D&D 5E Why is Hoard of the Dragon Queen such a bad adventure?

[Mephista]

You know, I once had a story that involved a slave owner, and you were supposed to be exposed to all the horrible things happening. My character just wasn't curious enough to go exploring, and not observant enough to actually notice anything - I literally had them sit down and close their eyes while waiting on some other stuff going on.

I managed to avoid an entire story arc of combat and social interaction simply because they were being polite and not looking around. Ruined an entire session's worth of planning by not doing things the GM expected.

Really, in all but the most open of sandboxes, there's a bit of railroading involved. You're following prewritten plot. Or course it needs to make some assumptions of behavior.

 

[aramis erak]

It is a railroad, but not a tight-to-a-single-track one. (I'm into chapter 5 in my FLGS D&DAL casual play group.)
Chapter 1 - the dragon
[sblock]
The Dragon never closes, never targets PC's who don't explicitly make themselves targets, and flees when it takes 25 damage or a single critical hit. Note that it only attacks while the PC's are inside the keep already, so flight is a problem; fleeing will result in making oneself an individual target.[/sblock]

I rate it 4 stars of 5.

The biggest problem is some haste in layout, and a few odd bits in chapter 4.

 

[KarinsDad]

I can only relate my experience as a player since I did not read it. I was totally underwhelmed with the entire concept of Greenest. I'd give it a 2 out of 10. Our group spent the better part of a half hour discussing why we should even bother to go near Greenest with a dragon flying overhead. We did manage to take down the half dragon, but the DM told us that this was due to her giving us archer allies. Our actual tactics were not that good (due to how 5E non-intuititively handles advantage/disadvantage in heavily obscured areas).

After Greenest, we derailed part of the adventure and tricked the NPCs into attacking us multiple times at a place of our choosing. From a player's perspective, I'd give this part a 4 out of 10. One of the encounters was totally created by the DM (she wanted to experiment with creating an encounter and created one so tough that it was almost a TPK). And that was the most memorable encounter of the bunch.

Next, we presumably had a smaller contingent of NPCs in the caves due to our previous actions (or at least, that was the plan). We then infiltrated and used divide and conquer tactics to mop that up. I suspect that the module took that into account. There were some interesting encounters in the caves. I'd give the caves a 6 out of 10.

I think that the DM dropped the next section completely since she said that this was a terrible section and we apparently went off on a totally unrelated sidequest (that has a bunch of benign ghosts in it). The feel is totally different and there has not been a single mention of dragonic creatures or the cult of the dragon, so I doubt any of it is in the module. Due to schedule conflicts, we have had limited playing time the last few months, but that changes in January and I'm hoping that we'll get back to the adventure, just to see if the latter chapters are any better. I suspect that we will stay on our sidequest until we catch up with enough XP to get to level 5.

If the DM drops a section because she thinks it's terrible, I have to give it a 1 out of 10.

Like I said, this is totally from a player's perspective from someone who has not read the adventure. It might actually be better than my experience dictates. But, I haven't actually been wowed by anything in the adventure yet. The Roper fight was the best thing we've encountered (shy of the tough encounter the DM created which was actually pretty interesting). The exploration has been meh (walk through woods to get to encounter x, walk through woods to get to encounter y, etc.) and the NPCs uninspiring. The Monk was annoying (forcing a higher level NPC to be rescued and then temporarily part of the party is often annoying, but if stats for the monk were not available, that might be on our DM) and the worthless governor was nearly as annoying.

 

[77IM]

A good DM can make this module fun but it requires constant modification. OTOH people who call it a "bad" module are forgetting the many awful adventures of yesteryear. I think maybe Paizo's adventure paths have spoiled us.

My two chief complaints:

1. A bit railroady. The "chapter" system is not a bad idea (you have freedom within a chapter, but the chapters link sequentially) but the chapters are too short and the transitions between them somewhat forced. It's like an adventure path but amateurish.

2. Imbalanced, oft-grindy encounters. Part of this is due to developing the adventure in parallel with the game.

I think both problems may stem in part from trying to make an adventure that works well for organized play, where people often want to just show up and ride that train to the next encounter.

 

[Zaran]

I like it. The only real issue I have with it is the fact it's an adventure path. That means those characters chosen at 1st level are doomed to deal with a single plot for the entire game. Even that is not so bad if the next adventure is more open. Yes there were several encounters that are designed for the players not to 'win". that's not a bad thing to teach the players.

