D&D 5E D&D Beyond Reveals New Golden Vault Details

Over on D&D Beyond you can read more about Keys from the Golden Vault, including information on 3 of the 13 adventures, the Golden Vault organization itself, and an overview of how the heist adentures within work.

What Is Keys From the Golden Vault? 13 Heist-Centric Adventures

Gather your crew and get to planning—you're going on a heist! The latest book from D&D takes characters of all levels on epic heists. Learn more about t...

www.dndbeyond.com

Four of the adventures include:

• The Stygian Gambit (for 2nd-level adventurers): Case a Nine Hells-themed casino and steal the prize for the Three-Dragon Ante tournament that's currently taking place.
• Prisoner 13 (for 4th-level adventurers): Infiltrate a remote prison in the tundra of Icewind Dale and extract information from an inmate.
• Vidorant’s Vault (for 7th-level adventurers): Break into the safe of a renowned thief, bypassing its many security features en route.
• Fire and Darkness (for 11th-level adventurers): Navigate the grim fortress of an efreeti and retrieve an artifact of unimaginable evil, the Book of Vile Darkness.

 

[Maxperson]

"We don't need prisoner 13. We only need to steal - her skin!"

They cover that!

 

[Neonchameleon]

Not after the hundredth comment. But I get others disagree.

The thing is there are two entirely different understandings of what a heist game should be, and D&D is very suitable for the first and bad for the second.

1. Actually creating a real world-style heist complete with intense planning, attention to detail, and using the predictability of things like D&D's magic and the resilience of the hit points to get a working heist
2. Creating something that resembles a heist movie, with things spiraling out of control, flashback scenes to explain what's really going on, an an entertaining romp.

A big difference between the genres is whether you think flashback scenes appearing when they are needed to - i.e. when they would in a heist movie - is awesome/in genre or stupid/out of genre. Even if you added flashback scenes to D&D it still wouldn't make it good for the second type for just about the same reasons it is for the first.

 

[Zaukrie]

The thing is there are two entirely different understandings of what a heist game should be, and D&D is very suitable for the first and bad for the second.

1. Actually creating a real world-style heist complete with intense planning, attention to detail, and using the predictability of things like D&D's magic and the resilience of the hit points to get a working heist
2. Creating something that resembles a heist movie, with things spiraling out of control, flashback scenes to explain what's really going on, an an entertaining romp.

A big difference between the genres is whether you think flashback scenes appearing when they are needed to - i.e. when they would in a heist movie - is awesome/in genre or stupid/out of genre. Even if you added flashback scenes to D&D it still wouldn't make it good for the second type for just about the same reasons it is for the first.

I wasn't clear that this conversation didn't interest me?

 

[MonsterEnvy]

The thing is there are two entirely different understandings of what a heist game should be, and D&D is very suitable for the first and bad for the second.

1. Actually creating a real world-style heist complete with intense planning, attention to detail, and using the predictability of things like D&D's magic and the resilience of the hit points to get a working heist
2. Creating something that resembles a heist movie, with things spiraling out of control, flashback scenes to explain what's really going on, an an entertaining romp.

A big difference between the genres is whether you think flashback scenes appearing when they are needed to - i.e. when they would in a heist movie - is awesome/in genre or stupid/out of genre. Even if you added flashback scenes to D&D it still wouldn't make it good for the second type for just about the same reasons it is for the first.

Have you read Prisoner 13 yet?

 

[Reynard]

Have you read Prisoner 13 yet?

In an unexpected turn of events, I actually agree with @MonsterEnvy here. The Prisoner 13 adventure manages to inject a very interesting mechanic -- suspicion-- that gives it a real jail break vibe. That's a good sign. It would be super great if every adventure did the same: a focused "heist" adventure with a tool designed to enable that particular subgenre.

I know I am generally pretty critical of WotC design, and I've sworn off buying D&D books due to the kerfuffle anyway, but even so I would be super excited if Keys actually fulfilled the promise of Dragon Heist. Moreso if it doesn't just lazily default to flashbacks just because BitD does that.

 

[teitan]

Agree with everything except, to some extent, the sentence I bolded.

We don't need WotC to write any adventures at any level, but lots of us want pre-written adventures because we don't have the time, don't feel we are very good at it, or just want to experience other styles.

And I don't think every adventure has to be a long, 1-20 adventure path. I would rather have collections of shorter adventures like Golden Vault and Yawning Portal. I would love to see a collection of adventures for 16th to 20th level play.

Fair. No arguments to that particular train of thought. It's the "need" crowd that I am addressing and they are vocally out there... I see them. They are out there... poking at me. Taunting me.

;-)

All humor and conspiracy aside I am addressing those who think we need WOTC to tell us how to do everything. Kinda defeats the spirit of 5e and every edition not called 3.x or 4e. I get wanting adventures though. Different story but man, the twitter and youtubers saying WOTC is failing in not providing epic level rules or whatnot kinda missed what the OGL was about.

 

[teitan]

I believe that would be Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. It has a few pages on themes for different type of horror adventures.

Granted, it's no Alien or Call of Cthulhu type of RPG advice, but it'll get the DM thinking on the right track.

I think it's more Castlevania but could totally be used for explicit horror just like that. It's a wonderful toolkit, shows a lot of the strengths of 5e in regards to being a system for customizing and houseruling and it just plain works.

 

[teitan]

If the horse was dead, it would stop drawing such things. Obviously, we need a bigger club, and to use it more liberally.

It's from almost 30 years ago, it's an artifact from when the horse was alive. Chaotic Evil, Intelligent, causes arguing about artistic merit and breaks down the room into ceaseless arguing about magical fantasy armor vs explicit sexism/sexuality save vs magic or be stuck in an endless loop.

 

[halfling rogue]

I do enjoy me a good anthology book with multiple small adventures. Yawning Portal and Saltmarsh have been my favorite releases. However those were older adventures with 5e shine. My kids are interested in the movie, and they might be drawn to some tie in destinations. And heists are fun. But like always I'll wait for the reviews to see if it's worth a purchase. And they'll have to knock it out of the park for me to actually consider it. All of the political crap and the corporate decisions have raised the hurdle pretty high for me.

Yeah, I knew better than to even be cautiously hopeful. I don't even care if they knock it out of the park with this one anymore. The people who run WotC are trash.