My fiance and I immediately clicked on this video!!! We miss your stories! She especially likes the cute abolith!

@williek08472

Жыл бұрын

Whimsy! Such a precious cinnamon roll, he must be protected

@tsifirakiehl4250

Жыл бұрын

Whimsy is perfect

@velkonemriam1935

Жыл бұрын

Cute Abolith is a Puffin fan favorite Lol

@tanyalc22

Жыл бұрын

I missed his stories so much too.

@j.k.s.8540

Жыл бұрын

I am hoping that he does another series like Curse of Strad(?)

"The villain of this premade adventure wants to do X. You figure out what that means" really is the quintessential 5e DM guidance. Bare bones instructions, you do the heavy lifting

@johnnaylor7031

Жыл бұрын

To be fair, a lot of modules from earlier editions are even more bare-bones, with nameless NPCs and "caves" on the map which were literally "create your own dungeon here."

@rafaelcastor2089

Жыл бұрын

​​​@@johnnaylor7031 I would give them that benefit, yes... If Pathfinder (at least the 1e) didn't had the Adventure Paths being MUCH better than anything that came out of 5e by a good margin (at most, i'd say i'm still pissed about Iomedae appearance in WotR, but that's a rather small issue to how much of a beating that horse keeps getting way beyond death) Edit: And to be clear, my point here is that we have had alternative approaches to premade adventures for a long while now and i just don't see how WotC's approach with 5e is good or justifiable when we're talking premade adventures

@chrisc359

Жыл бұрын

I can work with both directions, barebones or detailed, but I struggle with the inbetween. When the module gives just enough info's to be confusion it often becomes difficult to differentiate the important parts from the flavor.

@KHfanz

Жыл бұрын

Honestly, I normally heavily modify every module I run anyway, so I don’t mind it being “bare”. Strixhaven got completely upheavaled, changed the end villain, added stuff etc

@whiterabbit75

Жыл бұрын

Convenient how the DM has to do a lot of the work, and the company gets to rake in the money. Equivalent exchange at its best.

Petition to make Waterderp: Drogon Hoist the new name of this module. 😂

@SymbioteMullet

Жыл бұрын

Ermagerd!

@denverarnold6210

Жыл бұрын

It wasn't even drogon. I heard drgon.

@tach5884

Жыл бұрын

9:31 in case anyone missed it

@whiterabbit75

Жыл бұрын

@@SymbioteMullet Ehrmergerd! It's a dhergun!

@contestleader2721

Жыл бұрын

Britain 100

I like your idea of splitting up the stone of Golorr, because that amnesia mechanic in the game was crap, & kind of punishes the players for doing something smart & getting their hands on it early in-game

@KasperLorentzen

Жыл бұрын

I burrowed (from the Alexandrian Remix) the idea of the eyes being removed from the stone, so you have the stone and 3 eyes, without eye it's inert, with one eye it give you some ideas about whats going on so it can help push the PC in the right direction, with the second eye it know where to find the 3rd eye.

@phoenixdzk

Жыл бұрын

@@KasperLorentzen nice!

@gunnervi

Жыл бұрын

@@KasperLorentzen My GM did that, and gave each of the eyes to one of the different villains

@Quirkyhndl

Жыл бұрын

I was told by a wise old GM to never make your players look like idiots (unless they have it coming). Sound advice.

@leam1978

Жыл бұрын

@@KasperLorentzen really good idea

My players got super invested in the inn and tavern they received and spent a long time on it. Eventually we just ignored the storyline and it became a business simulator for them. I have never seen someone so excited to go over inventory and order supplies.

@lordofconflict8282

Жыл бұрын

Me and my Pathfinder 1E group have had similar scenarios where we would get distracted by trying to run a business.

@ebonslayer3321

Жыл бұрын

One of the unwritten rules of being a DM is don't introduce your players to economy unless you're prepared for that to be the entire game. The one thing they love more than destroying your plans is stonks.

@whiterabbit75

Жыл бұрын

As someone whose group has started several kingdoms, I can attest to this. Strangely enough, Kingmaker still is not our favorite campaign.

@trequor

Жыл бұрын

Brother I'm there right now. One my players is a banker and this is her first campaign. As soon as they got back to town she wanted to buy STOCK! I had to invent stocks on the fly (thank god I run Eberron which already has megacorporations in the lore). Then next adventure she wanted to buy LIFE INSURANCE for her character (I ruled that adventurers are uninsurable lol). And now I had to invent a bunch of real estate options so that they could diversify their portfolio haha

@rudeboyjohn3483

Жыл бұрын

Yep. Building the business was a massive hit lol

4:50: "My players ended up losing almost all of the fights in that one. I think of the six fights we did early on, they either lost, TPK'd, or ran away in four of them." I waaaaaarned youuuu!

