D&D 5E Companion Thread to 5E Survivor - Adventures

[JoeyD473]

I don't get the hate for it because most I've ever spoken to or anything I've seen online it is most peoples favorite

 

[The Glen]

Didn't expect it to win but thought Radiant Citadel would have put up more than a fight. Guess the poor marketing left a bad taste in people's mouths

 

[Scribe]

Didn't expect it to win but thought Radiant Citadel would have put up more than a fight. Guess the poor marketing left a bad taste in people's mouths

Apparently the adventures were interesting and not reflective of the marketing effort and art, but who could say?

 

[RealAlHazred]

Didn't expect it to win but thought Radiant Citadel would have put up more than a fight. Guess the poor marketing left a bad taste in people's mouths

Several of the later hardcovers have had logic issues. Candlekeep Mysteries and Journey Through the Radiant Citadelwere plagued by elementary logic issues; I don't have time to go over them right now, but I highly recommend the reviews of each by Justin Alexander which I've linked, he covers the shortcomings and highlights the good stuff for each scenario. I have only given a preliminary read-through of Keys from the Golden Vault, but I remember getting the impression it had similar issues.

 

[The Glen]

Apparently the adventures were interesting and not reflective of the marketing effort and art, but who could say?

One problem was, it was an anthology. Those tend to get drug down into average status because of the mixed quality of the adventures. They had a weird focus on festivals, and didn't really give the writers enough space to showcase the world that they were building.

 

[Retreater]

Nice to see my beloved Ghosts of Saltmarsh doing so well; an incredible collection of cherry-picked adventures, each individually great but easily strung together for a campaign.

I don't understand why this one is so beloved? I've run the first part (actually several times over the decades) and quickly fell off it.
I feel like the only great adventure in the Saltmarsh trilogy is "Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh." "Dunwater" is VERY weak - like it's barely an adventure at all, and "Final Enemy" is barely connected to anything.
Of the rest of the Saltmarsh book, there's hardly any connective tissue between any of the adventures. "Isle of the Abbey" looks terrible.
Not saying anyone's wrong for liking this one, I just don't understand the appeal.

 

[RealAlHazred]

I don't understand why this one is so beloved? I've run the first part (actually several times over the decades) and quickly fell off it.
I feel like the only great adventure in the Saltmarsh trilogy is "Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh." "Dunwater" is VERY weak - like it's barely an adventure at all, and "Final Enemy" is barely connected to anything.
Of the rest of the Saltmarsh book, there's hardly any connective tissue between any of the adventures. "Isle of the Abbey" looks terrible.
Not saying anyone's wrong for liking this one, I just don't understand the appeal.

So, I ran Ghosts of Saltmarsh, but I used 1659 Port Royal, Jamaica instead of Saltmarsh itself. I did a thread detailing my changes and the results over on The Piazza. The tl;dr version is this:

• I ran it as what I call "Historical High Fantasy": most of the options in the PHB are usable as-is. Legendary elves and dwarves are the real thing, as are the other non-humans. Occultists, witch doctors, and clergy can practice real magic, although again magic is rare and the common person would have little idea how it actually works. My understanding is that this is more-or-less the kind of D&D the classic Historical Reference series used. I used the Spanish, who had recently lost control over Port Royal, as the main baddies instead of the Scarlet Brotherhood; the Spanish were led by the ex-governor, Don Cristóbal Arnaldo de Isasi.
• "Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh" and "Danger at Dunwater" were run mostly as-is, given substitutions for the setting I used.
• I fleshed out "Salvage Operation" slightly, and then ran a Freeport scenario, "Dead Man's Quest" from Dungeon #107/Polyhedron #166. This worked extraordinarily well, as it linked in the sahuagin better and let me give the players hints about their relationship with the Spanish. They recovered a relic, the Knucklebone of Saint Amaro, which was going to be important later, and donated it to the Church.
• "Dead Man's Quest" sees the PCs helping Captain Fletcher, the ghost of a pirate captain. The recovery and donation of the Knucklebone was their favor for him. In return he promised to lead them to buried treasure (because pirates) on the "Isle of the Abbey," which let me lead them directly to the next scenario without the unsatisfying bureaucratic part of that scenario.
• Sadly, the pandemic ended my campaign just after they started "The Final Enemy." The raid was billed to them as a reconnaissance thing by their patron (English Port Royal governor Captain Morgan -- yes, that Captain Morgan), and I had plans for them to encounter both sahuagin and Spanish. They would have uncovered clues pointing to the presence of Spanish guerillas on the isle of Antillia -- the legendary Antillia, which only Spanish can find, all others find only shifting fog and treacherous waters. Unless they have the Knucklebone of Saint Amaro the Pilgrim, which will point unerringly toward the destination of a True Christian wielder...

