney and saw Klarg sitting in his office. He decided that right then, with his head peeking out of the chimney, was the best time to strike up a casual conversation with Klarg. Klarg, obviously alarmed by the intruders, later ended up fighting them in the twin pools room, which led to some really interesting combat theatrics.
Our wizard ran distraction and used minor illusion to distract Klarg while the Rogue hid behind one of the larger stalactites in the room. Klarg landed a critical hit on our fighter and dropped him to 0 HP, but the Rogue answered with a nat 20 sneak attack of his own, decapitating a weakened Klarg.
I'm so excited for Yeemick to rise to power in Cragmaw Castle, and to potentially being back the tamed wolves in a street fight with the Redbrands in Phandalin! Thank you so much for all of the great content.
Woof! Love that clutch crit after the fighter drops. Thanks for sharing! My last group had a different no-name goblin they ended up convincing to believe in himself and let him leave the Cragmaw Hideout,. He ended up becoming Job the Goblin King. They fought him as he rode an owlbear in the second-last session at the Cragmaw Castle.
@@heyitsMattyP "Job" like the loser in wrestling, or "Job" like the biblical figure? :)
Hi Matthew! Here is a recap of my first session of LMoP written by a party member. Most of us are not english native speakers but we play the module in english cause we got one party member from Portland.
At a cold but sunny late summer morning the band of noobs started their adventure by escorting a cart to Phandalin as an assignment for Gundran Rockseeker, when Anton spotted some dead horses in the morning mist. As the band of noobs started to investigate the carcasses, they found an empty map case with Gundran's name on it. Soon they were attacked by three goblins, two of them almost immediatly lost their lives to Anton's and Pyroxenia's rage about this ambush, but the third one could be captured while he attempted to flee. Under the pressure of Funan's forceful Darth-Vader-style interrogation he told that Gundran and his componion were captured by goblins and brought to Klarg, a dubious mobster with an reputation for ambushes of all sorts. Strengthened by their successful first encounter, the band of noobs hid the cart in the bushes and made their way to the cave where Klarg and his entourage was hiding. The group managed to enter the cave unseen and met three very unhappy and mistreated goblins holding Gundrans companion Zilda hostage, but also willing to raise a mutiny against their oppressor Klarg. A deal was made - death of Klarg against the freedom of Zilda. They went to war against Klarg with Zilda at their side - a long and dangerous battle with almost everyone looking death in the face. Finally Klarg was defeated dying in the knowledge of his misbehaviour leaving a treasure of 600 copper, 120 silver, two healing potions and a mystic frog sculpture behind. Thankfully for the death of their bully the goblins gave them some prey of their ambushes and letting them spend a well-deserved and restful night in the cave.
Thanks for sharing Marius! I like how the goblins let the party rest in the cave after they defeated Klarg :)
My first LToP goblin cave experience as DM:
1) The players surprise, kill, then revive one of the goblin sentries, roll Nat 20 and he joins their side. He is called Dugg.
2) Nat 20 animal handling check on wolves. The party now has wolves…
3) The Cleric (using the chr sheet that CAME WITH THE BOOK) rolls Nat 20 on a Guiding Bolt and 1 hit kills Klarg the bugbear leader.
4) After rescuing Sildar and being warned by Dugg that more goblins are on the way back to the cave (I needed more enemies at this point…), the party Home Alones the cave.
5) The one goblin that escaped to tell the tail of their victory is felled by a trap the party set rolling yet another Nat 20.
I gave them my dice.
Hah! You've got a swat team on your hands
My players would pay cash money for those dice!
Great vids. Where is the part about the Puzzle Box and players that might try open it?
I think I talk about it in the previous video? But I'll make a full PDF and video on it at some point this year.
Welp. My players just burned, slashed, shot and killed all three wolves...
If you had my wolf handout printed, I hope you dramatically tore it up
Keep *CLAP* it *CLAP* UP! *CLAP* I started running this campaign this week with one group and will be using your videos for another group. It'll be a fun experiment.