@alexandertapia6184

Жыл бұрын

This part reminded me of when i ran ToA. I think everyone died at least once through the campaign, the record was 5 deaths for one player from start to finish. I really shouldve tweaked it more than i did lol

@LordDragox412

Жыл бұрын

Puffin and overtuned fights, name a more iconic duo.

@stevejakab274

Жыл бұрын

What I don't get is that 5e explicitly has a mechanism to balance fights, and at least in my experience it works out pretty well, with fights being tough but winnable. Did he just ignore that and throw anything he felt like at the players? Because that's bad DMing.

@LordDragox412

Жыл бұрын

​@@stevejakab274 Nooo, would Puffin ever do that? That's *ABSERD!*

@blshouse

Жыл бұрын

@@stevejakab274 haha... wait, are you serious?

9:31 "Waterderp: Drogon Hoist" 😂😂😂 never change, Ben.

@williamderkatzen8987

Жыл бұрын

Until he said this I didt grok that he was avoiding copyright when he called him Lord Neveremember

@williamderkatzen8987

Жыл бұрын

I also found out today that my autocorrect actually knows “grok”!

I hope this means we'll eventually get the long-form version of dragon Heist like we did for curse of strahd. I know there's slim hope of that considering it's been so long since curse of strahd but long-form content from you is a lot of fun.

@stevebreedlove9760

Жыл бұрын

Boost.

@Parugraph

Жыл бұрын

I hope so too the curse of strahd was such a fun series to look forward to every week

@Greshgore

Жыл бұрын

@@stevebreedlove9760 To the moon! We can do this!

@theviking1359

Жыл бұрын

I’m still waiting for the story on what happened to the group samurai over two years ago when they broke into a school ….

@Greshgore

Жыл бұрын

@@theviking1359 I know, on the video he posted before this one, I mentioned that him saying that all his stories required him to tell other stories for context means that he needs to make MORE videos. It's hard to recommend this Channel that I love so much to other people if he's just going to disappear for months at a time after each one. I'm pretty sure he only posted four or five times last year. I understand real life is a thing but he's such a good storyteller that it sucks having to wait so long for more content.

I remember running Waterdeep for a treasured friend and an older newbie. They came to adore the Tavern they were given and cared more for that than the treasure hunt. When it came to the chase for the Stone, I just let them catch the guy as he fled the Skeleton basement, let them keep the gold since they weren't going on to do Dungeon of the Mad Mage, and after looking at the Xanathar finale...I just didn't run it...

We're about to finish running Waterderp: Dargon Horst and I made the insane decision to include all four antagonists pitted against each other and the party. My party was also level 10 at this point, so it truly felt like they could play against the other villains as an influential force of their own in the city. Titanic to coordinate behind the screen, but my players had a blast.🎉

@Shalakor

Жыл бұрын

That's the toll that must be paid for good mid to high level play, I suppose.

@savetheworldtribe

9 ай бұрын

I'm doing this now, but my players are between 12-15. We're 5 modules deep.

@jaimeparker2161

9 ай бұрын

if you're into heavy lifting on the DM part, i suggest Out of the Abyss. Possibly the best module for capable DMs, just very (VERY) difficult to manage the large number of NPCs, factions, locations, villains, complex travel mechanics, out-of order sequencing... a lot of work to do, but very high quality campaign in and of itself.

The Ghost in our version of it turned into an attraction, would help with serving drinks and the like.

@Shalakor

Жыл бұрын

You've gotta have the ghost bartender. The Trollskull just ain't right without them serving customers.

When the world needed him most, he returned!

I'm just going to tell myself that re-watching PF's playlist for the umpteenth time as I played video games is what motivated him to upload another video. Please continue on the worst stories series.

When I ran Waterdeep, I stopped caring around the investigation part (I think it was chapter 3). Not because it was boring, but because my players were "more interested in dungeon crawling", so they missed all the clues they were supposed to follow. So I improvised a courtroom plot (they were very chaotic criminal), gave them the detective NPC they liked so much to help clean their names, gave them the "crystal", and jumped all the way to final chapter. It worked great :)

I remember when playing this module we ended up chasing some of the villains on a rooftop and one of my friends thought it would be a great idea to use wildshape to move faster, what he didn't realize is that turn into a warhorse was probably not the best idea when standing on the roof of a building.

I made a really simple change that made the stone chase work for my group: If they managed to get the stone before then end, then... it actually works and they can keep it. My players caught up in step 5 of 7 IIRC, and were quite pleased with themselves.