Anyway, as I was constructing my framing story based on real world stuff from the Golden Age of Piracy, I felt it was actually making the connections between the scenarios stronger, which was great.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

So, I ran Ghosts of Saltmarsh, but I used 1659 Port Royal, Jamaica instead of Saltmarsh itself. I did a thread detailing my changes and the results over on The Piazza. The tl;dr version is this:

• I ran it as what I call "Historical High Fantasy": most of the options in the PHB are usable as-is. Legendary elves and dwarves are the real thing, as are the other non-humans. Occultists, witch doctors, and clergy can practice real magic, although again magic is rare and the common person would have little idea how it actually works. My understanding is that this is more-or-less the kind of D&D the classic Historical Reference series used. I used the Spanish, who had recently lost control over Port Royal, as the main baddies instead of the Scarlet Brotherhood; the Spanish were led by the ex-governor, Don Cristóbal Arnaldo de Isasi.
• "Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh" and "Danger at Dunwater" were run mostly as-is, given substitutions for the setting I used.
• I fleshed out "Salvage Operation" slightly, and then ran a Freeport scenario, "Dead Man's Quest" from Dungeon #107/Polyhedron #166. This worked extraordinarily well, as it linked in the sahuagin better and let me give the players hints about their relationship with the Spanish. They recovered a relic, the Knucklebone of Saint Amaro, which was going to be important later, and donated it to the Church.
• "Dead Man's Quest" sees the PCs helping Captain Fletcher, the ghost of a pirate captain. The recovery and donation of the Knucklebone was their favor for him. In return he promised to lead them to buried treasure (because pirates) on the "Isle of the Abbey," which let me lead them directly to the next scenario without the unsatisfying bureaucratic part of that scenario.
• Sadly, the pandemic ended my campaign just after they started "The Final Enemy." The raid was billed to them as a reconnaissance thing by their patron (English Port Royal governor Captain Morgan -- yes, that Captain Morgan), and I had plans for them to encounter both sahuagin and Spanish. They would have uncovered clues pointing to the presence of Spanish guerillas on the isle of Antillia -- the legendary Antillia, which only Spanish can find, all others find only shifting fog and treacherous waters. Unless they have the Knucklebone of Saint Amaro the Pilgrim, which will point unerringly toward the destination of a True Christian wielder...

Anyway, as I was constructing my framing story based on real world stuff from the Golden Age of Piracy, I felt it was actually making the connections between the scenarios stronger, which was great.

How much reading of this period of history had you done prior to running this game?

 

[RealAlHazred]

How much reading of this period of history had you done prior to running this game?

Well, I read two articles in Dragon magazine #318: "The Wickedest City in the World: Port Royal" by Shelley Baur, and "X Marks the Spot: Setting Sail With Saber and Spell" by Frank Brunner. The former article details the city, briefly discusses its history, provides a few NPCs and locations, and gives some scenario hooks. The latter article discusses how to run a pirate game in D&D. I also scoured Wikipedia for info. That was it.

I mean, it was a pirate game with elves and tieflings. It wasn't going to be very historically accurate to begin with!

 

[Vraal]

I don't understand why this one is so beloved? I've run the first part (actually several times over the decades) and quickly fell off it.
I feel like the only great adventure in the Saltmarsh trilogy is "Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh." "Dunwater" is VERY weak - like it's barely an adventure at all, and "Final Enemy" is barely connected to anything.
Of the rest of the Saltmarsh book, there's hardly any connective tissue between any of the adventures. "Isle of the Abbey" looks terrible.
Not saying anyone's wrong for liking this one, I just don't understand the appeal.

Yeah, I'll admit you're pointing out the ones that I changed the most -- my version of "Danger at Dunwater" incorporated the lizardfolk games from the back of the book, a brief fight against the giant crocodile, and more developed factions, which meant the players had to do some actual diplomacy. Two real-life years later, they still like to refer to themselves as Saltmarsh's premier diplomats (Saltmarsh's only diplomats, more like).

"The Final Enemy" I tried my best to save, but I think it's hands-down the worst thing in the book, and I found "Isle of the Abbey" too similar to "Tammeraut's Fate", so I just combined the two, taking the best bits of each. Nevertheless, it's maybe the only 5e book where every single chapter made me go, "Hey, I can use most of this."

And as I type this, Call of the Netherdeep is eliminated. It absolutely is, as Jason Alexander said, a broken railroad, but the dungeons are so flavourful and cool I can't help like it more than it probably deserves.