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

[Staffan]

I think you could. A big sandbox or dungeon. Make no story but set the scene and what the NPCs want and will do without interference.

I'd call that a sourcebook, not an adventure. An adventure needs to have a bit of a plot to it, particularly if it's the large type that's meant to form the spine of a whole campaign.

 

[MerricB]

@MerricB isn’t one of the big innovations with skyrim and the new Zelda game especially, are the visual and psychological tricks the game played to herd folks into appropriate game play?

Kind of like the illusion of choice by subtly limiting your choices the whole time?

Did they have big innovations to do that?

Any computer game has to limit you to "approved" actions. Just like published adventures! (And D&D in general - there are a lot of things it won't do).

Railroading isn't because an experience is linear. It's because it's a direction you think you shouldn't be going on. It's a product of player perception. If a group were given two choices, but one of the choices was false and put them on the "only" path, then it wouldn't be seen as railroading if the false choice was never taken by groups!

Here's something to consider: Have you ever thought the decisions by the characters in a book or film (especially a horror film) were incredibly stupid and out-of-character? We tend to call it bad writing, but it's a form of railroading!

Cheers,
Merric

 

[pukunui]

I realize the conversation has gotten away from me a bit, but if I can steer it back to Call of the Netherdeep ... I'll admit JA's review could have been hyperbolic and riddled with not reading the text properly errors ... which is why I also included a link to @Paul Farquhar's play through commentary thread, in which he voices many of the same concerns.

To whit: Yes, most adventures are to a greater or lesser extent railroady, messy, and poorly implemented. In the specific context of Call of the Netherdeep, based on what others have had to say about it, I would wager that it falls into the "greater" category. The "railroady" issue isn't that it's linear. It's that the plot frequently makes assumptions about what the PCs will or will not do -- like it continually assumes the PCs won't attack and kill their rivals, even if the latter turn hostile and attack the party as per the text. There's a particularly egregious plot chokepoint at the beginning of the adventure involving a shark in a flooded cave.

I liked the premise, and I wanted an adventure that featured underwater exploration, and I liked that it has a corrupting magical substance (ruidium) reminiscent of red lyrium from Dragon Age. However, I felt like it would be too much work on my part to run it satisfyingly so I never bothered to even put it on my wishlist let alone purchase it for myself.

For me, one of the best 5e adventures out there is one that frequently gets overlooked because it's technically a D&D Next playtest adventure. I'm speaking of Scourge of the Sword Coast. It's fantastic, and every single one of its mapped locations is "xandered" brilliantly.

Other highlights for me are Tyranny of Dragons, Curse of Strahd, Storm King's Thunder, Tomb of Annihilation, and The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. I intensely dislike Dragon Heist as an adventure (but it is useful as a toolbox of parts). I want to like Rime of the Frostmaiden as I loved Legacy of the Crystal Shard, but I haven't had a chance to read through it properly or play it, so I can't really say one way or another. I also love and have used parts of Princes of the Apocalypse (especially the "Trouble in Red Larch" stuff), but I've yet to run the actual full campaign.

Hopefully that helps you see where I stand re: WotC adventures.

 

[darjr]

Did they have big innovations to do that?

Any computer game has to limit you to "approved" actions. Just like published adventures! (And D&D in general - there are a lot of things it won't do).

Railroading isn't because an experience is linear. It's because it's a direction you think you shouldn't be going on. It's a product of player perception. If a group were given two choices, but one of the choices was false and put them on the "only" path, then it wouldn't be seen as railroading if the false choice was never taken by groups!

Here's something to consider: Have you ever thought the decisions by the characters in a book or film (especially a horror film) were incredibly stupid and out-of-character? We tend to call it bad writing, but it's a form of railroading!

Cheers,
Merric

Zelda did. Sort of. They did this horizon thing where they’d limit what you could see so you didn’t even know it was a choice. But you could climb high and see more. I’ll have to find the video I saw on it.

 

[MerricB]

I realize the conversation has gotten away from me a bit, but if I can steer it back to Call of the Netherdeep ... I'll admit JA's review could have been hyperbolic and riddled with not reading the text properly errors ... which is why I also included a link to @Paul Farquhar's play through commentary thread, in which he voices many of the same concerns.

Thanks for the summary! I own a copy of Call of the Netherdeep, but I confess I haven't opened it at all!

Cheers,
Merric

 

[occam]

Sorry if this has already been covered, but since I own this adventure on DnD Beyond, I thought I'd do an audit of the specific claims in this review (specifically, from part 2).

First, THANK YOU for this! I've been thinking about doing something like it since the first post, but it seemed like a lot of work.

