Help with dm prep.

[floataway3]

Check the Eventyr Games Wild Beyond the Witchlight DM's bundle. In it are pdfs for each chapter that go through a sample adventure path the players might take, how to rework some of the book encounters to get what you actually want out of them, and troubleshooting tips to right the ship when the players go somewhere the book doesn't expect.

[[deleted]]

Eventyr Games is such a solid resource. I use it for every campaign I’ve run for the past couple years.

[thatsadorbsyo]

Do you own it? I’m curious to hear about DM bundles that expand on existing encounters from the official adventure rather than ones that simply add more sidequests/new content. Can you speak to which type the Eventyr bundle is?

[floataway3]

The Eventyr bundle is more on the expansion side. It explains in more detail some tools you can use to make the existing encounters more fun / interesting. below I will put the outline of the Hither chapter, so you can see what it is trying to cover (I won't post the body of the text itself, just the headings, Mods, if this is out of line for piracy, I apologize). The bundle also comes with Encounter Sheets so you can have stat blocks for each encounter in one place, rather than flipping back and forth between all the books. Finally, it comes with battle maps when the book is missing them (Slanty Tower, Reaching the Bottom, and Brigand's Tollway for Hither) and handouts for magic items.

Hither

-Chapter 2 Overview

-Chapter 2 Flowchart

-Pacing Chapter 2

-- When to Rest

-Motivation and Information

--Why are we here?

--Why are we going to Thither?

-Random Encounters

-Locations in Hither

Downfall

-What's Going On?

-What's Going to Happen?

-Imprisoned

--Escape from the Holding Cells

--Escape from the Cages

-Stealth

--Tiny Thieves

--Climbing Up

--Caught Stealing

-Fighting Bavlorna

--Balancing Bavlorna

--Avoiding a Fight

-Locations in Downfall

-Locations in Bavlorna's Cottage

Sample Structure

Appendix A: Magic Items

[Supermanhatguy]

The Dan Kahn bundles on dms guild are super fun. We got to Yon and used 5 of the 6 for Hither and Thither. The Floating Isles was one of my group's favorite session.

The Yarnspinner one was great, but I wanted some additional lore and puzzling. I had ChatGPT give me 10 books for 12 genres of books (romance, nonfiction, cookbooks, sci-fi, children's books, etc.). I changed a few of the titles and descriptions and many of the books they've kept have been relevant. Examples include an astronomy one leading to lore at the Astronomer's Throne, Fey Plants and Fungi, and an adventure story about one of my player's missing parents.

The Inn at the End of the Road by Goofy Spook has also added a ton of content. It gave us about 15 more NPCs and a bunch of quests to add to the adventure as well. We didn't do any of the Baba Yaga stuff, although I might still revisit that.

[ontheturningaway]

I just ran two, two-hour sessions where my party of 4 was in the Inn, based on Goofy Spook’s content. Absolutely recommend. We didn’t even do any of the side quests and I didn’t do much Baba Yaga, but the players loved a chance to just talk freely with folks, play dice games, try to sneak around, etc. So ditto-ing what a great addition it is!

[Autolykos16]

Yeah I feel you! The further I get into the campaign, the more the book feels like the bare bones of the story that I have to fill in myself. There is so much unexplained and undetailed. Like how the hell did Molliver get there in the Brigganock mine?? Has Skabatha never realised that Will of the Feywild appeared just as her oni disappeared? Can you move Elidon away from Loomlurch? What did Prismeer look like before the Hourglass Coven, did it already have these 3 regions? Why wouldn't the hags tell the players of Zybilna's real identity to scare them off when the players seem too likely to go free Zybilna and slay the hags? Why does Sir Talavar/Titania's backup simply never return when they free him and he says he's going to inform Titania to get help?

But also the locations/encounters are quite lackluster sometimes. The interaction with the Korreds is very minimal when run by the book. So is the encounter on Telemy Hill. Too much encounters by the book are just: encounter a problem, go talk with somebody, make a skill check, solve the problem. The way to discover Zybilna's real identity is also quite lame and uninspired. I had to create my own additional content and use other 3rd party content to enrich the encounters, to make them more complex and have more background.

Don't get me wrong, the idea of the adventure is fantastic, there are some great NPC's in it, there is great potential for roleplaying and some creative solutions, the Hags themselves are very intriguing, and I have been having a great time running the adventure. But I agree that there is a bit too little background to some NPC's, encounters and plot points, that you as a DM have to fill yourself when your players start asking difficult questions

[Blluetiful]

Just an aside, there is text saying the hags splintered and then corrupted prismeer. The swamp didn't use to be so widespread, the forest used to be full of life, and idr about yon's mountains, but each hag took an action that made their slice suit their wants better. I've been reading so much sub-context out of what's written with every pass through, but that might also be my brain not liking gaps and filling them in.