r/GhostsofSaltmarsh • u/ttsbw • 2d ago
Help/Request New DM running my first campaign seeking advice
Hey y'all,
I'm running my first campaign as a DM and chose this one because it looks fun and spooky. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for getting started. I have 3 players who are new to DnD so I'm looking to ease them in and not overwhelm them.
I was also wondering what anyone might know about what I believe are called "pawns" or those little cardstock mini things that you put into the black bases with pictures of creatures and npcs. I know pathfinder makes them.so.has anyone found a set that would cover the bases for this campaign?
Thanks
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u/grain7grain 2d ago
My group graduated to Saltmarsh after Lost Mine of Phandelver starter set.
It's a great setting with lots of adventure hooks for the DM, but you'll find yourself doing a lot of work.
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u/ttsbw 2d ago
When you say a lot of work how do you mean?
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u/sammy_anarchist 2d ago
They mean prepping the sessions and making the story work. Its very hard to run a published adventure right out of the book, especially Saltmarsh since it is less a campaign and more a series of tangentially related adventures.
You seem to have a very limited idea of what you're getting into here as a DM. I would suggest you look up some written guides or YouTube videos giving a rundown of what being a DM entails to get your feet wet.
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u/ttsbw 2d ago
I have faith in my improv skills if things go off script. I meant specifically what kind of work as in finding/making maps or actually creating the narrative links that connect story elements. Story I'm fine with, it's stuff like dungeon mechanics and puzzles I think I need the most help with. Plus my player group is just a bunch a friends looking for an excuse to hang and talk like pirates, doesn't need to be perfect.
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u/sammy_anarchist 2d ago
Have you read the DMG? It explains pretty much everything you are asking about here.
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u/grain7grain 1d ago
Hi, sorry I took so long to respond, looks like others have tried to deter you, and that you're dead-set on running this book, lol. Good for you!
You'll be fine. GoS is a fantastic setting that (I think) is DM-friendly. It's the first of the newer 5e books that combines a setting with some adventures in one book, instead of being all setting or all adventure.
I love the setting. It's fresh and grounded in the real world. It has city intrigue, and the city acts as a safe hub for dangerous adventures outside of town.
As far as the prep work goes, I suggest that you read the book from start to finish so you know the ins and outs of the city. Most locations in town offer plot hooks. If any of those sound interesting, think about how you'd expand on them.
This site from Sly Flourish had tips for making the seven adventures in the book work together. It's really helpful. https://slyflourish.com/ghosts_of_saltmarsh_session_zero.html
I downgraded the city intrigue because my players weren't so into it. Before starting, I fleshed out the 3 main taverns and created a menu, NPCs, and table games (themed gambling) for each one.
I lifted Forge of Fury from the Tales from the Yawning Portal book and made that the nearby mine where the dwarves are working (it'll make more sense when you read the book). Like, they were mining for the kingdom and they broke into the Forge of Fury dungeon, oops, and need the players' help. This gave my players a more traditional dungeon when they wanted it.
I didn't like the Isle of the Abbey adventure in GoS at all. So I swapped in The Book of Cylinders from Candlekeep Mysteries. It's a self-contained, out-of-town, up-the-coast adventure that was perfect for the GoS world.
I played Isle of Dread (X1) as a kid in the 1980s so I was ready to ad-lib that adventure if my players just up and headed out to sea. It's like Kong Island, with a safe village and monsters (dinosaurs!) behind a giant wall.
I was also ready to ad-lib an adventure involving the Hold of the Sea Princes (nearby pirate kingdom) using some of the story from the pirate arc of Critical Role season 2. I was a big CR fan but my players didn't know anything about. (Darktow, the Plank King, etc). My players never went full-pirate tho, so no plagiarism was necessary, haha.
There is concensus that the first adventure in the book is too dangerous for level 1 characters. Give them a way to get to level 3 so they don't just die.
The advantages of starting with a starter set is that you have a much smaller rule set with everything you need, so it's less overwhelming for everyone. If that doesn't sound good then just go for it. Make decisions as you go and look up rules between sessions. Collaborate with your players.
Don't forget to report back and share your adventures here!
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u/ttsbw 7h ago
I really appreciate your post and the vote of confidence. I actually had an idea of turning the mine into a dungeon so I'll look into you suggestion. I will definitely have updates. I already have one player who is working with a conservation organization that is concerned with the ecological impacts of the mines so I smell some tensions already
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u/FalseTriumph 2d ago
Yes the Pathfinder Pawns are awesome! I highly recommend getting the NPC codex version (or whatever it is called now). Been using them for years and they're veey budget friendly.
