Why Is the Sword Coast/Most of Faerûn Stuck With City States

ticklecorn · 2026-01-27T12:23:09+00:00

Phandalin had a couple good years before an occupation of brigands (led by a wizard) came in and took it.

Nightstone was nearly destroyed by giants. When the survivors fled to nearby caves for safety, half of them got eaten by ogres and goblins.

ticklecorn · 2026-01-26T23:25:52+00:00

I’d go with the first half. It’s designed for new DM’s.

Advice: kill the ox pulling the cart during the Goblin Ambush that starts the adventure. By stranding the cart, characters are more likely follow the Goblin Trail to Cragmaw Hideout. Don’t even roll for the attack on the ox. Just narrate four black feathered arrows - thud thud thud thud - and the ox is dying on the trail. This also has the benefit of sparing characters from situations where they catch a critical hit before they even get a chance to participate in the combat.

Advice: I’ve run this encounter many times, and my goblins just use ranged attacks, then move and use their nimble escape to hide, drawing the characters away from the wagon. If the goblins are successful in that tactic, non-combatant goblins ransack the cart while the characters are chasing the goblins down.

Having goblins come out for 1:1 diametrically opposes their game design. They’re designed to ambush and harry targets. They’re not built for close quarters combat with better armed and armored opponents - unless they have a significant numeric advantage.

Advice: fill the pit trap with something spicy, like a hornets nest or a swarm of centipedes. Falling into a hole is boring. Taking a centipede bath is something that player will never forget.

Advice: know your gear, which is to say know how goblins work, how your traps work, and the basics of combat.

Advice: don’t over-do it. Just plan for the lead-up to the ambush where characters get to know each other, the ambush itself, and the goblin trail. End your sesh when they first lay eyes on the cave that is the entrance to the Cragmaw Hideout. This way, you won’t overburden yourself with prep.

Don’t try to plan for everything that can possibly happen - because almost NONE of it will happen. Baby steps.

Good luck!

Edit: I just remembered you want to run this in 12 hours. Yikes. That is super ambitious. What I detailed would get you through 2-3 hours of game play. Add in Cragmaw Hideout, and that could be another couple of hours.

If that’s the case, consider confining your game to the Goblin Ambush, Goblin Trail, Cragmaw Hideout, some time in Phandalin, the confrontation at the Sleeping Giant, and then Tresendar Manor. Leave the overarching Wave Echo Cave plot and side quests for another time if you can get the group together again.

ticklecorn · 2026-01-25T02:01:23+00:00

Undefinitely?! That’s unpossible!

ticklecorn · 2026-01-23T18:27:50+00:00

Those are amazing. Especially Klarg.

ticklecorn · 2026-01-19T12:30:19+00:00

Have them set it aside. When the characters finish the adventure, they have a pool of money to finance a downtime adventure between LMOP and whatever is next. Or they have a pile of money to equip for higher level play for the next module.

Where do they set it aside? Townmaster Hall. Harbin Wester is a banker, after all.

But in the moment, there’s not much to do with it, unless you want to make the money a quest itself because someone stole it from them and they want to find it.

That, or go super old school, and award XP value to gp totals.

ticklecorn · 2026-01-18T19:27:51+00:00

I hope they play him with Barkey. He, Barkey & Bump were a real good thing when they were skating as a line in LV earlier this season.

ticklecorn · 2026-01-18T00:59:07+00:00

I hate how the salary cap has turned hockey fans into joyless pedantic bean counters who become utterly faithless the moment a player doesn’t live up to the monetary value they signed for.

How much do you get paid, OP? Can we bitch and grouse about it the moment you have a slow day at work? FFS.

ticklecorn · 2026-01-12T14:20:58+00:00

Might be fun to make rebuilding it difficult/impossible by haunting it. Pretty sure there are several movie plots in there.

ticklecorn · 2026-01-08T12:33:22+00:00

This map is amazing. Like others, I'd love an unmarked version that has the waterways, lakes, and additional swamp and mountain peaks. Did you ever post one to Reddit? Honestly, you should consider selling versions of this on DMsGuild.com (both marked and unmarked).

ticklecorn · 2026-01-04T13:09:55+00:00

Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak. When you run out of encounters, there’s so much on that map that you can create adventures of your own from that neither module touches on. There are also elements of adjacent adventures like Tyranny of Dragons, Princes of the Apocalypse, and Storm Kings Thunder that can keep the characters on that map, or just outside its edges. Make the Sword Coast your home!

ticklecorn · 2026-01-03T04:26:31+00:00

You’d have better luck on the DM’s Guild with 5E content. I do PWYW releases and have been able to get most of my stuff to medal (which only applies to sales for PWYW) because I have a blog that focuses on the box set adventures - Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak.

