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The Lost City Campaign Diary 2 (Patreon)

Published:
2023-06-16 22:00:03
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:
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Videos

Content

(1) prep (2) play report (3) conclusions. The players made it through Tiers 3 and half of 4.

Files

Previews only

Lost City Planning

Comments

Bagel-Man

Excited to watch PDM, keep the great content flowing!

MrGunn

PDM for summer wear of protection, you could acquire bracers of defense, (tennis wrist sweat bands) helm of defense (sport sun visor). LOL

Adam Maag

I would emphasize your plan to modify module to match player taste, and leave out the description of the gecko fight. No sense in teasing about a fight that you don’t have footage on. And slogging fights with low hit rolls or minimal damage are common enough in any shame session. I really appreciate how you are sticking to your guns regarding players not investigating that 3 rd sect. I always struggle with not being able to show off my paint jobs because players don’t take the bait.

Chuck Thorin

Hey PDM. Like you doing the improv style. Seems more authentic. Best advise is about when to rewrite the module and go your own way to make it fun for the players. IMHO, many new DM's think that an adventure module is some sort of sacred text. No, hack it to what's fun and makes sense for the group.

Rich Huff

I agree with Adam. For YouTube, you should expand on how you plan to adapt the module. I think it is important to let new DMs know that it is OK (and often preferable) to make changes to published modules.

samurguybri

Great video, it made me want to look at what motivations goodman made to their 5E version. Did they fix stuff. Love Adam’s suggestion about describing HOW you tailor premade modules to fit your group and you own taste. What do you take into account? What are thei easiest parts to play with? I love that you addressed really loading up the clues heavily so people start understanding what’s going own. Maybe for other players who are more motivated by the plot aspects “back home” perhaps they can gain powers or oracular insights about something they struggle with. The city is supposed to be an analog of Cyndicia, a really city in north africa during classical times, so brining in themes like prophecies, dream visions and curses could really give the “story” players edgers or insights into their problems back home. The drugs that the Cyndieans use could become a temptation if they revel info about long lost familes or show where their enemies are hiding…

Frederic Schmitt

The Goodman Games version is INTIMIDATING! D: If someone would give me this book I would strait out say: "I will not run this, sorry" :D Also RUNEHAMMER !! This guy is a saint to TTRPGs. Minute 21: my players are exactly like that. "What are we supposed to do?" And you can't blame them. It's frustrating if you have the feeling of "Why are we even here?" I try to give the players multiple hooks for a adventure. In the past I went with one, but I was recently inspired to through at least two hooks, better three or four at the players to start an adventure. And this is an easy fix. I just have to make anything up. The players will take it if it's anything. But no hook other than curiosity normally doesn't hook my players. It works in a video game like Skyrim ore the Witcher but not in TTRPG's imho.

Robert DeLuca

Audio and Video are very good, water slurping bottle is a little distracting. I love the idea of the trap from the worship room to Zargon. The reference to the repetitiveness of the rooms and how to deal with them is great point, got me thinking how to fluff it up. Reminding me about your previous videos on the elements of a story; how to add a bit of substance and purpose, have to revisit.

Nygfan

Surprised to hear PDM rolling for damage. He often teaches for speed to simply apply median damage

Ernesto

A video about how to balance player's interests and what different types of modules expect from them. For example, there are players that like dungeon crawling and will go to the dungeon just because the dungeon is in there in the first place. And there are players for which their PCs have to have a solid motivation to do the same. In my experience, I have run both Lost Mines of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak, and the former has premade backgrounds that the players can use to help tieing the PCs to the story, has a main plot with "optional" content which helps to maintain different types of players engage. Dragon of Icespire peak, on the other hand, is closer to a pure sandbox in the sense that there is no real main story going around, just a dragon that has introduced a power imbalance in the region, and IMO is very boring for players that arent highly self motivated.

lars madsen

I generally agree that this module can almost only be run as a campaign, as it's written. The "story" is established by being hopelessly lost in the desert, effectively taking escape off the table. I do think they wrote this to be sort of an intro to customizing your campaign. Weren't there some blank spots in B1 Into the Unknown as well? Prompting new DMs to flex their creative muscle isn't a bad thing, but to have all the details just drop at Tier 6 seems a bit... odd.

