D&D 5E Justin Alexander's review of Shattered Obelisk is pretty scathing

[Raiztt]

That's, like, the entirety of WotC's ownership of D&D, right?

Yep.

Good dungeon design is difficult to do, flat out.

 

[darjr]

Did you read his response post? He directly addresses the argument that there’s nothing to key, as well as pointing out multiple other maps in the book that are not keyed.

It’s a bit comical. At first I thought he was kidding.

And the start of the blog post? Next he’ll tell us that video games can’t be art or we shouldn’t watch movies on our phones.

 

[FallenRX]

It’s a bit comical. At first I thought he was kidding.

And the start of the blog post? Next he’ll tell us that video games can’t be art or we shouldn’t watch movies on our phones.

I tihnk its more of a organizational issue, where the book considers these things seperate rooms, with contents in them, but formats them in a worse kinda trashier way instead of just keying them as normal, for no reason.

Like sure its a minor thing, but they legit just formatted it worse and its harder to reference in a pile of literal nothing paragraph gunk, for no other reason but ???, its just a odd organizational failure for no reason. And i think its something to be considered and taken a bit seriously, as it shows a bit of laziness and kinda just...incompetence for no real reason, and breaks consistency of design, while replacing it with worse, and less understandable format, then just the basic format.

Like is it as big as Justin is making it out to be? Like the knowledge of keying dungeons is dying or something? No, its obvious looking at the 25 other places here they still got that. Its more of an issue of inconsistency and just laziness, and making the readability worse.

 

[darjr]

It’s areas in the same room. And he wants it keyed to three. 3.

 

[Zaukrie]

I tihnk its more of a organizational issue, where the book considers these things seperate rooms, with contents in them, but formats them in a worse kinda trashier way instead of just keying them as normal, for no reason.

Like sure its a minor thing, but they legit just formatted it worse and its harder to reference in a pile of literal nothing paragraph gunk, for no other reason but ???, its just a odd organizational failure for no reason. And i think its something to be considered and taken a bit seriously, as it shows a bit of laziness and kinda just...incompetence for no real reason, and breaks consistency of design, while replacing it with worse, and less understandable format, then just the basic format.

Like is it as big as Justin is making it out to be? Like the knowledge of keying dungeons is dying or something? No, its obvious looking at the 25 other places here they still got that. Its more of an issue of inconsistency and just laziness, and making the readability worse.

calling them lazy isn't going to get many to agree with your stance. Indeed, I doubt any of them are lazy.

 

[Micah Sweet]

As per the review, I haven't read the product at all but it sounds like it does have some serious problems. That said, Alexander is an old-school dungeon kinda guy, and 5e doesn't really do old-school dungeons with nearly the same degree as seriousness. Note his soreness over the DMG's lack of instruction on "properly keying a dungeon". 5e lacking a dungeon-mapping style guide is a not a black mark on the product/system. It's simply not where the emphasis is for DMs anymore. Open-ended, stylized and mapless dungeons are not inherently worse than the Standard Gygax Crawl (or even the Deluxe Jaquays Experience.)

Of course, if Wizards is going to produce products that attempts to re-create that original dungeon-crawling feel and screw up so bad that the dungeon isn't remotely internally consistent, that's a different story. The Shattered Obelisk sounds like a bad product for a number of purely objective measures. But evolving design sensibilities don't necessarily make something bad just because you preferred the old ways.

How about the designers explain that their philosophy has changed, so people know what they're getting into?

 

[FallenRX]

It’s areas in the same room. And he wants it keyed to three. 3.

Yea and those 3 rooms i have to look through a paragraph of nothing instead of just looking at the key and seeing whats there in a 5 seconds.

Like, this is just a basic information deliver failure here, and its not in the same room they are seperate room the game even treats them as such

 

[Stormonu]

I just treat his review like everything else - it's one person's opinion. If my likes align with the reviewers, I feel I can trust their conclusion for what I would like or not. The value in a review is just that - it helps to point out the good and the bad, and you just have to decide if the points brought up are going to be relevant to your enjoyment (or lack thereof) of the product.

In this case, I've run the original and flipped through the book at the bookstore. I was on the fence about getting it, but coupled with what I did see in the book and several elements of the review I'm not planning on picking it up, myself.

I still think WotC has made some good adventures for 5E - In fact, LMoP is one of their best, I think. I just feel like in this case that the direction they went with second half feels very disconnected from the first half and isn't really well integrated. It's sort of the same problem you see with movies that have been produced decades apart (Terminator & Alien, I'm looking at you specifically) - the tone and approach is so different they don't feel connected.

Conversely, my read-through of the recent Dragonlance adventure was pretty positive. So, I still want WotC to keep on trying making adventures, but I recognize not all of them might appeal to me. Reviews help me to judge if a product would be my cup of tea - and I simply refuse to buy RPG products sight unseen anymore after getting burned by a few products (Spelljammer, for ex.)

 

[Parmandur]

Yea and those 3 rooms i have to look through a paragraph of nothing instead of just looking at the key and seeing whats there in a 5 seconds.

Like, this is just a basic information deliver failure here.

Have you read the paragraphs in question, or are yoylu taking the Clickbaiter's word for it?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Nowadays with so many maps being used in VTTs I have to imagine them NOT being keyed is probably seen as the more useful versions of said maps nowadays.

Now of course the argument could easily (and probably correctly) be made that in a book you aren't going to use that specific map digitally and thus having them all keyed makes more sense (since places like D&D Beyond will usually provide both keyed and unkeyed version for players to use.) So maybe they are just expecting people to photocopy the maps out of the book? Dunno.

Doesn't bother me personally either way in terms of being in the book... but I do know when grabbing maps online I always prefer non-keyed versions (both without room numbers or creature placement) to have them be clean for virtual use or 1-inch scale printing.