u/Sorry-Location2056

Hello, everyone. Around a month or so ago I posted here asking for help as I was about to begin DMing Avernus for a group of friends. Thanks again for all the help I got, btw! The adventure will begin next week and all my friends sent me their character sheets and that is when I was a little intrigued.

One of my friends made a warlock and their pact will be the Great Old One when they get to level 3. Long story short, they came across some kind of artifact, felt something inside trying to connect with them and let that happen. When I was searching for how to roleplay a GOO patron, I was told to make them really creepy and not make a lot of sense, since their nature and motives are completely alien. (Someone said to picture a human giving orders to a bunch of ants to repair a computer. One single ant will never understand the big picture and the actions they had to do could've seemed random or just plain weird)

The first thing is: I didn't really find a connection in the adventure for a far realm kind of thing and I'm not so sure how to make that happen. Maybe this patron wants something that is in the hells? Using the ant metaphor, the character don't really need to understand the true motives of the patron, but that could be a little underwhelming to play a whole campaign just to complete an order that is completely random.

The second thing is about the way to play the patron: the backstory of the character have them kind of speaking to each other. Not everyday or everytime they want, but it happens. In my understanding, until the character reaches level 3 and actually gets the subclass features and everything else, the patron is kind of trying them out, checking if they can be worth their time. I thought about making the patron act more "normal" at first, lulling the character into a false sense of security or trust and after level 3, be more weird or creepy. How does that sound? I never really played a patron for a warlock character so any help in this area will be deeply appreciated.

Thanks again for all the help before and I hope I can get a little more in this area.

Hey, everyone!

I have a group of 6 people that plays together online and we have a couple of DMs in the group that kinda of rotate. They are more experienced and create their own stories and we have a blast. I'm the player with the least amount of experience and they know I have DMed for another group (Phandelver and Below and Stormwreck Isle).

Recently I got the Avernus book from a friend and the group was really excited and is kindly pressuring me into being the next DM. I enjoyed being in the DM seat before but that would be my first time DMing for a group of people way more experienced than me. That makes me a little nervous.

I started reading the book and searching online for tips and stuff like that and was a little surprised with the amount of people pointing out things that DMs should change, chapters to skip. The story itself talks about deals with devils, contracts, investigating stuff, multiple ways to deal with things, factions...

I started to feel a little overwhelmed, specially since I'm already kinda nervous to DM for this group.

So, should I just focus and run with it? Is there another adventure that is easier to run to get a little more experience and confidence? Is Descent into Avernus really complicated to run or is it just my anxiety talking? Should I really change that many things in the adventure to make it good?

Sorry for the bunch of questions, but I hope someone here can help me with them!

Thanks in advance! ❤️