What do I tell my players at the onset of the HotDQ campaign? - *Spoilers*

[mysticknight232]

Howdy all. I recently purchased HotDQ to run my players through. If you guys follow these forums, you know that I'm new to Fantasy Grounds. I have been playing RPG's, especially D&D for a long time but I am new to GM'ing a WotC published module. The format in FG is a big confusing as I'm pulling up various tabs and just reading the information. I'm starting to understand how it is organized but my biggest question is what do I actually tell my players? I know that conversation bubbles are set up such that I can push it and the text is sent to the chat window...but do I tell my players all about the guy looking for the Dragon Masks? Do I tell them that some Masks have been found? I just don't know what information is for GM's eyes only and what information I should share with my players. They're good people and if I accidentily spill the beans on something they will RP around it however I want it to be a good experiance all around for everybody so can somebody help me better understand how the module is organized for FG use and what information do I share with my players and what information do I keep in my back pocket?

Thanks!!!

PS - after messing around with software, I can tell you that the learning curve is definitely real, however the stuff that FG can do is quite exciting!!!

[Xorn]

There's a story entry in the first HotDQ tab that will be called (Contents) or (Index) or (Hoard of the Dragon Queen) or something like that--it will be in parenthesis, so it's the first story link. Open that Story entry up, and it's like the table of contents in the first page of the actual book. Then go from there. :)

[mysticknight232]

I follow what you're saying, but when I go to the first "adventure" where they're coming up to the town of Greenley (sp??), I'm not sure if I tell them everything I've read regarding the background of the cult, the masks, all that little information that is found in various tabs. It seems to me like i can share it but as I've not read the entire module, I don't want to spoil anything down the road.

[vegaserik]

I would only tell the players what the characters would know. Only being a little familiar with the adventure, I think none of the pc's start out knowing much unless they took the background where you used to be in the Cult. Even then they wouldn't be privy to most of that knowledge since they would have been low level members of the Cult. After awhile you get a feel for how much you should tell them and how much to keep secret until they find it out. The best rule of thumb I use is whatever makes the game fun ... if the players hit a roadblock and the game starts to slow down, have them find some of the info to jump start it again and don't worry too much about giving out too much info - it happens to all of us.

[Xorn]

Well, if you're asking what to tell the players, I guess... yeah just tell them what they know. When my group started the adventure, I told them the five of them had hired on with a caravan (for various reasons) and were near the small settlement of Greenest. As they were only a mile or two away, nearing dusk, they saw black smoke crawling lazily into the sky. They rushed ahead of the caravan to investigate, holding the merchant train while they moved ahead. On the way in, they spotted a blotchy dark shape swooping through the smoke, and the wizard was pretty sure it was the silhouette of a dragon. Then they got to the edge of the town, and that's when they saw a family being chased by a pack of kobolds. They intercepted the kobolds and saved the day--the adventure progressed from there.

Out of curiosity, have you ever DM'd before? You might find Lost Mines of Phandelver a better adventure for a first-time DM. HotDQ is a very linear (one might even say it's on rails) that doesn't really give the DM much information to go off track with--so it's either stick to the linear path, or you're stuck improving with little to knowledge beyond what the players were *supposed* to do.

[GuardianLurker]

I'll second the recommendation for Lost Mines if you're a new DM. It's actually intended to help DMs learn how to run the game, and the adventure is littered with things like "If your player characters, do X, their opponents will do Y" and similar things. It also has a lot more GM text to help you along.

As general advice: Read the module before you run it. Take/make notes if you need/want. Then read it again just straight through. On game day, take a brief pause as you click into the new Story entry. Scan it, paying attention to the first few paragraphs. *Then* read/say what you need to your players. The closer you stick to the adventure-as-published and the more experience you have, the less of this you'll need to do, but it will never be zero. You'll find that determining what starts as player knowledge versus GM knowledge will become pretty clear, fairly quick.

And above all, Don't Panic!