Yessss! Please do - you're my favourite scientist :)
Hi Matt, just wanted to thank you so much for these videos, I ran my first ever session as a DM last night and used several of your tips and they really gave me confidence and the whole thing went over so well! In particular the players loved the little prologue before starting the adventure. Really useful for a brand new DM! Thank you!
About the wolves, they will be worgs. My PC's will be very likely level 3, because I will play DoSI first where they get the puzzle box from the compass rose.
If my pc's leave the puzzle box in the cart, they will find it missing after they leave the hideout.
It will not be hard to follow the footprints and find two goblins and little further away they see a female Drow with some spiders. It will be the 2nd time seeing her.
First time will be in the Dragonbreath Brewery. All PC's standing in front of the door and nobody opens. They find spiders in the brewery and after the fight. Some guys and a female drow try to move Gundren in a box out of the cellar entrance.
I hope I will find more reasons to let Nezznara appear.
My players went and dropped the wagon off before hitting the cave.
Now that's an interesting choice!
Gotta say, I wish this was out 4 years ago when I ran LMoP for my players. Very helpful content, have been watching it over the past few days. Finally subscribed. Please keep up the good work and make the same style videos about other adventures, Wizards' or otherwise.
Loving these videos! When I get the chance to run Lost Mines again I will definitely be implementing a lot of these ideas :-)
Zach! That's rad - you gotta let me know how you go. All these changes have worked really well for me, and I'd encourage you to make even further changes if you reckon it would work for your group
@@heyitsMattyP Will do! I am currently running two different campaigns - both in homebrew settings - so it may be awhile! BTW - I loved your Wild Sheep Chase video and pulled it out for our group when we were missing some players and I could tell we just needed a fun one-shot to break up the intensity of the campaign - we all had a blast :-D Thank you for the content you are creating for the community!
Um. Omg. Yesterday I dmd my first game- I was feeling super stressed about it and have been spending weeks looking at different videos and reading up how to run it and just how to do the whole terrifying dm thing. Yesterday morning as a last minute desperate attempt to figure out all out I searched goblin arrows on TH-cam and found your series on lmop. Holy crapballs you saved my game! I was totally overthinking everything and just having you talk about it all so simply and the ideas for swapping things up and removing stuff was such a frigging relief! I actually had fun and I think the players did too!!! Thank you sooooooo much, I can't wait to watch all the whole series and continue the adventure!!!!!!!!!! 🙏🙏🙏🙏
We all know who the new king of unfair campaigns is It's clearly the tomb of annihilation
Yep! I got pretty frustrated in ToA as a player
Good advice all around and with a great sense of humour. I can't stres enough what you said about Room 6. Five goblins and Yeemik are far too many for four 1st lvl characters if you want to run this dungeon without the group having to stop for a long rest and drag the whole session down.
This content is great... And terrible. Terrible because I'm a first time DM and my players are arriving in Phandalin next session, and I want to adopt your approach, but I've been running the campaign by the book so far. I don't know what to do! I do know my players definitely don't even remember Gundren's name or that they even took a job for him. Ugh. This is gonna be tricky to rescue.
My dude, I got you :) Take half an hour at the start of the session for a flashback. "Guys, I want to do a flashback now to establish some backstory stuff now that we've already played with these characters a bit and you know your characters a little better. So lets flash back one week ago..." If you want to adopt the puzzlebox idea too, you can roll that into the flashback. If anyone gets confused as to why you didn't give them the puzzle box earlier, just say you forgot - they won't mind. I would recommend blitzing through all of these videos before you decide to adopt the ideas or not, just so you've got a complete picture of this kind of story I'm suggesting. And thanks for the kind comment!
@@heyitsMattyP This is good! I'd love to hook them with a flashback. Speaking of the puzzle box, another scenario I was considering was having Bart give it to them. Like picture the players have just told him that they learned of his capture. Bart, looking distraught and troubled, says something like "Well... the last time Gundren was here, he gave me something. A package. He said if I should ever seemingly run into trouble, find someone who can help and give them this." And obviously the puzzle box is inside. Is that problematic for the story in any way? I'm still wrapping my head around the story you constructed, and haven't watched all the videos.
