Rime of the Frostmaiden

Rime of the Frostmaiden was the first 5E campaign I have ever had the chance to run to completion, and honestly I think it was a lucky choice in that regard, because while Frostmaiden is not perfect, it is a great adventure for DMs and players alike. Run as written, the adventure offers unique characters, memorable sequences, and a captivating atmosphere that by and large works quite well with little to no modification or rewriting. 

The Adventure

To give a quick spoiler-free summary of the adventure's conflict: A network of hamlets, villages, and two walled towns known collectively as Ten-Towns in an extreme northern region known as Icewind Dale have suffered under a brutal winter that has raged for the past two years, all the while the sun never rising above the mountains. Obviously there's something unnatural about this, and in an interesting twist the majority of people know who the culprit is at the start of the adventure: Auril, the minor goddess of winter's cruel indifference. Of course, it's up to the players to solve this everlasting winter that has decimated the population (and I mean decimated, about two thirds to three quarters of the townsfolk have died from cold, hunger, predators, or being sacrificed by their fellows already!). It becomes clear to the players as the campaign goes on that there is no backup or rescue coming, which really raises the stakes in the second and third acts. The major question though is how to end the winter or convince Auril to stop it, and that is a question that occupies much of the campaign. I like this, it gives the opportunity for high-stakes adventuring without it feeling forced or premature for the level, something that I definitely struggle with due to my preference for more low-magic campaigns.

The majority of the campaign however does not involve Auril, instead revolving around three to five arcs. None of these arcs are strongly connected to each other, but each has Auril's influence at the center of it. I actually really like this, as due to the wandering from town to town either exploring or completing side quests, the players gradually get a consistent drip of new clues and potential allies to ponder. What's this chardalyn stuff? Why do these purple dwarves want it? What's this expedition a few wizards from the Arcane Brotherhood want to hire the players to go on? Why can a lot of animals suddenly talk and are attacking people? What is Auril's game plan here? These questions and more fueled months of speculation in my two groups, and while not every question was answered (because they didn't chase them), they never felt cheated or let down by the answer, which says a lot.

However, as much as I like the arcs, they do suffer from the same freedom of player direction that acts as a strength. See, the issue with quests being tied to different towns and areas and the players being free to go to any of the ten in any order is that there is a high possibility that they could encounter the climax of an arc or plot point with little to no buildup. Furthermore, they can encounter the start of an arc roughly four to five levels before the storyline comes into play, which can cause a good deal of confusion (it did for one of my groups). I'd personally recommend doing the arc with awakened animals and creatures first, then the cauldron saga, then the duergar before finally tackling the Arcane Brotherhood and Auril. That way the players can have a feeling of story progression while still having the freedom to take side quests and do things at their own pace (and oh boy there are a lot of good side quests here, we didn't even touch the barbarian or the Goliath tribes). 

Auril as a villain is an interesting choice. I already had some minor exposure to her in my experience of the Icewind Dale CRPG, but it's a ballsy choice to have the villain be a goddess that can be possibly killed (defeated) by level sevens. I actually like this aspect, for while the Auril the players fight is not at full strength and her reasons for this slow murder are entirely down to her personal beliefs, the fact that she's so weak that she struggles to fight relatively low-level characters both encourages the players that they can come out on top in the end and also embitters her against the players and creates a true enemy with motive. She's not a constant presence in the campaign but enough brief encounters with Auril coupled with her frequent silence created really made her memorable to my players (and the whole being a goddess thing).

