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

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

yes, let’s… why did you ignore “is asked to write articles for major publications, and basically created the treatise on modern dungeon design” when it was in the same sentence as the blog you dismissed?

That sounds like credentials to me

Seems like you have missed some crucial details in my post and as a result jumped the gun on your response. No biggie. Letting this go...

 

[Quickleaf]

I agree with your premise. Just chiming in for pedantry, because that figure of speech is actually spelled in an unexpected way due to its origin: Why Do We 'Bury the Lede?'

I stand corrected Good Ranger! Do not bury the lede... unless you're trying to conceal the evidence.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

This almost sounds like they pulled a Halloween/Halloween 3 with the adventure module. I was hoping to get this, but after flipping through it and reading the above review I'm strongly reconsidering.

Not sure that's an apt analogy. Carpenter claims he wanted Halloween to be an anthology but got 'forced' to do II; Season of the Witch was supposed to be the yearly changing story

 

[Parmandur]

Did he? They didnt key a part of the dungeon, that happened, and put the information is large paragraphs and also didnt label them on the map making it a harder reference then otherwise.

And the worst part is that isnt even what your arguing youve been arguing "Oh well its okay becuase idk i dont care, its not that much money, i just like worse" without adding anything why its better, or easier to use then just...labelling the map or using a normal key. Like again its just a decrease and quality and is harder to reference for the benefit...of no one.

It's essentially not part of the "dungeon" as an exploration environment: it is a single room combat area that is briefly and succinctly described. It doesn't need a "key."

 

[edosan]

If the design team wants people to know why they designed the way they did, they should say so, at least in the core book, or the product where the shift occurred.

Games used to have Designer’s Notes in them (Red Hand of Doom’s were particularly good, IIRC) and if we can have a page on “What is a role playing game” in every Players’ Handbook we can certainly make room for the occasional sidebar.

 

[Umbran]

But when we realize that we aren't willing to accept the consequence of intentionally providing a bad game experience for our players, we choose to do that vs. not doing that. In a sense, we have to do it - or not run the game at all.

Sure.

Mind you, you are talking to someone who doesn't generally run two successive campaigns in the same game. I'm running D&D now, and we enjoy it, but I was running Ashen Stars, Atomic Robo, and Classic Deadlands before that, which my group also enjoyed. "Not run the game at all," seems to me a fair choice - I do it all the time!

"Bad game experience" isn't universal. Tons of folks enjoy D&D, and the published adventures, a lot. So, your experience is a lot about you, your group, and your particular desires. Those desires are valid, but they are yours, and you can only expect the game and its producers to go so far in meeting needs that are particular to you.

And, no, this isn't a "if it is popular, it is good" argument. This is more about practical expectations.

 

[FallenRX]

It's essentially not part of the "dungeon" as an exploration environment: it is a single room combat area that is briefly and succinctly described. It doesn't need a "key."

Again it was 3 rooms, and the information about those 3 rooms which are important details about where the hostages your supposed to save, and the place where the details of where the next adventure is are there, without a key, its just buried in 2 paragraphs of detail, it isnt even clear which is which at first, and they didnt even bother to label them on the map, when those seem like pretty important information to kinda present in the adventure that youd want to quickly reference, even if they didnt normally key them, why not label the map, why make a big paragraph that is worse to reference and understand then doing otherwise, and why is that okay?

And it also keeps happening, meaning their are areas about 3 or 4 of them in the game, that are just harder to reference for no good reason, to the benefit of no one. again i feel the only one misrepresetning anything or the issue is you, by trying to downplay the fact that, WoTC just decided to do worse for no reason to the benefit of no one. I think that is a notable issue, do i think its "the death of keying the dungeon" no, but it does show a lack of geniune care or effort for dms, where you bury infomration in paragraphs, instead of making clean and obvious references using maps and or keys, and i dont think its good if we accept that so easily, espeically when DM tools are just kinda lacking in general, and making adventures even small parts harder to reference for no good reason isnt a good sign of promise or quality on any level.

 

[darjr]

“Large Paragraphs”

Your paragraph above might have more words.

 

[dave2008]

D&D doesn't have to (and in my opinion shouldn't) follow the MST3K mantra. There are plenty of other games that do that.

I know what MST3K is, but what do you mean be the "MST3K mantra?"

 

[dave2008]

I cannot switch my brain off entirely, so if something falls under a certain threshold it gets noticed and is detrimental. Funhouse dungeons generally do not work for me for example

Yep that threshold is different for everybody. Heck it can even change and be situational for the same person! When I was younger I was much less forgiving of inconsistences, fabrications, and inaccuracies. I have mellowed (for better or worse) as I have gotten older.