ALSO. If you want proof that you're onto something here, I quizzed myself while getting ready today. I was like "name one Phandalin NPC from the official campaign" and I couldn't. But after just watching your video once, I remembered Bart, Molly, Sister... something, but I knew her defining characteristics well, and the townskeeper. So the fact that I absorbed that much is definitely saying something. So keep up the good work!
That's a good idea! But I would make it be one of the Rockseeker Brothers who gave it to Bart. So this way, you're establishing Gundren with your flashback, then you're getting extra juice out of the puzzle box by seeding the fact that his brothers are out there somewhere
@@heyitsMattyP Nice. It’s all about that juice, my dude.
So i made some tweaks like you said. The goblin holding sildar talked to save his hide and that of his friends after watching one get instantly killed. Told the party about klog and 2 party members downed by him and 3rd ran away to catch up with sildar and the 4th party member that was away. Both members down by klog rolled nat 20 death saves. Klog didn't like the dearf but tiefling he liked and agreed to spare their lives and take them to the castle to meet the king as lvl2. Im going to use the black spider story hook to entice the 2 free party members she can get their compaions free for a price. Will do a mini session with 2 players to try and make the regular session all 4 at one place.
Prepping to DM LMOP for my friends right now! Can't say how much I appreciate having you as a resource
Oh wow! I appreciate you inviting my ideas to your table :) Hope you and your mates have a rad time!
I love the idea of playing Klarg as an evil Seth Rogen 😂 Great series on how to run this module. I used your session 0 tips last night, and my players loved the addition of the puzzle box! They decided it was going to be like the puzzle box in Hellraiser, which was great because I love when the players add their own ideas into the mix and make the thing their own.
Nice one! You'll be happy to know Hellraiser is EXACTLY what I was imagining when I first used the puzzle box in my game
Man huge fan!! About to DM for the first time pretty much. This has been awesome!
What’s a good way to get the box thingo? Obvs don’t want it to level them or anything but what’s a good simple way to get it
I wish I had seen this before running it. Fully agree with all the removals.
At 9 minutes into the video he says don't worry about the traps, that's in between the ambush and Cragmaw hideout.
Instead of skipping over something that was small I used the opportunity to create a whole other battle map using Dungeon draft to give my players more things to do. Why make things as short as possible? If there was a way for me to add a picture I would show you the map that I made but there isnt
Hey Matt! Just finished this video and your first on LMoP. I’m about to start DMing for the first time for my nephew and a couple of his friends. They’re excited to play and I’m excited to DM. These videos have been great! I was feeling nervous about running and now I am utterly inspired. Thank you for your work and your approach to describing the scenes and options for modifications. Can’t wait to watch more :)
Mate, you legend! You're gonna have a blast - kids are natural roleplayers. Thanks very much for your kind words :)
Gotta say my dude, loving this series of videos. Soooooo much useful info and the format that you use to break it up and extract the "Point" of each part of the adventure can be used for literally any published adventure. Keep up the hard work mang!!!
My favorite thing about your videos is how quick you jump into the good stuff. Really helpful ideas to help struggling dms prioritize and organize scenes
Late to the party, but I just wanted to share my appreciation for this video. I'm a relatively new DM and this guide has helped me to find that right balance between a pre-written campaign and homebrew. My players are loving the experience and I know its because the story is compelling and they feel a part of it. Plus the pre-written stuff (and these videos) make prep minimal.
That ending tale you told, made me excited to see what was going to happen in Phandelin! Well done good sir!
Loving the videos! I hope one day you can run my DM sesh. Hope you're staying safe out there.
Such quality comments from a quality human
I do like this content.
Cheers.
