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

[THEMNGMNT]

Guess I'll chime in with my opinion before this thread gets locked.

I respect Justin Alexander's writing and criticism so I'm disappointed to learn he acted like a jerkwad and got himself banned here. I used his Dragon Heist Remix for a campaign that's about to wrap up after nearly 60 sessions. It's been excellent. I really value his thinking about adventure design.

Regarding Shattered Obelisk...I've read about 2/3 of the adventure and...it feels like a missed opportunity. It's not bad. Just misguided.

While I don't love Lost Mine of Phandelver, it's clearly one of the better introductory mini-campaigns ever written. (My primary criticism is how generic Phandalin feels. Where's the magic and mystery?) Lost Mine has countless plot threads that are left dangling. Shattered Obelisk follows up on exactly none of them.

For example, at the heart of Wave Echo Cave is something called "The Forge of Spells". Wow! That sounds cool. What is it? How does it work? What can it make? What would be needed to re-start it? How might it change the town and the region? Who would want to control it?

The town is filled with faction patrons, all of whom have almost no agenda. Don't you think Halia Thornton and the Zhentarim would want to get their hands on something like the Forge of Spells? Apparently she just wants to manage her store.

Likewise, Wave Echo Cave borders an underground lake. To me, that sounds like an invitation to delve further -- or an opening for hideous creatures to rise from the depths. Guess what? Not in the Shattered Obelisk.

Oddly, many of the maps have flooded areas on their edges. Part of me wonders if an earlier draft of the campaign actually had all these locations accessed through the underground lake... How cool would that have been?

 

[Clint_L]

The first part is obviously excellent, but I’m not sure this book deserves credit for it, since it’s 99% just a reprint. It should be evaluated on the new content, and on the changes it made to the old content, which it sounds like are very minor, but mostly either neutral or for the worse.

F is probably still much too harsh from what I’m hearing, but just saying, the reprinted material shouldn’t really be a factor in the assessment.

I see your point from the perspective of veterans like us. However, as this is a new book I feel the review should be oriented towards a prospective customer, and they don’t know or care about what was published when; they care about “how good is this product I am thinking of buying?”. IMO

 

[Charlaquin]

I see your point from the perspective of veterans like us. However, as this is a new book I feel the review should be oriented towards a prospective customer, and they don’t know or care about what was published when; they care about “how good is this product I am thinking of buying?”. IMO

Oh, good point.

 

[Jahydin]

What would you say are examples of his work that show his strengths?

For me, its:
Advantage/Disadvantage mechanics!
Assembling and managing the "Avengers" team of designers that wrote 5E.
Strong sense of what made D&D (especially B/X) unique and timeless.

Most importantly (and the key to 5E's success):
The vision to design D&D to be as inclusive and intuitive as possible.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

but there are better and worse ways to do it in a given medium…

There are better and worse ways to do it for a specific reader.

 

[delericho]

"A work of stunning mediocrity that might be useful if you can find nothing else." "4 out of 5 stars!"

You need to account for the modern grading schemes for reviews:

A+: This is genuinely a great product.
A: It's good.
A-: It's okay.
B+: This is worth the money that the reviewer personally paid for it, and not a penny more.
B: Badly flawed, but with some salvageable content.
B-: It sucks.
C: Forest Oracle. The review probably gives more entertainment than the product.
D: This product has serious objective flaws - the covers are falling off, it had dark grey text on a light grey background, or similar.
F: Actively hateful material: FATAL, or similar.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

not sure it is ‘hung up’ or ‘intentionally avoiding the others so this objection looks more justified’…

In my case, it's "without having read the module, I am not in a position to comment on this matter".

I'm not here to defend the module (which I have no interest in buying), my issues have more to do with this reviewer's priorities, and the undue deference they seem to receive from a few people.

 

[mamba]

There are better and worse ways to do it for a specific reader.

there are also objective criteria… you cannot tell me that every approach is equally valid, some just have not found their reader…

 

[Sparky McDibben]

Astrophysics.

I'm actually a teacher now though, which is why I'm so keen to encourage people to think for themselves rather than listen to the latest trendy guru.

Thank you for sharing!

 

[MerricB]

The worst adventure of the modern era - in my opinion - is Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus. Yes, there are bits that I like - and you can mine the devil descriptions for adventure ideas. But as to structure and encounter writing, DiA one is horrid. (The only one I advise people avoid).

I'm currently playing through The Shattered Obelisk. Unfortunately, one of my players has been away for two weeks, so we haven't quite got through the Lost Mine portion. Soon, though! From what I've read, the fact that it came out around the same time as Baldur's Gate 3 does it no favours. Since BG3 uses lore-accurate mind flayers in key villainous positions, and this one... sort of has them around?

That may not be entirely fair, but to my mind, the adventure that works best as a follow-up to Lost Mine of Phandelver is Storm King's Thunder. Or Princes of the Apocalypse. Since they take the idea of wandering adventurers doing small quests and build it into something more.

The idea of adventurers doing quests for factions got expanded a little more in Dragon Heist. Not exactly well, but you can get the bones of how it works. It's also worth playing Lost Mine merged with Dragon of Icespire Peak (Essentials Kit). I ran one campaign like that, and it was awesome.

But with The Shattered Obelisk, it explicitly tells you the factions won't matter, and then depreciates almost all the NPCs you meet in the Lost Mine chapter. After telling you that it's important to build a bond with them due to later events. Only a very few get referenced in later chapters, and never in a manner that allows you to bond with them. Instead, the adventure introduces a Brand New Character who is the important one. Rather than using an existing character.

I think it will play okay based on what I read, but if it doesn't, I'll report that. I just don't see it as an inspired adventure. There are a lot of 5E adventures that are flawed, but I think are inspired. Tyranny of Dragons. Tomb of Annihilation. They challenge you to rise above their flaws and see what you can make of them. (Tyranny of Dragons is very close to my favourite adventure of all time because it just clicks with me).

I might be wrong, but I guess the play experience will tell, soon enough.

Cheers,
Merric