[mysticknight232]

Thanks for the helpful tips. I'm more confused with the published WotC adventure format in FG and I'm not a new DM. While I haven't DM'd D&D before, I have DM'd Saga Edition Star Wars (3+ years), Savage Worlds and Deadlands Reloaded and I've been playing D&D starting with 3e (so about 15 years). So...my confusion is mostly stemming from the format as presented in FG when I'm used to the format of a printed book(let) sitting in front of me. When i crack open a game system adventure module, it often says something like "here's what your players know" but again, because FG is in a table of contents type format and not a left to right book format, It's just throwing me for a bit of a loop.

And regarding the lost mines adventure, my buddy already bought that so that i can play in a game. We sort of divied up the adventures so we don't double up on information...so I'm working on HotDQ and he's working on LMoP.

Thanks for your continued support! I know i'll have tons of gameplay questions over the next month so don't get sick of me too quickly!! :-)

[Zacchaeus]

I think the first thing I'd say is that as the DM you have control of what you do or don't tell the players. Like modules from previous editions of D&D, the ones for 5e don't necessarily describe everything. As was posted above read the module all the way through as a first step. Once you know the story you can then think about why the players are there in the first place. Unless they're not really interested (and some groups are like this) most players will want to have some idea why they are there and why they are travelling with these particular characters. This is where you, as DM, and the players can formulate a background for the characters and give them a reason why they are doing what they are doing. The module does suggest several adventure hooks that you can build upon to get the players interested in what they are doing.

With the benefit of reading the modue you can also take things that happen or characters that appear and make that personal to one or more of the players. Perhaps one of them is here to find a long lost friend or relative or they've received a plea for help. Maybe one of them has been bequeathed an ancient treasure map and has come to investigate.

The story part of the adventure isn't set in stone; in fact none of it is really. You can cut bits out, add bits in or run it exactly as it is. Bottom line is that you know your group better than anyone else and so tell them as much or as little as they need to get them to invest in the story.

[crb31]

Personally I would read the entire book and then compare that to the module in FG. The book is organized in a very linearly fashion, I think in the terms of RPGing this is called railroading. The module in FG due to the nature of a computer program is not as easy to initially follow, IMHO.
There are some experienced DM's that might be able to take the FG module and extrapolate the adventure flow fairly easy. I am not. Let us know how it goes for you, please. I for one can use a lot of suggestions and guidance!

[Trenloe]

The story entries essentially follow the flow of the text in the actual book. Mesh additional links to make it easier to navigate around. As has been suggested above, open he story list and look at the different coloured tabs along the bottom - these apply to each part of the scenario and there is usually an up-front/TOC section as well. Then open each story entry in order, working your way down each list.

[Griogre]

One thing that might be causing you some confusion as well - HotDQ has 8 episodes - and a tab for each one, plus a few more for a total of 11 tabs. As FG always has one tab for the base campaign this means that unless you have made the story entry list wider you won't see the right most tabs since the default width only shows 8 tabs by default. :p You need to grab the bottom right of the story list and drag it to the right to see all the tabs that have been "pushed off" the bottom of the story listing.

That's one reason I have never been fond of one tab per adventure part, you never know how many tabs from other modules may already be there so its unpredictable how many tabs are actually shown by when a module is opened.

In answer to your direct question about background I would not tell them it. That is for you to understand the big picture of the adventure and the major NPC motivations. In I01 the Appendix tab you will see there are some bonds and a background or two for the players. What I had my groups do when I started the adventure was to setup their character bonds and backgrounds normally, but I told them I had some specific bonds to help tie the characters directly into the adventure. I told them to pick the normal bonds they would like to play and I would use those to give them one of the adventure bonds. I combined, changed, modified or substituted each character's bond in a private collaboration until I and the player were happy and the characters had a solid tie to the adventure.

One thing about the first episode in Greenest, even though the adventure path is pretty linear, that episode and some of the others, is pretty free-form. Make sure you understand the "mission" structure and be aware it is extremely unlikely the PCs will be able to do every mission.