It feels like it's been forever since the last video. I'm so happy now.

@jimmaybee6323

Жыл бұрын

happy happy joy joy! :)

@romainsavioz5466

Жыл бұрын

Least then between the ladt and the one before

A Puffin vid after only 2 months! He's back! And he is magnificent!

In the Alexandrian Remix it's set up fir the party to successfully get the Stone from the Gralhund Villa part, but the three eyes are each possessed in different villains' lairs.

I'm so glad the dm of our game missed that text box about the stone of Golorr giving the player amnesia if they get it early. We were lucky to grab it at the windmill after my character Obi-Wan Kenobied out the window onto the spined devil that held it.

My favorite version of this was in the introductory module Lost Mines of Phandelver, the module holds your hand throughout all of it except for the BBEG's motivation so I had to rewrite the boss encounter

I don’t play D&D games, but it’s fun living that life through your videos.

@2MeterLP

Жыл бұрын

If you want to play and dont know anyone interested, ask in your local game shop. They usually help bring groups together.

HE'S BACK! HE'S FREAKING BACK!

I feel the first minute and a half on a spiritual level. I feel this with *every official module*

babe, wake up. puffin forest posted a new video

Yay! New puffin video. Always a highlight.

Dragon Heist was the first ttrpg campaign I ever played in. It was an online group and I knew noone there, but we hit it off really well immediately so it was quite fun playing - however we wiped twice on the same encounter. We ended up playing heavily homebrew characters, if only to get ourselves actually having fun with the rest of it, and had some great moments in the end, but honestly I couldn't even tell you what the point of the module was - I just remember my lizardfolk healer got drunk and had a one night stand at some point.

It's always a good day when Puffin makes a new video

I usually give the characters a visit from Lord Cassalanter offering a discounted loan to help them set up the tavern while the Zhentarim and other loan sharks charge to much or menace the players. And i added other stores around Trollskull alley like a pet shop, a dress shop run by a hidden lord of Waterdeep, an instrument shop, and a boarding house with a kindly granny dwarf who wants the characters tavern or business to succeed and bakes them cookies (also feeds them in the early parts of the story because the don’t usually have a lot of money)

Will we ever get another campaign series? I love the Curse of Strahd one so much!

A day is always a good day when Puffin Forest publishes a video!

Nice to see some stories on this channel again.

Breaking up the stone into pieces was BRILLIANT. Excellent idea! This is especially timely because I'm going to be starting a Waterdeep game TODAY. Like, in a few hours. Thanks for the tips. ;)

My table also kept the house haunted. We chose to set up a bar there and used the ghost as an attraction - The House of Boos.

@InsanoRider777

Жыл бұрын

I think mine did that too except he was the bartender, so we had a ghost serving drinks lmao.

@TheGaboom

Жыл бұрын

@@InsanoRider777 Nice! Unfortunately (For the DM i guess, idk) our group was more invested with the Bar than anything with the plot, so the cannon ending for that party was starting a business I hope your group was either invested with the actual plot, or also content with retiring early like ours was 😊

As someone who is currently running Waterdeep dragon heist, there was very little I would consider a spoiler in this video lol. I also scrapped the four seasons things and am running the four villains, though Manshoon is definitely taking a more minor role. And I’ve actually some how managed to make it so of my party of 5 players, 4 of them have some backstory or goal that makes them directly opposed to or on a collision course with a different one of the villains.

@Shalakor

Жыл бұрын

So, is the 5th player a total wildcard, or invested in some other aspect of the setting or story that doesn't bring them into any direct conflict other than running alongside the rest of the party that are?

As a new DM who is hosting her first DND session using Waterdeep, I thank you for making this video.

Lol this is so wild I'm actually DMing this campaign and are first session is on Monday. Thank you so much for the advice and tips!

@ultralight9625

Жыл бұрын

Look up a blog called the alexandrian for their detailed remix of the module. I highly recommend it.

@bluecrane9967

Жыл бұрын

@@ultralight9625 thanks for the advice 😃

Good to see him back

Huzzah!! Puffin posts to YT and the world seems bright again after a very long and cold 🥶 winter.

Currently running Waterdeep Dragon Heist, and one of the major changes I plan on making (haven’t gotten to it yet) is giving the Dragon Staff to the Cassalanters. Then when they get into the vault the Dragon will let them take the Gold if they get him the staff. Bada bing bada boom, now they have to go on heist for the staff. And it brings both the Cassalanters and Jarlaxle (he is stated multiple times to be after the staff explicitly) into the story. Or fight a dragon, but that’s also pretty epic.

