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@dscryb

3 жыл бұрын

Matthew, outstanding writing on your part! If you'd ever like to guest write some scenes for dScryb, you know where to find us!

That epilogue was seriously enchanting. Looking forward to the rest of this series and more content from you Matthew! (The official name of all great DMs)

@heyitsMattyP

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you! The music helps haha! On my other guides, some people have flagged the epilogues as their favourite bit, so I'm going to include an epilogue wherever I can moving forward. Plus it's a good chance to dust off my writing degree.

Yesterday I ran my first session of STK and I followed your advice kind of to the letter, and I think this might've been my best session to date (6 hours of epic action)! My players - both new and very experienced - LOVED the cold open and the epilogue at the end. My experienced players adored the battle companion mechanic because it included their allies in a meaningful way in the action and they felt powerful commanding them around. Absolutely brilliant. Whenever I felt like the companions were taking over during the boss fight, I had them hold back a horde of minions trying to outflank the PC's, ushering the PC's to 'take care of the big one'. It made them love the NPC's even more. I gave you credit for it and my players will be checking your channel out soon. Looking forward to your take on the next chapter!

I really like the idea of a cold open to throw everyone into the action, and then letting the exposition flow on from that. Great video!

@heyitsMattyP

3 жыл бұрын

Endings are super difficult, beginnings are hard, but I think cutaway epilogues and cold opens make everything a bit more manageable. Thanks for hanging out in the live chat!

I typed out all he said with my own small edits in it. I also added my giant of choice that will hold the conch. Fire giant fit for me since I will have a powerful character being held in the fire giant lair for one of my players. Hope this helps others come up with ideas as this has helped me mold a cliffhanger at each of the milestones and to end a session. The brisk air smells of wood smoke and if you closed your eyes and somehow managed to ignore the shouting of fading battle, the scent might even seem pleasant but, the sound of your heart drumming in your ears and the adrenaline pulsing through your veins keeps you grounded in the moment. Indignant crows caw and flap away; carrying aloft whatever grisly bit they could wrestle from the many corpses in the village. The immediate threat is over and the village will spend months rebuilding and recovering but they will always remember the part you played in their defense. You have allies here. Sirrac, the local priest, clasps (insert party leader here) on the shoulder and promises to aid you in any way he can if you’re on the path to stopping this giant threat. Elsewhere, with moonlight spilling across the frigid icy ground, traveling through a dazzling display of crystalline reflections, a lone frost giant adventurer feels the weight of his ancestors and the all-father compelling him to a holy temple and the oracle within. He presses forward with that weight bearing down on him, all while his mind is filled with scattered thoughts whispering sweet promises of relief and purpose. He knows he is not alone in this journey. Elsewhere, on a lavish boat, crowded with celebrating patrons shouting, laughing, and gambling far below the deck. The captain’s quarters filled with a stoic air as the moonlight pierces through the windows and across a map centered in the room. A captain spills an ornate coin on their desk. The captain slams their palm on the desk to quiet the whirring coin as they prepare to commune with their master. He clenches the coin between his rough and shaking fingertips. A quick glance shows the coin depicts a coiling leviathan. Elsewhere, beneath the ocean in a hidden stronghold, a young woman 25 feet tall seems less imposing on the storm giant’s worm skull throne, doubled over in a moment of grief. The seats in the royal hall, reserved for her immediate family are empty and she mourns their uncertain fate, while her kin and cousins rampage in the realms of the small folk. From the darkness behind her emerges an older storm giant woman, she reaches out with a reassuring blue hand to clasp the princess regents shoulder. Sparks occasionally crackling between her ringed fingers and on the older woman’s face, dragon scale diadem resting on her head, a smile creeps across her features and everything is going as planned. Lastly, in the heart of a fiery volcano, hammer meets steel with unimaginable heat radiating from the forges of molten magma and throughout this reinforced stronghold. Loud banging of steel being forged into weapons of incredible power and impregnable armor echoes off the stone and steel walls. Giants with black crackling skin showing bright and dark orange energy patrol in armor along with a sword or hammer. One sits at the top of the hierarchy over all others here. Great excitement and anxiety cover his face like a veil as a loud bellow is heard from deep within the stronghold. Big changes await this world and this world awaits those to ensure its survival through all that is to come.

