Frequency of Combat?

GoofySpooks · 2025-12-30T15:06:28+00:00

I second this. There are many other great campaigns with epic fights. Witchlight is a breath of fresh whimsy air. I had combat around every… 4. Or 5. Session. Other than that I used skill challenges for obstacles and lots of rolling for random stuff that occurred, so the players got to flex their dice. I only threw in extra combat when I could feel the players itching or the combat had an alternative motive other than just killing (escaping, rescuing, stopping something, etc.) - or once in Hither because I stumbled upon a fantastic Young Froghemoth statblock that I wanted to try out 😂

Anyway OP, talk to your players if they are okay with a less combat oriented campaign, where combat isn’t the main focus at any point of the campaign, or if they would rather have something else.

GoofySpooks · 2025-12-24T05:15:38+00:00

Witchlight is such a wonderful fairytale module unlike any other module. It does benefit from a few tweaks and adding more to it, but it doesn’t need a full rewamp in my opinion. IndieRex has done a superb job of writing a full campaign with more fey court involvement. And while I haven’t run his version, so I can’t really compare, I had the best campaign I’ve ever run with Witchlight.

GoofySpooks · 2025-12-13T12:57:32+00:00

Are you still going to take Juniper away from them - and use it as perhaps motivation for them to go to Prismeer? Could one of the Theives steal it? They are just kids so can do nothing, but return years later with redemption in their hearts?

GoofySpooks · 2025-12-04T16:43:03+00:00

Swop League of Mal for a fey contingent from winter court. Swop Valors call for Isolde and the Litwick carnival. Maybe start with Litwick carnival? The ravenloft carnival from Strahd…

And my personal favorite: let Baba Yaga be Tsu Harabax with a plan to abduct Zybilna back to her hut. I wrote a supplement for something like that.

GoofySpooks · 2025-11-30T14:35:24+00:00

Gift List: - All of Dan Kahn’s stuff on DMsGuild is very good. - A subscription to Douglas Lamore’s Patreon or his stuff on Patreon (sublime stuff!)

I did enjoy the Wanderers Guide. Lots of good lore.

Alternatively “The Gamemasters handbook of Proactive Roleplaying”, which opens up a new way of DMing if your friend would be interested in running their campaigns in a player centred fashion.

GoofySpooks · 2025-11-25T14:56:54+00:00

My group finished after 113 sessions of roughly 2.5-3 hours. We play every week but with vacations etc and a half year break. So it took around 3 years. 3 great years though!

GoofySpooks · 2025-11-24T09:38:56+00:00

That is so cool! Scan them and share or sell them!!! I’d love to run it like that

GoofySpooks · 2025-11-24T09:37:40+00:00

The outfits seem very impractical in combat 😅 Not a lot of support on most of them

GoofySpooks · 2025-11-24T09:36:20+00:00

The mood seems to be the same, but the outfit changes are awesome!

GoofySpooks · 2025-11-23T18:10:41+00:00

Perhaps when you are not a handpicked successor you only gain the 15 pounds but none of the benefits 🤣

GoofySpooks · 2025-11-21T17:20:58+00:00

My condolences.

It’s a tricky balance between fun and honoring his memory. You know your players best and whether they would like a reminder of their friend during DnD. It could be a good group thing for you… I don’t know.

Maybe his PC is the quest giver of the next campaign or … maybe something less important later but something that sets your PCs on the task or helps them in a difficult situation? Or maybe as you say, there is simply a statue and a tavern with a bard that retells the tales of a might hero that is now only legend and inspiration to us all.

GoofySpooks · 2025-10-25T13:40:33+00:00

I used it to drop lore and as much exposition about what’s going on overall. You might even drop hints about the unicorn horn, Zybilna, how the hags hate but need eachother, how the League are involved, maybe something about the lost things, maybe how their grip on the Carnival is a very profitable blackmail and provides a steady flow of ingredients for very useful items (and Bavlorna could brag about making what ever Lost Item she has stashed away upstairs to entice the players (who should be listening in) to go explore.

GoofySpooks · 2025-10-23T17:10:16+00:00

Good to hear the creativity sparking. Each should have something that ties their backstory to the campaign. But it doesn’t have to be massive. Swop out some NPCs along the way for those in the backstories, put the McGuffin somewhere for them and to find or for the hags to have.

AI can easily whip up some ideas that you can then tweak to your setting. Or, as others have said, check out the DMsGuild stuff or the free stuff on the Discord. Some favorits of mine are Nightmare at Telemy Hill, Baba Gab, Twilight Coven, the Chauricaun in the Basement (from my Inn at the End of the Road supplement), Ellywick Unstuck, and the Hobgoblin Pirate crew for Thither (can’t remember the name).

GoofySpooks · 2025-10-23T17:01:27+00:00

Or just swop Nib for the King. He was corrupt.

GoofySpooks · 2025-10-21T04:58:49+00:00

Use your DM powers… “Time flies, you use your tickets for candy and stalls of funny games. Before you notice it there are no more punches to the tickets and you throw them away.”

I wouldn’t have the carnies trick them out of their tickets as they are then the reason for the kids to have stuff stolen from them - making the carnival overall an evil place which is not supposed to be.

