Get Your Story Straight, DM!

Now that we’ve reached a chapter transition point in D&D Beyond’s Acquisitions Incorporated 5e module, we thought you might like to see how we organize things to ensure our players still understand the core story and cast of characters without overburdening them.

After a module’s last chapter finale, the “Well, now what?” question can be paralyzing to a DM. We always want our players to have the best time, and not being prepared or fully having your arms around the campaign storyline and its main cast of characters can create unwanted stress. Consequently, solid planning along the way and utilizing some visual aids can put your mind at ease. Let’s do a timely example.

DM Ben is all about simplifying things both for his players and for his dungeon master sanity. As longtime readers know, we’re playing the same module (with numerous homebrew additions) but with two different groups: one for the 3DRPG Studios office and another for a family game.

It’s delightful to have to prepare only one overall campaign, but the two groups play very differently. The office players are old-school and love lots of dice-rolling battles. The home adventurers are younger and fall into that video game generation (with a little more emphasis on story). Plus, it’s such a rush to be able to improve upon encounters a second time around the table.

First things first, you have to decide how closely you’ll follow your prewritten module text (if you adapted a D&D module to use as your core script). We prefer to use a module rather than a completely homebrewed world. There are many great written adventures, and we simply don’t have the time to create something entirely from scratch (but we have mad respect for those that do).

So far, we’ve simplified things and have gone with the following:

• Start an Acquisitions Incorporated franchise. 
• Acquire a Bastion. 
• Ultimately, hunt down all the Orrery of the Wanderer artifact pieces. WIP
• Learn about all the competing adventuring companies (friend or foe). WIP

Nothing too complicated, right?!

Now that our adventurers will be moving onto Chapter 3 and the Lighthouse, those distinct franchises are critical to our overall story, and DM Ben needs to keep dropping clues about each of them whenever he can.

So far, they have encountered two of them:

• The Six: Lost their original job to the players in Chapter 1.
• Fellowship of the Golden Mongoose: recently cleared their old HQ.

We created our own spin on The Six franchise by turning them into a bitter rival from the very onset of the campaign. Now, we’re going to use the Golden Mongoose group to represent the next chase in the story as they attempt to find the Tiefling Paladin, Talanatha Three-Coins, and the artifact’s time travel component she stole to facilitate her last escape.

Admittedly, we’ve been a bit lazy with our primary face and location cards, so this is the perfect time to catch up! Let’s see who needs new visual reference cards for the table.

• Gildha Duhn: rescued from the Tresendar Manor dungeon ruins.
• Orrery of the Wanderer Artifact: find the next time travel piece.
• Thetis, the Algae Dealer: their first potential business arrangement.
• Shady Tree and his Angry Acorns: a potential forest ally against the Constructs.
• Chip Carver, Stone Mason NPC: Owns the Busted Boulder in Waterdeep.
• Lord Galobax DuGalle NPC: Also known as the infamous Crosstown Cutter!
• Gimble Cogsworth NPC: Owns Cogs & Kettle Customs in Waterdeep.

It’s essential that we create the right reference cards here, as all these elements play key roles in our next module chapter transition.

Tiefling Paladin Talanatha Three-Coins has become the group’s most wanted, as she is the last known person to possess the next piece of the artifact. Lone survivor Gilda Duhn sells her out in a heartbeat for leaving her for dead and explains to the group where she’s likely hiding.

The Silent Sound Lighthouse, located far up on the Sword Coast, is a heck of a jaunt from Waterdeep. DM Ben thinks this is the absolute best time for the players to get an inaugural test ride on The Forgotten Rails. The founders want to do a fancy press tour and VIP ride, and they’re asking our players to provide security during the dry run. The timing is perfect.

So DM Ben is just suggesting taking a breath and organizing your NPCs, missions, plot points, etc so that your wonderful DnD game keeps humming along.

Until next time!