@heyitsMattyP

2 жыл бұрын

Hey great job! Thank you for sharing this :)

@angelfigueroa4535

2 жыл бұрын

Absolutely! Thank you for the great video. It's helped thousands of DMs make an awesome adventure even better.

Very happy that you decided to do Storm kings thunder because for my first time DM’ing I’m running my group through Lost Mines and then right into SKT. This is massive for helping me come up with ideas I’d like to adapt to my game. Love this channel. I already took quite a few ideas from your lost mines series, and I already committed to having Thundertree be a sort of Segway into getting my party to triboar for the beginning of SKT. I’m sure I can 100% adapt your ideas to suit my game. :)

@heyitsMattyP

3 жыл бұрын

Oh rad! That's good timing, because these SKT videos are coming out a little slower then the LMOP videos did. By the time you catch up, there should be a bit of runway for your campaign.

This is the best prep video I've ever seen! I love the succinct bullet points behind you, really helps me focus on the important stuff. The exposition checklist is another great example. Thanks for putting so much effort into these, another Patron well earned!

I’m about to run SKT for my husband (playing 2 characters) and son. How great that you are doing these! Thanks for the great content!

Thanks to your suggestions and excellent DM materials, I was able to run one of my best ever DnD games tonight. I can't wait for chapter 3!

Love this! Cannot wait to see this entire series

@heyitsMattyP

3 жыл бұрын

Cheers JC! The first few videos are difficult to make because they're so broad, but the later ones should come out at a quicker pace.

Your videos on SKT are well organized, enjoyable, and informative. My issue is that I need this whole series published like today!!! We are on session #10 (2hr) with 4 players and we are just getting to Triboar and running the intro quests from GMBinder to introduce the NPCs before the attack tonight! Looking forward to the next video!

@heyitsMattyP

3 жыл бұрын

Oh nice! You'll have a blast, it's a rad scene.

@christopherkelly9153

2 жыл бұрын

Yep, NEED those videos. We are about to start this too and want to stay ahead of the action. Using LMoP link to Triboar, but everything in this video works equally well there. Are their more of these videos on the Patreon site?

Thank you. I just got past the giants attacking Triboar but your approach is great. I love the epilogue concept to provide some forward looking vision for the party.

There needs to be a way to like this more. Matt, amazing work here. I won't be running this for a couple of months, but you've gotten me really looking forward to it.

@heyitsMattyP

2 жыл бұрын

Mate, thank you very much :) The SKT videos and PDFs are a lot of work, so comments like this are always a welcome surprise!

Matthew! I found your channel when I was stressed out and knee deep in DM confusion. I've been running some slightly deviated Adventurer's League modules that are designed to run parallel to Storm King's Thunder as many of the events in the modules have Giant themes and a "big bad" in a hill giant looking to sack Parnast, the players base of operations. And I'm looking to continue my adventures into Storm King's Thunder so these suggestions are absolute gold. Thank you so much!!

I really wish this was continued for the 15 videos.

I have just started LMOP based and inspired on you LMOP guides and am already taking notes for the next campaign (STK): your approach really helps inspire how to make a published adventure your own and just generally DM (love the cold open start rp method, really look forward to trying that with my group).

@heyitsMattyP

3 жыл бұрын

That's great to hear, thanks for your kind words! If you try a cold open, let me know how it goes :)

Anxiously awaiting your next SKT video! Great stuff!

Such an amazing video, thank you so much!

@heyitsMattyP

3 жыл бұрын

Glad you liked it! Thanks for the comment :)

Thank you so much for this. I’ve been struggling, as a relatively new DM, trying to figure out how to get this chapter going. Now I know where to go. Thanks, again. 🤘🏻😎

@heyitsMattyP

2 жыл бұрын

Nice one Chris! Hope it works out for ya - lean into that cinematic energy and you can't go wrong :)

I’m running LMoP into SKT and then Rise of Tiamat after it. I’ve been rewatching these vids a bunch trying to prep and understand. Hoping for more content like this.