Richard White

The lapel microphone is very good quality, but not necessarily any better then previous? (I certainly didn’t notice it was worse!) These recaps of your adventures are my favourite of your video’s. I love hearing how your players tackled challenges, and your insight/thoughts on how to improve your own game. Brilliant stuff, thank you.

Graham Kane

It's interesting that you talk about how some of your players are enjoying the module in a nostalgic way while some are finding it a bit aimless. This really shows how modern play really is very different to classic dungeon crawling. Exploration and getting loot WAS the entire game in early editions. I also completely understand your frustration with the repetitive nature of mega-dungeons. It's really hard to keep them interesting without throwing the whole monster manual into the dungeon! I think your approach of doing away with parts of the map is the right thing to do. I'd suggest you could make a point of this in the Youtube cut of the video. Basically saying how this style of play really might not work for newer players without a lot of alteration.

Jonny Himes

PDM, I played OD&D at NTRPG Con, and it was an original megadungeon written by the DM. It was very much as you described this module -- threats & treats fairly forecasted (at least some of the time), so that players can get loot and level up. I think this is a great way for beginning players (people playing "basic" D&D at the time this module was written, as TSR had conceived of BX before going on to the "Advanced D&D" ruleset, at least before it became 2 diff games due to the lawsuits). If your THINKERS like Michele want a story arc, why not "touch up" this aspect, and customize the module just like you are with its architecture since you're skipping lower levels of the pyramid? Why can't you give players a sop of plot? Seth Skorkowski does this with nearly EVERY module he reviews, since there are usually gaping plot holes or incentive gaps that need to be patched. Even if the module was composed a certain way as a "megadungeon," you don't have to run it as-written -- you always customize it to give your group the maximum enjoyment. You mentioned maybe giving Michele a connection to a patron who sent them to find out something like an archaeologist would -- and then you mentioned the Queen who becomes a WIGHT if they disturb her sarcophagus. If that's the "trigger" for leveling up and it is a good plot point, why not let the PATRON's mission for them be retrieving some item from that crypt? And/or something related to Zargon?

Jonny Himes

Also, I loved the idea of using their backup characters if a couple of regular players can't make the session. So what do you do when the whole group re-unites? Which PCs do they play? And does the XP only go with each respective party of PCs, earned separately -- or does XP carry over to whatever PCs the players are using in this megadungeon? (not fond of the latter idea). When the whole group gets back together, do you let the players decide which PC each player wants to use, and then just say they were thrown together in survival conditions?

Jonny Himes

I liked the boulder room, where it doesn't kill, but creates tension and a cost to players, even if not HP. I use Scotty's 8-item gear lists, so in these situations I have them roll 1d8 etc. to see what they lost. Or I guess you could roll on 1 of those 1d6 "hazard" charts that Ben Milton showed, losing rations or waterskin or torches, or just requiring a short rest from the harrowing conditions, or else future checks will be at DISADV.

NØKKEN_WAITS

honestly, every single module I've run (mostly DCC ones (but played in mork/cy_borg)), I've had to make modifications on the fly, or between sessions to make sure I'm hooking the players/characters. The more personal, the better generally with my crew. Modules are like the Code of the Brethren, set down by the pirates Morgan and Bartholomew: more like guidelines than actual rules.

Nick Zema

Total missed opportunity at 1:33. Should have gone: "I'm going to do this with as few | cut | cuts as possible."

Ed Salisch

You can say as a goal is to horde resources so that the party can get back to civilization.

Lemonsaurus

I'm a bit late on this since I was sort of hoping to binge all the episodes in one go, but in terms of a motivation I imagined this: There's a magical plague or perhaps an army of the undead, whatever it is, it has gotten out of control and the secret society of wizards has turned to the PCs for help to solve it as they have come to the conclusion even they are not powerful enough to do so alone. So they need the PC's to find the lost city where many of the wizards fled to due to the wizarding purge to get a key person or a group of wizards to come back to Middenheim to help remove the plague. Upon arrival they discover the lost city has fallen into disarray due to Zargon, perhaps the majority of wizards that fled to the city were killed by him. The Wizards that remain will be unwilling to help them with their main quest until Zargon is slain. It gives a clearer focus for the plot driven players to have to get involved with the lost city and it gives a time limit back home to worry about.

Daniel Defazio
>>111125639

I was afraid if I gave them the task of finding an object that they would feel obliged to enter EVERY room making it even. longer.