Commenting early after a few minutes, because you are very right! I'm running Princes of the Apocalypse module for my friends, and it's really frustrating how events are just not tied together and I'm supposed to make up for it. Things like "When characters are in this village, and when listening to rumors, they get this and that information", or "If they talk to this person, they say this or that". Sometimes it's easy, but other times I'm wondering how them going to another village leads them to this important enemy hideout that no one knows. Rant over, continuing the video now. Missed you!

@valwenventureco9285

Жыл бұрын

my favorite princes of the apocalypse thing was how several of the out the in open cults just don't have a great reason for the players to care. ohh these rich noble are sorta jerks and love flying mounts....ok... you sure you don't want to break into there tower at the strike of midnight, go to the roof and discover the sacrifice people to recharge there magic parashoots? or hey look a small monastery seemingly worshiping a earth diety, the acolyte at the door told us the monks have sworn oaths of poverty and silence and live apart from the world, we are welcome to stay in the court yard for the night and they even offered to bring us some of the simple stew they have for dinner but outsiders are forbidden from entering the monastery. well I guess we better murder the monks incase they are evil.

@Surgical922

Жыл бұрын

​@@valwenventureco9285 Exactly! I've never felt more like a QA tester than I have with this module.

@Dr_Robin_Zoro

Жыл бұрын

Yeah its why i switched to Pathfinder 2e Adventure paths. Its a bit of work if my players want to play 5e but the story is so well organized and put together that its less work on the fly I just put in some d&d stat blocks.

@trequor

Жыл бұрын

@@valwenventureco9285 Princes works best as modular content for a B plot in another story imo. The cults, dungeons, and custom cultists are all super cool in my opinion and can fit independently into most worlds with very little effort. The flying dudes inspired my imagination and I had them be pirates as an airship encounter. If they follow the sky bandits back to their lair they get to do the cool dungeon in reverse.

I had great fun running the "Alexandrian Remix" version of Waterdeep Dragon Heist. Ran at a higher level, starting at 5th, and they got to fight all 4 big bad stories over about 30 sessions. Good times.

Woohoo!!! More puffin!!!!

I prefer doing things more "homebrew" for some of the reasons listed. I like the idea of coming up with all the stuff and not feeling as stuck on-rails.

I have played this campaign and am currently running it. It's been interesting so far.

I just realized how good you are in compressing a story. If I had to retell something from my campagns I couldnt refrain from all the little details and technicalities.

Puffin your videos are like the drug I can never get enough of but when they're around I'll take that shit right away

Splitting the Stone of Galorr into pieces is tbh a stroke of genius that i wish the game offered, because I ran into the issue that they picked it up early, I didnt wanna do the dumb mind whipe thing, and then we skipped the whole chase chapter that i wanted to use to set up Manshoon a bit more xD

YES PUFFIN IS BACK

I will stop whatever I’m doing to watch your videos when they come out. Thanks for your incredible content! Hope you are well! 🙏

I always watch one of his videos when he hasn’t uploaded in a while and the next day a new upload happens.

@sceptical8694

Жыл бұрын

Yesterday I watched his 4e video and today *boom* new upload

great to see another video, love your animations and stories!

Yay more D&D stories! I've missed your work on D&D.

Love that you’re uploading again, puffin! My players are currently going through this module and I decided to share some funny moments in our story: Mild spoilers for WD:DH In the beginning of the game after the troll fight and they tossed the thing back down the undermountain (bad troll saves) the bard walked up to Threestrings and convinced him to give him his lute for a second. He then proceeded to cut the rest of his strings except one. Understandably Threestrings was very angry, but the bard just kept saying to me, “play it.” I rolled performance and Nat 20’ed so that day Threestrings was no more and the hit rock artist “G-String” was born. Later on when after fighting the kenkus and the cops showed up, two of the players were upstairs looting everything that wasn’t nailed down. One of them was downstairs talking to a cop they saw earlier that day. The cop was like “there’s no one else here? I thought I remember seeing you in a group.” “No sir, just me.” (Stealth check) (crash) “what was that?” (A bunch of rats from a minor illusion spell go down the stairs). “Damn rats. I hate the dock ward.” Some conversation later and another stealth check after forgetting that they busted the door upstairs before they entered and another cop posted by that door comes down and alerts the cop talking to the player downstairs that someone’s inside. (Minor illusion a singular monstrous sized rat and succeeds) and the cop just goes “I’m getting too old for this. I’m going to ask to be reassigned.” Another one of my players is an adopted pirate from a former infamous pirate family so he and his mouse sister are being shadowed/monitored by Bregan D’aerthe. Haven’t explored that yet but I had to basically make another faction dedicated to his backstory where I gave everyone else an NPC to be and said to just bully his character or be friendly to his character. We’ve had some funny interactions so far with that. The players are currently about to enter the sewers and find Floon. That session will be next week probably. That’ll be fun.