@heyitsMattyP

Жыл бұрын

I'm re-reading SKT soon to continue and finish this series :)

Loved the PDF man! Great concept and way to make it a crazy start to a campaign! I’ll be using this

@heyitsMattyP

13 күн бұрын

Glad it helped! This was the first PDF where I worked with writers and said, "OK, we're not just making handouts or session tools, we're gonna try making something larger with structure."

@michaelnicholson9399

13 күн бұрын

@@heyitsMattyP you crushed it man! Just like my frost giants will be crushing Bryn Shander… lol

Looking forward to the next one. I'm linking LMoP into STK

Oooft that epilogue was amazing!! I love the almost cinematic-ness of it

@heyitsMattyP

10 ай бұрын

Thank you! I love including little vignettes like that in my sessions :)

@laurenmendes9087

10 ай бұрын

@@heyitsMattyP I'm definitely stealing that one from you, no point in hiding all the gorgeous villainy going on behind the scenes

I think they were starting to plant plot seeds, with thodr characters that reappear, look at beneath Phandelver revealing the secrets of the obelisks that have appeared in the modules

Thanks for this content bro, helping a noob DM lost in chapter 3 a lot!

@heyitsMattyP

9 ай бұрын

Glad to help! More SKT coming up over the next two months.

@newleafturned3343

9 ай бұрын

Fantastic! Just about done with chapter 3 now (party is about to encounter Harshnag) so looking forward to the rest!@@heyitsMattyP

I really liked the ideas from that first SKT video and looked forward to the next video. We started Nightstone about the same time as the first video dropped. I printed out the exposition check list and waited on the next video or an update to BBEG motivations. Since the first video we finished Nightstone, then went to Goldenfields, then to Waterdeep and finally to Bryn Shander. Unfortunately, now that the we’ve survived the assault of Bryn Shander. So this video series is developing too slow for my players. Maybe I’ll run Lost Mines and check out the resource videos already posted in his playlist. I just wish that the these videos came out more frequently. I know there are other videos that has been released since this series started.

@heyitsMattyP

3 жыл бұрын

These videos are massive and have a long production time.

Cool T-shirt. Looking forward to the video.

@heyitsMattyP

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks! I felt silly making "merch" just for myself, but it's better than verbally shilling for the podcast every video :)

Appreciate you walking through this, I am a new DM currently walking my players through a completely homebrew story in the DnD. More or less going through each of their backstories and solving a problem which feeds into an overarching plot. I have already told them that their next campaign is going to be in a module and I have decided to run Storm King's. Once the players hit Level 10 or 11, do you know of any other modules or adventures I could potentially tag onto this campaign so that my players can get to level 16? Thanks again.

I like the epilogue. After having read all the Adventure Background, I was kind of unsure of when to present some of the pieces of the story to the players throughout the game.

@heyitsMattyP

9 ай бұрын

It's a lot of exposition to get out there! Sometimes this adventure feels like a vast MMO, but with no quests or AI for all the NPCs, so they just sit there and hope the players can piece together some coherent narrative.

As someone actively running SKT, I’ve shuffled the main plot to be a Civil war power grab between King Hecatons brother (who has aligned Cloud,Fire and hill giants) and King Hecatons daughters (well daughter) ((who has the backing of Storm Frost and Stone giants)) Iymrith is still playing both sides trying to get them to wipe each other out. Makes the sieges on towns extremely scary, especially if you mix giant resources (ie fire giants with magical artifacts gifted to them by cloud giants so they can teleport directly into the heart of the city)

@heyitsMattyP

10 ай бұрын

Oh cool! I don't think I've run any kind of clear factional dispute like that before. Sounds fun :)

Really like your work. Have been following your LMoP guide as well. Especially things like prologues and epilogues for athmospheric fore-shadowing are a tool I'll definitely adopt for my DM career which has just started. Unfortunately I'm German so tools like dScryb make life only somewhat easier as I have to do quite a bit of translating. I think that the soundtrack is also a big part of the atmosphere. Which song did you choose für your Bryn Shander epilogue and where do you find such music?

