D&D 5E Justin Alexander's review of Shattered Obelisk is pretty scathing

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Not surprising. Most of their adventures seem designed by sub-committees that have no idea what the others are doing. As a result, they're poorly balanced, illogical, and don't follow a unified theme.

The second half of his review explains how the dungeons don't even work within a single level. This seems like a more serious breakdown than fragmented teams.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You know this is a great review because it's written to be as toxic and cancerous as possible.

He can be a lot, to be sure. He also tends to be right, most of the time.

 

[Zaukrie]

You know this is a great review because it's written to be as toxic and cancerous as possible.

Completely unfair. Have you read the product? What do you disagree with?

 

[Gradine]

He can be a lot, to be sure. He also tends to be right, most of the time.

Let's not open the door for that particular subject, or you'll risk summoning... him

 

[Gradine]

As per the review, I haven't read the product at all but it sounds like it does have some serious problems. That said, Alexander is an old-school dungeon kinda guy, and 5e doesn't really do old-school dungeons with nearly the same degree as seriousness. Note his soreness over the DMG's lack of instruction on "properly keying a dungeon". 5e lacking a dungeon-mapping style guide is a not a black mark on the product/system. It's simply not where the emphasis is for DMs anymore. Open-ended, stylized and mapless dungeons are not inherently worse than the Standard Gygax Crawl (or even the Deluxe Jaquays Experience.)

Of course, if Wizards is going to produce products that attempts to re-create that original dungeon-crawling feel and screw up so bad that the dungeon isn't remotely internally consistent, that's a different story. The Shattered Obelisk sounds like a bad product for a number of purely objective measures. But evolving design sensibilities don't necessarily make something bad just because you preferred the old ways.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The fact that the initial goblin caves encounter in Lost Mines was made harder was a huge red flag to begin with. It's depressing that seems to have been indicative of the rest of the product.

I'm glad D&D Beyond still has the original version up for those who claimed it in time. Hopefully it'll one day get added to D&D Beyond and we can POD it.

 

[Stormonu]

This almost sounds like they pulled a Halloween/Halloween 3 with the adventure module. I was hoping to get this, but after flipping through it and reading the above review I'm strongly reconsidering.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Let's not open the door for that particular subject, or you'll risk summoning... him

To be fair, I also think that I'm a lot -- and also right, most of the time.

It's not an insult in my mind.

 

[Quickleaf]

According to part two of his review:

Project Lead: Amanda Hamon
Writers: Richard Baker, Eytan Bernstein, Makenzie De Armas, Amanda Hamon, Ron Lundeen, Christopher Perkins

Amazing team of folks! Tons of experience between them.

Makes some of the faults Justin is pointing out puzzling.

 

[mamba]

Yeah, it is not that great an adventure, hoped for more. It is plagued by the same problems as other WotC adventures with presenting disjointed pieces with no clear motivation / logical reason for the chars to follow the path the adventure expects / needs them to.

So yes, I agree, mediocre and needs work. Somehow they managed to make LMoP worse with this, not better.

The first comment under the article said “Some changes they’ve made to the original version of Lost Mines of Phandelver are mildly baffling, like replacing the Owlbear in Cragmaw Castle with a Grell without also drawing a connection between this very-out-of-place Grell and the Illithid storyline for both the DM and PCs.

And then there are others, like removing Gundren’s map to the Lost Mine from King Grol’s quarters in Cragmaw Castle, that suggest bewildering levels of incompetence. I can’t think of any good reason to remove all of King Grol’s treasure (where the map was originally found), but especially so given that it included the very thing the PCs are expected to use to get to the mine.”