If it bothers you, tweak it. "Last summer the sun barely came up, not nearly enough to melt all the snow. This year spring isn't coming and the days aren't getting longer." Done.
So no, it's not a big deal IMHO since it took all of 30 seconds to think of something that makes more sense if you want.
You seemed to have skipped over the paragraph before that. I'll repost it.
"And could I change it? Yes, of course I could. But just because I can change the entire timeline of the adventure plot they created, doesn't mean that it is a good thing that I had to do that."
Yes, I could solve this issue. I could do so very quickly. We did do so. That isn't the point I am making. If it was a matter of "I need a solution" I would have been done with this thread by the OP's post, which also gave solutions.
I'm asking a deeper question. Isn't it a big deal that the
Premise of the adventure, the hook that is supposed to draw us into the game, needs fixed? That from the very beginning of the adventure, I need to step in as a DM and start rewriting, not minor nags, but the core concept of the entire plot? That feels significant to me.
Maybe part of my problem with some of the complaints is that a lot of people are saying that the basic premise of the mod is broken*. I disagree, but it's more that while I may disagree with the details of the description of what Auril is doing and may tweak it, the basic premise of the mod is that you have a (literally) cold hearted god bent on permanently freezing the region.
If I tweak the details a bit (or say the changes have been gradually getting worse) so that people are still alive but fearing for their lives but not already dead, that doesn't change the premise of the mod. Just adjusts the fluff a bit to be what I would consider more realistic.
*At least some people are saying the entire mod is horrible because of this detail.
Okay, this is a different point of view, but, I think this speaks to knowledge and opening scenes.
To me, the premise presented is "two years of harsh cold and no sun, if this continues, nothing will be left alive. The adventurers must fix this." And then they find out that the root cause is Auril, a cold-hearted goddess bent on permanently freezing the region.
And, where I end up stumbling is that, if we accept that Auril is the premise, she should have already won. She has frozen the region, and when I look at the two year timeline it is like reading the end of Watchmen. "I completed my plan 30 minutes ago." The region would be devastated, everyone or nearly everyone should be dead.
Which, to use another example, would be like saying the premise of the new Walking Dead property is to prevent the Zombie Apocalypse. But, it takes place after the apocalypse already happened. It is too late to prevent that.
And again, I know I can go in and rewrite the module to make this work. I can fix this, and the rest will run fine, but I feel it is significant that I have to go in and fix it, because they gave us a mission to prevent an apocalypse, then told us it was already too late, without explaining why we still have nearly a year to still save the region.
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Great don't buy the book....why slander it, when it doesn't appeal to you?
This a D&D module....even products acclaimed to be good or great by the masses are still hated by many.
Tomb of Horrors is a crap adventure. It is memorable, someone likely will die, but it is a gimmicky train ride to death. For some this is a feature!
Most of the people who were slandering it seem to no longer be in this discussion. So, I'm not sure who you are referring to with that
Why can't we critique it though? I love the first Avengers movie, it was really really good. It is not above critique, and the fact that it is not a perfect movie with zero flaws does not mean it isn't a great movie with much to be lauded for.
I'm just not sure where this hostility is coming from, these are fairly honest critiques of the module. It does not mean it is not still a good module. Everything has flaws, but if we never talk about them, we can't improve.
Edit: It seems you are more thinking that the discussion has run its course and should be finished. Which... I disagree with, mostly because it seems the discussion has not run its course yet. But, if you feel there is nothing more to be said, then I can respect that you have nothing more to say.