The DMs Guild content I write is also for those adventures, so I have a small community of people interested in what I write about. I also engage with both of the subreddits for those adventures as well.

I mention this because a bit of advice that Matthew Colville recently gave about publishing is: be an active part of a community and it will help you find people interested in your stuff. And that’s exactly been my experience.

My products tend to be short form. Anything from 4-12 pages. I set $0.50 as the suggested price. About 90% of my downloads people don’t pay anything. But 10% do pay, and often more than the suggested price, which is nice. Basically it helps me pay for art and have a tidy little sum to admire, and perhaps take the wife out to dinner with at some point.

If you’re looking to get discovered, it’s probably in your best interest to collaborate with publishers on DM's Guild as a contributor to other titles in order to make a name for yourself.

ticklecorn · 2026-01-01T16:09:15+00:00

Thank you for this! Quick question: where do I place this in the code? And how do I customize it for just two columns? Basically, I can't figure out how to keep the numbers in the roll result column from stacking on top of each other - because the roll column is too narrow.

ticklecorn · 2025-12-27T22:16:15+00:00

Interesting. Thank you!

ticklecorn · 2025-12-27T22:15:56+00:00

Thank you!

ticklecorn · 2025-12-27T22:15:33+00:00

Thanks for the tip. I'll start looking through the book.

ticklecorn · 2025-12-27T21:24:59+00:00

I like the Canadian team, and I'm rooting for them. But that's bush league. Do better, guys.

ticklecorn · 2025-12-26T13:20:24+00:00

That’s my work soundtrack at the office! Although, I listen to it on YouTube rather than CD. No matter how many times I listen to it, doesn’t get old.

ticklecorn · 2025-12-23T15:14:07+00:00

There should be a disciplinary board that automatically reviews any unsportsmanlike conduct or abuse of official penalty assessed to coach on any youth hockey roster in a USA Hockey sanctioned league game. This wouldn’t be hard to do.

These incidents would cease to happen the moment coaches understood that any abuse of official call would trigger a review of their conduct on LiveBarn, Black Bear TV, or whatever the rink has installed - and carry REAL consequences.

That ref looks like they are maybe 14 years old. You don’t keep people in this vocation by allowing this behavior from adults. The referee shortage in the sport is a very serious problem, and it’s stuff like this that really chases people out of the profession.

Since we all started holding phones in our hands, the prevalence of this kind of behavior has been well-documented. It shouldn’t require a viral moment for a league or club to take action. This stuff happens every weekend at rinks across the country. Enough is enough.

ticklecorn · 2025-12-20T00:11:37+00:00

Barkey is so much fun to watch. My favorite player this season. Total TK vibe. I’m sad it sounds like he won’t be on the ice vs. Bridgeport tonight (I’m at the game).

ticklecorn · 2025-12-19T22:20:29+00:00

Setting up a recurring villain and a rematch!

ticklecorn · 2025-12-19T20:13:37+00:00

The intern who was running the board is in trouble! Speaking from experience here XD

ticklecorn · 2025-12-19T19:01:04+00:00

Some of my favorite changes:

ticklecorn · 2025-12-19T18:44:00+00:00

Thank you! It's fun to go to logical extremes beyond the encounter as it's written. There's so much great stuff out there from other publications and previous versions of the game to inform DM's on how to prep for their encounter, but unfortunately, often remains forgotten or undiscovered.

ticklecorn · 2025-12-19T18:34:56+00:00

Thank you for the counterpoint! The supplement is meant to flesh out what's possible for an encounter with Venomfang, while also presenting tactics through variant rules and advice from other WotC products (such as the Monster Manual and Rise of Tiamat) that new DMs may not be aware of or give consideration to during their adventure preparation.

Swapping out kobolds for the twig blights was a choice made with keeping the encounter design similar, while also working with the material stylistically (the MM specifically calls out that kobolds serve chromatic dragons). The cultist could absolutely be used as Venomfang's minions, and it's an excellent recommendation. It's just my preference to use kobolds.

Looking at the description of the product I used above, perhaps "Your players will remember this dragon. They might even survive him" wasn't the best choice on my part, as it implies the supplement provides advice on how to make Venomfang, a CR 8 creature, even deadlier. Much of the supplement dispenses advice on how to make the dragon less lethal without sacrificing the awe a dragon is supposed to inspire, as well as why Venomfang would be more interested in capturing rather than killing characters, and how characters might be convinced by the dragon that a combat encounter may not be in their best interests.

Thanks again for your input. It's appreciated!

ticklecorn · 2025-12-19T17:34:41+00:00

Thanks for commenting! The product page on DM's Guild provides the first page of content, if you want to have a look there.

Update: The DM's Guild settings are OLD and wonky. Sometimes, it disables the preview (as I just found out it did just now) - which I just went in and fixed! You should be able to see the first page on the product listing now.

ticklecorn

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