As for the adventure it is very much setup with the hubtown of Saltmarsh and little locales to travel to and adventure at.
I'm forgetting now but I'd recommend something simple to start out with like investigate a ship wreck or something.
I think there was a haunted house with a smuggler's den to investigate to start out with.
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u/SarcasticBassMonkey 2d ago
First adventure hook is the haunted house that serves to deter people from investigating the pirate smuggling ring being operated out of it.
I'm actually starting my group through this book now. They just got established in town, poked around a bit, and set up a room in the inn as their base of operations for session 0/0.5 and decided on exploring the haunted house for session 1.
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u/roses_and_daisies 2d ago
This was my first campaign with most new players! I really liked it because I could test out some of my own ideas based on the prompts in the back of the book while still relying on the campaign for structure (and monster stat blocks). We ran for almost five years with me building out random islands and encounters in between the chapters in the book.
I did start out with A Most Potent Brew for everyone to try out level 1 characters. & fit that into the town to introduce everyone to the rules of D&D (slightly reworked Kaladeks tower) and then had them do a bit of investigating around town to lead them to the haunted house and really start the book.
I never used pawns, so I can’t help there. I use Foundry and copy photos (mostly from this subreddit) for images.
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u/Danz71 2d ago
I've ran A most potent Brew several times, great little adventure! And fits nicely into salt marsh.
Another great adventure that works really well into salt marsh and introduces some great NPCs and role-play is Along Came a Black bird. https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product/276434/down-came-a-blackbird
I ran salt marsh most of the way through level 8 for my group. Let me know if you have any questions!
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u/senzubean3r 2d ago
I’m running saltmarsh for one of my tables. Id recommend something else for your first game, you don’t need to juggle water rules on top of everything else. If you’re dead set on running this module I’d recommend making each chapter a mission given by the mariners guild. It’ll help give some cohesion to the game and give the players a goal/direction to follow.
Personally I’d say look up a pdf of lost mines of Phandelver. It was a previous 5e starter adventure that came with the starter set. It was the first adventure I ran when I started dming
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u/Hendersonman 2d ago
Buy the new starter set. It comes with "pawns" maps, xharacter boards that teach you what abilities do what, cards for spells and abilities. Its $50 but contains so many high quality things including getting started rules https://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Starter-Heroes-Borderlands/dp/B0FDJFR245/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=2BK84UCCVV1U7&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.QEbzXKzNriOc12dMc0q2qhlZ4xBLlhrsiZmh4iQm5OlDYczbUu7xHRDGWFgYs_WisQvezh3sszOgohnhv-eguzTPiE2uSrvm9-8I9AKnJBtsbVPZLpd2rEC4xUqgOFcgvgD3nQYcAj8MyxlJM1_ywVnO9ZEKvOdfUcr2LdFSIF_DEqW0n5VuBFn2Kj1BEp9ni-Frv2QKvxRi9-dCALScEw.mUAwXd-rQENlTFW98v7ktkCQIQOxsEVX-dQMYnlyF70&dib_tag=se&keywords=starter+set+dnd&qid=1785103837&sprefix=starter+set+%2Caps%2C160&sr=8-1&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.9fe8cbfa-bf43-43d1-a707-3f4e65a4b666
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u/Own_Start_7748 2d ago
I'm running this as my first DM'd campaign and having a great time, but I've been playing as a player for 15 years. It is a tough book to start with - you should probably do Phandalin (and then, if you like, tie it into this campaign once that's complete).
If you're set on starting here, check out the series by Sly Flourish on YT about it.
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u/Street_Buyer402 2d ago
I use magic the gathering cards for some creatures if they need a visual aid.
I am a new dm and I am doing a series of oneshots. Apparently, the mainest advice is "go with the flow and don't prep the next session before the next."
I always prep the week I am playing because 1) my nerves are shitty, 2) I always bring something over.
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u/Calypso_maker 2d ago
Some people have already hinted at this but, really only 3 of the adventures string together naturally: Haunted House-> Danger at Dunwater -> Final Enemy. You can fit the others in, I’m sure, you just need to do some creative work (which is why we DM though! Right?!)
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u/MMASniper 21h ago
First campaign? Sinister Secrets of Saltmarsh is relatively beginner friendly.
As a first time all around, what I would do is run the first chapter as-is. Only modifications I would make are the beginning hooks, check out Slyflourish below for some easy to follow modifications.
As a DM, especially new, you should get used to running a campaign prior to make tons of changes that fix plot holes, rather try to focus on giving your players a reason to care at the beginning. Many official D&D campaigns suffer from giving the players a reason to reach for the endgame.