The description for X8 does not mention any extra doors. The map shows only one door, the one leading into the room from X7. Perhaps this is in reference to the window mentioned in the description to Z8 (in Zorzula’s Rest)? If so, while subtle, the map does show a window that looks out into Z3.

On this point, Justin's review isn't entirely accurate... but it also isn't completely wrong. The problem isn't "room keys like X8 that list doors that don't exist". (BTW, saying "like X8" implies that there are other such errors; I'm skeptical.) The map for X8 does show a door, and the key for X8 does mention the door... but in the wrong location. The key references "The door to this room from the hall...". But the door is from the lounge, not from the hall. IOW, it's an error missed in editing, possibly a copy/paste error from the key for X7, which starts the same way.

A careful, fair reading would've let most people to describe the error differently than Justin did, I believe.

 

[tomedunn]

On this point, Justin's review isn't entirely accurate... but it also isn't completely wrong. The problem isn't "room keys like X8 that list doors that don't exist". (BTW, saying "like X8" implies that there are other such errors; I'm skeptical.) The map for X8 does show a door, and the key for X8 does mention the door... but in the wrong location. The key references "The door to this room from the hall...". But the door is from the lounge, not from the hall. IOW, it's an error missed in editing, possibly a copy/paste error from the key for X7, which starts the same way.

Good eye, and thanks for clearing that up. As it is, it should indeed read "The door to this room from the lounge bears small dots that read ...". I'll update my original post to reflect this.

The audit didn't take as long as I thought it would. I think the biggest hurdle was just figuring out which locations corresponded to which room keys for the ones that weren't named in the review (Illithinoch corresponding to the "X" key still trips me up).

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Do you think it’s a good thing that explaining the muddled layout and organisational issues of this adventures requires pages of text?

“This adventure isn’t badly crafted, as I will show in this 15,000 word explanation!”

 

[MichaelSomething]

One of my pleasures over the last four years is discovering the current state of computer games. And you can learn a lot about potential paths for storytelling in D&D by looking at them.

So, you have very linear storylines like The Last of Us. Most of the side content there is "can I find a collectible". The storyline has no choice points, and the game is in how you overcome challenges. Oh, the number of times Joel or Ellie died when I played!

Incredibly linear, and yet still incredibly popular. Because the writing, story and performances elevate it.

Moving along the scale, we get to experiences like Cyberpunk 2077 and Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. The core of these games are still linear, but there is more of a variation on how they're approached. You can change the order in which you do missions, there's a lot of side content, and your choices can resonate later. Not to an incredible degree, but they do occur. And obviously, Baldur's Gate 3 takes the concept of choice and consequence even further, while still (overall) having a central narrative.

And then you get Skyrim, where I'd say most players completely ignore the central narrative and just go off and do the handcrafted little quests, as it moves about as far towards a sandbox as you can get while still having a sense of storytelling.

One of the interesting things about these latter games is how they handle level gain: and it's through dynamically scaled encounters. (Cyberpunk added that in the 2.0 update). It's one of the ongoing issues for D&D with big sandbox adventures: players very quickly level past content.

Consider Rime of the Frostmaiden, where there are all these low-level missions in the first chapter, but it doesn't take very long before the players have completed a handful, and the rest are no longer useable as written.

Cheers,
Merric

They all pale (sales and cultural impact wise) in comparison to the open sandbox that is Mincraft!

 

[Remathilis]

I think you could. A big sandbox or dungeon. Make no story but set the scene and what the NPCs want and will do without interference.

I think it's harder to make, harder to run, and probably harder to sell.

I also have a "take", I think most players want a story. Or they want to play that story, which isn't the same as passively watching a TV show or reading a book. Definitely more "railroady" than an open sandbox or variant path dungeon.

Nearly all written modules still use familiar story structure: an introduction (plot hook), rising action, and then climax (final encounter) and denouncement (XP and loot). We are pretty much conditioned to except that the adventure will have some narrative thread (or a reason why) the action is taking place. In fact, even most dungeons that have the thinnest plot beyond "get rich or die trying" will still assume there is a final boss at the deepest level of the dungeon who is the reason for the whole adventure.

You can design a completely sandbox style adventure where you drop the PCs into a setting and tell them to make their own fun, but that's hard to fit into a single adventure. Worse still, that's very hard to plan for. The PCs might decide to become bandits, they might opt to get into local politics, or they might burn the place to the ground, with absolutely no guarantee they will go the the Temple of Icky Badstuff that fills up a whole chapter of the book. They also require a lot of player buy-in and motivation to run, and that's not always a guarantee.