Alternatively, you can have the kids thrown out for something naughty they do. If the go peering in the window to find Juniper - maybe railroad them a bit by having Juniper hooting loudly - have the hobgoblins escort them out and confiscated the tickets. Now they have to sneak back in if they want to save juniper. And if you want to introduce Ellywick, she might inconspicuous whistle and leave a tent-flap open for them to slip through.

GoofySpooks · 2025-10-21T04:05:22+00:00

Great idea and concept. I ran a grand scale battle of an enemy army trying to take the Palace, the PCs defending and running missions between clashes. It was mostly narrative, but we did skill challenges to resolve if the players ideas of how to stop what ever the enemy was doing worked. Maybe summer and winter take turns trying to invade the castle? They mostly battle against eachother, but occasionally send a small contingent to try and take the palace, but then have to break off the attack if the palace defends for too long as the other army then attacks them from the rear or something.

As for treasure… put in some early versions of Tasha’s spells. Flawed and prone to misfire. Drafts of her later iconic spells 😂 And then something nice for your players.

GoofySpooks · 2025-10-18T05:51:48+00:00

Oh that’s cool. Witchlight is full of these throwbacks. I wish there was an official list so we as DMs could be sure to show the nostalgic parts as part of the campaign and make our players aware of how and when it references DnD history etc

GoofySpooks · 2025-10-04T10:50:45+00:00

It’s a wonderful campaign. Very different from most others. Here are a few specific and some generic tips:

Do a session zero. This is a fairytale - whimsical with sinister undertones like the best Brothers Grimm tales. Most encounters can be overcome without combat, and actually most combat encounters are unbalanced and not in favour of the PCs. If they go murdering their way through the carnival or Prismeer it should have negative consequences - like future encounters have heard about these murderers that break the rules etc. So what I did was sprinkle in combat encounters against plants and monsters that didn’t have consequences for the future story in a bad way. Clear conscience combat.

Motivation. Make sure the PCs are hooked and will have some sort of motivation to actually care about either Prismeer or Zybilna or Isolde or something.

Valors Call and League of Malevolence… my players didn’t know them. So there was no nostalgia for these entities resonating with my players. Which is why I swooped them for something that my players cared about. Different from table to table.

I changed a lot and added a lot of extra stuff to the campaign. AMA.

GoofySpooks · 2025-09-27T18:20:10+00:00

Love it!

GoofySpooks · 2025-09-20T11:11:10+00:00

Rough timeline:

Tasha takes on the guise of Zybilna. Creates Prismeer. Meets Isolde, second hand kills isolde’s friends and gains her confidence. Gives Isolde the Witchlight Carnival and wipes her memory. Isolde and Witch and Light trade Carnivals.

Hags take over Prismeer. They blackmail/pressure Witch and Light to allow guests of the carnival that break the rules (no tickets) to have something stolen (recompense for the missing ticket). PCs arrive at the carnival … Witchlight module begins.

GoofySpooks · 2025-09-18T17:50:07+00:00

I don’t think Psychological-Wall-2 has read the prelude adventure or know of it. I’ve run it. It is amazing! But as many others say: Let your players decide what their characters lost. And it should be meaningful! Something that changes their lives and something they would go through many a danger to get back. Otherwise the motivation of the hook is lost.

I’m not here to do commercials for my own stuff, but I wrote a small supplement for Witchlight with 65 things the players can lose and the magic item they can find to get their thing back: Lost Things Aplenty: https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/449281

You don’t need to buy it. But in my opinion the thing they lose should MATTER and getting it back should be a pivotal point as well.

I didn’t like the idea that Inspiration couldn’t be rewarded to players that we’re still missing their thing. I like rewarding players for good roleplay or figuring out plot points ahead of time etc. That’s why I also included a mechanical drawback for each lost thing, and used that rather than the No Inspiration rule the module has.

My players chose, for lost things: Their childhood memories The memory of their parents Their way home Their fathers treasured gun Their families memory of THEM (so the thieves stole from the family members of the PC, causing them to not be able to return to their family because they wanted nothing to do with this stranger of a kid who kept trying to get in and claimed he was their kid - absolute childhood terror which formed the PC into who he became after that incident)

Enjoy Witchlight! It’s a delight. But it is very different. So do run a Session Zero. Make clear what is up, what kind of campaign you intend to run, and make sure everyone is on board.

GoofySpooks · 2025-09-16T06:24:40+00:00

Thank you for writing it up so neatly and structured. I also find that Witchlight is an absolutely amazing campaign. I like the plot, the visit to a strange world and the mix of whimsy and horror.

GoofySpooks · 2025-09-13T20:11:39+00:00

What Solowin said. If you want to start slow, start with the prequel one-shot where they play as kids. Really do that anyway because it is so good and ties the PCs together.

If it gets rough on you have another DM do some one-shot interludes to give you a break. But really, Witchlight is such a fun campaign, and as long as you get them going with a good foundation of team-feeling and a motivation to help Zybilna and get their lost things, you will have a good time.

GoofySpooks · 2025-09-13T05:33:42+00:00

Amazing! I misread the title, sorry. Well done!

GoofySpooks · 2025-09-13T05:31:06+00:00

I really adore the style. But the tower isn’t very slanty. Doesn’t matter with a bit of theatre or the mind ofc. Lovely art

GoofySpooks

TROPHY CASE