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

[Joe Liker]

All this talk of "you don't have to do this or that" is absurd. The adventure pretty clearly instructs the DM to prod the PCs into certain actions, whether through NPC interactions, leading circumstances, or flat-out blocking the paths that actually make sense. It punishes (or withholds rewards from) players for being sensible in many cases. Instead of role-playing and trying to do what smart adventurers would do, my group eventually started meta-guessing what the module wanted just so we could get through the stupider encounters. I'm sad to say, it worked.

That's not fun, it's not what D&D is supposed to be, and it's a bad way to introduce people to the game.

 

[ad_hoc]

All this talk of "you don't have to do this or that" is absurd. The adventure pretty clearly instructs the DM to prod the PCs into certain actions, whether through NPC interactions, leading circumstances, or flat-out blocking the paths that actually make sense. It punishes (or withholds rewards from) players for being sensible in many cases. Instead of role-playing and trying to do what smart adventurers would do, my group eventually started meta-guessing what the module wanted just so we could get through the stupider encounters. I'm sad to say, it worked.

That's not fun, it's not what D&D is supposed to be, and it's a bad way to introduce people to the game.

What is your best example of this in the adventure?

 

[Bumamgar]

As a DM for this adventure, my biggest complaint is the lack of information about the various NPCs and their plans / motivations or even common locations. The massive typos, poor maps and inconsistent information due to the changing ruleset are forgivable. Giving misleading, inconsistent and in some cases simply impossible information about key NPCs is not. Running this adventure is a chore for the DM. Not due to players derailing the railroad, that is easy to adjust for in general, the challenge lies in trying to figure out who's doing what, where and when so that it's possible to keep the overall adventure on track, and to have guidance. Even if your players follow the railroad precisely as designed, you'll be hard pressed as the DM to figure out when and where they are actually supposed to encounter certain NPCs.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Hoard's binding is starting to come apart too. This module is really annoying me!

 

[Nebulous]

Hoard's binding is starting to come apart too. This module is really annoying me!

That's only because it knew you didn't like it.

 

[Nebulous]

When i read over the adventure i was unimpressed by huge text blocks of dense information. My thought at the time is that i would have to line by line go through the adventure with a highlighter pen and have a separate side notebook to compile notes. Which sounds like WAY too much work for something that really should already be done for me.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Some spoilers I suppose.

The death toll the last two session has been 3 pc. Well its been a debacle so far, but still fun since my players handle setbacks and PC death with no problems. Since the party has been avoiding moving into a lot of situations that they think are too risky, they have missed a lot of XP which has caused them to be too low of level. Cyanwrath has captured 3 of the main PC, who are L2, and slew another L1 replacement PC. So since the one player who ran from the cave has no idea if they are alive or not. So he's putting together a band of mercenaries to try and go back and find out what is what. We also added in an old player who is coming in with another L1 fighter. So they are moving back to try and rescue the PC with a 6 L1 characters, against Cyranwrath, one kobald, and a guard drake. Assuming they survive and are successful the party should be a mix of L1 and L2 characters. Which means I"m going to pretty much have to re-write part 4 to power level them...which I don't like but the other option is to drop this adventure and go back to the more sandbox style vs a race to save the world type thing.

 

[Joe Liker]

The massive typos, poor maps and inconsistent information due to the changing ruleset are forgivable.

Changing ruleset, maybe, if you buy into the notion that they HAD to get an adventure out before the rules were written.

But massive typos and terrible maps? Why would you forgive that? There's simply no excuse. It was a rush job resulting in a shoddy final product, an embarrassment to everyone involved.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

It was shoddily put together and overpriced for sure.

 

[Hussar]

Correct me if I am wrong, I haven't played those modules in a long time, but all of these you mention have "tells" (see MoutonRustique's post below yours). The players are given a lot of heads up info that they are supposed to approach certain encounters in a certain way.

That is totally different than in LMoP where a PC's background tells him that he wants to kill that dragon (or drive it off or some such), and HotDQ where people here on the boards are saying that PCs should walk into a town with a dragon flying overhead (because the module protects the PCs).

People. Make up your fricking minds! Either it's good play to avoid the super tough fights that can kill you (as per RttToEE and SotHG), or it's good play to take on the super tough fights that can kill you (as per LMoP and HotDQ).

But one of these two sets of modules have poor design. I think it is the latter set (LMoP and HotDQ). You seem to think that both are good (even though they are diametrically opposed, one has good tells, the other expects you to fight these foes).

Nope. Return to TOEE has zero tells that there is a blue dragon in the moat house. If you walk in the front door of Secret of the Slaver's Stockade (A1 (did I get the name wrong?)) you eat a troop of orcs armed with a flamethrower. If you are stupid in Hall, you're going to stumble right on that major encounter. In Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, you wind up in a pitched battle with virtually every inhabitant of the dungeon in the first room.

Nothing to do with making up minds. Sorry, you're just mistaken here.