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

[Parmandur]

No it doesn't, the episode clearly state that if the characters don't enter the town than the cult forces pillage and burn to thier heart content and leave at dawn.



Warder

Yeah, the writers take consideration of a number of probable actions that players can take; sure, it requires meta-game buy in, but guess what? New players generally have boatloads of meta-game buy in, as they come in highly conscious of this being a game. It takes a certain amount of experience to get so into character as to make realistically smart moves instead of action movie or video game moves.

 

[Hussar]

Ok, I'll admit, I haven't read the module, so, i'm going by what I read. If I understand this right, the party arrives at the town, which is under attack from a dragon. The module contains information for the DM if the PC's attack the dragon or run away and avoid the dragon.

So, explain to me again where the railroad is because I'm seeing an adventure that has a number of possible outcomes here.

 

[Parmandur]

Ok, I'll admit, I haven't read the module, so, i'm going by what I read. If I understand this right, the party arrives at the town, which is under attack from a dragon. The module contains information for the DM if the PC's attack the dragon or run away and avoid the dragon.



So, explain to me again where the railroad is because I'm seeing an adventure that has a number of possible outcomes here.

Well, enter the town and make your way to the keep along with helpless refugees (given bounded accuracy, strength in position and numbers makes sense, and is explained by an NPC who is being attacked by Kobolds as you enter town), definitely not attack the dragon directly.

All the actual stuff in the module assumes you went for the keep; there is an aside explaining how everyone in town doesn't like you if you sit it out, and there is no XP or loot to be had.

 

[Hussar]

Well, enter the town and make your way to the keep along with helpless refugees (given bounded accuracy, strength in position and numbers makes sense, and is explained by an NPC who is being attacked by Kobolds as you enter town), definitely not attack the dragon directly.

All the actual stuff in the module assumes you went for the keep; there is an aside explaining how everyone in town doesn't like you if you sit it out, and there is no XP or loot to be had.

Oh, noes, the party avoids the encounters, acts like cowards, and everyone hates them and they aren't rewarded? I'd say that's precisely the way we want to teach new players.

 

[Blackwarder]

Ok, I'll admit, I haven't read the module, so, i'm going by what I read. If I understand this right, the party arrives at the town, which is under attack from a dragon. The module contains information for the DM if the PC's attack the dragon or run away and avoid the dragon.

So, explain to me again where the railroad is because I'm seeing an adventure that has a number of possible outcomes here.

I think that the railroad is the fact that there is a part where the DM can have the dragon attack the keep while the characters are inside and if the characters do enough damage (25 hp) it flies away.

And the players aren't forced to engage it, they can choose to not engage it and the mayor won't fault them about that...

Like any published adventure, you need to tweak it to suit your table, and unlike must published adventure the fact that they had to write it without finalized rules cause some unbalanced encounters (and Steve Winter got an errata post in WotC forums) but all in all its a great adventure IMO.

Warder

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Well, enter the town and make your way to the keep along with helpless refugees (given bounded accuracy, strength in position and numbers makes sense, and is explained by an NPC who is being attacked by Kobolds as you enter town), definitely not attack the dragon directly.

All the actual stuff in the module assumes you went for the keep; there is an aside explaining how everyone in town doesn't like you if you sit it out, and there is no XP or loot to be had.

It also assumes that you decide to infiltrate the enemy camp full of hundreds of enemies, that is what my players avoided, instead just spying from the outside and picking off some groups of guards, before finally trying to get a thief to sneak in after the camp was at full alert in order to try and find where the prisoners were. Well he rolled poorly on his CHA check and was unable to talk his way out of anything and in trying to flee was killed. So the rest of the group pulled out and went back to the keep to report what they knew and recover while finding a new PC. Then when they went back to the camp for Chapter 3 they were a level off where the module kind of expected them to be and its been a slaughter. So we have several new PC's now going to try and recover the ones that were killed or captured. I'm thinking they get killed too unless I start nerfing or giving them free levels..which just isn't how I run a game. So for me its a gamestyle conflict really. I don't go out of my way to modify and tailor everything to always be appropriate for the party if actions on the enemies part are set up to do something else, which has lead to a the current situation where I'm guessing they are going to pull out of the area. Or maybe they will use great tactics and roll good and get it done. We will see next week. This has just really rammed the point home that AP style stuff isn't for a more sandbox DM like me, which I should have learned by now. I may just throw the book away and wing the rest of it.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

It also assumes that you decide to infiltrate the enemy camp full of hundreds of enemies, that is what my players avoided, instead just spying from the outside and picking off some groups of guards, before finally trying to get a thief to sneak in after the camp was at full alert in order to try and find where the prisoners were. Well he rolled poorly on his CHA check and was unable to talk his way out of anything and in trying to flee was killed. So the rest of the group pulled out and went back to the keep to report what they knew and recover while finding a new PC. Then when they went back to the camp for Chapter 3 they were a level off where the module kind of expected them to be and its been a slaughter. So we have several new PC's now going to try and recover the ones that were killed or captured. I'm thinking they get killed too unless I start nerfing or giving them free levels..which just isn't how I run a game. So for me its a gamestyle conflict really. I don't go out of my way to modify and tailor everything to always be appropriate for the party if actions on the enemies part are set up to do something else, which has lead to a the current situation where I'm guessing they are going to pull out of the area. Or maybe they will use great tactics and roll good and get it done. We will see next week. This has just really rammed the point home that AP style stuff isn't for a more sandbox DM like me, which I should have learned by now. I may just throw the book away and wing the rest of it.

Instead of giving free levels, maybe you could hand out a bunch of "random" encounters with hobgoblins and werewolves and stuff while they are travelling/resting? That should level them up pretty quickly.

 

[Parmandur]

Well, the module suggests using mile-stone leveling, so yeah, a bit of a style conflict, it sounds like.

 

[SirAntoine]

That's too bad it's such a poor module. I had high hopes that Wizards of the Coast would get everything right this time around. Adventure writing is pretty basic, and if they're having trouble with it that could be a sign of a lot of problems.

All you can do is make the most of the module, or write your own.

 

[Staffan]

That's too bad it's such a poor module. I had high hopes that Wizards of the Coast would get everything right this time around. Adventure writing is pretty basic, and if they're having trouble with it that could be a sign of a lot of problems.

All you can do is make the most of the module, or write your own.

It's actually not that basic, particularly if you want to write an adventure you can actually sell and expect others to be able to play rather than just something you're writing at home for your own table. When writing a home adventure, you know the players and their characters so you only have to plan for the things they're capable of and likely to do, but in a commercial adventure you have to plan for everything. You also need to spell things out in greater detail, because the person running the adventure is not the one with all the background info in his or her head.

Even Paizo, who are generally lauded for their adventure writing, have made some clunkers.