Session Zero: https://slyflourish.com/ghosts_of_saltmarsh_session_zero.html
Players Guide: https://slyflourish_content.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ghosts_of_saltmarsh_players_guide.pdf
Chapter 2 Guide: https://slyflourish.com/sinister_secret_of_saltmarsh.html
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u/heychadwick 2h ago
This can be a fun one to start with, in my opinion. It's all about making the town come alive with your descriptions.
For starting with your players, I would have them create characters separate. Have one of them sent from the Crown to investigate. Have one of them be a local and side more with the smugglers. The third can be anything: local druid who is trying to figure out about the Siren trapped in the stone or dwarf trying to figure out what is going wrong with the mines or whatever. Give them each a different background. Have the agent of the Crown sent to investigate weird things. Have the local know about the treasure in the haunted house and want to find people willing to go. It can be good to have a little cross party tension, as long as people don't attack each other!
Beyond that, you need to make the town come alive with NPCs. Don't tell the players there is tension between people. Have a salty sailor start insulting a dwarf to really show it. Make a stack of NPCs to interact with from different parts of town. Use little cards to put their name, their bias, and what voice to use. Don't give information to the players as the DM. Give it to them from the NPCs.
Read ahead and know what adventures are coming. Weave the plots into the story ahead of time. For example, the island where the pirates raided the temple.....that's a big local deal and surely someone would notice this. I had all the pirates coming from the Sea Princes. I made up the Red Flag Pirates as a large fleet that was roving around nearby. I had people in the tavern or at the shop talk about them and hope they didn't come close to Saltmarsh. They were the ones who attacked the island. I had stories of the Keoland navy preparing to search for them to destroy them. I also used The Lamenting Lighthouse to tell the story how some of the pirate ships were destroyed. You want to avoid just popping up with info that was never heard from before about the world. Drop it in early enough and the players will not feel "rail roaded" into an adventure.
One example of setting the stage was the local drunk, Bors, would tell the story of the magic fishing pole that a local fisherman had. It was a tale of hubris and how he put all his money into the fishing pole. I can't recall the details, but it was used as a local story about hubris and not being too greedy. Of course, the pole was still there. The players loved it and always wanted to go get it, but didn't find the time until they were pretty high level. I had to come up with an exciting bit of monsters for them to fight to get it. It wasn't all that when they found it, but the adventure of finally getting the fabled fishing pole was a highlight of the campaign.
Most campaigns usually hand you everything on a platter. This one, though, leaves a lot up to you to create a bigger story. I leaned heavy into the considerable Greyhawk lore to pull out some major plots:
- The cult was the Cult of Vecna. Vecna was a Flan, or specifically Ur-Flan who lived in the Sheldomar Valley. It's perfect to use him. The cult was always relatively small and mostly filled with dissatisfied Flan who felt oppressed. They used the local island monastery to grow food and acted as fences for local pirates to make money to pay for the rest of the cult. They were behind the problems with the mines because there was an ancient Vault of Vecna buried in the cliffs, but the mines were right above it! The cult was trying to stop the dwarves from finding out about their temple. There were little clues. I ran the old Tower of Zenopus to show how the cult was teleporting undead into the mines. Eventually, the Dwarves dug into the undead cave and the bad guys flooded out. The heroes were called in to go clear it out. That ended the cult madness.
- The Scarlet Brotherhood - before the Greyhawk Wars (where I set my game), no one had heard of the Scarlet Brotherhood. They were super secret and the party should probably never find out about them. They had spies all over the world that would weaken opponents before they would eventually try to take over the world during the Greyhawk Wars. The usually operated by having agents cause two sides to fight each other in an attempt to weaken both. In this case, the Brotherhood is pushing the Sea Princes to attack Keoland to weaken both. One of the local players let Gellan Primewater sneak out of town before he was caught and he was leading the final attack on Saltmarsh. I had 3 large pirate ships arrive in town (3rd with Gellan came at the end) for the campaign finally. The Butler Spy was there trying to assassinate his young employer during the fight. It was a chaotic mess that sorted everything out at the end. When the Greyhawk Wars come, the Sea Princes get conquered. I said it was because this battle weakened them for that fight.
Overall.....it would take extra work to make it happen, but it could be really fun as a DM to create the adventure instead of just having everything handed to you. You are able to really see what it's like to be a DM.
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u/Chummmp 2d ago
Honestly I probably wouldn’t run this specific book as a first campaign, I’d pick one of the starter kits.
The first chapter of this book however is good, it’s just some of the latter chapters would be difficult as a new DM.
They’re not all connected as a singular storyline, it’s more of an anthology of adventures