Feedback Part 2

Hey guys, it's been a few weeks since Princes of the Apocalypse ended and, as I said earlier, I'd like some feedback. The finale I messed up on by allowing the Sunder action which disarms NPCs. This allowed you guys to claim the dagger Tinderstrike and end the encounter before it really even began. As much as I'd like a do-over, I figure we'll just leave well enough alone. So disregard the anti-climactic ending, and try to remember the journey instead. I'd like to know what some of your most memorable moments were in the campaign (this tells me what I was doing right). I'd also like to know what I did wrong, or where you were bored. Don't be shy, I need to know so that I can learn to avoid the dull parts. When I was running the Living Faerun campaign I was focusing on telling a good story. With Princes of the Apocalypse I was focusing on roleplay itself; doing the voices and making the monsters more interesting rather than stats on a sheet. So some feedback on compare/contrast between the two would also be helpful. Responses can be a PM or a post here publicly. You guys see things that I don't see as DM so it's very helpful for me to get some feedback. Thanks.

Wait wait wait, didn't the firelady throw the dagger into the lava so we couldn't get our hands on it and Dibble barely snagged it out of it to save the fucking day? How is that anti-climactic when everyone was about to die in a turn or two? xD I liked Princes, and your roleplaying was well done I think. But I kinda felt the concept of the temples kind of weird. We cleared out one level of a temple and then left for a few days to weeks and the cultist were kinda like "meh, whatever" and when we came back the cleared levels were still clear. Kinda felt like the cults didn't really care that we came closer to their nodes.

Well both Living Faerun and Princes of the Apocalypse we loads of fun for both reasons you mentioned. I really liked the epicness of Living Faerun's build to try and save the city. PotA's most epic moment was the final boss.  more in a PM now that I think of it.

The Siege was my favorite part of Living Faerun I think.  Princes of the Apocalypse was pretty fun all the way around.  The fight with the black dragon was probably my favorite battle.  The highlight of the whole module though was Trouble getting stuck by her boobs.  Exploring the dungeon and the whole encounter down there was pretty fun.  I hate I missed the battle against the dragon in the end. I think I like fighting dragons.

You're right Steffen - Vanifer threw the dagger into the lava because Krumdak was about to take it from her. If the finale was epic from the player perspective then that's all that matters. Maybe I was just disappointed I only got to play Imix for one round :) Shawn do you mean the siege of Baldur's Gate? The warrens where Lorelei got stuck and the black dragon in the Besilmer ruins were both my creations; not part of the module. Same for the shadow dragon at Rundreth Manor - not sure which black dragon you were referring to. The module said not to have you guys fight the black shadow dragon but I knew you would be disappointed if you couldn't fight her. So I built the dungeon with the wells and waterways too. I'm glad to hear my creations were memorable. As for the temples being cleared out - the module had if/then flow charts to determine where the Prophets would go based on what the party was doing. And delving deeper into the Temples was the whole theme. From the Nodes the Prophets were trying to attack the Dessarin Valley with their orbs of devastation, but you guys handled those so quickly that they became kind of foot notes.

Yeah, I meant the Siege of Baldur's Gate.  That was such an epic undertaking on your part, it was really quite awesome.  From the first epic battle with the summoning things in the water we had to destroy and the little side missions we had to take on.  All of it was super awesome.  Figures the things that were most memorable about the Princes of the Apocalypse game were your creations Ben.  I know it's time consuming and a lot of work for you, but the detailed dungeon crawls with limited vision and surprises coming up out of the darkness have always been fantastic.

Out of all the campaigns I've played of yours Ben Living Faerun has been my favourite! I especially enjoyed zombie beach raid lots of dead on both sides and it lead to the epic siege of baldurs gate! I have enjoyed the RP in tPotA but I do find if you give us enough rope we tend to hang ourselves (or any unsuspecting NPC's that happen to be around at the time lol) Like Shaun said I know it's a hell of a lot of work but I do enjoy your games apposed to the WotC modules that seem to be lacking any real substance IMO.

I'm glad to hear you guys liked the siege so much. That was completely unplanned - I was originally going to go with an undead cultist kind of theme with Algard as the villain. But after the massacre on the beach I was discouraged and thought the campaign needed a major shake-up to refocus attention.

Living Fearun was indeed a lot of fun! The siege was a very interesting introduction to DnD for me - after my first ever character just died in his first adventure, lol. I must admit, after spending some time making up a backstory for old Balwin and then having him die right of the bat kind of resulted in Arnold being "a random dwarf dude that at least shouldn't die as easily" when I made him. That he ended up being the guy Ben threw what felt to me like half the monster per encounter at because he was so tanky was kinda fun to see. It also showed me how hard it is for a DM to balance the campaign in a way that it still poses a threat to the characters without just throwing bigger and bigger monsters at the players, and I think you did and still do a really good job at that. Towards the last games that I participated in the LF campaign the party was in my oppinion game breakingly strong. I think my last game was the battle against the white dragon where you handed us like a wand of paralysis or something and I just kept asking if you were really sure you wanted us to have that. And I never got to get Arnold his Bulette - I don't even know how that would have played out.