Frostmaiden is built (and was advertised) on the themes of isolation, paranoia, and fear. While there's debate over whether the adventure is successful in this regard, in my opinion the adventure as written achieves this goal though the difficulty of its adventures and encounters. The first adventures run the gamut from expected for low-leveled characters to absolutely terrifying, and these I think are the best ones. It's one thing to be fighting kobolds or goblins on an open field, but it's something entirely different having a group of fresh level one characters sneaking around a giant's cave looking for stolen mead!  Having scary enemies and encounters doesn't change as the campaign goes on either, and if anything they get more scary. Imagine the terror of facing down an ancient white dragon at level seven as your party is investigating an ice-locked ship for rum and you have a pretty good idea of the adventure. Sure it's not in-your-face terrifying, but it's enough that even groups of experienced players will be pissing their pants, which is good. A final point about difficulty which may be controversial, but contrary to what I assumed, magic weapons are not actually needed in this adventure barring one or two circumstances, and those are for the most part optional. I assumed that Auril would have resistance to nonmagical weapons, but surprisingly she does not, so keep that in mind if you're going to run this. The Sunblight and Dawn's Light chapters are probably the best time to hand out magic weapons and unsettle your players in the process.

The adventure is also remarkably good for DM's adding things as they see fit while also running the book as written. Most of the named NPCs have a lot of potential room for additional detail/interaction, particularly the arcane brotherhood and a mutilated mind flayer one of my groups recruited, which made for an uneasy alliance and an unsettling presence when one of them found him feeding one night. Ythryn was at first a location I was indifferent to, but as I prepared it for the my twelve-person group I fell in love with the ruined city and its still living master, and those added bits made for some great moments with my players. Even if you're not into massive rewrites, the book gives just enough to improvise on the fly.

The Mechanics

Instead of opting for one campaign gimmick, Frostmaiden went for a few. I've already talked about the various simultaneous story arcs of the adventure, but what I haven't covered is the secrets system and the boss phases. One of the largest hurdles I've run into preparing campaigns and adventures is the problem of how to create ways for the players to involve themselves in the campaign and its themes in a large or small capacity without writing a novel or me telling them important story details of the campaign, which I am loath to do as the campaign is ongoing. The secrets system is my salvation in this regard. At character creation, each player rolls a die or draws a card to determine what their character's 'secret' is. Some of these are really good, like one that changes your race to be a doppelgänger (with which one of my players used with terrific effect), or others that connect characters to locations. That being said though, about half of them are either pointless or do not really come into play, which really sucks knowing that the only story beat some of my players get is a one-time combat encounter that I almost completely forgot about. On the whole though this is a fantastic addition, and one that I'm adopting for my next campaign, Curse of Strahd. Boss phases are a lot more simple. Instead of using one stat block with a bunch of hit points and abilities that the DM restricts themselves to (or not), this book gives each phase of Auril's fight its own hit points, stats, and abilities, which creates the potential for a truly special final battle right out of the box.

I had the opportunity to make dramatic changes to the adventure format when I combined my two separate parties of four and five players into a single party of nine for the final two areas (with another three other players controlling important NPCs). Surprisingly, this did not affect the isolating atmosphere of the adventure, and if anything enhanced it. Running two groups in the same world also helped me avoid having the players make a choice between bad and worse outcomes, which is my one criticism of the adventure as a whole: the players can knowingly sentence all of Ten-Towns to death through their action/inaction. Adjusting the adventure to higher numbers was as simple as adding more enemies or increasing their hit points or attacks, which was really quite nice, and the Caves of Hunger and Ythryn are great areas for big groups in terms of space and lethality.

Conclusion

In total, my opinion of Rime of the Frostmaiden is that it is flat out a great adventure, one that on the whole needs (or needed depending on your view) only a few changes to be considered one of the best, if not the best adventure Wizards have put out for 5E. Offering a compelling story, lots of opportunity for player choice and consequence, and some truly memorable moments (such as summoning a tarrasque in the middle of the final fight), Frostmaiden might not have delivered the full measure of horror people might have wanted, but it's still well-worth playing. There's a lot of potential ways to play this campaign, and whether you want to play a standard winter adventure or dip your toe into Lovecraft-type tales, Frostmaiden is great in how flexible it is. It might be a little light on combat for some players right out the gate, but if played to completion, Frostmaiden has something for everyone in the frozen wastes of Ten-Towns.