(-:
This video is so helpful - I've only ran these encounters once and it felt really long winded in parts, but would never have considered getting rid of the traps or making the wolves encounter less combat focussed. Really great stuff and entertaining to boot :)
Hey there! I'm a motion graphic designer and would love to animate a few things for fun. You game?
been a player for years and just recently decided to DM for a group of my friends that have always wanted to play. this has been SUUUPER helpful. thank you!
Glad to help! Bet your players loved it :)
You feed me with ideas and therefore I'll feed the algorithm. Big thank you for making this series.
Matt, my dude... you are SO right. The Goblin Arrows is surprisingly lethal. Everyone thinks, "Oh, Goblins... they're not hard, right?"
Wrong.
They can, and often DO, kill 1st and 2nd level characters. And there are a LOT of them in this scene. And don't forget the Bugbear!
I've had to fudge a couple rolls in the first dungeon for sure! Especially if the Bugbear manages to get a surprise round
I'm about to start running my first ever game with the starter set and I'm a bit nervous. I'm over-analyzing and I love that you keep pointing out things that I noticed after my first read-through of the book. I'm going to be sure to watch as many of these videos as I can!
Cheers Chris! The general consensus I've gotten from people about this videos is something like, "Even if I don't agree with every suggestion, the videos kept me calm about running D&D." I'd recommend banging out the whole lot of videos before acting on my advice, because I there are some bits of information I forgot to front-load and it all makes better sense in context.
You're gonna love LMOP! It's great :)
On their way to Phandalin, players meet Sir Baric Nylef, a friendly Paladin who is heading North to respond to some call about troubles with the Frost Giants there, as well as searching for a criminal called "Weevil". He shares some general info about Phandalin and offers an Aid spell to 3 of the players. Just a little bump for that first Goblin encounter ;)
Ooooh, using the Weevil as a SKT hook is a good idea
I forgot to post in the last video how excited I am for this series. Ive also run it many times, but starting out with some new players and will wait til the end of this series.
I'm excited too! There are a couple of people running the module alongside this series -- I'm looking forward to hearing everyone's stories at the end
I feel like there's a weird cognitive dissonance in describing Bugbear's in 5e. Everyone goes with the big and strong description, but the character only has a 15 strength and it's most notable tactics are stealth and surprise attack, not face to face fighting. It' also has a 16 AC, for something so big and strong the abilities seem to work against that. Sure there is the Brute feature, but I don't know it's really a hard sell on strength over stealth.
Rather than a description of bugbears, it's a description of the role Klarg is meant to play in the story. If Klarg were a kobold I'd be describing him in a similar way - to make him intimidating, to signal "this is the boss!"
The thing is...why, oh why do you tell the players something the characters don't or can't see? The cut away scenes sounds really off for me. Too much like a movie. Just my taste.
That's fair enough! All this stuff is 70% style, so some of it won't translate. Making the game feel like a movie is exactly my goal - sometimes in descriptions I'll even frame it as a camera shot.
what the wolfs know?
WOOF
I’ve never played this set, admittedly. I really should!
Roger, it's a banger :)
PLUS, because so many people have played Starter Set, it shifts your experiences closer to the centre of the D&D venn diagram of shared D&D memories so you can compare stories with practically any D&D fan
Yes, you should! You'll love it.
My group is mid-module and we're having a complete blast. It dove-tailed nicely into my homebrew that's going to culminate in "Rise of Tiamat"... with a twist. :)
Next after this (which will easily take use another 6 months) is Strahd.
After that... either Icewind or Underdark. Or ... more homebrew. I'm not a bad writer! :D
Again, thanks so much for this! I just DM'd my 2nd ever proper session (1st was a bastardisation of Matt Colville's Delian Tomb) and it went really well (by that I mean nothing went to plan and I had to learn to improv very early on, but I think it went well!). The guys all loved it though and gave me awesome feedback, which made all my prep (of which there was way too much) worth it.
The party chased the fleeing Gobbo from the ambush site (and had a cool chase scene thanks to your alternative chase rules) and interrogated him. All but 1 one the party felt sorry for him, as he was such a grunt of a Gobbo, he didn't have a name, so they named him Steef (was Steve, but when I asked them to spell it, this is what it turned into!). Steef led the party to the Cragmaw hideout and told them about Yeemik's desire to over-throw Klarg.
