Yawning Portal Campaign Concept

[MauveGnome]

I'm starting my first campaign as a DM soon and the general consensus is that everyone wants to have a go at Yawning Portal.
I would like to tie the book together and have a neat idea to do so but I'd like to get some feedback to work out what to expect.

My idea is to run a session 0 homebrew to assemble the party then at the start of the first proper session give the players each a version of their character at level 15+. The campaign will then begin in the YP years after the party first met. As they sit in the bar they overhear a drunken bard telling stories about them to a group that keeps correcting him but none of the details are quite right.

The idea is that the party should intervene and tell their own story of 'how it really happened'.
Between each chapter of the book I'll go back to the bar to set up the next story. This should tie everything together and give the party a sense of how their deeds are remembered as well as giving them a chance to inject their own spin on the story. It will also allow me in insert homebrew missions in for character arcs as well.

There are a couple of things I can see I might need to watch out for. Players feeling invincible is one. I have a couple of homebrew quests written to 'rescue' dead characters.
I'll also need to be careful of the temptation to go down the murder hobo route. I can manage this by having the stories told about the group reflect their actions.

What do people think? Has anyone run a campaign like this before? Have I missed anything game-breaking?

[Unoriginal]

Not a bad idea, and it's a concept that's been suggested and discussed many times, as the Yawning Portal leads itself to that kind of things.

IMO I would say that each of the story should be told by only one character. And not hesitate to have NPCs ask them things in-between the stories, or even during them.

Maybe give the storyteller a small reward like an Inspiration if they do a good job.

Could also be nice to play how those adventures are stories by letting the PCs use inspirations to slightly modify something in them, if you're ok with that. Like "Hold on, it wasn't a bear, it was an giant dire wolf" or the like.

[bc56]

I'm starting my first campaign as a DM soon and the general consensus is that everyone wants to have a go at Yawning Portal.
I would like to tie the book together and have a neat idea to do so but I'd like to get some feedback to work out what to expect.

My idea is to run a session 0 homebrew to assemble the party then at the start of the first proper session give the players each a version of their character at level 15+. The campaign will then begin in the YP years after the party first met. As they sit in the bar they overhear a drunken bard telling stories about them to a group that keeps correcting him but none of the details are quite right.

The idea is that the party should intervene and tell their own story of 'how it really happened'.
Between each chapter of the book I'll go back to the bar to set up the next story. This should tie everything together and give the party a sense of how their deeds are remembered as well as giving them a chance to inject their own spin on the story. It will also allow me in insert homebrew missions in for character arcs as well.

There are a couple of things I can see I might need to watch out for. Players feeling invincible is one. I have a couple of homebrew quests written to 'rescue' dead characters.
I'll also need to be careful of the temptation to go down the murder hobo route. I can manage this by having the stories told about the group reflect their actions.

What do people think? Has anyone run a campaign like this before? Have I missed anything game-breaking?

If I get what you're saying, the players will go through each of the dungeons as the story of it is told, to remember their adventures.

If that's right, it's a pretty cool idea.

[MauveGnome]

Could also be nice to play how those adventures are stories by letting the PCs use inspirations to slightly modify something in them, if you're ok with that. Like "Hold on, it wasn't a bear, it was an giant dire wolf" or the like.

I love this! I wanted some elements of 'that's not how it happened' mid dungeon but I've been stuck on a good way to implement it. Having it as a DM inspiration mechanic has great potential. Thanks.

[Catullus64]

There are a couple of things I can see I might need to watch out for. Players feeling invincible is one. I have a couple of homebrew quests written to 'rescue' dead characters.


One possible solution is this: Establish for your players that there is no guaranteed correspondence between the character they play for the bar scenes, and the character they control in the adventure modules. Anytime you want to cut back to the framing device to have the players narrate their party's actions, simply make it a rule that they always narrate in the third person, about somebody else's actions. Only at the conclusion of the campaign do the storytellers step out of their shadowy corner of the barroom, revealing their identities to the "camera", as it were. This also gives a good way for players to write their own little epilogues for whichever of their characters survives to the end.

[MauveGnome]

One possible solution is this: Establish for your players that there is no guaranteed correspondence between the character they play for the bar scenes, and the character they control in the adventure modules.

I did consider this as an option and there's nothing in my plan that says the players have to reveal their true identities but I quite like the idea that the characters know they survive the campaign. I just need to be careful how I handle the concept of death.
If you think about pretty much any long running TV show you always know the main cast will survive. Sometimes they 'die' but clever writing can always find a way to bring them back and it doesn't detract from your investment.
There's always room for a mission to rescue someone from hell or interesting use of the clone spell (maybe indebting the party to a sinister benefactor).

[DeTess]

I did consider this as an option and there's nothing in my plan that says the players have to reveal their true identities but I quite like the idea that the characters know they survive the campaign. I just need to be careful how I handle the concept of death.
If you think about pretty much any long running TV show you always know the main cast will survive. Sometimes they 'die' but clever writing can always find a way to bring them back and it doesn't detract from your investment.
There's always room for a mission to rescue someone from hell or interesting use of the clone spell (maybe indebting the party to a sinister benefactor).

Maybe instead add some other kind of not-too harsh penalty for 'death'? A lost eye here, a couple of lost fingers, that kind of stuff. Just be careful that any penalties don't completely cripple a character. A lost eye giving disadvantage on ranged attack is fine on the sword and board fighter, but not on the archer ranger, for example.

[Malifice]

I'm starting my first campaign as a DM soon and the general consensus is that everyone wants to have a go at Yawning Portal.
I would like to tie the book together and have a neat idea to do so but I'd like to get some feedback to work out what to expect.

