D&D 5E Rime of the Frostmaiden Post-Mortem (Spoilers)

[BenTheFerg]

I bought the adventure twice over - on Roll20, and on D&D Beyond. Expensive, but was the better experience running it. It would've been a serious pain importing all the maps and handouts into Roll20 myself, but when it came to actually running the campaign, having it open across several tabs in D&D Beyond was far easier than trying to access the content via Roll20's interface.

Good to know. I have not tried D&DB

 

[MarkB]

Good to know. I have not tried D&DB

If you do, get the Beyond20 browser extension. It allows you to make die rolls directly from D&D Beyond and have them resolve in Roll20, amongst other features.

 

[BenTheFerg]

I find it improbable that 90% of groups don't notice this. Groups, after all, are constructed of individuals. And I'm sure that any individual, given months of gameplay in the setting, will ask questions about that world. But if you and WotC are happy putting out material that doesn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny, well, I can't help there.
The nitpick of the illogical climate is just one issue endemic across the entirety of Rime of the Frost Maiden - one of carelessness, lack of structure, and editorial oversight. I've spoken to other DMs (not on this board) who trash on this adventure, so it's not just me.
So yes, you can easily fix the timeline of the weather. You can clear up the confusion of the human sacrifice. You can fix the timeline of traveling across the continent. You can add story and reason to go to the different sites (aside from just "level grinding.") You can tie in the lost city to the rest of the adventure so it's not a disconnected anti-climax. You can create your own maps for the various sites that aren't detailed. You can search for other resources to fill in the gaps for the skeletal structure provided for the Ten Towns region.
You can do all this stuff, but why? What is honestly worth keeping once you've done so much work to it? The excellent plot (that doesn't matter)? The barebones setting? The stereotypical northern barbarian tribes? The Frost Maiden who barely plays into the adventure - or her castle with like one room in it? The random adventure locales of crashed baby gnome mind flayers or the submarine whale (that honestly could've been put in any adventure to the same effect)?

Am with you Retreater.
It simply would be nice to know that if you wanted to be a lazy GM (for a few sessions! )... that you could rely on a WotC campaign to be able to be run out of the can, having read it & prepped it as is. Enough frigging work just doing that TBH. It would be nice.

I simply don't understand why various people will go to extreme lengths to
1. Argue with you- sometimes to the point of harassment (I have blocked someone on this thread) to....
2. Defend the right of WotC to produce shite/ incoherent/ badly thought through/ illogical adventures/ campaigns.

I just don't get it!
Admittedly its been a long day of travelling.... but....sigh

All I want are adventures I can use without having to rewrite then to the point of having to write them 100% myself! Argh!!!!!!

 

[Retreater]

It simply would be nice to know that if you wanted to be a lazy GM (for a few sessions! )... that you could rely on a WotC campaign to be able to be run out of the can, having read it & prepped it as is. Enough frigging work just doing that TBH. It would be nice.

Ok. So I will sing the praises of two official short adventures, one from the TSR-era and one from the WotC 3.x era.
You had the Shattered Circle (1999) [Bruce Cordell] The Shattered Circle (2e) - Wizards of the Coast | Adventures | AD&D 2nd Ed. | DriveThruRPG.com
A simple, straightforward dungeon of about 32 pages. You could read it and run it pretty much as written. You could expand from it. In fact, my longest campaign started just that way - with this simple adventure.
Then you had Sons of Gruumsh (2005) [Christopher Perkins]

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

It's not going to win any awards for being a deep adventure, but you can run the thing without having to download additional guides to link together adventure sites.
Either would be enough to run 2-3 sessions of play. That's all I'm asking for with these adventures. And if you want a 1st-12th level campaign, link a few of these types of adventures togther.

 

[Retreater]

I simply don't understand why various people will go to extreme lengths to
1. Argue with you- sometimes to the point of harassment (I have blocked someone on this thread) to....
2. Defend the right of WotC to produce shite/ incoherent/ badly thought through/ illogical adventures/ campaigns.

Thought it was just me. Not feeling very well liked at the moment on here.
At least my dogs like me.
Maybe I need to visit a site that is less about celebrating Wizards of the Coast and actually wants to learn how to adapt the products to suit them, instead of just assuming everything is perfect by default?

