From LMoP to OotA

[Grear Bylls]

So my players are around halfway through LMoP, and I kind of want to work it into OotA, which I'll probably get for Christmas. However, my players and I just started playing, so I have a few questions:

1. Is this a good idea? I'm a new DM and OotA seems kind of complex, but I feel I'm up to it. Any tips for it would be great!

2. Since my players are newish, should I have them be captured by Nezznar (main LMoP villain) at a higher level than normal for OotA? I've heard even expierienced players can die easily in OotA at level one.

3. Can you maybe give me some ideas to how LMoP connects to OotA? Obviously, I could have Nezznar capture the current PCs and bring them to the underdark, or have the PCs go missing and new PCs be starting in the drow prison, after they got lost searching for the old PCs. Any other plot hooks would be awesome as well!

4. I know OotA is very role play heavy, (right?), and my players like to kind of kill everything. I suggested they watch an episode of critical role to see what it's like. Do you have any advice for getting them to role play?

Thx in advance!

[lunaticfringe]

I wouldn't want to strip my players of their hard earned shinies or Victory so I would make the opening prison scene a rescue mission.

Nezzy knows about the PCs & wants to hurt them so he kidnapped friends, fam, or loved ones and shipped them to the Underdark. The kidnappee doesn't have to actually be in that prison but the large cast of npcs could have clues.

Just an idea.

[GlenSmash!]

Off the top of my head I can see two ways of doing it.

The first way, you skip the first half of OotA and go right to where the party is summoned by Bruenor, except now he summons them for they're deeds in Phandlever instead of deeds done in the underdark.

Or, since it's very likely the party made some Drow enemies in LMoP, you can pretty much just play OoTA as written and start from the beginning. The party will obviously be a higher level for the beginning, but that just means they have a better time of surviving the beginning of OoTA which can be pretty brutal.

Whatever way you decide, good luck!

[the_brazenburn]

Keep it exactly as is. Obviously the Black Spider is a good segue into OotA, but you could also replace Venomfang with some sort of drow spider-y fiend, kuo-toa abberation, or other Underdark-flavored enemy. I would not worry as much about taking away the party's shinies, as long as you give them some sort of way to retrieve them. OotA should seem dangerous every step of the way.

[lunaticfringe]

Oh I wouldn't and force Roleplay. I believe Mercer has stated the home games were about fun & shenanigans for most of the experience.

I'm not a fan of forcing RP. If characters survive long enough players will naturally start to add depth, imx. They also reveal little quirks, bread crumbs, nuggets, buttons or whatever you want to call them.

Push those buttons, follow the crumbs. The best RP has real emotion behind it. **** with their emotions. Observe your players and note what makes them tick.

[Grear Bylls]

Off the top of my head I can see two ways of doing it.

The first way, you skip the first half of OotA and go right to where the party is summoned by Bruenor, except now he summons them for they're deeds in Phandlever instead of deeds done in the underdark.

Or, since it's very likely the party made some Drow enemies in LMoP, you can pretty much just play OoTA as written and start from the beginning. The party will obviously be a higher level for the beginning, but that just means they have a better time of surviving the beginning of OoTA which can be pretty brutal.

Whatever way you decide, good luck!

I like this idea! It inspired me to do a kind of twin parties story line where the first part where they are escaping the abyss involves new characters, and the second part involves the characters who want to clear out the demons (instead of escaping), as well as Bruenor summoning the old heroes from the LMoP story and the new heroes of the underdark!

How do you think this would go?

[SiCK_Boy]

The two adventures can easily be combined. The higher starting level is not such a big deal; the players will go more quickly through the first stages of OotA, but that's it. You can still find ways to use the environment to make that part challenging; whatever level you are, you still die of exhaustion after a while like anyone else.

The biggest challenge is the starting scenario for OotA. Personnally, I would not use the "rescue mission" suggested earlier, simply because if the players are able to get in, it means they know the way out. The biggest motivational factor for the party in the first half of OotA is to find a way out of the Underdark; you need to have the group be conpletely disoriented and reliant on their misfit group of NPC allies for most of that first half.

But then, capturing a group of PC without killing them and without creating a lot of player frustration is one of the biggest challenge a DM can face. I would suggest trying to just use a time skip (say, 6 months to a year) between the two campaign and, with the players' agreement, have them start right away as prisoner of the drow. You can then use the first few sessions to fill out the blanks of what happened in between the two campaigns, and how they came to be captured (maybe by having NPCs ask questions of the party), but don't actually try to play out the capture in game; it will just lead to a disaster.

Officially, except for the fact that they cover a similar geographical area (well, OotA is much larger than LMoP, but still, it's in the northern Sword Coast), there is no connection between the two. LMoP provides no background at all on Nezznar (he's just a bad guy drow of nondescript background), so you are free to invent whatever you want. I'm not even sure it's needed; after all, the drow captors in OotA are not super relevant to the overall adventure; they play a key role in the initial set up, and are used as a "clock" mechanism to ensure the players don't just stick around in a single cavern until they can rebuild civilization, but in the end, they are irrelevant in regard to the threat posed by the Demon Lords. As such, you should just keep the campaigns distinct, and try to use past actions of your characters to build a link, if applicable (for example, if they now have shares in the operation of the Wave Echo Cave mine, maybe some madness has started spreading in the miners once they make it out of the Underdark prior to being summoned by Bruenor).

Finally, as much as I love Critical Role, and would love to be able to roleplay like they do, you should keep your expectations realistic. If you want to encourage your players to speak "in character", the best way to do so is to have your NPC speak to them "in character" as well, by addressing specific character rather than "the table". But as pointed above by lunaticfringe, this is not something that can be forced; give it some time and it will happen naturally... or not; there is no "minimum amount of critical role-style rp" required to enjoy this game.

[lunaticfringe]

The rescue mission changes the goal. It's no longer find a way out, it's find this/these people then get out. You don't find them in the first prison you find NPCs willing to assist you.

[Falcon X]

OotA can have roleplaying, but it doesn't have to. What it really needs is discretion. If they run into a beholder at level 4, they need to know not to try to kill it.
In my game, I foreshadowed a little.
I had them captured while on a misson against a small Drow colony near the surface (combined with the Darkening plot arc which happened shortly before in the Forgotten Realms.)
As they were fighting the Drow there, I had their Drow priestess pop off an insect plague spell that just shredded some NPCs and knocked out a PC with one hit, who they graciously dragged off. I then didn't have to worry about them trying to attack Ilvara once they woke up in Velkenvelve.

[Grear Bylls]

Thanks for the input!

Now, I may have been exaggerating with critical role, but I do want them to play as their characters. Frankly, I don't care if they do voices, I just want them to think what the Lawful Good Monk would do.

I think Grog is this way. He is kind of dull witted, but Travis plays this out well, by misinterpreting information and saying the obvious things, which is good role play. Grog also cares for his friends, and it shows in his role play.

I just kind of want the players to think about "What would -insert name- do here?", not, "What would I do here?".

I'm thinking about maybe showing this to my players in a campaign my friend is starting up. At first, I was going to play a barbarian, but then I thought to take my own advice, so I then I decided to change to a Lawful Good Paladin who wants to protect people, up hold his oath, and carry out Torm's will. I think if they see that the DM is roleplaying a character in a game, then they can too.