D&D 5e Sets Sails for the High Seas

Would you like a 5e adventure that you could plug and play into your existing campaign?  How about a new pre-written series of aquatic adventures for levels 1-12?  Today Wizards of the Coast gave us a sneak peek at an upcoming adventure module that aims to solve both of these needs. The interesting part – It doesn’t seem to have been revealed just yet on purpose.

In what seems to be an early leak of information, we have found a new adventure module that will be hitting shelves in May of 2019 called the Ghosts of Saltmarsh. The title appeared on Amazon by the official Amazon account of Wizards of the coast.  There is no mention of this new publication on the D&D Official Site, however, earlier in the month, and the month prior on D&D’s “Spoilers & Swags” Twitch stream, they teased that the next product would have a nautical theme, and then that it would be a remake of popular classic adventures.  They also revealed these sample pages from the upcoming release.

The Amazon listing has some great detail about what’s included in the upcoming adventure.  We’ve unpacked and researched it and are ready to share.

What Will Ghosts of Saltmarsh Module Be?

Ghosts of Saltmarsh will be an adventure module that revives popular previous nautical adventures released decades ago in a new location, the town of Saltmarsh.  It is designed in a way similar to Tales from the Yawning Portal in that it’s an adventure module rather than a campaign module. The key difference is that adventures can be played as a series, or standalone, potentially inserted into a campaign and world that a group is already playing in.

Adventures Contained in the Ghosts of Saltmarsh

Three Adventures from the classic “U” (Underwater Series) published under the AD&D system from 1981 – 1983.

• Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
• Danger at Dunwater
• The Final Enemy

Four water-based adventures published in Dungeon Magazine over the years.

• Isle of the Abbey – 1992
• Temmeraut’s Fate – 2004
• The Styes – 2005
• Salvage Operation – 2005

Salvage Operation

Isle of the Abbey

Temmeraut’s Fate

Danger at Dunwater

What’s New in the Ghosts of Saltmarsh Module

• The town of Saltmarsh
• Compiled rules for sea travel
• Deck plans for various vessels
• New monsters
• Translation into 5th edition

What Do We Think About the Ghosts of Saltmarsh?

My favorite part of this module is that a series of adventures that can be played through as a campaign or cherry-picked and plug-and-play inserted into an existing campaign. DM’s and players alike look for ways to spice up an existing campaign, or bring in well thought out, immersive content when looking for variety, or just to combat DM burnout and DM availability to spend time prepping.

I like the quality of life improvements that are being baked into this module.  Adding references for sea travel, plans for ships, new aquatic monsters, as well as some just stunning updated artwork make this to be a really nice resource overall.

I’ve got mixed feelings on the use of classic adventures for the content for this module as opposed to creating from scratch.  There are many things that point to it being a good move, but I’ve got some lingering concerns.  Rebooting old favorite stories does seem to work well. Just look at all of the spider man, batman and other comic book stories we’ve seen retold in Hollywood.  They continue to be dramatically successful. On top of this I bet there are veteran players who may have played through some of this classic content that would love to experience a refreshed version of it, perhaps with new players or maybe even the same players. However, there’s still the unanswered concern that I have which is, how much of this content is being really rebooted versus just translated?  Has WOTC taken the approach of really listening to the feedback gathered from the original releases of these adventures, kept what was good, and tried to update where it fell short?   Some of these adventures have great reviews, where others are mixed.  I hope that they are taking the former option.  The fact that they have listed “New monsters” in the Amazon listing gives me some hope that they are not just plastering 5e stats on the old adventures but perhaps re-imagining some aspects of them to make them even better. After all, WOTC has learned a lot over the last 40 years in terms of what works well in adventures and I’d love to see them apply that to make these new versions of these adventures really over the top.

Is the Ghosts of Saltmarsh Module for you?

How do you feel about playing a premade adventure?

There’s a lot of potential for some really great gameplay to come out of this upcoming expansion module. That said it is probably not for everyone. The first consideration to ask yourself is how do you feel about playing premade adventure modules vs. playing custom/homebrew games?  The best experience that can be had in this collaborative storytelling experience we have in tabletop RPGs is a truly character-centric focus in your story. This can be accomplished in a premade adventure, but it becomes a very natural byproduct of a homebrew game when the DM is able to really weave in the characters’ motivations, backstories, and bonds into the story itself. So consider if going with something custom vs. going with something premade is preferable for you.

Do you like the idea of playing a modular adventure series vs. an entire campaign?

If you are open to the idea of playing a custom module generally, consider if you’d prefer a campaign module vs. an adventure module.  A campaign module is typically an entire campaign that may have a well-orchestrated series of short, and long story arcs. They may be more comprehensive and cohesive between adventures… I like the analogy of an adventure module being like a TV series whereas a campaign module would be more like a movie. As stated a few times in this article, one really nice aspect of the adventure module approach is that you can insert a single adventure into your mix and not have to commit to playing the entire campaign to come to the end of a story

Does playing the high seas, and questing in a decent amount of wate seem exciting or annoying to you?

If you like the idea of a premade adventure module, the last thing I’d recommend considering is this particular setting.  The concept of a nautical campaign is interesting in that it presents all kinds of new challenges and limitations with the fact that there will be lots of well…. Water… and…. Swimming!  Your party will need to find a way to get around and be effective when there’s lots of water.  Did you build a fire cantrip flinging desert djinni?  They may have a rough time rolling with the mermen under the sea.  Aquatic adventures can sometimes have a polarizing effect. Some players think the unique challenges of being on a ship / in the water are fun and a nice change of pace whereas others might just find it annoying. Consider checking with your fellow players to see what their temperature is on the matter.