D&D 5E Princes vs Abyss

[vandaexpress]

This is a spoiler, but I found it helpful for visualizing the physical interconnection of sites.

http://i.imgur.com/4zHseHJ.jpg

It's not strictly a location based adventure, there are events, and with the GM getting involved you can make it more fluid and less static... but that is where the work is. To make all of this "come alive" I feel like I had to know all the moving parts... and there are a lot of parts.

This is great. I've saved it to my PotA stuff for when I do run it, sooner or later. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Daern]

This is a spoiler, but I found it helpful for visualizing the physical interconnection of sites.

http://i.imgur.com/4zHseHJ.jpg

/QUOTE]

We could use one of these for Abyss...

 

[shadowoflameth]

LMOP?

 

[discosoc]

Run Scourge of the Demon Wolf instead.

 

[Daern]

Why? Is it rad? Isn't that by the guy that did Blackmarsh Bay? I like that and have used it.

 

[Arcshot]

I don't know about OotA, but prep for PotA I am familiar with.

PotA is a bit of an onion sandbox. You start off on the outer-most layer and you search for clues and hints that let you discover the layers below. You can choose to explore all of the outer-most layers before delving into the next layer down, or you can dig down very deep and end up in over your head. Depending on your own style and your player's style, this may mean that you need to know every single layer of the game from the beginning just to run it. On the other hand, beyond a certain point it's very dungeon-crawl heavy and very light on exposition.

Just running the beginning town can be a LOT of prep work, depending on your style.

I bought PotA because of its sandbox style. I favor adventures that allows PCs to wander to gather clues with side quests while commencing with the main plot without much railroading. Having said that, I have not run the PotA campaign yet. After reading your post, I have concerns as you mentioned that it is very dungeon-crawl heavy. I like dungeons but not very big ones. The reason, at least for me, is the mapping, whether by me (DM) or players, incur downtime to do so. We are not drawing super-accurate ones, but mapping requires a bit of work especially for irregular shapes.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Hey folks, I'm wrapping up an extremely off-the-rails "Rise of Tiamat" campaign. I currently own both PotA and OotA. My plan is to take 6 months off from DMing in order to prep the next campaign (I learned the hard way during HotDQ & RoT that I need to spend more time prepping before launching a campaign).

I'm trying to decide which to run. At first I was thinking OotA for SURE, on account of these reviews calling it stuff like "One of the best campaigns for D&D in the past 20 years" or whatever. But then I'm looking at the (admittedly small handful of) reviews and seeing that PotA is still trending higher. I have only skimmed through the two hardbacks, not wanting to distract myself too much while closing my current campaign. My struggle is that I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around what happens in OotA (no great summary anywhere) and gauging how much prep work it will require vs PotA.

I have the following questions:

1. Which campaign requires more prep to run from the book?
2. Which has a stronger story, in your opinion?
3. What is it about OotA that makes it "harder" for novice DMs to run than PotA? (I've read this is the case, but am not sure why?)

As a background on the group: I run a party of 4. Guessing that I'll pick up a fifth for the next campaign. We usually meet weekly, assuming I'm adequately prepared.

I don't have a ton of time to answer, but PotA did not impress me at all when I flipped through it in the bookstore, whereas OotA impressed me enough that I bought it, rolled up a party of four PCs for solo play so I could test it out before offering it to my players, and then liked it so much that I started a new (off-weeks) campaign with my players before running even the first chapter in solo mode.

I love the fact that it functions as kind of an extended DMG for the Underdark (lots of random tables and terrain hazards), the NPC backstories for your fellow slaves, the fact that every chapter has notes on what kind of lighting exists in the area... there are things I hate too (permanent anti-magic zone in the slave pens, of all places--who would waste effort on putting that there instead of just killing the spellcasting slaves?) but so far they've been easy to change.

I haven't gotten past chapter two yet, and it's possible my satisfaction could change, but so far I'm still loving it. (I do like what I've glanced at in later chapters, and am looking forward to some nice battles against Duergar elemental knights.)

RE: question #3, my speculation is that perhaps the things which I love about OotA (freeform nature) are also things which make it harder for novice DMs to run, because it's not pre-scripted. I'm still fairly new as a DM myself and I admit that I had some trouble getting things rolling the first session--the players weren't eager to gather information or meet NPCs or do anything proactive, and it wasn't until the drow guards attempted to kick one of the PCs and he started a fight that things got back in comfortable territory. It would not shock me if the next session were a TPK and we re-started with a new party back in the slave pens, being a little bit more cautious this time about starting a fight with a whole drow outpost...

 

[Arcshot]

SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OUT OF THE ABYSS
Escape from drow slave pits.
Choose a direction to travel in the underdark, engage in a long term flight from drow hunters, using the travel and exploration rules, have various random encounters and discover strange labrynths, most likely ending up at an underground lake at a Kuo Tuo or a Duergar city but possibly at a Myconid forest. Find out the place is going crazy, maybe see a demon lord.
Return to the surface. Enjoy the sunshine. Get summoned by the Dwarves of Gauntelgrym to lead an expedition of torchbearers into the depths to stop the demon lords.
Visit an underground trading post
Visit a mystical Stone Giant Library
Visit the Tower of a renegade drow wizard who has a PLAN
Search the Underdark for spell components for the ritual to lure all the demonlords together and banish them. Maybe see a demonlord.
Go to a demon lord wedding. Have an astra battle in a rotting skull, then maybe a physical battle with a demon lord.
Go to the Drow Homeland City of Menarezzzoboring to steal stuff.
Summon all the demon lords to a godzilla battle (option to have players play them) then maybe fight the surviving demon lord who is hopefully super messed up.
And I think that's a wrap!

Looks huge.
Thanks for the summary - short and sweet - the best I have seen so far.

 

[Creamsteak]

I bought PotA because of its sandbox style. I favor adventures that allows PCs to wander to gather clues with side quests while commencing with the main plot without much railroading. Having said that, I have not run the PotA campaign yet. After reading your post, I have concerns as you mentioned that it is very dungeon-crawl heavy. I like dungeons but not very big ones. The reason, at least for me, is the mapping, whether by me (DM) or players, incur downtime to do so. We are not drawing super-accurate ones, but mapping requires a bit of work especially for irregular shapes.

The book does provide a bunch of not-directly-related side-quests. At the core however, Chapter 3 (the four keeps) is half RP and half dungeon crawl. Chapters 4 and 5, however, are mostly dungeons with some glue between them to connect them to the plot. That's from my perspective. As a GM, I have been willing to put forth the effort to make them more interesting than that. By default, they throw some semi-random event-encounters at you on the surface between dungeon delves, and the opportunity for side adventures... but I think that the main plot takes more work with some groups than others to make it worth dealing with. Obviously, I think it's pretty variable.

 

[Arcshot]

The book does provide a bunch of not-directly-related side-quests. At the core however, Chapter 3 (the four keeps) is half RP and half dungeon crawl. Chapters 4 and 5, however, are mostly dungeons with some glue between them to connect them to the plot. That's from my perspective. As a GM, I have been willing to put forth the effort to make them more interesting than that. By default, they throw some semi-random event-encounters at you on the surface between dungeon delves, and the opportunity for side adventures... but I think that the main plot takes more work with some groups than others to make it worth dealing with. Obviously, I think it's pretty variable.

Cool. From what you have said it should be interesting for my group. Many thanks.