After the Ranger tamed one of the wolves on the way in, Steef took the party directly to Yeemik's den. Yeekmik, not happy with Steef for bringing outsiders in,, shot and downed Steef, to the parties anguish. They then tried to bargain with Yeemik, but a bad persuasion roll led to a fight.
Ranger went first targeting Yeemik and rolled a Nat 20 on his animal handling for the wolf, so I let the wolf give advantage AND attack for 1d4 +1 piercing damage with a bite and the Ranger also hit hard, so Yeemik was forced to call a truce super quick. He offered to let Sildar go, in exchange for Klarg's head. The party accepted this. Yeemik, now not wanting the burden of a Gobbo he believes to be insubordinate, let the party heal Steef and accompany them.
They struggled in the Twin Pools fight, with the Rogue being downed twice and ending the fight stable, but unconscious.
We ran out of time there, so the party, with no spells left, no healing pots, have dragged the Rogue's body under the bridge and are going to attempt to rest and recoup for the battle against Klarg.
Not sure how happy Yeemik is going to be with this, as he is impatient, so I may have to let out a cry or some noise that Steef knows signifies a sacrifice has begun in Yeemik's den (e.g. they are about to eat Sildar) and then the party will have to go deal with that first. I can give them a level up after that to lvl 2 and then they can go and try and beat Klarg, his Worg, 2 hidden Gobos, but with a pretty strong party of 4 PC's, Steef, a wolf (yet un-named) and an injured Sildar!
I have said that after each session, the players vote the MVP and that person gets inspiration at the beginning of the next session and I've also used an alternative inspiration spending system (lots of cool options to choose from), so they can at least get buffed a little from that, even if they don't manage to get a full rest in, so with that and hitting lvl 2, they should hopefully be well equipped to defeat Klarg!
1 month between sessions to plan the next one! Wish me luck!
Very well done! Glad it's going well :)
Our party also decided to interrogate a goblin, I wish I had thought of the interrogated goblin giving info on Yeemik's schemes!
Great idea!
@@stephaniesheen6405 Thanks! How's your campaign going?
I cannot tell you how much I enjoy your style. There are a large number of great content creators teaching this adventure, but I love your approach. I am a new DM and I feel you have given me the tools to run this module the way the author intended, while leaving me the flexibility to maximize my players' enjoyment. I am planning on running my first session one on one with my girlfriends Rouge and her Wizard sidekick tongiht! Thanks for all your hard work.
Oh wow, thanks! My gameplay style hasn't changed since making these videos, but my video and presentation style has changed quite a bit as I've gotten more practice. I'm about to dip back into LMOP content this month though, so hopefully the new videos are helpful too!
Hey there, I found your guide while preparing this as my first D&D campaign. I've always only played The Dark Eye, coming from Germany, so this is my first toe-dipping here - Thanks for the invaluable resources!
My players (First time PnP-players, my Wife and 3 kids, 12-15) have deceived Yeemik into thinking they're supposed to get the hostage for King Grol, which he didn't really buy, but he struck a deal with them to dispose of Klarg. Then they deceived Klarg into believing them as well. Unfortunately, he went with them to Yeemik, to get the hostage, so he was pissed to see Klarg alive. Klarg knew, Yeemik was up to no good, so the boss fight of this cave was Klarg and the Players against Yeemik an his cronies. Not quite as I had planned, but funny nonetheless. They nearly managed to talk themselves out of everything, really good for first time players.
Oh wow! They smooth-talked their way into an impossible situation haha :) Well done!
Also: since you're from Germany, you may like this free combat cheat sheet my community translated into Deutsch - www.patreon.com/posts/5e-combat-cheat-37395490
my party had someone scream at the beginning of the dungeon and dressed our sorcerer up as she speaks goblin.
