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

[MerricB]

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.

The level of overdesign required is huge. Consider how annoyed some people got at Storm King's Thunder, where large sections of the adventure would never be used in a single playthrough.

I'm very fond of books that present a central hub with short adventures around it (e.g. Sly Flourish's Fantastic Adventures), and that's also something the D&D Essentials Kit tries to present.

In my home campaigns, I approximate this with lots of short adventure bought either from the DMs Guild or through older products.

But when you start moving into player-driven stuff, then it's hard to present that in a good form.

Cheers,
Merric

 

[Charlaquin]

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!”

I don’t think it’s a bad thing. As anyone who has tried to argue with science-deniers can attest, it takes a lot more energy to debunk a false claim than it takes to make one. And I say that as someone inclined to trust Justin Alexander’s adventure reviews!

 

[Alzrius]

And I say that as someone inclined to trust Jason Alexander’s adventure reviews!

If Jason Alexander was the one making these reviews, then the complaints that they're reviews about nothing would be a lot more salient.

 

[Charlaquin]

If Jason Alexander was the one making these reviews, then the complaints that they're reviews about nothing would be a lot more salient.

Oops!

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yea. This.

A lot of players, I think, are far more casual than a lot of us here.

Heck, when I'm playing (rather than GMing), I get the feeling I'm more casual than a lot of folks here. I just don't have some of the energy and focus any more.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I also have a "take", I think most players want a story.

This.

I find players are simply not interested in accumulating wealth. Which gives them no reason to engage with a sandbox. I've observed it - present them with a sandbox and they sit in the inn drinking beer. But present them with someone in trouble and they are there. Their fantasy is to be heroes, not mercenaries. They voted unanimously for milestone XP over traditional xp. And milestone is basically XP for advancing the story, rather than XP for killing monsters. That tells you want they want from the game. And it's not casual - we have being playing almost every week for about six years. And it's not particularly new - back in the 90s I was playing Star Trek RPG - no loot and no sandbox there!

Which brings the inevitable conclusion that the most important element in a published adventure is story.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

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.

I may have been rather hard on it. I had just played chapter 6 at the time. If there is anything I hate more than big dungeons, it big underwater dungeons!

Some parts are really good, and if you did want a sandbox it's got material for two.

 

[pukunui]

I may have been rather hard on it. I had just played chapter 6 at the time. If there is anything I hate more than big dungeons, it big underwater dungeons!

Some parts are really good, and if you did want a sandbox it's got material for two.

How did the rivals turn out in play? My concern from JA's review was that they would either wind up dead very quickly or become a bunch of DMPCs. Based on your playthrough, it seems like you managed to keep them at a distance.

How did you find the various chokepoints as well? Like the issue with the shark at the beginning?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Tales from the Yawning Portal is excellent.

Not original content.

Tomb of Annihilation is excellent.

It looses points for a derivative story and a lack of sensitivity to issues surrounding colonialism.

Wild Beyond the Witchlight is excellent.

Certainly original, but I didn't enjoy this much as a player.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

How did the rivals turn out in play? My concern from JA's review was that they would either wind up dead very quickly or become a bunch of DMPCs. Based on your playthrough, it seems like you managed to keep them at a distance.

How did you find the various chokepoints as well? Like the issue with the shark at the beginning?

I think the rivals come into play if the players do not pick up on the plot points. Then they take on the role of heroes and the party are the group interfering with them. But the real problem is the main plot is to save a singular individual, and if it goes wrong it could lead to a catastrophe. The safest option would be for the players to do nothing (and make sure the rivals also do nothing). The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.

But, as I say in my playthrough the shark is another case of "read the F-ing text". The info for finding the McGuffin is in the room boxed text*, even if the shark disappeared completely. I would change the scale on the grotto map from 5 ft. to 10 ft. though.

It's also implied that there is divine interference, rather than coincidence, leading to the McGuffin being found. It's not really explained how it got there, other than a god (Selune) put it there for the PCs to find. I know some peple don't like having to read between the lines, and would rather have "Selune put it there and is manipulating events" in the adventure text.



*Footnote. I have noticed there is a tendency for the DM to skip over boxed text in reading through adventures, but sometimes critical information is only in the boxed text.