My idea is to run a session 0 homebrew to assemble the party then at the start of the first proper session give the players each a version of their character at level 15+. The campaign will then begin in the YP years after the party first met. As they sit in the bar they overhear a drunken bard telling stories about them to a group that keeps correcting him but none of the details are quite right.

The idea is that the party should intervene and tell their own story of 'how it really happened'.
Between each chapter of the book I'll go back to the bar to set up the next story. This should tie everything together and give the party a sense of how their deeds are remembered as well as giving them a chance to inject their own spin on the story. It will also allow me in insert homebrew missions in for character arcs as well.

There are a couple of things I can see I might need to watch out for. Players feeling invincible is one. I have a couple of homebrew quests written to 'rescue' dead characters.
I'll also need to be careful of the temptation to go down the murder hobo route. I can manage this by having the stories told about the group reflect their actions.

What do people think? Has anyone run a campaign like this before? Have I missed anything game-breaking?

Doing the same for my next campaign, but Im going to drop the dungeons in various hexes in Tomb of Annhilation.

PCs do the Sunless Citadel first (place it in the Sword Coast somewhere). When they emerge they are contacted by [NPC] plot hooked into the Death Curse, and shipped off to Chult from Baldurs Gate.

Forge of Fury can be dropped in any mountain hex you want on the ToA map (PCs get a map to it in Sunless Citadel if they're lucky remember).

Hidden Shrine of Tamochan fits perfectly with ToA with its Aztec theme and can be dropped anywhere.

White Plume Mountain can be dropped in the Ash Sea in one of the many Volcanoes (the Flaming Fist can be used to contact the PCs to recover the weapons)

Dead in Thay can also work (link the Death Curse to the Lich phylactery shennanigans that is the hook for that adventure... the death curse is messing with the stored phylacteries. Or maybe one of the phylacteries in storage is Aceraks and the PCs are raiding the vault to destroy Aceraks phylactery. Either work.)

Against the Giants can be tied into the Frost Giants in the area.

Aaaaand Tomb of Horrors obviously fits. Just drop in in a Swamp somewhere.

Basically it becomes a massive sandbox, featuring dozens of dungeons to explore.

[MauveGnome]

Doing the same for my next campaign, but Im going to drop the dungeons in various hexes in Tomb of Annhilation.

I'm a player in ToA right now and I quite like this idea. Might be tricky to get the players to the right place at the right level while maintaining the sandbox feel though.

[Malifice]

I'm a player in ToA right now and I quite like this idea. Might be tricky to get the players to the right place at the right level while maintaining the sandbox feel though.

As DM you can just drop them in wherever mate. Instead of pre-ordaining the Hex they're in, one the PCs are an appropriate level, just throw a hook at them, or have the Hex they just wandered into feature one of the dungeons.

I'd probably only pre-place ToH. If they want to run that sucker at low level, let them. Maybe it was Aceraks first attempt at the Annhilation Engine (or whatever its called), but he abandoned it to a Demilich. Chuck it in the swamp in the middle of the map there somewhere.

How Id' do it:

Run Sunless Citadel, and have the Map showing the location of the Forge of Fury (the map you find in the Citadel) be a map of one the Mines marked 3 -5 hexes west of Port Nyanzaru (in the mountain ranges there). It was a Dwarven colony from the Dwarves to the South that feature later in ToA that was ovverrun by Orcs.

If the PCs dont find the Map, leave a copy on the undead Paladin holding Shatterspike.

After SC wraps up, nudge the PCs to Baldurs gate (or the nearest city), and have them try and buy passage on a ship to Chult to check out the dungeon.

While they are waiting for passage, they are approached by the NPC that kicks off ToA (the sickly raised Wizard) who has gotten word that they want to travel to Chult. He offers to teleport them for free, and pay them handsomely if they can end the curse [same intro from ToA].

They then find themselves in Port Nyanzaru with 2 things to do. Check out the nearby Forge, and work towards the larger Quest for the Wizard.

I would drop in Lost Shrine of Tamochan during a subsequent session where they PCs arent doing much more than hex crawling and triggering random encounters. In the orginal AD&D adventure, the PCs were being chased by angry villiagers and fall into a hole in the dungeon (and inside the whole is the dungeon).

You can have the PCs being chased by Goblins, Grung, or even endless waves of undead, and needing to seek refuge in the dungeon.

As I said above, the Tomb of Horrors gets preplaced in the Swamp in the middle of the map. PCs can attempt that sucker whenever they want. To make it more fun and closer to the original, I would increase all save DCs listed in the module by +2, increase all Skill DCs listed by +5, add +2 to all D20 rolls made by the DM in the Tomb (monster attacks, saves and ability checks), increase all damage dice of all traps and monsters by 1 step per die (d6>d8>d10 etc).

White Plume mountain is the Huge volcano in the Kobold Mountains to the South. If the PCs need a reason to visit the area, simply have the Flaming Fist contact them with Keraptis' note (once they are an appropriate level), and offer them a reward for the return of the 3 weapons. If they havent gotten in with the FF yet, this is their chance. If the FF dont work, have one of the elders in Port Nyanzuru hire the PCs to do it. Fro memory one of them is a collector of Magic Items himself.

As for Dead in Thay, have the PCs discover that Aceraks phylactery is stored there [it was captured by Szass Thaam[. A Red Wizard contacts them [she was killed and is subject to the death curse] and she offers to teleport the PCs to the Vault to locate and destroy Aceraks Phylactery in an effort to end the curse, and weaken Acerak.

Its a bit more difficult to weave in Against the Giants, but you can have the Frost Giants searching for the Ring of Winter having been there for some time (instead of only having recently arrived), and having built a Hall in the Jungle! They're quite miserable in the tropics, but you can largely run the adventure as written otherwise. Place the hall somewhere in the East of the map (near where their Longship is moored).

That pretty much covers it.