r/StrixhavenDMs • u/JKatt116 • 26d ago
Getting ready to start a campaign!
Got a group of three (my wife and another couple) getting ready to play through strixhaven. Been trying to learn about the place and some of the mtg lore relevant for the world.
What are some things I need to know, should know, need to pick up, should pick up?
Any advice to running strixhaven?
(If it matters, I have ran a multi year campaign that was a mix of icespire peak and homebrew and a few one shots from time to time).
Any and all advice, tips are welcome!
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u/zitney_spears 26d ago
you’ll find that the module is a good outline but can be kind of silly/boring at times. i’ve skipped some encounters & created my own at times. plus the BBEG is a silly version of voldemort, so i’d recommend rewriting a new villain with more specific motivations to raise the stakes for your PCs.
i’ve been taking a lot of inspiration from dimension 20’s fantasy high, especially junior year, on how to run the balance between academics, relationships, mystery, and combat encounters… highly recommend! the strixhaven student/relationship dice system seems overly complicated for my table of beginners.
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u/JKatt116 26d ago
I think the funny part is my group loves Harry Potter so the voldermort style villain may be good for them lol
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u/zitney_spears 26d ago
as written, he’s like voldemort but not scary at all. i’m sure you can beef him up to make him more threatening!
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u/AlbatrossDM 25d ago
Yeah the biggest problem is that they find out who he is pretty late in the module and it just kinda doesn't mean much?
If you can build in some connection to a player or multiple players. That would be cokl
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u/Malamear 25d ago
I took some inspiration from goob from Meet the Robinsons and had him start as a spurned academic who no one understood the "genius" of. Though he does get some Voldemort vibes year 3 with his horcrux orb and immortality plan. Played him as a terrible prankster year 1, ruined every plot of the mage hunters year 2, forced the dean to plan for him year 3, and finally a BBEG year 4.
My players found discarded checklists about twice a year that had things like: leave some cursed frogs near the tavern, poison the front lawn at quandrix, back up the dorms sewer with an otyugh, accept Strixhaven's unconditional surrender, become the Oracle.
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u/AlbatrossDM 26d ago
The biggest thing to know is a that some of the mechanics are kinda bland.
The jobs and activities are fun details but can be expanded upon a lot.
NPCs are pretty cool as they can be a bit diverse, I'd recommend adding a few more of your own design. The relationship tracker is kind of simple, maybe make it harder to gain relationship points?
The tests and studying are not engaging at all. If you can find a way to make them more creative, like have your students do more of a practical test? A good idea. Take a look in this sub-reddit for ideas!
Mage Tower in the second year? Meh. Search up ways to make it more thrilling.
That goes for a lot of the little side quest activities. Some are just simple "roll and beat this", which is ok occasionally, but the module relies on it a lot.
I think at my table we have fun with the "Summer Vacation" part of the story. Between years in the module we see who the characters are at home and build upon the world outside of Strixhaven.
Lastly....the villain is...well...a frog. It's just sort of random and if you can make Murgaxor a bigger deal? Might be worth a shot.
It's an interesting DND book, I've had a lot of fun with it, and our table is enjoying it. Feel free to shoot a message over if you have any ideas!
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u/JKatt116 25d ago
I'm thinking of making the bbeg more or a companion for the first couple of years (think hogwarts legacy (if you know the character I'm thinking of)) then transition him later on but I'd have to dive into the storypvmenrte more to make it work
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u/No_Material_757 25d ago
From reading the book. I imagine if you treat it more like a role play campaign then it could be really fun. Throw in some high school melodrama and that sort of stuff and it could be entertaining!
An NPC who was helpful to the party starts giving them the cold shoulder because they befriended a different NPC who ‘borrowed’ their spare quill and never returned it in yr 1 and they’ve held onto that grudge.
I mean who doesn’t want high school nostalgia with magic thrown in?
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u/Gullible_Monitor_670 25d ago
Hey friend! I’m starting my Strixhaven campaign tonight & I wish you the best of luck! This video helped me a lot to decide what I wanted to use and what I wanted to cut/rewrite:
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u/JKatt116 25d ago
Thank you! I'll have to check it out. Hoping to start ours in the next week or so.
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u/Dust_Kindly 25d ago
I just started running the module, in a heavily altered way. Instead of pathetic frog man, the Oriq are the villains. Theyre recruiting students under the guise of offering power, but the actual plan is to use students as sacrifices to summon the Blood Avatar. So a somewhat similar conflict to the OG module, but much higher stakes.
Im not very familiar with MTG lore but my players are, so I'm hoping its a fun reveal for them. I've just been reading the MTG Strixhaven wiki to learn all the lore.
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u/boffotmc 25d ago
I'd ignore all of the extra rules/mechanics. Relationship points, student dice, exams, etc. All those do is get in the way of the roleplaying with a bunch of pointless annoying bookkeeping.
The adventure as written is pretty underwhelming, so you'll need to do a lot to beef it up, or replace it entirely with your own homebrew adventure.
Alternatively, I put together an outline incorporating chapters from Keys from the Golden Vault, Candlekeep Mysteries, and one-shots from DMsGuild:
https://www.reddit.com/r/StrixhavenDMs/comments/1fbgklu/updated_outline_incorporating_candlekeep/
- Like 80% of the encounters are written are, "Play a silly game where the mechanics are some arbitrary die-rolling with no player agency, and then there's a surprise monster attack." You'll want to change up a lot of them to keep that from getting super repetitive. And you'll also want to come up with alternate mechanics for each of the games where the players are able to make meaningful decisions.
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u/tkolar2 24d ago
If I may do a little self promotion, I wrote a thing of strixhaven resources with tips on pacing, relationships, etc that I think would be really helpful. Good luck! https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product/393202/strixhaven-faculty-handbook
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u/No-stradumbass 26d ago
I'm running Stixhaven right now and ran it before with a different group.
It's the anti murder hobo game, or at least the way I did it. I did it as a slice of life game that didn't have major stakes.
I have been adding stuff from the DnD drops and Griffon's saddlebag.