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Hoard of the Dragon Queen: As it Turns out, it's Pretty Good (so far)
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<blockquote data-quote="doctorhook" data-source="post: 6363292" data-attributes="member: 58401"><p>Speaking as someone who ordered HotDQ with the intention of DMing it, I'm having some serious doubts about it as-written. In part, my players are really enjoying the sandbox elements of Lost Mine of Phandelver, but HotDQ appears to be a lot more railroad-y.</p><p></p><p>Additionally, I've found some of the plot summaries to be fairly unbelievable; for example, upon arrival in Greenest (a town under attack by mercenaries), the summary of episode says that the adventurers (who will probably look like random adventurers and mercenaries, so much so that apparently some of the attackers won't even recognize them as enemies) should end up in an audience before the lord of the town. It seems extremely contrived to say that while holed-up in his keep, under attack from random mercenaries, the lord is going to allow more mercenaries to just knock on the front door and come talk to him. Obviously this problem can be resolved with just a bit of creative DMing, but as written it seems kinda stupid.</p><p></p><p>My other complaint about it is the quality of the maps by Jared Blando: they're waaay too stylized around the periphery and border of each map, and almost completely <em>bland</em> and undetailed within each room. Overall, this makes his maps nearly useless for those of us who incorporate a VTT into play; as it stands, I'll have to redraw the maps for my table's use. My strong preference would be for future adventures to either have maps more in the practical style of Mike Schley's work, or to just hire Mike Schley.</p><p></p><p>Overall, not having had a chance to play it yet, I've definitely got some serious misgivings about this adventure that I had been excited to run.</p><p></p><p>(PS: Someone asked if there are sidebars and tips for new DMs in HotDQ. There are sidebars with DM tips <strong>for the adventure</strong> but they are definitely not direct towards new DMs. HotDQ is definitely not a system-introduction product.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="doctorhook, post: 6363292, member: 58401"] Speaking as someone who ordered HotDQ with the intention of DMing it, I'm having some serious doubts about it as-written. In part, my players are really enjoying the sandbox elements of Lost Mine of Phandelver, but HotDQ appears to be a lot more railroad-y. Additionally, I've found some of the plot summaries to be fairly unbelievable; for example, upon arrival in Greenest (a town under attack by mercenaries), the summary of episode says that the adventurers (who will probably look like random adventurers and mercenaries, so much so that apparently some of the attackers won't even recognize them as enemies) should end up in an audience before the lord of the town. It seems extremely contrived to say that while holed-up in his keep, under attack from random mercenaries, the lord is going to allow more mercenaries to just knock on the front door and come talk to him. Obviously this problem can be resolved with just a bit of creative DMing, but as written it seems kinda stupid. My other complaint about it is the quality of the maps by Jared Blando: they're waaay too stylized around the periphery and border of each map, and almost completely [i]bland[/i] and undetailed within each room. Overall, this makes his maps nearly useless for those of us who incorporate a VTT into play; as it stands, I'll have to redraw the maps for my table's use. My strong preference would be for future adventures to either have maps more in the practical style of Mike Schley's work, or to just hire Mike Schley. Overall, not having had a chance to play it yet, I've definitely got some serious misgivings about this adventure that I had been excited to run. (PS: Someone asked if there are sidebars and tips for new DMs in HotDQ. There are sidebars with DM tips [b]for the adventure[/b] but they are definitely not direct towards new DMs. HotDQ is definitely not a system-introduction product.) [/QUOTE]
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Hoard of the Dragon Queen: As it Turns out, it's Pretty Good (so far)
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