@heyitsMattyP

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks! I forget what the service is called, but KZread Studio has a music and sound effect library of Creative Commons sounds with pretty robust filters for searching. That's where is get most of my music. I can find the title of this track if you're interested.

@caseyhaerr4888

2 жыл бұрын

@@heyitsMattyP I am interested in the title of this track! What is it? and thank you!

@mushmush83

2 жыл бұрын

@@heyitsMattyP yes please, great vidios

When can we expect your guide for chapter 3? I'm ready to run this campaign, but I'm looking forward to your insight on how to turn chapter 3 into a monologue. Please share soon!!

@LH-mh7xu

3 жыл бұрын

Also, I need to clarify your suggestions for chapter 2. Are the players defeating Guh at this point in order to retrieve the Conch of teleportation? Or are they only simply defeating the commander at that point?

Do you have the pdf somewhere that's not patreon? I don't have one but I would like to support you by buying it!

I have a character like Malcolm named Norville except he's a very nervous artificer with a dream of building an automaton. He's not very good at being an engineer tho

I’m thinking about extending the session count and making ALL the giants attack the village at once to accomplish their own goals. They’ll inevitably clash and make it harder for each other to succeed, and will provide the exposition for them all to be introduced. Just worried it might be a bit clustered

@heyitsMattyP

Жыл бұрын

I reckon that might be too much! There's only so much information the players can take in, so I'd recommend focusing on seeding just a few important pieces of information very deeply, rather than lots of important information briefly.

@JetLaggedWeeb

Жыл бұрын

@@heyitsMattyP Fair point. I do want to flesh the campaign out a bit more so they take down each of the giants rather than just one of them (which will require some rebalancing to make work) so maybe I'll have to throw more exposition into chapter 3 instead of overloading them here.

2 giants alone is a deadly encounter for 5 lvl 5 characters, let alone all the minions. I’m a bit worried that adding all the minions is gonna wipe the party. Hopefully they know when to stop fighting and let the giants succeed, right? Do you recommend having a few separate combat encounters for this session, or just one main boss fight?

Can you please make a video on how to come up with cut aways? I want to run LMOP and I like the cut aways for your first two videos then they stop. Please help.

@heyitsMattyP

3 жыл бұрын

Yep! It's on the cards. Though it's something geared to writing descriptions and boxed text in general, you could apply it to epilogues. It doesn't have a release date yet, because I haven't written the script yet. I'll be trying to do more epilogues for the SKT sessions since people seemed to like them in the LMOP videos.

Matthew, while I quite enjoyed some ideas there were a few I really didn't get. First of all, why would the characters even bother to defend the city? If the Giants are attacking I think a lot of people will just: "Lets get the heck out of here!". I mean there is nothing binding them to the city, so I think is weird you presume they will just stand and solve the problem. Second, why are all the stats block for the enemies the same? Its not like you will have to prep all the different stats blocks, you as the DM will chose the faction attacking and then prep b4 the session, so you will only prep one set of stat block after all. On a side note, the thought of a Aarakocra and Magmin having the same stat blocks sound super weird. Thirdly, I know you mentioned the script in you patreon and that you wanted us to come up with the resolution ourselves, but to me it was just left too vague to imagination and some sample resolved cenario would be great. And also your epilogue as quite good as a prose piece, but I can only imagine after reading something like that my players coming up with a question mark on their faces asking things too soon for our own good, or, most likely, having forget every single word by the time of next session... I enjoy a lot your videos man, and I not specialist or anything, neither have I run STK b4; I just want share with some sincere thoughts I had, keep the good work!

