Running Dragons of Stormwreck Isle – Tips for New D&D DMs #dnd #lazydm

Three enhancements that add a little kick: 1.In the first encounter, have the players arrive by night, rowing in, cold and wet, during a thunderstorm. As they exit the rowboat single file on the slippery wooden plank, a cold hand bursts from the water to grab the ankle of the player in the rear! They yell for help as the player in the front sees more lumbering forms approach from shore—you’re surrounded, and the locals at the dock flee. Players can still fight through and run, but it’s less convenient. 2.On the ship, have lots of rope and nets and ladders to make it easier to lasso and climb to trap and fight the harpy, and one round with a strength check DC 10 to restring and load the ballista to fire it at the harpy 3.The Fire Snake Egg! No! Eggs are about the most treasured mystery “boxes” in D&D. Try this instead: The mysterious orange crystal is jutting out of the noxious heart of the island, with an egg suspended inside, like Vader in his bacta tank, guarded by three fire elementals to protect it. Defeat the elementals, splinter the crystal, and extract the strange, glowing egg. What if it contains the seed of the reincarnated red dragon himself? 100 years after his death and the creation of the island. Do you destroy it, sell it, or hatch it? Do you use it as fodder to create a powerful, sentient magical weapon? Dragons, cultists, and Tiamat herself might take interest in that egg. Put it in your backpack and have it be the jumping off point for the next adventure!

I started this for my brothers, father and nephew, recently and after just over an hour of talking (about how to play and to the NPC's), they decided to go to the ship. They ignored the zombies at the start so I chose to have the harpy attack immediately if someone entered the crow's-nest (as their first combat). The person in the crow's-nest got Charmed and roll multiple Nat 1's for a few turns. They eventually fell down the 50ft drop, and were immediately dead. The rest took down the harpy and retreated back to Runara, who in her grace, spent the night resurrecting the dead party member, as it was clear that they were attempting to help the cloister. Suffice to say, that's where we chose to end the session for the day; 2 hours, 1 harpy, 1 death. What a way to start.

This video is likely to be the benchmark standard for recruiting new DMs to the hobby. Giving them helpful tips for plugging into the most likely product that will introduce them to the game of Dungeons & Dragons is exactly what they need. I would like to see Seth Skorkowski's version. You know, just for comparison.

Thank you. I value tips that don't require a rewrite of the campaign. I just ran SeaGrow Caves and I agree re the Violet Fungus, I felt that that players wanted to switch it up a bit, so we skipped them too. I also described Tarak as "Tarak Gamgee a halfling gardner" and described amazing cliff-face gardens with ropes and ladders and secret paths throughout Dragon's Rest. It gave options for movement around the cloister.

I was a DM back during second edition , lived my life and got away from DnD . Now my son and his friends are 14-15 and wanna play DnD . I bought this starter set and Player , Dm and monster book . Thx for this video it helped me a lot getting back into how you DM a game . the game sure changed a lot lol .

I just got this!!! Woot woot

thanks for this video! the suggestion to carry on with Call of the Netherdeep at level 3 was something I hadn't thought of - thanks!

I just ran my first DnD session both as a DM and in general! I had the zombies undead fortitude DC increase by 2 per death but it still went on for a little bit, I also had the zombies collapse when reaching zero and then stand back up the next round if they succeeded, having the players not know for sure if something was dead for good was great.

I am running this saturday! You are indeed my friend from Sly Flourish, Mike! Thank you!

This is mine and my friends first time playing dnd. I have a group of 4 people playing and I was excited to be the DM. I started reading the book and am super overwhelmed with all the information. After watching this video a few times I feel alot better now. Thank you for such a great video.

Mike - you are the best DM coach out there, in my opinion. The resources you've produced are simple, effective, and to the point. I haven't played D&D for almost 40 years, but my son got me back into it this year and I'm totally hooked. Your one-on-one Dragon of Icespire Peak with NewbieDM is one of the most entertaining things I've seen and it really opened my eyes to how fun and interesting this game can actually be. You rock!

Excellent work as always ❤

This is really good. All these tips are so helpful!

We're experimenting running this on discord as play by post. Thanks! Great timing!

You talk really fast, and it's refreshing! Thank you. 😊

Good starting point for new DMs! I probably won't get to run this adventure any time soon, but I'm really tempted to.

New sub on YouTube! Love your vid. I’m running this one tomorrow from the date of this post, and it’s my first DM campaign not solely with my kids. Love the ideas, love the video pacing, and looking forward to browsing your content!

This is really helpful. I've become really interested in D&D over recent years but thought it was too late for me to try, as I'm in my mid 30s. I just bought this Starter Kit and getting ready to finally give it a shot, being the DM and running it with my wife and her sisters. This video was really helpful, and not sure how common this is but since I've never done this before, I'm actually going to try and run the first two chapters on my own as DM and a couple of PCs so I can make sure I understand the flow of battles, checks, saving throws, when to mention story hooks, etc. Is this something that DMs will sometimes do before bringing the other players in?

I was thinking about running this adventure for some new players. Thanks for the great tips. I did find it funny that the book art has characters clearly inspired by the old D&D cartoon but the ready made PCs are completely different.

I'm currently playing JVC Parry's Call from the Deep. With the nautical setting, it would be easy to maintain some continuity and set the players up for a second, longer adventure.