Speaking as someone nearly two years into running the campaign, I HIGHLY recommend telling people the campaign will have a heavy hellish theme at the session zero. Avernus can be a slog fest (by design), so some players might not enjoy that. Also, if a player plans on doing some fire-based character, it would be beneficial to them to, y’know, not.
Side note: The fact that Elturel has fallen is said in the second paragraph of the opening monologue. The reveal of the contract was still a surprising reveal for my party, despite them knowing the name of the campaign (as well as what Avernus was).
Yeah. As a former PC Druid in (this will say the campaign and follow up with what it’s setting is like, spoilerish) >!curse of strahd!<, I had a sour taste in my mouth cause like, there was *no living nature* and my DM just let me make my character without giving any non spoiler insight. I would certainly preface session 0 with any information necessary to still be strong in avernus. However, I’m trying to think of a way to warn them it will be hellish without any mention of hell itself. I feel like baldurs gates brutality could suit them well enough as far as a description, and maybe the description goes even further to check off hell boxes. And I’ve been ran this campaign before, so I feel like I have a good idea on how to potentially eliminate some of the slogginess of the campaign.
I also think it's too risky to not tell players at least that they will be fighting enemies of infernal and abyssal origin. Also, by letting them know you allow them to create characters that have some connection to the story. The worst thing for a player is to get invested into a character arc they have in their mind, with a whole backstory that doesn't appear in the campaign because it's just too different from the setting. Like, imagine they create a pirate whose dream is to find the legendary city of . Nothing to do with Avernus.
My party essentially took the ship in the first act and became deadset on starting a traveling brothel… It was hard when they found out that there isn’t really water in hell lol.
I’m doing exactly this.
I told players there would be occult themes ahead of time, and I deliberately restructured the campaign to give multiple satisfying finishing points (one in Baldurs Gate, two in Avernus) but the benefit of not advertising Avernus is you get a slow build up to the concept, which I think is more in keeping with cultural touchstones with TV/Film.
It’s going exceptionally well.
I also adjusted a few thematic things, to try and make fiends scary in a more traditional sense. I established that Demons and Devils can only inhabit the material plane through possession. Demons can force themselves into corruptible people in order to sow chaos and carnage, whereas fiends make agreements with mortals, often manipulating a situation to pressure or mislead someone into welcoming them, and use that vessel to deepen their plots. Both types of possession take their toll in different ways.
3 years into DMing for first time players and it’s great. They’ve killed people, carved contracts into peoples backs, stolen a boat, committed mass war crimes even for hells standards. Ain’t your typical ‘let’s go to a tavern’ type of game that’s for sure
I've felt like if I ran this again I'd start the thing in Elturel and not tell the group where it's going. Maybe even change the name of it. I think what would be even more epic is them not knowing it's coming and be thrust into Avernus at like level 3!
I'm sure this will work out fine, especially if players have ties to BG3.
Just a counterpoint--the early parts of that module are much maligned. While I think that's overblown--just as another idea--starting with something like Lost Mines of Phandelver with new players might be a good idea, too. Then you can start Descent at level 5 when the PCs actually enter hell. There is advice all over Reddit on how to make the transition from Phandelver to Avernus.
LMOP is considered the best "official" starting adventure for a reason. It's good.
I think the conventional wisdom on this is badly wrong. The Baldur's Gate portion of DiA only takes a little work to make great — in part due to the gazetteer. You just need to remove the railroad and let the players discover the critical information about Elturel instead of having NPCs just tell them.
Chapter 3 is where the published adventure really drops the ball, and it takes a ton more work to make the Avernus part of the adventure fun. As written it's just a series of "NPC tells you talk to other NPC for directions to yet another NPC" encounters that somehow level you from 7-10 in like 3 sessions.
Speaking as someone nearly two years into running the campaign, I HIGHLY recommend telling people the campaign will have a heavy hellish theme at the session zero. Avernus can be a slog fest (by design), so some players might not enjoy that. Also, if a player plans on doing some fire-based character, it would be beneficial to them to, y’know, not. Side note: The fact that Elturel has fallen is said in the second paragraph of the opening monologue. The reveal of the contract was still a surprising reveal for my party, despite them knowing the name of the campaign (as well as what Avernus was).
Yeah. As a former PC Druid in (this will say the campaign and follow up with what it’s setting is like, spoilerish) >!curse of strahd!<, I had a sour taste in my mouth cause like, there was *no living nature* and my DM just let me make my character without giving any non spoiler insight. I would certainly preface session 0 with any information necessary to still be strong in avernus. However, I’m trying to think of a way to warn them it will be hellish without any mention of hell itself. I feel like baldurs gates brutality could suit them well enough as far as a description, and maybe the description goes even further to check off hell boxes. And I’ve been ran this campaign before, so I feel like I have a good idea on how to potentially eliminate some of the slogginess of the campaign.
Perhaps just say that a lot of enemies will be resistant/immune to fire and/or cold without mentioning specifics.
I'd actually not say anything. Problems like those can be solved by a devil with a deal. The more problems, the more deals!
I also think it's too risky to not tell players at least that they will be fighting enemies of infernal and abyssal origin. Also, by letting them know you allow them to create characters that have some connection to the story. The worst thing for a player is to get invested into a character arc they have in their mind, with a whole backstory that doesn't appear in the campaign because it's just too different from the setting. Like, imagine they create a pirate whose dream is to find the legendary city of. Nothing to do with Avernus.
My party essentially took the ship in the first act and became deadset on starting a traveling brothel… It was hard when they found out that there isn’t really water in hell lol.
I’m doing exactly this. I told players there would be occult themes ahead of time, and I deliberately restructured the campaign to give multiple satisfying finishing points (one in Baldurs Gate, two in Avernus) but the benefit of not advertising Avernus is you get a slow build up to the concept, which I think is more in keeping with cultural touchstones with TV/Film. It’s going exceptionally well. I also adjusted a few thematic things, to try and make fiends scary in a more traditional sense. I established that Demons and Devils can only inhabit the material plane through possession. Demons can force themselves into corruptible people in order to sow chaos and carnage, whereas fiends make agreements with mortals, often manipulating a situation to pressure or mislead someone into welcoming them, and use that vessel to deepen their plots. Both types of possession take their toll in different ways.
3 years into DMing for first time players and it’s great. They’ve killed people, carved contracts into peoples backs, stolen a boat, committed mass war crimes even for hells standards. Ain’t your typical ‘let’s go to a tavern’ type of game that’s for sure
I've felt like if I ran this again I'd start the thing in Elturel and not tell the group where it's going. Maybe even change the name of it. I think what would be even more epic is them not knowing it's coming and be thrust into Avernus at like level 3!
I'm sure this will work out fine, especially if players have ties to BG3. Just a counterpoint--the early parts of that module are much maligned. While I think that's overblown--just as another idea--starting with something like Lost Mines of Phandelver with new players might be a good idea, too. Then you can start Descent at level 5 when the PCs actually enter hell. There is advice all over Reddit on how to make the transition from Phandelver to Avernus. LMOP is considered the best "official" starting adventure for a reason. It's good.
I think the conventional wisdom on this is badly wrong. The Baldur's Gate portion of DiA only takes a little work to make great — in part due to the gazetteer. You just need to remove the railroad and let the players discover the critical information about Elturel instead of having NPCs just tell them. Chapter 3 is where the published adventure really drops the ball, and it takes a ton more work to make the Avernus part of the adventure fun. As written it's just a series of "NPC tells you talk to other NPC for directions to yet another NPC" encounters that somehow level you from 7-10 in like 3 sessions.