D&D 5E D&D 5e Adventure Reviews

[LordEntrails]

Princes of the Apocalypse. Very linear adventure with even less of an adventure hook than most others, but it does have some good side quests and stories. It is a lot of dungeon slogging, but is also fairly epic.

It's usually regarded as too much of a sandbox? Too easy for unwary PCs to wander in somewhere deadly & get TPK'd?
The hook was pretty obvious for me - "Go investigate cult activity in the Dessarin Hills".

The hook is clear, but the player integration into this plot is not very drawing for the players, IMHO.

I too didn't see PotA as linear. Yes one could run it very lineraly by controlling the sequence of events and the hooks the DM gives to the players. But I also ran it very sandbox style. Where many things were happening at once, where the players had choices to make. Now I did give them clues that indicated somethings were more imminent or of a priority so that they might chose to deal with the little things first. But, they could have (and almost did) get themselves in over their heads. And, they left other parts of the storyline pretty much alone and ignored (they never did go do anything in the pirate/bandit town to the south).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

2. Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. Amazing adventure, great hooks and villains. There are some problems with it, but they're not huge.

Interesting to see this rated so high. Most of the discussion I've heard about it seemed to be that it was a bit of an incomplete mess that needed a serious re-work.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

This is how I ranked my adventures. You may rank them in different ways, but this is just how I did it, and they are ranked from most important to least important:

So, the first thing I took into account was the hook into the adventure. In my opinion, this is the most important part of the adventure, as the draw into the adventure is a major part of determining how players will feel about the adventure run.

Next, I analyzed the overarching plot. Who are the villains, what are their motivations, how late in the adventure they appear, and so on. Dragon Heist has very prominent and drawing villains with known motivations and cool themes and goals. Rise of Tiamat is basically the opposite. You know what the villains want to do, they want to free Tiamat. Why? Who knows? They're evil, that'll work. So, they're evil, want to free an evil goddess just to destroy the world, or have revenge, or something. Dragon Heist has much better villains than Rise of Tiamat, IMO, because you know more about them and what they want.

Then, I analyzed the theme of the adventure. Curse of Strahd is dark, with a bit of hope. Descent into Avernus is a dark adventure that blends the lines between law and good, causing moral dilemmas in the party. Tomb of Annihilation is a gritty meat grinder, with humor mixed in with world-saving. To me, what draws me more to an adventure is how good the theme is. Out of the Abyss is themed around chaos and backstabbing, but IMO is not as well executed as Curse of Strahd or Storm King's Thunder.

After that, I took in account how linear, railroady, or sandboxy the adventures are. I prefer sandboxing adventures. That's just the type of adventure I like. Linear stories can be executed and written well, and so can railroady adventures, but I am personally more drawn to sandboxy adventures. Curse of Strahd is linear. You know your goal, kill Strahd, but it is sandboxy in the sense that player agency is the most important thing in the adventure.

Finally, I analyzed the overall adventure content. How exciting it was, what encounters happen, what twists occur, or puzzles, mind-games, moral choices. All of this stuff is what I considered last. Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus is great at making morally questionable choices seem viable. Tomb of Annihilation has great puzzles and riddles. All of this is still very important to me, even though it is listed last. Hoard of the Dragon Queen does not have any of these. There's no riddles, mind-games, morally ambiguous themes, or anything like this. It is very bland. This is why I listed the Tyranny of Dragons adventures last. On all 5 accounts, they failed in my book.

I listed Tyranny of Dragons last, because the hook is not very drawing, IMHO. The theme is not drawing. It is very linear and railroady. The plot is well known from early on in the adventure. It is not drawing in overall content. Again, this is just my opinion and how I rank adventures.

I hope this clears things up.

 

[Mort]

Interesting to see this rated so high. Most of the discussion I've heard about it seemed to be that it was a bit of an incomplete mess that needed a serious re-work.

That's certainly my opinion of it! It's a mess. Lots of cool individual ideas and themes but the connective tissue is bare to non-existent and often actively bad when it does exist.

Heck the module devotes a bunch of pages to villain lairs the players are not expected to get to or even find. And if they do somehow get to them - the encounters are WAY above their CR level and they'll be lucky to survive (which isn't NECESSARILY a bad thing, but the module provides no warning for this and it's quite jarring).

I have been running Decent into Avernus. It is very linear but we haven't had a problem with that at all - the group has been having a blast (though that could also be because I run it almost beer and pretzels level non-seriously, it's our goto when 1 or 2 people can't make the regular session). I think it should be higher on the list.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Really would like there to be a distinction between railroad and linear. Of course most published adventures are linear, they’re limited by the constraints of a book.

A railroad is when a DM will tolerate no deviation from the path.

We need a term other than Sandbox, too. "Incoherent mess" would be appropriate in some (or many) cases.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. Amazing adventure, great hooks and villains. There are some problems with it, but they're not huge.

Hot mess. So much promise, so poorly implemented. I also hate...really hate...paying for adventures that ask you to pick between mutually exclusive paths. I usually use an adventure once with my group, so it becomes content I never use.

Storm King's Thunder. Another great example of mixing sandbox and railroad adventures. The beginning of the adventure is very badly written, but otherwise it is a good adventure.

Another great example of mutually exclusive paths and wasted content. Sure, I could stitch them together into one adventure, but I'm paying $ for adventures expecting the work to be done.

Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Barely any adventure hook, very long dungeon slog with many large battles between very similar creatures.

I'll agree with this last one.

 

[Enrico Poli1]

(Double post)

 

[Enrico Poli1]

So, D&D 5e has been out for almost 6 years, and there are a lot of prewritten adventures out so far. There have been ups and downs throughout the years. This thread is to discuss the adventures, their flaws and strengths, and to rank them. All of this is opinion based, there's obviously no right or wrong answer, but you're free to argue for or against other peoples' rankings or for your own. Here is my ranking, from best to worst (I am only ranking the adventures that are contained in an adventure book, not including box set adventures or setting books, though a lot of the adventures are very well written):

1. Curse of Strahd. Best adventure, a nice twist on Ravenloft, and it has a great plot while still being a sandbox adventure.
2. Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. Amazing adventure, great hooks and villains. There are some problems with it, but they're not huge.
3. Tomb of Annihilation. It's a perfect mix of survival, humor, monsters, sandboxing, and railroading. It has a railroaded plot while still taking in account player accountability.
4. Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Great compilation of older adventures, with a great link between all of them, while being open enough to be cut and pasted into nearly any adventure world.
5. Storm King's Thunder. Another great example of mixing sandbox and railroad adventures. The beginning of the adventure is very badly written, but otherwise it is a good adventure.
6. Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus. A fairly well written adventure, certainly an epic-feeling adventure with a great story, but is very railroady, has a very badly written story hook, and basically no motivation to continue on the adventure. It is very linear, is not a sandbox at all, which is unfortunate, and is fairly disappointing.
7. Out of the Abyss. Very exotic adventure with an epic plot. It is railroady, and has nearly no motivation to do the adventure instead of let someone else handle it, but is a nice adventure with interesting NPCs and locations.
8. Princes of the Apocalypse. Very linear adventure with even less of an adventure hook than most others, but it does have some good side quests and stories. It is a lot of dungeon slogging, but is also fairly epic.
9. Tales from the Yawning Portal. Another great old adventure compilation, but not great as an adventure, as it has less link between the consecutive adventures than Ghosts of Saltmarsh, and they are just dungeons with barely any story.
10. Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Barely any adventure hook, very long dungeon slog with many large battles between very similar creatures.
11. Hoard of the Dragon Queen: Very railroady adventure, poor descriptions of important parts of the story, and is overall a terribly written adventure. Any good DM with enough work can make this adventure function, but it can be difficult.
12. Rise of Tiamat. This is the same as Hoard of the Dragon Queen, but even worse.

I'd love to hear your thoughts and see your lists as well.

My rankings:

1) Descent into Avernus 10/10
Fantastic planar adventure, with multiple paths, open-ended, epic in scope; the best planar adventure ever written
2) Tomb of Annihilation 10/10
Perfect sandbox in the jungle, with undead, dinosaurs, and very interesting and fun encounters. The time limit mantains a strong focus on the mission. The final killer dungeon recreates the feel of original Tomb of Horrors
3) Curse of Strahd 9.5/10
Ravenloft, but better. Outstanding adventure, but DiA and ToA have more originality.
4) Lost Mines of Phandelver 9.5/10
As a starting adventures does a really good job. The last dungeon could have been done better.
5) Dungeon of the Mad Mage 7.5/10
Solid old-style Megadungeon. Can be a little boring. Still, valuable for mining high-level dungeons. Also, great mini-setting for Undermountain.
6) Dragon Heist 7.5/10
Great Waterdeep mini-setting, great NPCs, some good ideas, but the adventure in itself has some serious issues.
7) Ghosts of Saltmarsh 7.5/10
The quality of the adventures is variabile and in general inferior to those in TotYP, but the connective tissue of the Saltmarsh mini-setting makes this collection better.
8) Tales of the Yawning Portal 7.5/10
Very solid collection of great modules from the game's past.
9) Storm King's Thunder 5/10
The plot is completely illogical and pointless, and the DM will have a hard time keeping the players interested. Still, it could be useful as a mini-setting for the Sword Coast or for mining dungeons.
10) Out of the Abyss 5/10
Interesting ideas, but the execution is flawed.
11) Tyranny of Dragons 3.5/10
Railroady and without any originality.
12) Princes of the Apocalypse 3/10
So utterly boring that I would prefer to play Tyranny of Dragons

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

We need a term other than Sandbox, too. "Incoherent mess" would be appropriate in some (or many) cases.

Lets say that adventures that have a clear goal without a path to get there fall into the category of Messy adventures. There aren't any like this in 5e that I've seen, but they do exist.
So, review of the 4 terms:

1. Railroady: Takes away player agency, making them follow a specific set of hooks in order to complete their goal, occasionally forcing them when they don't want to.
2. Linear: Clear goal, normally with very clear guidelines and steps on how to complete that goal.
3. Sandboxy: Open world, player agency is key.
4. Messy: Clear goal, but no guidelines or steps on how to complete that goal.

Does anyone have any better words for "Messy"?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Interesting to see this rated so high. Most of the discussion I've heard about it seemed to be that it was a bit of an incomplete mess that needed a serious re-work.

Where did you hear that? It's a solid adventure, even if it has a few flaws. I have run it before, and had a very good experience with it.