Guide For Hire: Navigating Tomb of Annihilation
A New Adventure!
Growing older had really put a cramp on my need for TTRPG. My group, the original group of high school nerds who had banded together in geekdom, was now many hundreds of miles apart. Some of us were even on different coasts and the likelihood of getting together for an all night DND session in person was slim. Luckily technology was on our side and now it was possible to play with one another again through the internet. It certainly satiated my appetite for rolling dice and even better I could see and hear my friends on a regular basis. I ran a homebrew at first and it proved difficult to manage everyone, especially with conflicting schedules and the problems one might encounter online, such as dropped calls and microphone issues. Eventually my homebrew fell apart and honestly, I was at a point in my life where I couldn't be bothered to make the time to make the campaign I wanted that homebrew to be. I was defeated in a sense, I felt as though not only had my game failed to evoke joy in my friends but that it reflected poorly on my own skills in a game I had spent much of my life playing. I needed to recharge the batteries, I needed to change the variables and so I put together a group of four. Half of this group I had played with many times and half I had never played with before.
Enter, Tomb of Annihilation.
I went to the game shop in my town and I traded in some Magic cards to knock down the price and I brought home something that I felt was similar to my own style of game. The villains were immense, the dungeons were lethal. In short, I knew this would be fun to run and felt that it was something I could enjoy without having to invest every free second into it. I had never run a premade campaign setting before, opting instead to create my own worlds and the conflicts within them. That being said, this was a new experience for me and one that I am still experiencing. I have played Tomb of Annihilation for over a year with the same group and although we only get to meet once or twice a month, it has been an absolute blast to play. A large part of this is most definitely because of the group and their varied skills and preferences of play but also the mingling of older players with newer ones. That dynamic has really been a fun experience for me to be a part of but that is hardly the purpose of this article.
No, you've come here to explore Chult, that distant and exotic realm where the undead roam the jungles en masse, where riches can be found by those who brave the ruins of ancient cities lost to time and where Acerak, that constant villain has changed the rules of play not just for Chult but for the whole world.
My first impressions of TOA were good. I was intrigued by the setting; Chult and all of the dangers that lurked there. The Chultan's themselves were also interesting and the book provided an ample amount of NPC's that players could interact with upon first arriving in the bustling city of Port Nyanzaru, where merchant nobility reigns and dinosaurs race through the streets for coin.
Now it should be said that while I enjoyed much of what is written in the book for Tomb of Annihilation, I in no way, shape or form followed it to the letter. I deviated from the script quite a lot and really, I think that is what you are supposed to do. Sure, the concept was not your own, you didn't make the setting or the overall plot but that doesn't mean you are incapable of changing the story and making something that is your own.
Rule Zero in the group that I had learned to play with was always this: "The rules are guidelines." Simple and true, never let a ruling ruin the fun, destroy the immersion or cause a fight. I feel like this is a rule that definitely applies to running these premade games as well; don't be afraid to just wing it.
To provide a quick example of this that I can share with you, Tomb of Annihilation runs on a sort of Doomsday clock and that was a style of play that I deemed my players wouldn't necessarily enjoy and so, I largely removed that aspect from the game in order to better build the story and setting. It is my hope that with this series of articles that I can share with you all the things that i've done to make the game an enjoyable experience for my players and also put my own mark on an adventure that I did not write.
So where to start? Well, TOA presumes that the request of a retired adventurer and merchant, one Syndra Silvane and her promise of an uncommon or rare magic item is enough to lure the party to the exceedingly dangerous and largely unexplored land of Chult. Furthermore, she requests they solve the Death Curse that is the center of the game in a mere 79 days, lest she wither away and die while the Soulmonger is left intact. By all means, a tall order and one that I found unbelievable, even for a fantasy game. The offer seems bland and it largely relies on the unspoken rule that most players agree to, that the game is a cooperative one and sometimes you let things slide because you simply want to play the game with friends. For my party, I asked them to simply build 1st level characters who had come to Chult. The party is as follows, a half elf storm sorcerer and a half orc storm herald barbarian who were captain and first mate of pirate ship that had been the victim of a far larger vessel. The captain and mate were shipwrecked and actively seeking gainful employment in the harbor of Nyanzaru in hopes of one day getting another vessel and sailing towards revenge. The third member is a dwarf life cleric seeking to spread the word of his Goddess, Eldath, to Chult. The final member was a gnome ranger who was prone to wanderlust and adventure. Their meeting was in the harbor and soon they found themselves eating and drinking in a local tavern.
I allowed the party time to see the city, to race dinosaurs, to become acquainted with the exotic land they had travelled to. I didn't even mention the Death Curse or the ticking doomsday clock. I just let them have fun. In time, the two pirates took the two travelers into their fold and a new crew began to form. They soon had business with the merchant princes who ruled the city, chiefly Jessamine who I felt had more rogueish tendencies that coincided with the alignment of some of the party members. Over several sessions, the party went on a few missions for the merchant princess and soon established not only a lucrative business with her but also a foothold within the city as they created a small gang of former ship crew and took over an abandoned warehouse. The point is, I gave them something to care about. When I dropped the Death Curse and the Soulmonger upon the game, it affected Jessamine their benefactor who now offered them things fitting to the development of their characters, like a new ship or a temple to a foreign goddess. The party was much more willing to step in and act, to venture into the dangerous wilds and face certain doom when it affected them in some manner which to me was a far better reason to take this adventure than the promise of a simple uncommon magic item.
Now, some might make the argument that this isn't the point of TOA. That it's a meat grinder, a game best played by rushing headlong to the forbidden city and the crushing dungeons within it. That might be fine for the right group of players, or for those who wish to invest a little less in the overall story and get right to the action. I've seen some articles where people are starting the game at level 10 and rushing straight for the conclusion and I simply, wholeheartedly, disagree. I've had some of the most fun with this quirky, mismatched group and their gang of loveable NPC's than I have had in years of gameplay. Chult is a big and dangerous playground for your group but you need to loosen the reins a little and let them actually experience the world that the writers have built, because simply put, it is freaking cool.
We've played for a year now and the group is only just getting to Omu and in my mind, there is no regrets. If and probably when one of the characters die, it will be harder than if we had just made story-shy disposable heroes but I think it will have been worth it. The players are now going to play for real. They care about what happens to the characters they have invested time into building and they're now on a action packed collision course with one of the biggest baddies in all of DND.
...and that is how the game is meant to be played!