 

[BenTheFerg]

Am with you Retreater.
It simply would be nice to know that if you wanted to be a lazy GM (for a few sessions! )... that you could rely on a WotC campaign to be able to be run out of the can, having read it & prepped it as is. Enough frigging work just doing that TBH. It would be nice.

I simply don't understand why various people will go to extreme lengths to
1. Argue with you- sometimes to the point of harassment (I have blocked someone on this thread) to....
2. Defend the right of WotC to produce shite/ incoherent/ badly thought through/ illogical adventures/ campaigns.

I just don't get it!
Admittedly its been a long day of travelling.... but....sigh

All I want are adventures I can use without having to rewrite then to the point of having to write them 100% myself! Argh!!!!!!

Thought it was just me. Not feeling very well liked at the moment on here.
At least my dogs like me.
Maybe I need to visit a site that is less about celebrating Wizards of the Coast and actually wants to learn how to adapt the products to suit them, instead of just assuming everything is perfect by default?

There are a lot of folks who have raised issues. You're not alone.
It's got so bad, one friend who loves Spelljammer can't be arsed to get excited by the nu Spelljammer since his expectations of WotC content is so low. This could of course be a reflection on how bad my DMing skills are though!
Whilst I will get the Radiant Citadel, I'll not hold my breath!

 

[Scottius]

There are a lot of folks who have raised issues. You're not alone.
It's got so bad, one friend who loves Spelljammer can't be arsed to get excited by the nu Spelljammer since his expectations of WotC content is so low. This could of course be a reflection on how bad my DMing skills are though!
Whilst I will get the Radiant Citadel, I'll not hold my breath!

I'm in the same boat. It's to the point where I'd just assume WOTC forget about a setting save for ensuring all the old material is made available in PDF and POD on DMS Guild rather than update it in their current style.

 

[BenTheFerg]

Ok. So I will sing the praises of two official short adventures, one from the TSR-era and one from the WotC 3.x era.
You had the Shattered Circle (1999) [Bruce Cordell] The Shattered Circle (2e) - Wizards of the Coast | Adventures | AD&D 2nd Ed. | DriveThruRPG.com
A simple, straightforward dungeon of about 32 pages. You could read it and run it pretty much as written. You could expand from it. In fact, my longest campaign started just that way - with this simple adventure.
Then you had Sons of Gruumsh (2005) [Christopher Perkins]

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

It's not going to win any awards for being a deep adventure, but you can run the thing without having to download additional guides to link together adventure sites.
Either would be enough to run 2-3 sessions of play. That's all I'm asking for with these adventures. And if you want a 1st-12th level campaign, link a few of these types of adventures togther.

And thanks for the recommendations

 

[pukunui]

Thought it was just me. Not feeling very well liked at the moment on here.
At least my dogs like me.
Maybe I need to visit a site that is less about celebrating Wizards of the Coast and actually wants to learn how to adapt the products to suit them, instead of just assuming everything is perfect by default?

I haven’t contributed to this thread but I want to say that I appreciate what you’ve been doing with these posts.

I’ve steadily been getting more and more disillusioned with WotC’s adventure offerings ever since Dragon Heist. It’s gotten to the point where Princes of the Apocalypse is starting to look appealing as a full campaign rather than a grab-bag of spare parts.

I had high hopes for Candlekeep Mysteries as I do think we need more short adventures rather than big campaigns, but that book is just so disappointing on so many levels.

As a result, I am cautiously optimistic about Radiant Citadel but am not letting myself buy into the hype at this stage. And despite disliking Spelljammer when it was new, I kind of want to run the Light of Xaryxis.

But I also want to convert and run Red Hand of Doom, using some of the short adventures from Rime as a way of fleshing out the setting before the invasion.

 

[Burnside]

If you do, get the Beyond20 browser extension. It allows you to make die rolls directly from D&D Beyond and have them resolve in Roll20, amongst other features.

This is how I ran it as well and I definitely recommend doing it this way if you can afford it. FWIW I also have the hardcover because I'm a maniac.