D&D 5E Which was the most recent Wizards adventure you consider a classic?

[delericho]

"Lost Mine of Phandelver", but absolutely not "The Shattered Obelisk" - the adventure is very much not improved by the expansion.

Before that, you're going all the way back to "Red Hand of Doom".

 

[Stormonu]

I would say no on that, they’re all about too many cooks, freelancers, on all adventures since.

Also

Isn’t ToA a very aggressively rehashed mashup of isle of dread and tomb of horrors? Always seemed like the idea to me.

And Dwellers of the Forbidden City (as in, the whole city of Omu). There's also some elements of Return to the Tomb of Horrors thrown in as well - mostly ideas.

Actually, to me, most of the 5E big books are remixes/reimagining of old classics:

• Storm King's Thunder as a remix of the G1-G3 Against the Giants
• Princes of the Apocalypse as a remix of T1-T4 Temple of Elemental Evil
• Out of the Abyss as a remix of D1-D3 Descent into the Depths/Vault of the Drow & Q1 - Queen of the Demonweb Pits
• Curse of Strahd as a remix of I6 - Ravenloft and the Ravenloft campaign set (post Grim Harvest)
• Descent into Avernus as a remix/upgrade of A Paladin In Hell
  [*]Dungeons of the Mad Mage
  

as remix of the Undermountain series

Of course, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Tales of the Yawning Portal and Quests from the Inifinite Staircase are straight up reprints.

Shadow of the Dragon Queen is a weird one, as it is a sort of companion to the Dragonlance series, happening during the War of the Lance - but your in a completely different location, and not using the old premade characters of the Heroes of the Lance.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

ToA is a fine adventure. But it’s not an innovative adventure, it’s highly derivative of what has gone before. Which is the issue really: the longer D&D is around, the harder it becomes to come up with anything new.

WotC (and their audience) tend to be conservative about adventures. If you go out into the OSR scene, there are wildly original adventures out there, like Bakto's Terrifying Cuisine. But what WotC hears is "hey, how come you aren't reprinting more TSR stuff," which means we get into this feedback loop.

There is a ton of new stuff under the sun. Most D&D players just look to the past, though*.

* If you're offended about this, I'm probably not talking about your table.

 

[Stormonu]

WotC (and others - Goodman's OAR series, for a huge example) seems to clue in that customers are more comfortable buying "what they know" (i.e., reprints/remixes of old material) rather than take a chance on the (iffy) quality of brand-new stuff, in my opinion.

The design team has attempted to put out some new stuff like Witchlight, Golden Keys and the like, but it really seems like folks like us have pushed it aside and are just looking for when they are going to reprint from old editions (like Red Hand of Doom, hint hint).

I'd really be keen to see the design staff tackle something new and unique for the game, like the brainstorming they did back in 2E that resulted in the likes of Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Birthright, etc. - and not more reprints of the overcooked Forgotten Realms.

 

[Zardnaar]

WotC (and others - Goodman's OAR series, for a huge example) seems to clue in that customers are more comfortable buying "what they know" (i.e., reprints/remixes of old material) rather than take a chance on the (iffy) quality of brand-new stuff, in my opinion.

The design team has attempted to put out some new stuff like Witchlight, Golden Keys and the like, but it really seems like folks like us have pushed it aside and are just looking for when they are going to reprint from old editions (like Red Hand of Doom, hint hint).

I'd really be keen to see the design staff tackle something new and unique for the game, like the brainstorming they did back in 2E that resulted in the likes of Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Birthright, etc. - and not more reprints of the overcooked Forgotten Realms.

Golden Vaults reasonably good.

 

[Voadam]

WotC (and others - Goodman's OAR series, for a huge example) seems to clue in that customers are more comfortable buying "what they know" (i.e., reprints/remixes of old material) rather than take a chance on the (iffy) quality of brand-new stuff, in my opinion.

Goodman has a lot of original 5e stuff. Of the currently 51 5e PDFs they sell some are conversions of their older stuff like Crypt of the Devil Lich, but most are original new stuff.

And if you go to their DCC line it keeps chugging along with original brand-new stuff (there is a DCC version of Crypt of the Devil Lich too though ).

 

[Stormonu]

Goodman has a lot of original 5e stuff. Of the currently 51 5e PDFs they sell some are conversions of their older stuff like Crypt of the Devil Lich, but most are original new stuff.

And if you go to their DCC line it keeps chugging along with original brand-new stuff (there is a DCC version of Crypt of the Devil Lich too though ).

Oh, I love Goodman. I still have all 52 of their 3E modules sitting on my shelf, and with HumbleBundle picked up a good selection of their 5E adventures! I haven't even gotten to start looking at their DCC adventures...

My point was, though that a lot of people (on this board) seem to laser-focus on the reprints, and dismiss or not be familiar with the original stuff being made.

I mean, with the likes of the 51 adventures alone from Goodman, how do you figure out which ones are good for your group or find a large enough sample of reviews to help you decide? It's far easier to fall back on a title you've heard before, and are somewhat already familiar with than to risk time and money you know little about.

 

[Voadam]

Oh, I love Goodman. I still have all 52 of their 3E modules sitting on my shelf, and with HumbleBundle picked up a good selection of their 5E adventures! I haven't even gotten to start looking at their DCC adventures...

My point was, though that a lot of people (on this board) seem to laser-focus on the reprints, and dismiss or not be familiar with the original stuff being made.

I mean, with the likes of the 51 adventures alone from Goodman, how do you figure out which ones are good for your group or find a large enough sample of reviews to help you decide? It's far easier to fall back on a title you've heard before, and are somewhat already familiar with than to risk time and money you know little about.

For the 5e ones it is fairly tough. There are few reviews and there is not a lot from the descriptions to make them stand out.

For the DCC ones they are so strongly and evocatively themed from their descriptions and covers that I find it fairly easy to find stuff to get excited about to explore. Appalachian weird horror adventure? Want to interact with the Courts of Chaos?

 

[Parmandur]

Actually, to me, most of the 5E big books are remixes/reimagining of old classics:

Not since 2017, which is 8 years ago.

 

[Burnside]

ToA is a fine adventure. But it’s not an innovative adventure, it’s highly derivative of what has gone before. Which is the issue really: the longer D&D is around, the harder it becomes to come up with anything new.

Which leads be me to conclude that Radiant Citadel is the only Classic of the modern era (which is not saying it’s the best).

Compare to Lost Mines: Utterly unoriginal but very well executed.

I think that's a little bit of a reductive take on Tomb of Annihilation, tbh. The influences/inspirations are clear, but the plot is original as are all the encounters, dungeons, etc. It's more original than Curse of Strahd in that respect, in that CoS actually wholesale reprints the map & area descriptions of Castle Ravenloft from earlier products; there's nothing comparable to that going on in ToA.

Mind you, I think Curse of Strahd is a classic in its own right even with like 15% of it not being new material. If a pre-requisite for "classic" is "original", then very little (of anything) is gonna make the cut. Shakespeare's plays are all totally derivative of pre-existing work. It's not originality that makes them classics; it's execution.