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Complete Adventures of M.T. Black Vol. I
Publisher: Dungeon Masters Guild
by Nick F. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/06/2023 09:45:22

I've read most of these and ran three as a part of my Storm King's Thunder campaign - mainly using them when my party is either missing a lot of players or as a travel encounter one-shot. SKT has a lot of really unfulfilling side quests so being able to add these in, and adapting them to the events of the campaign, has helped to add a lot of flavor.

In general, MT Black did great with these, and if you've read his other book, Anatomy of Adventure, you can even get some insight into how to run them better. The core ideas for most of the adventures are fantastic, so even if things go off the rails (which happened frequently for me since I was running many of these adventures at a higher level than recommended), they still work great. My only general suggestions for other DMs is to ratchet up the sense of urgency to keep things moving.

Specific thoughts:

Terror at Triboar

This one was fun. I wish I had played up the bits with the election and political intrigue more and played down the bit with the farmer and his missing wife - my party rolled poorly on their investigation of the farmer's demolished hut, and became obsessesed with trying to find his missing wife instead of pursuing the forces at play behind it. Still, lots of fun and I plan on slotting some of the unused encounters into a different quest.

Shadows of the Long Road

My players LOVED the eerie, disgusting vibe of this one - lots of good feedback on mental image of the manor, the putrid marshy basement, the squalor and filth of the jail cell, etc. You really want the party to interact with this one as designed - the social interaction with Grundy and Lord Giddeon and wrestling match sets the tone of the adventure - but getting there can be a bit difficult because the manor is suspicious out of the gate. I even set up some red herrings from the outset to try to disarm the manor a bit, but it was still tough to get them to go in.

I wound up pressed for time since they spent so much time trying to stake out the manor and debating whether they should even approach it. But in a way, it worked out - I cut the fight with Giddeon to save time, planning to put him in the last fight with the Offspring but by the end, my party was so intrigued I kept him alive. He's now biding his time to get revenge for killing his "daughter" :)

Giantslayer

This one was absolutely perfect for me since I'm running SKT. You could easily tie this to the hill giant plot to add more flavor to that and work in some of the campaign lore. It scales pretty well too by simply adding more hill giants to the final encounter. Perfect mix of the three pillars, and the diplomacy felt of actual consequence.

Will add more as I play them.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Complete Adventures of M.T. Black Vol. I
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Moon over Graymoor
Publisher: Dungeon Masters Guild
by Nicholas G. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/30/2022 00:44:11

I'm running SKT and used this one shot to introduce the Uthgardt barbarians - I had Father Daragor be a disgraced Gray Wolf who converted to worshipping Malar after being cast out, and he wanted Eryn to slaughter the town as a blood sacrifice to the Beast Lord. I had a hard stop at the 4-hour mark, but I was able to run it within that time frame making a few key changes:

  • Split the investigation of Ser Thames' and Gilly's homes between the players and Oswald, who investigated off screen and turned over key clues
  • Made the info about the church locking system discoverable at the house of either George Gilly or Ser Thames, and nixxed the locksmith
  • Had the barn scene happen during the first night (so day 1 was: intro encounter, Gilly death, Gilly house investigation, church scene with Grimmund, barn)
  • Sybil's owl delivers the sword, note, library map, and key directly to the players (who were camped out at Ser Thames' after the barn)

(Should be noted I also added some additional lore and clues pertaining to my campaign, which took up extra time)

Overall - loved it. Super fun one shot, the vibe, characters, and investigation are really well designed, my players had a blast. Really wanted to run he Sybil encounter as written but I couldn't squeeze it in given the time constraint - players loved my hacked version of the encounter so I can only imagine how fun the whole experience would have been.

Advice for DM's looking to run this:

  • You might want to think of a reason for how/why Eryn got lycanthropy and how Father Daragor knew. This was a talking point for my players, since otherwise it just seems kinda random for this innocent teenager to have contracted it, and for a Malar priest to just coincidently be hiding in a town with a werewolf.
  • The "puzzle" with Selune's wings to enter the Undercroft is underdeveloped - I had town members do a quick prayer when speaking of the dead ("May Selune's wings offer shelter to poor George in his journey to the afterlife")
  • The ending is super abupt and leaves a lot of loose endings. Fortunately, it's easy to paper them over - you could have the arrowhead in the lockbox be a necklace that stops the curse from progressing, or have Sybil watch over Eryn to help control the curse.


Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Moon over Graymoor
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