D&D 5E Anyone else feeling "meh" about recent 5e releases?

[FlyingChihuahua]

But fine, I haven't read all the 5e adventures, and clearly I'm an outlier, so I'll ask the thread: How would you order the 5e Adventures from best to worst? And how do they compare to other adventures from other systems?

Would that really be useful, since what is good to me could possibly be terrible for you or vice versa and ultimately be completely useless?

 

[Warpiglet]

People have different opinions surely about a wide variety of things. But reading the OP has me feeling like an alien on an alien world.

Playing AD&D 1st and a bit of third, I have never been so inspired as I am now. The core books are great. Xanathars Volos and mordenkainens are fabulous. I have interest in salt marsh and avernus.

The cartoony stuff and realms lore holds little interest. But I am really thrilled with the roleplaying and character diversity in the game which actually has fairly good balance.

There is some mystery again without magic shops and the ability to automatically whip up a magic item of choice.

I will simply beg to differ. I have never made cooler characters from a roleplaying perspective. The backgrounds really help inspire complexity when paired with racial and class diversity.

Even crazier, I like to DM more than ever and have written up a campaign world...

I find 5e invigorating. The acquisitions stuff and the realms in general are turn offs. But if wotc wants to get me to buy another edition they're going to have to wait. There is so much untapped story making potential in the releases I mentioned that I have years of use and inspiration still to come.

I don't feel like we have scratched the surface.

 

[Parmandur]

Objectively I think HotDQ is a bad adventure.

But depending on your DM and players you could have fun.

It's also not that hard to easily modify or start at level 2.
The opening scene is terrible. 6 to 8 encounters but 3 or 4 is tpk material here.

It is certainly intersubjectively the least well received of the adventure books:

Notably, your last point is what they are changing for the limited edition fifth anniversary reprint of Tyranny of Dragons, reworking the opening to be not so TPK territory. The beginning is extremely memorable, at any rate.

 

[Parmandur]

Good for you for educating me. Congratulations. Have a peach.



Again, thanks for pointing out the obvious.

However, I'd state that even positive reviews of the book point out that there significant flaws in the adventure. I've read more threads and posts about how to actually run the darn book than any other 5e adventure.

But fine, I haven't read all the 5e adventures, and clearly I'm an outlier, so I'll ask the thread: How would you order the 5e Adventures from best to worst? And how do they compare to other adventures from other systems?

I certainly agree that it is the most uneven and problematic of the Adventure books: it was an experiment very much surpassed by subsequent go around.

My point is, people are still doing prep work and getting going on the book after five years, and buying it on Amazon (still in stores, too). Heck, Hoard of the Dragon Queen right now is competitive with the PF2 books. That is absurd longevity for what is absolutely the least of the 5E Adventures, it has been on store shelves in print longer than the 3.5 Core books were.

 

[Mercurius]

I dunno- everything about 5e has been for lack of a better word "meh" for me since it was released. It's a very unexciting "back to basics" edition with little to get angry about but also little to get very excited about. It very much is a game for me where the excitement comes only from playing it at the table with the right mix of people and not really from the products or the game itself away from the table - makes it hard to DM for me because 5e requires 2e levels of prep for me to run but often feels like a chore to do that prep instead of fun.

I really like 5E, but somewhat agree with you. To me 5E is the "B+ edition" - good to very good in most ways, but neither amazing or bad in any way.

And the vanilla analogy that someone else rings true for me, as long as we say premium store bought, rather than supermarket brand. And to this point...

Yeah, but that's the point... YOU ADD YOUR FLAVOR!

Yes, this is exactly it. If you can only ever buy one flavor of ice cream, it should be vanilla because not only does it go with cake or pie, you can always add toppings. Super Dooper Chocolate Caramel Chaos may be tastier, but it lacks flexibility...it doesn't go so well with strawberry pie.

What I'm concerned about is 2020 will be entering the 7th year of product for 5e. There are still notable gaps in content (psionics, high level adventures, to name two).
Granted WotC's publishing schedule is different this time around, but by 7 years 4e was done, 3.x was almost done, and 2e was in its twilight years.
If the game is supposedly stronger now than ever, why the glacial pace?

But that's just it: It is stronger now than ever partially because of the glacial pace. The tortoise approach is working.

