Has WotC saturated the published adventure market or are the two latest adventures not very popular?

Enevhar Aldarion · Nov 27, 2018

I am more surprised there is not more talk about the non-adventure part of Dragon Heist. Have there been any threads talking about how to use the information in it to make our own cities work better? Also, because so little of Dragon Heist is player-friendly material, maybe there is also a lot less talk about it in general? Same thing for Mad Mage. It is also not the normal part adventure/part gazetteer/part player info that the previous several adventures have been. There is less to talk about because it is not a player-friendly purchase.

And I am sort of laughing at the whole "4 whole books in a couple of months" thing, seeing as how many people have posted here over the past four years that 3 or 4 books a year is nowhere near enough releases and they wanted a book every month or two. I am surprised that none of them have popped in here to say this is great and they want more.

dave2008 · Nov 27, 2018

I don't plan on buying it (I don't really have a need for more adventure material), but I am interested to hear how DotMM plays out as it is the first WotC book able to take you to lvl 20.

Jester David · Nov 27, 2018

MechaPilot said:
Oh yeah, Dragon Heist, that adventure where you organize and execute a heist to steal a sleeping dragon's hoard.

What? What do you mean that's not what the adventure's about?

Ooh. The coins are called dragons, and you're not so much trying to steal them as you are trying to prevent others from getting them.

So, instead of stealing a sleeping dragon's hoard the adventure titled Dragon Heist is about finding a cache of coins and turning them in to the authorities for a reward. Not so exciting a concept anymore.

As I've said elsewhere, I imagine the point of the adventure was at the final second the Stone of MacGuffin gets stolen and you need to steal it back from the villain, which is why all their lairs are described. It gives you that detail so you can perform a heist and recover the stone you'd been tracking.

But, then in playtests and upon second thought, that never worked at all, because the PCs would just find some way of not having the stone stolen or otherwise derail the railroad. Or insisted less on a heist and more of a daring frontal assault. And so that element got downplayed and buried.

Mouseferatu · Nov 27, 2018

dave2008 said:
I don't plan on buying it (I don't really have a need for more adventure material), but I am interested to hear how DotMM plays out as it is the first WotC book able to take you to lvl 20.

This is a perfectly valid position--I say that in advance because I don't want you to think this is directed at you, personally

--but a lot of people in this community are going to wind up disappointed if this turns out to be a common viewpoint.

A lot of people have been complaining that WotC isn't publishing adventures or material for high level. Now they have, and it seems like a lot of people aren't buying it.

I mean, I get it. If people don't have the money to spend, they don't have the money. If people don't like mega-dungeons, they don't like mega-dungeons. (I'm not a big fan of mega-dungeons.)

But if WotC's first stab at high-level material--which they've already said is in less demand--doesn't do well, it's going to be a long time before we see a second.

Mercurius · Nov 27, 2018

My first impression of both books is two big thumbs up. Ravnica is not only a lovely book, but a really intriguing setting - I am very happy that WotC branched out from the old (and relatively stale) classics. Mad Mage is fun and useful as not only a mega-dungeon but relatively autonomous adventures, if you feel so inclined to use them that way.

Both cover new territory from what has already been done for 5e, so I'm not sure saturation is as much as an issue as specificity.

Paul Farquhar · Nov 27, 2018

I belong to a group of roughly a hundred players. Anecdotally, Dragon Heist seems to have been very well received and is very popular. The buzz for Mad Mage and Ravnica seems to be around zero, even allowing for supply chain problems in obtaining print versions.

I can't really say why. I know I dislike megadungeons, and I don't think my players like them much either (they all dislike mapping). And the premise of Undermountain is a terrible cliché. As for Ravnica, I suspect there aren't many MtG players in the group, and there is nothing about the setting that really appeals over Generic Fantasyland (Gothic Horror is popular, I think more Ravenloft would have gone down much better).

pukunui · Nov 27, 2018

FWIW Dragon Heist is currently polling at 58.5% here on EN World. Of all the official 5e hardcover adventures, only Hoard of the Dragon Queen has a lower score and not by much (52.5%). Granted DH is still one review short of being certified; nevertheless, I think it is fairly telling that it is currently the second least-popular hardcover adventure.

Sadras · Nov 27, 2018

robus said:
Has anyone else noticed an apparent lack of interest in discussing the content in the latest pair of adventures?

In my memory the latest adventures get a flurry of threads and posts as people read through and find things to talk about, especially when it comes to running the adventure. Dragon Heist had some of that but it tapered off quickly, but Mad Mage has very little. (Perhaps I’m jumping the gun with this observation? )

My pet theory is that we’re all quite busy running any one of the other published adventures (or home brew) so there’s little attention remaining for these. But a close runner up is that a bunch of people are just not excited by them.

What do you think?

I think you're definitely jumping the gun.

I'm playing a massive campaign which includes a mashup of MiBG (Done), LofCS (1 session left), SKT (Chapter 3) with the backdrop of ToD (currently RoT) - so I'm years behind. :.-(

I still intend to run CoS, ToA, Dragon Heist and Mad Mage someday.
I'm always scouring [MENTION=54629]pukunui[/MENTION]'s enhancing threads years later.

pukunui · Nov 27, 2018

[MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] I think you may have me confused with [MENTION=6702445]jayoungr[/MENTION]. She’s started most of the enhancing threads, although I have posted a lot in some of them. I’m afraid you won’t get many Dragon Heist enhancements from me. Possibly not for Mad Mage either. I haven’t got it yet and am not even sure if I will run it.

TheSword · Nov 27, 2018

I’ll be honest I got mine two days ago, and wasn’t blown away to be honest. What Undermountain really needed was the campaign arcs, interaction with factions in the city above, roleplay and help challenging high level parties. What it turned out to be was 22 loosely connected dungeons with a page talking about particularly interesting denizens on each level. The plot links between levels are tenuous at best and there is next to no ‘out of dungeon’ support. It is effectively 300 odd pages of rooms. I’m a bit gutted to be honest. I was really looking forward to Undermountain getting the Curse of Strahd/Out of the Abyss treatment.

Has WotC saturated the published adventure market or are the two latest adventures not very popular?

Enevhar Aldarion

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dave2008

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Jester David

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Mouseferatu

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Mercurius

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Paul Farquhar

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pukunui

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Sadras

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TheSword

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