@heyitsMattyP

3 жыл бұрын

Hey mate! All fair criticism - let me hit this point by point. 1. Players would defend the city or engage with the situation because that's the campaign. Player buy-in is player responsibility, so if any players say, "Why should me character care about this?" My answer is always, "You tell me!" Plus, if they try to leave, you can just move content around. 2. Giants are too tough for the party at this level. The official module give the players control of a bunch of NPCs in a bloated combat to compensate. My solution is to give them a level-appropriate challenge instead. 3. I want people to make the giant lord's their own where possible. Plus, there are five different giant lords, and only one will be a threat in your game - it would be misleading to players if I suggested Dungeon Masters read out five different scenes about the giant lords when only one is relevant. Epilogues might not be your jam, but they work great for me. It always makes my players excited to play the next session and it a good framing device for exposition which I can't fit in the session naturally. Cheers!

I don't think that having Climber referenced in SKT is a bad thing or a big deal. The module gives a very valid reason why the giants want it... because supposedly in the hands of a frost giant you can freeze the world with the damn thing. So a very good reason for them to pursue it. Also while it may be a minor plug to another character they don't specifically reference the actual module so you're free to introduce climber to your campaign any way you like it... maybe he is a part of the solution? maybe he somehow dies and bequeaths the ring upon someone in the party he trusts... At the end of the day telling you the DM where the ring of winter actually is only gives you another tool in your toolkit to create a "living world" for your players where their actions create ripple effects across time. Also gives the players something to go after once they hit level 11 after the SKT module is done. Remember you as the DM creates the world so you can change Climber's circumstances to fit your campaigns needs.

Cold open for a cold clime

@heyitsMattyP

3 жыл бұрын

Agh!! Why didn't I think of this joke when filming???

as sirac leaves the party once they reach Luskan, on his quest that sends them to waterdeep, would you change this at all?

@heyitsMattyP

Жыл бұрын

Depends on whether they like him or not. If they're a fan of him, I'd keep him with the party as a Battle Companion.

@jabob101

Жыл бұрын

@@heyitsMattyP thanks for the advice! My players aren’t the biggest fan of him so I’ll have him remain in Luskan haha

I wonder how many times you said "Climber" with your groups before someone pointed out that it's "Cimber", like "Timber".

@heyitsMattyP

2 жыл бұрын

WotC named him wrong

When will we get more on this series?

@heyitsMattyP

2 жыл бұрын

Tuesday or Wednesday

1.) Can you have your players face off against all 5 giant types? Not all at once, but throughout the campaign.

@heyitsMattyP

2 жыл бұрын

Sure can! But that's a longer campaign that I don't wanna run

@andrewdowns3673

2 жыл бұрын

@@heyitsMattyP Awesome thanks.

awwww yissss

@heyitsMattyP

3 жыл бұрын

dang tootin'

What if I want multiple giants? 😭

Does the epilogue give away too much of the story too quickly? Apparently you don’t think so. Do you plan to do more cut-aways like this often, revealing to the players what the NPCs are up to?

@heyitsMattyP

3 жыл бұрын

No and yes :)

I hate that they continually mention Tiamat and Dragons Horde in the book ugh

Dude i can't patron I earn in argentine pesos which are worth like 0.006 u$d stop asking lmao Jokes and poverty aside nice video

@heyitsMattyP

2 жыл бұрын

Hey mate! Cheers - if you ever see one or two things pn my Patreon you want, just let me know and I'll email it you. You can pay me back by sharing my videos with people :D

Obviously you can do whatever you like as the DM, but the stone giant attack makes absolutely no sense based on their nature. They don't go to the surface except in extreme situations, they vehemently would never destroy something like buildings of wood and stone. They are artists and storytellers and their beliefs don't allow them to spend any significant time on the surface of the world. It wouldn't really be coherent with the world.

@heyitsMattyP

2 жыл бұрын

Their faction goal in the module is to destroy buildings, so that's what I went with here

@Mekhami

2 жыл бұрын

@@heyitsMattyP that makes sense, it just seems so out of place with the established lore of stone giants. I would probably change it to something like... the thane sending the lowest among the stone giants to acquire surface stone (which they would consider flawed usually) which has been affected by the dream world (the surface) to make a great work of art below the surface to please Annam. idk something like that off the top of my head. but i'm a huge nerd for keeping coherent lore