That said, it does seem they are upping the pace a bit. From 2015-17 they released three books a year; last year they added a fourth; this year they are releasing five if you include Acquisitions and the Tyranny of Dragons book, not to mention two starter sets in Stranger Things and Essentials.

Who knows what next year will bring?

 

[Parmandur]

I really like 5E, but somewhat agree with you. To me 5E is the "B+ edition" - good to very good in most ways, but neither amazing or bad in any way.

And the vanilla analogy that someone else rings true for me, as long as we say premium store bought, rather than supermarket brand. And to this point...



Yes, this is exactly it. If you can only ever buy one flavor of ice cream, it should be vanilla because not only does it go with cake or pie, you can always add toppings. Super Dooper Chocolate Caramel Chaos may be tastier, but it lacks flexibility...it doesn't go so well with strawberry pie.



But that's just it: It is stronger now than ever partially because of the glacial pace. The tortoise approach is working.

That said, it does seem they are upping the pace a bit. From 2015-17 they released three books a year; last year they added a fourth; this year they are releasing five if you include Acquisitions and the Tyranny of Dragons book, not to mention two starter sets in Stranger Things and Essentials.

Who knows what next year will bring?

You forgot the Rick and Morty box set, though I only would count AI, GoS, BG, and RftLW as main releases.

Tyranny of Dragons is the only Adventure book I have any interest in this format, but they might do the others as they turn 5.

But for a main hardcover releases moving forwards, I predict one old redo Adventure book, one generic supplement, one Storyline Adventure, and one Setting per year, with one hardcover a Quarter.

 

[Sacrosanct]

People have different opinions surely about a wide variety of things. But reading the OP has me feeling like an alien on an alien world.

Playing AD&D 1st and a bit of third, I have never been so inspired as I am now. The core books are great. Xanathars Volos and mordenkainens are fabulous. I have interest in salt marsh and avernus.

The cartoony stuff and realms lore holds little interest. But I am really thrilled with the roleplaying and character diversity in the game which actually has fairly good balance.

There is some mystery again without magic shops and the ability to automatically whip up a magic item of choice.

I will simply beg to differ. I have never made cooler characters from a roleplaying perspective. The backgrounds really help inspire complexity when paired with racial and class diversity.

Even crazier, I like to DM more than ever and have written up a campaign world...

I find 5e invigorating. The acquisitions stuff and the realms in general are turn offs. But if wotc wants to get me to buy another edition they're going to have to wait. There is so much untapped story making potential in the releases I mentioned that I have years of use and inspiration still to come.

I don't feel like we have scratched the surface.

I haven’t even played half of the adventures officially for 5e and I feel the same way. It’s the toolset that has inspired me, not any particular campaign or adventure. Pre existing campaigns like Acquisitions holds no appeal for me. However, in full disclosure, I’ve written my own adventures since near the beginning in the early 80s anyway.

 

[Parmandur]

I haven’t even played half of the adventures officially for 5e and I feel the same way. It’s the toolset that has inspired me, not any particular campaign or adventure. Pre existing campaigns like Acquisitions holds no appeal for me. However, in full disclosure, I’ve written my own adventures since near the beginning in the early 80s anyway.

My experience with D&D before Lost Mines of Phandelver was all homebrew adventuring: all I know about older adventures comes from looking into them post-2014 after my positive experiences with Lost Mines and Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

 

[Xenonnonex]

Oooh, I know, better yet, let's publish yet another Forgotten Realms adventure. Everyone loves more Realms. Let's stay in that box. After all, Baldur's Gate is practically a whole different setting from Waterdeep. After we printed an Adventure called with the word "heist" in it, but that is not an actual heist.

It is posts like this that make me question whether people have actually bothered to read the books or just jumped to a conclusion based on a cursory glance of the covers.
Dragon Heist is spelled out as a treasure hunt in the Introduction of that book.

I suppose calling it Waterdeep: Dragon Hunt would have a widely different connotation.

 

[Parmandur]

It is posts like this that make me question whether people have actually bothered to read the books or just jumped to a conclusion based on a cursory glance of the covers.
Dragon Heist is spelled out as a treasure hunt in the Introduction of that book.

I suppose calling it Waterdeep: Dragon Hunt would have a widely different connotation.

More inaccurate, at that. Honestly, the pieces to build a full-on heist are in the book, with the villain HQs, but not fully drawn out.