Been waiting on your videos!!! Thank you for making interesting and fun videos 😊...keep up the great work

It's really good to see new content from you. I always looked forward to seeing new videos, and really missed seeing anything new.

I'm really glad to see your stuff again, best of luck to you Puffin!

We love you Puffin!!! Post more videos when you find the time and topics. Always love hearing your stories.

Hurray! Thank you so much for all of your videos.

wow what luck I just caught this at the right moment. Love the content glad to see it keeping up.

Good to see you making videos again. Man I struggled running this module

Aloha from Hawaii Puffin!! I started playing D&D this past year and love your channel. I have watched all of your old videos & really appreciate and enjoy them. I think your content is really fantastic & I hope you keep making videos. Mahalo for all the hard work you do!!

I get ridiculously happy when I see new stuff from you. I hope all is well, and thank you for the content :)

Been waiting for a new post 🙏thank you!

So this is odd but your videos make me pass out immediately when I need to go to sleep lol. Love your stuff Ben and always happy to see your videos pop up into my feed.

missed your videos so much glad to see you are back

Love your videos. Thanks for making them.

I've replayed your videos as background comfort more times then I'll say and want you to know how much I love them. All of them except the scary cthulu one with the sled dogs. Hope you keep making more for a long time.

Boy i am running one tonight its such a good game.

i missed your stories - nice to hear from you again

I'm so happy that you're making new content. Love it!

Still one of my favourite dnd youtubers! Your channel remains so awesome 😆

Miss your vids so much! Hope you're doing well man. More DnD!!

So happy you're putting up videos again

So good to see more from you love your work

It's so good to see your videos again, Ben!

Fun video! Always enjoy your party’s adventures!

LOVE SEEING YOU BACK!

Third time watching and still enjoying learning how to adapt and react and still have fun. I wish I could be a fighter in one of your d&d games :)

BROOOOO! I miss your content so freaking much! So happy to see this!

Puffin is one of my FAVORITE creators! SUPER happy he is making videos again. thanks so much!

The last time I ran this I made the decision ahead of time to run this with *every* villain faction active, and even the good guys a bit tempted by the amount of gold and power in play, and it was honestly one of the greatest campaigns I've ever run.

Hell yeah dude love the dnd stories lol. Started playing again with my old group recently and I'm glad to see another one of these. Always cracks me up. 😂😂

love your vids bro, ive gotten more into roleplaying games since i first started watching your vids

9:32 Water derp drogen hoist?

So happy to hear your voice again puffin. I'd kill for another series like curse of strahd

Hey! Where have you been puffin missed u and your stories

I love you vids!! Keep on making them!!

Yay! New video!

Thanks for gifting us another video here. Looking forward to more.

Miss your stories. I hope you are doing ok. No pressure and only do it if its fun for you. I know these take alot of work

Glad to see you back, hope you are doing well. Thanks for the upload.

I can't stress enough how much I enjoy your videos. 🤣👍

I really love Dragon Heist for the potential it has. It's definitely my favorite module. When I approach a module, I do so as half and half pre-made setting, NPCs, quests, and the like and the other half being inspiration to play it by ear. I try to get the best possible understanding of characters and motivations so when the module does something stupid and nonsensical, I can decide whether it fits or not and improvise from there. I also hand draw out maps and such on grid paper so I have an idea of what I'm doing when I put it up on the big map, what's important, what isn't, where NPCs are and where the important loot is. Then I use the back of the page to write out all the important events and whatnot by room. Doing that also engages my memory, so it's part cheat sheet and part familiarization. Also, knowing Waterdeep like the back of my hand has led to some cool moments of exploration, even in other people's games. I've got friends that have run games set in Faerun and we've ended up in Waterdeep from time to time. They know that I know the town well, and they have often handed control over to me for party stuff like "is there a good armorer in town?" "Where can I get riggity riggity wrecked?" "I'm looking for a dark corner to make some 'friends.'" It's a lot of fun, and gives the DM time to plan their next move while I get to run the show for a minute or two.

Always good to see a new puffin video

Ah, a new Puffin video always brightens my weekend!

Glad to have you back!

Love your videos, missed you man

Bro I need more of your videos in my life.

I played through waterdeep. I honestly dont know what happened but by the end we owned a tavern that we convinced a ghost and a family of halflings to run for us. Also so happy for a new video. You are my introduction into the dnd world. Have been playing and running many games for over 2 years now. Appreciate you!