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

[mamba]

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.

then maybe WotC should stop publishing adventures that are made up of 80% dungeon…

 

[FallenRX]

Don't have it or plan on getting it, but do you know who the designers/authors are credited as?

I've been wondering whether these sorts of issues are related to communication management across a large design team or something else.

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

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I quite like the adventure, so it’s mostly a taste thing.

 

[Zaukrie]

Justin Alexander (@alexandrian.bsky.social)

It felt bad writing it. I'm sad that it's true.

bsky.app

That was his reply to me saying I agreed

 

[Parmandur]

Kind of a weird mix of fair criticisms (they could have made the hooks between Loat Mines material and later events explicit rather than leaving it to a DM yo link the Nothic and so on to the Mindflayers) with fairly unhinged bile (such as the climactic area of Zorzula’s Rest being wildly mischaracterized here).

So, pretty standard Alexandrian yelling at clouds review.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I quite like the adventure, so it’s mostly a taste thing.

I don't agree.

Whether you like something or not is taste.

Whether something has these issues - which you may choose to overlook - is a matter of fact.

And you've presented your taste, as if it's equal to his facts and analysis. It isn't. Period. And I say that really not liking the Alexandrian, personally. But he's done a serious analysis and breakdown of the issues and peculiarities of the adventure, and you saying "It's just a matter of taste!" in that context is, at best entirely unhelpful and uninformative. It's not, actually, just a "matter of taste" whether a map doesn't have a key, for example.

Despite my distaste for the fellow, he's one of the few people left who I'd trust to actually review a WotC adventure. Sure I take his taste-based opinions with a lot of salt, but he picks up on really serious flaws and issues with adventures that the much lighter-touch reviews that 99% of D&D reviewers do, absolutely do not, and that often only emerge once people start running them, and indeed have done so for some months.

I'm glad for this review because I was actually thinking of picking this up, as LMoP was so good. Sounds whether you like it or not, this adventure has none of LMoP's good qualities. He likewise convinced me not to pick up Dragonlance, because he pulled out a number of flaws which would have absolutely driven me around the bend if I'd tried to run it.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I don't agree.

Whether you like something or not is taste.

Whether something has these issues - which you may choose to overlook - is a matter of fact.

And you've presented your taste, as if it's equal to his facts and analysis. It isn't. Period. And I say that really not liking the Alexandrian, personally. But he's done a serious analysis and breakdown of the issues and peculiarities of the adventure, and you saying "It's just a matter of taste!" in that context is, at best entirely unhelpful and uninformative. It's not, actually, just a "matter of taste" whether a map doesn't have a key, for example.

The final area of Zorzula’s Rest does not have a key because it’s just a boss arena that consists of one room, and the things inside it. So he is just plain wrong about that complaint in my opinion.

I just don’t feel like going into a whole thing, so I was pretty much just saying I disagree, cause I don’t want to put in a bunch of effort right now.

 

[Nikosandros]

What's the deal with all the hostility towards Alexander? The stuff I've read from him has been useful and his remix of Dragon Heist was extremely well done.

 

[SakanaSensei]

What's the deal with all the hostility towards Alexander? The stuff I've read from him has been useful and his remix of Dragon Heist was extremely well done.

He’s critical. There’s been a lot of talk in the gaming YouTube sphere lately about review scores and their (potential lack of) worth. Reason being that for the most part, people get angry if you’re critical of thing they like (how can you give this game I enjoyed a 7?!) and spent money on.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I just don’t feel like going into a whole thing, so I was pretty much just saying I disagree, cause I don’t want to put in a bunch of effort right now.

Sure, and no-one requires you to. But you implying his extremely detailed critiques were "just a matter of taste" is absolutely shenanigans. They're not "just a matter of taste". Most of them are extremely factual. Whether you care about them may just be a matter of taste, but it's an extremely good thing that we have someone who can identify them.