Advice of Annihilation - What I would do differently

The campaign is over for my group but I know many people are planning on running this campaign and are just getting started. I would like to ruminate on lessons learned and what I would do differently if I were to run it again as well as provide some feedback from my players.

Ditch the Plot from the Book
My players had zero interest in Syndra Silvane and her whole quest. They went along with it because they knew that's where the plot train led. Instead of her whole entitled "Something is slowly killing rich NPCs the players have never met and do not care about" plot line, I'd replace it with something the players can relate to and an NPC with an agenda they might care about.

Have the PCs go to Port Nyanzaru – ask them to come up with their own reasons – what’s their motivation?  I created a questionnaire – just replace the homeland question with an appropriate list from your world.

Have them come to Port Nyanzaru and then run some of the side quests for the first few levels. Meet some locals. Do some heroic stuff. Hunt some pirates. Search for treasure. Just have Port Nyanzaru be the location for a while. Establish the merchant princes as villains. Maybe have the players learn a little about the history of Chult, the fall of Omu, and the mysterious fate of the royal family.

Then, once they’re level 5, have them meet Princess Mwaxanaré and her Aaracockra allies in a back room at night, they’re all wearing hoods, etc. She’s looking for adventurers to go on a quest to find the lost city of Omu. They are to locate the Skull Chalice of Ch’k’gare and the Rod of Queen Nakapa. They will allow her to prove her royal lineage and legitimize her return to power as queen. She will pay them 1500 GP upon their return and will even give them each a minor magic item (from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything) to help them.

She suggests hiring a guide. The guides don’t know how to get to Omu (unless you as DM want them to) but they know about local flora and fauna and what’s deadly and what isn’t. They’ll also help you not get lost or starve if you don’t have any Rangers or Druids in your party.

Then, have the Death Curse be a localized phenomenon around Omu, a side effect of the Soulmonger gathering souls. You can foreshadow the Soulmonger more at the Heart of Ubtao. Maybe have NPC clerics realize that the souls of the dead are failing to go to the afterlife, they’re all being drained away by something.

Ignore Artus Cimber and Dragonbait
Do NOT have them join the party. You might have them cross paths or whatever, but under no condition should they travel with the party as allies.

Decide Whether You Want to do the Hex-Crawl or Not.
Your mileage may vary. I was hoping for a complex resource management game of exploration. My players hated it. If I were to do it over again, I'd just make it a flowchart-crawl similar to Ultraviolet Grasslands.

Don't use any names when describing the monsters of Chult 
Chult should not have any monsters the players are familiar with. Dont' call dinosaurs "dinosaurs", call them "behemoths" or "thunderlizards" . Don't call a kamadan a "kamadan", describe it as a strange panther when four snakes and that's it.

If the players want to know what a monster is called, that's what the guides are for. The guide will say, "that's a kamadan, be careful, it breathes sleep gas" or "those are Chiwingas, they're good luck spirits". Etc.

Make it clear the PCs are strangers here and have no idea which fruit is poisonous and which is edible. Which fish you can eat and which will bite you and kill you. Survival skill checks for finding food and water should automatically fail if they are outsiders, IMO.

Remember - guides. Also, guides are all duplicitous assholes that will betray or trick the party - either into a trap or a side quest. Except for sweet Eku, who is the only nice helpful NPC in the entire campaign.

Advice From My Players

Zeynap Shiravadakar
Nothing in the original module makes you feel like a hero.  So ditching the plot is not a bad idea.

Every NPC we encountered made us, the characters, feel insignificant.  Thus, avoiding them or minimizing contact.

We hated the jungle crawl.  Your group may love it.  Plus, we created characters that would minimize the environmental effects.  Your group might not.  The worst part was the successful survival roles needed in order to get an effective nights rest.  This really made it hard for our spellcrafters.

DM Note - As a house rule, I required all characters to make DC 10 Survival skill checks in order to get the benefit of a Full Rest whenever camping or sleeping rough. They got Advantage when using things like tents, sleeping bags, good food, pillows, etc. Disadvantage for bad weather, attacks while resting, etc. 

*I* hated all the traps.  So many traps.  Traps are good in small numbers, but when there are so many and they are all deadly, it is just a feelsbad.  Again, it felt that way to me.

Most (dare I say all) of the large monster fights were AWESOME.


Those were my basic impressions.

Apparently Jones

He is not exaggerating (about Eku).

Eku was literally the only person who was nice to us and had no agenda. 

Even that nice Knight we did our first side quest for (Silvertusk), she was semi-decent but the rest of her order were assholes.

Xoc Wik

Let the players do the side quests with out penalizing them due to the main quest line. The sides that we were able to do were a lot of fun and I wanted to do others except our DM wanted us to get back on track.

(Narrows eyes suspiciously, speaks through gritted teeth)
As I reminded you every week during your aimless wandering hunting   pirates, You could have changed the storyline at any time. As a group, you chose ToA. ToA is not about hunting pirates.

ToA has a pirate hunting side quest that is in the module, same as there is a adamantine hunting side quest in the module... why have them in there and mention them as things to do then?

It is there for you to follow through, not go 1000 miles down the coast, get 99% towards the next plot milestone , get WITHIN EYESIGHT of said milestone (Jahaka anchorage), and then decide “nope, let’s not go there. Let’s go 1000 miles back up the coast to where we started instead so we can get our 1000 gp reward.”

Oh, and then complain about it forever!
(Shakes fist)