[UPDATED] Out of the Abyss Reviews Have Started Rolling In

Dargrimm

First Post

• Sep 7, 2015

• #1

Reviews for Out of the Abyss (which was released in preferred stores on Friday, and will appear elsewhere on the 15th, or - as I have discovered - on Amazon UK sometime in mid-October) have started to show up online. Diehard Gamefan says it's "the best campaign I’ve seen released for any system this year"; while Dungeons & Donuts' Kiel Chenier is less happy with it, calling it "overwritten and badly organized".

The adventure is now available for ratings and comments right here at EN World, so be sure to give it a quick score or - if you've published a review elsewhere - link to it from here.

Diehard Gamefan says "It’s a fantastic product and the best campaign I’ve seen released for any system this year. It is well worth the cover price, especially if you can find it at places like Amazon that have it for only $31. I can’t recommend Out of the Abyss enough and I am even more excited for the WotC/Green Ronin Sword Coast release."

Dungeons & Donuts says "Out of the Abyss is a big step forward for WotC pubilshed adventures in terms of ideas and concepts, but it also unfortunately retains all the flaws of its predecessors: a dire hexcrawl that blends whimsy and terror perfectyl, but is difficult to use and reference at the table".

Tribality says "If you have any interest in the Underdark I would pick up this book for sure. I couldn’t help thinking about all the ways I wanted to “borrow” the Underdark creatures and locations for my own campaign. A great adventure to run and resource to have! Pick it up this week and dare to descend into the Underdark."

Slug Magazine says "Out of the Abyss is, without a doubt, one of the best adventure modules to be released for D&D in over a decade. It’s more than just a well-crafted adventure—it’s a proving ground for some of Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition‘s best ideas. This module dares to venture into the furthest reaches of this edition, drawing from a vast pool of mechanics that uniquely fit its storytelling pace and style. This is a challenging adventure—both to run and to play—but few other pre-made adventures in the history of Dungeons & Dragons have the kind of rewarding immersion that can be found here."

DnD Troop says "Put simply, this is shaping up to be the best published adventure yet for 5e for a more experienced group. The huge amount of options and mechanics to run the Underdark as a living, breathing and terrifying place for your party to survive in are REALLY well done. The broad themes of madness, fear and demonic possession are subjectively a lot more compelling than what we’ve seen so far with the Cult of the Dragon and the Cults of Elemental Evil. For a brand new DM though, we’d suggest getting your bearings in the starter set adventure “Lost Mines of Phandelver” before tackling this one."

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Original post:

I just found one of the first reviews of Out of the Abyss. I thought it could be nice to keep all links to reviews in one thread, so here is the first I found:

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SilverfireSage

Explorer

• Sep 6, 2015

• #3

"A good comparison is probably Chaosium’s Horror on the Orient Express"

Sold.

 

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Celtavian

Dragon Lord

• Sep 6, 2015

• #4

The review makes it sound like good fun. Lots to work with as a DM.

 

Quickleaf

Legend

• Sep 6, 2015

• #5

Kiel Chenier (Dungeons & Donuts) has a multi-part review of Out of the Abyss here:

http://dungeonsdonuts.tumblr.com/post/128371010764/my-review-of-out-of-the-abyss-the-new-dd

 

pukunui

Legend

• Sep 6, 2015

• #6

[MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]: Thanks for sharing that review. I have to agree with the reviewer regarding 5e's user-unfriendly organization. That's the one thing that I really dislike about this edition, and it's sad to see that they still haven't cottoned on to how much of a problem it is yet.

 

CapnZapp

Legend

• Sep 6, 2015

• #7

Quickleaf said:

Kiel Chenier (Dungeons & Donuts) has a multi-part review of Out of the Abyss here:

http://dungeonsdonuts.tumblr.com/post/128371010764/my-review-of-out-of-the-abyss-the-new-dd

Click to expand...

What's with the harebrained and super-frustrating idea to post text as pictures?

It's next to impossible to zoom in to make the text bigger for my old eyes!

If he's really that afraid somebody will steal his quotes, why not stay away from the internet?

 

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graves3141

First Post

• Sep 6, 2015

• #8

Wow, dungeondonuts said it was the best AP so far and then gave it three out of five stars.

What makes people keep saying the APs are unorganized? Is it just a matter of the campaign world/setting info and the story elements not being separated well?

 

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The Hitcher

Explorer

• Sep 6, 2015

• #9

Seems like a pretty balanced review. I'll still be buying and running it, but it's good to be forewarned that extra prep might be required. The saving grace of our game is that we only play about 2.5 hours at a time, so it's usually not too difficult to figure out what's going to happen in the next session.

 

Cadriel

First Post

• Sep 6, 2015

• #10

graves3141 said:

Wow, dungeondonuts said it was the best AP so far and then gave it three out of five stars.

What makes people keep saying the APs are unorganized? Is it just a matter of the campaign world/setting info and the story elements not being separated well?

Click to expand...

It's challenging to run the APs as written because of the poor organization of information. All of them are overwritten and actually running an area usually means flipping back and forth between 3 or 4 places in the module to get all the information you'd want to use as a DM. WotC is bad at presenting information concisely (which is ironic when you consider that the Magic: the Gathering cards are marvels of info design).

Red Larch in Princes of the Apocalypse was extremely difficult to run, because NPCs with unpronounceable names are cross-referenced over and over, and you have to go hunting through the whole town to find them. (It breaks down badly when PCs go to the tavern, which is supposed to be haunted by various NPCs but only one is specified.) The drow outpost that Out of the Abyss starts in is marginally better at this but still has a lot of cross-referencing to do. Better information design would've presented this in a more concise manner and made it easier to pick out salient ideas quickly.