5 out of 5 rating for Storm King's Thunder
Storm King's Thunder, I have waited some time to write this short review. I wanted to first read the book, but then to see if afterward that SKT would inspire a campaign. For me this is the bottom-line measurement of an adventure/campaign/collection of linked adventure sites. Invariably, a published module, sandbox, or setting has to answer two questions to validate its worth to me. Do I understand what is going on while reading the adventure? Does it make me want to host a group of friends through this adventure?
While there are far better summaries available about Storm King's Thunder, I'll briefly touch on the main story-arcs here and hardly risk spoilers. The "ordning" of the giants has been disrupted. The ordning is a natural/social order of giants that work to keep everyone in line. Especially regarding all giants relationships with both dragons and little-folk, which include all smaller humanoids. Now that the ordning has been shattered for unknown reasons the resulting power vacuum unleashes incidents involving giant-kind all along the periphery of civilization in the Forgotten Realms. To this end, this is a campaign surrounding giants, as the name implies.
I have read that some complaints are centered on whether this book was marketed correctly. For example, had this adventure been marketed as a setting book, that they would have rated it higher. I can see that, but the product works either way. And although looking at just the adventure, I agree this would not be a 5 star product, but in the whole product and its use-value to me as a DM, this is tied with Volo's Guide to Monsters as my favorite 5E product outside of the three core books.
Do I understand what is going on while reading the adventure?
Retrospectively looking back at the campaign/adventures that have been produced for 5E, the campaigns have catered to a progressively old school DMing philosophy. I ran the Tyranny of Dragons campaign, altering the modules significantly to make the campaign my player's. Storm King's Thunder assumes that, as an experienced DM, that I would be doing those altercations already. SKT offers a story arc, alternate paths through that narrative, but through various event and site based adventures. Yet this book offers the savage frontier as the back drop. Chapter 3 in SKT offers dozens of adventure sites that have just enough description to spark a simple encounter or situation. While these sites do not get equal treatment, this chapter sets this "adventure" apart from previously published material. The North is a desolate landscape with nomadic tribes of humans, ancient ruins, draconic threats, and of course settlements of giants--not to mention a number of access points to the Underdark. While the book is rather large at 256 pages for material that host levels 1-10+. Because the narrative suggests a route, at the player's discretion, the GM must set the scene for the players and the dice to make the story connections. This game theory reaches back into some of my favorite material ever produced for Dungeons and Dragons.
Back around the second edition of the boxed basic sets, the adventure area, or perhaps better known gaming philosophy of the sandbox had evolved. This is the era of Keep on the Borderlands establishing the outpost on the fringe of civilization, the party of young adventurers, a home base, and the caves of chaos to go and explore. You didn't have to explore the caves. But the game would have been boring if everyone decided to play farmers. Probably the most efficient and honed adventure that was the pack-in game of the expert set was the famous Isle of Dread. This was an entire island that functioned as a sandbox. The primary point of the sandbox is to present the players with a site to explore. Make sure there are a number of hooks to inspire exploration and let the game itself fill in the story gaps. By no means, am I arguing that this is the best or only way to run a high fantasy game of swords and sorcery, but I am saying that this is what Storm King's Thunder most closely reminded me of in terms of reading and imagining running a game through this module/adventure/setting.
Does it make me want to host a group of friends through this adventure?
The most efficient answer here is simple, yes. But this is where Storm King's Thunder really shines for me. First off, against the mounting arguments that this book is not organized well, I adore the layout of this campaign. It is organized to use at the table. The caveat is after you've prepared it to run. With some markers and "post-it" notes I have this book ready to run at the table. There are a few sections that you need to copy to keep things straight. To start with specifically the Dramatis Personae (p. 5-6), Figure 0.2: Adventure Flowchart (p. 17), and the treasure section (p. 18). As the adventure progresses, there is a very useful appendix D that has very useful pages to copy for the casts of major NPCs. This is a boon to running an open adventure campaign like I am planning. Speaking, again, of planning appendix A offers cross-over expositions from other published scenarios, which is a great touch into this adventure area. After reading the whole book carefully I can confidently say that you could competently run this adventure after only reading chapters one and two. Then organizing sessions to end on major decisions. In response, only preparing the sections based upon your player's direction. And there is ample space between story encounters to develop this campaign into something unique with each group. I have a far more nefarious plan toward the end of this story arc.
Storm King's Thunder inspired the idea of hacking two other published adventures as possible adventure sites. I know, reviews should be evaluating each product on their own stand-alone usefullness, or something to that effect. In large part I agree. But answering my second question (which took the longest to reach a conclusion *aka this review!) this forced me to look at Out of the Abyss and Princes of the Apocalypse as co-existing sites. I'll get back to SKT, but bear with me. Out of the Abyss is an epic romp through the Underdark beginning primarily between 8-10 level, upon answering Bruenor. The best and most interesting dungeons in PotA is the higher level/deeper levels of the elemental dungeons. SKT, while suggested up to 10th level, offers several more Giant lords to confront if the players so choose. Storm King's Thunder quelled any issue of campaigns feeling railroaded by upper level campaigns. Using SKT as a setting, with benefits, as in a true old school sandbox opens up what this product has inspired for me to bring into my game.
Storm King's Thunder Organizes a tremendous amount of useable material for an unquestionably "old school" feeling campaign, wherein much of the story is invented 'in situ' between the players and the DM, but directed by the dice. The limitation there is I am not sure how younger players/DMs will make of this book. While there are fair critiques against SKT in terms of not holding the DMs hand and offering much more game than a group is likely to use on one play through. These critiques only increases the long-term usability of a role-playing product for me. Perhaps many folks were thrown by this book being marketed as an adventure, which has developed into a preconceived notion of how an adventure path is to be presented, but I would refer to Storm King's Thunder as a bound boxset adventure of old. For that, I love it.
PS
It is also worth noting for those of you that play D&D via roll20. I also purchased this software after reading the book itself and am positively happy with the translation. The reason that I am mentioning this here is that you don't need both, but the digital package of this book works like a sandbox too. You could even use SKT roll20 software for the maps, magic items, and NPCs and run your own game entirely.