She tried to negotiate with the group of goblins from room 6 that ran out, and when that failed the party, who hid in the wolf cave (after freeing them thanks to speak with animals)
That way the encounter in room 6 was way easier, which they deserved with such a daring plan.
the rogue one shoted Yeemik tho with a crit +sneak attack from the shadows.
Yeemik never saw it coming :)
OOOF the ol' rogue crit is so rare and so satisfying. The moment when new players go, "Wait, do I roll my Sneak Attack damage twice too?" I love rogues!
I discovered your videos 2 sessions into LMoP…and have been binging and craving the next session ever since! I’m excited to alter some of the pre-written info now that you’ve given “permission” to go rogue. Haha. My first session was a doozy, I misunderstood the “charm” spell and let the players take a Goblin friend who through a series of. AMAZING persuasion checks, became their friend. This goblin (Jeff) was later instated as the new leader of Cragmaw cavern as a thanks for his help in battle. Session 2, one of the players insisted on buying a goat, and because the image is so funny, I am allowing the goat to be large enough/the dwarf to be small enough that they ride the goat in battle. Hahahaha
Thanks for the amazing content! I'm prepping for my first ever session of DnD, with 4 friends who have also never played. I've picked up the mantle of DM, as I have been the keenest to get a session scheduled. My question would be for less imaginative people (like myself) who struggle to make things up on the fly; what would you have behind your DM screen and how would you go about organising everything? Should I take the original LMoP text, throw it in a Word doc, chop and change the bits as per your vids / my taste and then use that as my "guide" when Dming on the day?
Hey mate! I might not be the best person to ask, because I generally improvise a session within a framework. In my notes, I usually just have dot-points and little diagrams and doodles to tell me what I want to happen in the session, and then I ad-lib all the roleplaying and descriptions.
I decided to play through this with a solo Fighter to see if One D&D characters are really that much stronger than base 5e. In short they kind of are but I kinda went against the spirt of the challenge by recruiting a Goblin from the initial ambush. (For context: she realized my fighter had an aversion to killing and figured she’d be easy to manipulate with a sob story about how badly Klarg and Yeemick treat the goblins. After watching the Fighter successfully kill Klarg she started having second thoughts about betraying her to take over the hideout.)
Yeah cool! You'll do great until you come up against any mobility-reducing effects.
This series is excellent, thank you for making it!
You're very welcome! Thanks for the support :)
My group of first timers barely managed to escape the ambush alive, after which they were SUPER careful and paranoid for several sessions >:( Encounter definitely needs to be nerfed!
It's a real Dark Souls encounter!
After a whole bunch of careful DM prep, my party of 2, circumvented the whole thing and was able to walk in and out with Sildar without a single combat encounter. One of my PCs cast Charm Person on the goblin that ran away from the ambush and asked him to take them to Klarg. Then every time there was a deception or perception check against the helper goblin or the PCs the Cragmaws blew it (seriously, the goblin on the bridge rolled a nat 1, "go right on in, man"). Then they cast Charm Person on Klarg, who was attending to his loot pile. Klarg takes them to Sildar. Yeemik, who is highly suspicious, blows SEVERAL intuition checks, and the PCs walk out with Klarg, his wolf, their Goblin friend and Sildar. It's not until they got back to their cart and got 30ft away that they had to fight their way to actually escape (they were able to ice Klarg from the moving wagon).
Hey that's great! Players killing everything can turn into a problem, so you've got a good group
BTW, I can't say enough about how much I like/appreciate the chapters! Every time I have a question I go to the chapter I need. ...I watch these videos a LOT 🙂
Yeah it's a great feature! I'm a big fan. For some reason it stopped working in my browser, but I'm glad it's displaying properly for other people.
I play a lot of board games with my now teenage daughters, they mainly go for worker placement Euro-games like Agricola. We were researching what game to get this Christmas and with nothing grabbing us they asked ‘What did you mostly play when you were our age’…. ‘D&D’ said I. Golly they got excited once I’d explained it a bit. So 45 years since I last painted up a mini here I am. I’m certainly going to play the wolves as potential pets and cut out most of the traps. Really liking your ideas, having a ‘cipher’ treasure box that they’ll really want to solve- that’s genius. Also going for a rogue widowed wife Bugbear somewhere in the plot later on…. I’m actually getting a tad excited.
