Opinions on running/playing Tomb of Annihilation

[Unoriginal]

Hi folks.

I'm soon going to DM a 5e game, and I'm in a bit of a dilemma. I could run a campaign I've written myself, but I was also interested in giving a shot to Tomb of Annihilation.

My three concerns are:

-While my players are experienced RPG players, I don't think any of them ever played 5e more than two sessions.

-I really wish to finish the campaign I start, no matter which one it is.

-While having a well-documented framework can make things easier to play, ToA does get kind of restricted in its last sprint toward the end. Which is normal for a dungeon scrawl, but it's a rather complex and specific dungeon, and while it's not a bad thing, it kinds of ask the DM to follows the steps decided by the person who wrote the dungeon rather closely, if you get what I mean.

So, my questions are: what do you think of this campaign? How did playing/DMing it go? Would you recommend it even to people new to 5e? Did you finish it?

[Theodoxus]

Is there no way to incorporate parts of ToA into the campaign you've written? I mean, out of the box, it's pretty complex, as you noted - but that also means you don't have to do everything in it - or even the metaplot - if that's not to your liking.

My own campaign is a persistent world where all the major modules are taking place with overlapping events. The players have only encountered the Soulmonger simply because one of the characters had been raised from the dead, and is now slowly dying. So they're racing to figure out what's happening and how to stop it.

But there are dragon cults and elemental cults around. Giants are stirring - which started with the frost giants in Chult but since the players didn't rush into the ToD plotline, the giants are yet to be affected by the shattering of the Ordning. I streamlined the ToA plot, letting the red wizards do the heavy lifting of the key stones while the party ran around grabbing side plots and trying to figure out where the Soulmonger resided.

Since my players are all avid readers, and some DM on the side, playing a module 'by the book' is hard, even when they try their hardest not the metagame their knowledge. So I change things up pretty significantly. If this is a skillset in your wheelhouse, I highly recommend going that route - especially if you can showcase your own work by making it the campaign world, and fill in holes with ToA.

[HolyDraconus]

If you must run tomb, homebrew the crap out of it. In AL theres a very easy way to get entire parties permanently banned, plus the setting as an AL is a bit rigid and the ending is stupid.

[Submortimer]

Be willing to have do-overs if you want to have a long running party, and especially if starting at 1st level. We've currently TPK'd twice to traps (in the same mini-dungeon), which the DM basically said "uh...time magic bull crap! You're all not dead!". We're playing around with the idea that the characters remember each death, and have no idea why they haven't actually died yet.

[Unoriginal]

Is there no way to incorporate parts of ToA into the campaign you've written? I mean, out of the box, it's pretty complex, as you noted - but that also means you don't have to do everything in it - or even the metaplot - if that's not to your liking.

[...]

Since my players are all avid readers, and some DM on the side, playing a module 'by the book' is hard, even when they try their hardest not the metagame their knowledge. So I change things up pretty significantly. If this is a skillset in your wheelhouse, I highly recommend going that route - especially if you can showcase your own work by making it the campaign world, and fill in holes with ToA.

Well, part of it is my campaign world would be fairly different from the FR one, at least in term of "feel" so to speak, meaning Chult wouldn't fit in it as-if, and I feel like the adventure would lose something if I removed the original feel by modifying it to fit my world.


Another part of it is that I think it'd be interesting to try running something in the FR setting for once.


Still, I hear you guys' advice, and will probably modify the adventure anyway. Just not the setting much.

[KorvinStarmast]

Well, part of it is my campaign world would be fairly different from the FR one, at least in term of "feel" so to speak, meaning Chult wouldn't fit in it as-if, and I feel like the adventure would lose something if I removed the original feel by modifying it to fit my world.


Another part of it is that I think it'd be interesting to try running something in the FR setting for once.


Still, I hear you guys' advice, and will probably modify the adventure anyway. Just not the setting much.
I'd love to help you, but I am staying away from the books based on a friend starting us up next month. From level 1.
Are you starting from level 1?

Long time ago a good friend of mine inserted the The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan into the campaign world.
I did the same with a few Lendore Isles modules in mine.

What he did was pencil into the module different names for everything. (I did likewise). He also lessened the cheese poison gas issue, since we were not running a tournament with a time limit.
(Our time pressure was form in world events where we needed to get a particular item in the shrine to save the king's daughter from a curse).
Going all FR won't hurt, and ToA is a pretty big book.

I am working out the details of how to fold the Hidden Shrine from Tales of the Yawning Portal into my brother's campaign world, since we have 3 DM's who will be sharing DM duties. I have to change names ... it's part of my prep work.

[Unoriginal]

Are you starting from level 1?


Yes. I think the adventure is good for that.

[Kintar]

I also agree that if you run ToA homebrew it heavily. It has some things where it just doesn’t flow well. The hook is weak for your average player and in my opinion leaves both the players and the dm saying, “why, just why?” Plucking parts that work from it or using it as a general guide to jungle crawling is far better than running it as is.

If you still want to run a published campaign, I recommend Out of the Abyss. No campaign is perfect, but in my opinion it is so good. My group loves it and the homebrew changes I have made to it feel like adjustments to further the fun not corrections to a flawed concept.

[KorvinStarmast]

Yes. I think the adventure is good for that. It's meant to be.

The trick to an adventure as big as that (see also HOTDG and TOD) is that reading through the adventure once didn't seem sufficient to me. Twice got me "feeling' the adventure better in terms of how it was aimed at fitting together.

In the DM prep work area, I'd recommend two read throughs, based on what I found in those two in terms of 'getting the feel for where this thing is going."