My only real gripe with it so far is the Hunting Lodge chapter was way too short and they expect the PCs to level from 6 to 7. I either have to give them what think is free XP following the milestone idea, let them deal with the last chapter one level lower, or add in more content. I don't like having them level from a single session of play.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The largest obstacle in adventure writing these days is that the art of SCENARIO design seems to have been forgotten. A scenario based adventure sets the stage for the status quo prior to engagement by the PCs but doesn't otherwise dictate anything regarding their involvement.

An adventure module is not and should not be a story. It should be ready made content for actual play. The story that emerges from it may be different for every group that plays it. When designing an adventure I concentrate on what is happening and who is doing what before the PCs arrive on the scene. After that, everything depends on what the PCs do. The adventure is all about their activities whatever they choose to do after all. I make notes about what a particular NPC might do if the PCs take certain actions but I won't sketch out any actions undertaken by the PCs, or script/ dictate them.

The end result is a good old fashioned scenario based adventure with an initial situation set up, the arrival of the players, and who knows what craziness to follow. I miss professional adventure designers who remember how to do that.

 

[Evenglare]

it sounds to me that whenever people complain about modules railroading and such it's like.... I don't know. They bought the module but expect that the module doesn't want you to play the story line? Why buy the module? I also see the use of railroading a bit liberally. Railroading to me expects you to follow on a line with invisible walls to a story that can't be changed. Of course modules expect that, but that doesn't mean the DM can't have people go off the path. That's the point of these games. Modules can't account for every single thing, and nor should they. They exist to provide a specific story.

 

[Zaran]

it sounds to me that whenever people complain about modules railroading and such it's like.... I don't know. They bought the module but expect that the module doesn't want you to play the story line? Why buy the module? I also see the use of railroading a bit liberally. Railroading to me expects you to follow on a line with invisible walls to a story that can't be changed. Of course modules expect that, but that doesn't mean the DM can't have people go off the path. That's the point of these games. Modules can't account for every single thing, and nor should they. They exist to provide a specific story.

I bought it because my choices were limited. I'm an avid module user. Railroading isn't a bad thing. But when it consumes the entire life of a PC, holding them hostage throughout the campaign. That's when it gets to be an issue. It would have been much better if the two parts were broken up into 5 pieces each with their own plot. And let the GM and the PCs decide when to stop. Tyranny of Dragons has the issue from day 1 where if the PCs don't buy in, then the world dies.

 

[Prism]

Also the story makes no sense, both the background with Tiamat and also the adventure itself where you trek all along the sword coast following cultist just to end up right next to where you started.

Having played much of the adventure now I have some thoughts on the road trip up the sword coast. I don't know what the adventure actually says about the reasons for such a convoluted path but for me its all about secrecy. You've got two of the top spy organizations in Faerun (Harpers and Zhents) watching your activities you certainly wouldn't want to take the 'hoard' directly to the final destination. If lets say the treasure from Greenest was sent straight to the final location it would be pretty easy for those organizations to work out what was going on and intervene. The knowledge of that location would probably leak to the minor members of the cult and be relatively easy for the adventurers to discover. So you move it around in small chunks, don't tell any of the lower cultists about the big plan and don't take it anywhere near the final destination until you are ready.

I also think there is some pride involved. From the perspective of the leaders of the cult in the Sword Coast it looks far more impressive to turn up for the big ritual with a massive hoard from the whole area, than it is to send in dribs and drabs over the months. Especially if those dribs and drabs lead all the local nosey adventurers straight to you.

Now I don't know what the module says about the reasons but then neither does my character so for him it seems like a fairly cunning plan

 

[ExploderWizard]

it sounds to me that whenever people complain about modules railroading and such it's like.... I don't know. They bought the module but expect that the module doesn't want you to play the story line? Why buy the module? I also see the use of railroading a bit liberally. Railroading to me expects you to follow on a line with invisible walls to a story that can't be changed. Of course modules expect that, but that doesn't mean the DM can't have people go off the path. That's the point of these games. Modules can't account for every single thing, and nor should they. They exist to provide a specific story.

This is exactly the problem with published adventures these days. They are not adventure modules, they are pre-written stories. I have no use for a story already told, for actual play.