Sounds great Ian! I do love those euro games though haha
Mr. Perkins, I presume? Hey Matt, just wanted to thank you SO much for this series of vids you've created on the LMoP! I've never DM'd before, but am very excited to do so for my buds. So I've been searching on "how to's" and stumbled across your channel. Let me tell you, you've got another subscriber, my dude! These vids are well done and I am excited to make similar changes to this starter set, to make my first time DM'ing a sure success!
Thanks mate! You'll have a blast :) It's a great module
HI! Just discovered your videos as I'm about to run LMOP for a relatively new group of players. I find the "cutscenes' and narration a departure from any other D&D game I've been in or ran. I'm concerned about giving away info to the players about what's to come or spoiling the surprise of the doppelgangers or even player knowledge versus character knowledge meta gaming issues. Have you had issues doing this? Great videos, very helpful!
Hey Joe! I don't personally mind about giving the players too much information. I see it like a movie: extra context helps people follow the story. And in the case of D&D: extra context helps the actors make meaningful decisions.
I am planning on running my youngest daughter and a few sidekicks through this very soon. We are both so very excited! Thank you so much for making this video series helping to break down the key moments and give new DM's pointers for these adventures. The module isn't always so clear cut as you explain things to be. I appreciate your work with all of your module guides. I can't wait to pour through them and get to adventuring!
Eric! Happy to help! Hope your campaign goes well :)
How would you recommend handling the jump to level 2 with new players? I'm worried that dumping another adnin session onto them right after their first combat encounter would be demoralising.
For brand new players, you could either:
A) not do the early level up if they're super struggling with the rules and instead drop the power level of some of the encounters for balance (level up at the end of the session instead)
B) use pregens that have already been leveled up so you can straight swap their character sheets
second video i enjoy bro! starting my DM experience shortly and using this to help me. Thanks very much my dude. Have added a few more things ontop of your suggestions as well :)
Excellent! Glad you're making it your own
No, the wolves are dogs, but instead of being a good boi, they are a very naughty and vile boi :
I came very close to getting killed right from the word go due to Goblin Arrows. 1st level Rogue with not a ton of hit points...3 Goblin archers all gunning for him. He did a great Porcupine impression.
Haha, oh no! The first fight can get a bit rough, especially when the DM focus-fires. I try to *not* declare all my targets for my attacks all at once, so if the first few hit, I can redirect my last attacks to reduce lethality.
@@heyitsMattyP He rolled randomly and three of them came up with my very tall Rogue as the target. Thankfully the Bard had some Healing word ready to go.
Your content is amazing- I kind of want more vids for different modules, or even your own modules!
Thank you! I'm starting my series about Storm King's Thunder next week :)
Great video series! Your little jokes about the players and the game show-esque music with "What's the point of ?" got a laugh out of me.
More importantly, these are super helpful for a new DM like me. Thank you!!
I mean this as friendly constructive critcism, please take with a grain of salt. I stopped watching your video when you told me how not to role play a goblin. Your dislike of a shrill voiced goblin is subjective and your opinion. I clicked your video for suggestions on running the game but in this instance your telling me how to run my game. Guess what, I do a shrill voice when I run my goblins because I would imagine them having shrill voices despite your disdain. Maybe offer up advise without bringing up what you specifically hate other DM's do because maybe some of the DM's watching this actually do the things you hate. If you get an opportunity check out Verdigris Table"s videos on the same subject, I was able to watch the whole video without being insulted and came away with really good advise.
In most of these videos I say, "If you disagree with the book, follow your gut - you're right. If you disagree with me, follow your gut - you're right." It doesn't bother me what you do in your game, but I still have preferences and my own style, and these videos advocate my preferences and my style. I trust people to take what's useful to them and leave the rest.