Another Radiant Citadel writer. Expectations lowered.
As someone else pointed out, she didn't write anything on the D&D product 'Journeys through the Radiant Citadel', just on some monetized fan expansions (DMsGuild) for that product, which is imho a significant difference!
And to be honest, there are very few D&D products with 'great' writing imho, I've seen fan products with better writing, I've seen LLM deliver better writing then some official D&D passages. So because you find the quality of the writing below par in The Radiant Citadel, doesn't mean it's any different from the rest of the line up. And to be honest, a lot of The Radiant Citadel hate doesn't come from the writing quality, but from the very vocal hate from a certain group of people that strongly dislike the cultural diverse nature of the different adventures.
That said, I have a strong dislike for The Radiant Citadel as well... But that's because WotC/Hasbro only focused on the diverse social and cultural backgrounds of the authors instead of the actual adventures AND the social media (including ENworld) did the same. Which to me came across as extremely fake and insincere, a marketing stunt. Add to that I have a strong dislike for anthologies, both in RPGs and in novels, this was not the product for me (I just figured out there was an official D&D
heist anthology, this is how much I dislike anthologies). I have browsed and read The Radiant Citadel, to be honest, the settings were interesting and might benefit from a more detailed product for each of them. If that should be an official D&D product, I don't know... Having bought almost all 2e/3e/4e official D&D products, I have bought very few official 5e products. Just as I didn't buy the Candlekeep Mysteries, I didn't buy The Radiant Citadel.
This writer has written and edited quite a few Radiant Citadel DMsGuild products, these are aimed at a certain audience. Just like the Award mentioned is aimed at a certain audience. What I saw of the products written/edited/managed for the DMsGuild, these were small publications with some lacking even reviews, and none having even a 'bronze' status on DTRPG (I might be wrong here). Compare that to the writing/design credits of Mearls when he was hired back in the D20 era, that's imho a huge difference in experience. Now, as Morrus already mentioned, this might not be a senior position at all and this could be the equivalent of hiring someone who wrote articles/adventures for the Dragon and Dungeon magazines back in the day. I also don't know/remember if WotC/Hasbro announced Mearls hire or if he shared that himself. Do I have doubts about why this person was hired by WotC/Hasbro, absolutely, in the same way I would have doubts if the person hired was the child of a WotC/Hasbro executive in a different position. I do not have a positive view of how corporate America operates, both from media coverage and personal experiences. That doesn't take away that I'm happy for a fellow D&D nerd got her chance to have their dreamjob working on D&D.
Time for a Single Store Anecdote!
At my FLGS, we've sold... 25x Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel. Compare that to 47x Candlekeep Mysteries, , 40x Ghosts of Saltmarsh, 38x Tales from the Yawning Portal, and 24x Keys from the Golden Vault. I'll point out that these are LIFETIME Sales, and Yawning Portal has nearly TEN years on Radiant Citadel (though it was before they printed Exclusive Covers, so that would explain why it loses out to Candlekeep and Ghosts of Saltmarsh).
Golden Vault is only a year younger, so the most apt comparison puts it at... about right. It's selling fine.
Maybe the Yawning Portal was equally bad? Tales from the Yawning Portal (2017) only has
5 years on Journeys through the Radiant Citadel (2022). The Candelkeep Mysteries (2021) is only one year older and has significantly more sales.
But this might not have anything to do with being 'bad' or 'good', but more with target audience. Recent discussions about Vampire the Masquarade and Old World of Darkness and New World of Darkness have driven home the point for me that different product ranges from the same source might have large fanbases with very little overlap.
Tales from the Yawning Portal is a collection of adventures from previous editions for 5e. This would possibly appeal to folks with nostalgia for those old adventures. Others might see this as cheap recycling, nostalgia exploitation, or just don't have any interest in this anthology. The same could be said about Journeys through the Radiant Citadel, but in this case fans of multicultural settings... On the flipside, there are folks that aren't interested or actively hate such settings. Two different target audiences that might have very little overlap, thus explaining 'poor' sales compared to the rest? Keys from the Golden Vault is also very specific, not everyone enjoys a D&D heist game...
(Honestly, I'm surprised by Candlekeep, which I think isn't great, having suffered from over-stuffing. Each adventure would have been better if they'd been given more space to breathe.)
I have similar feelings of Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, where they tried to stuff most of Undermountain in a single 'normal' sized book. But that doesn't mean that with some work it can't be a fun adventure for your group.
I also wonder if the Candlekeep Mysteries doesn't benefit from being set in the Forgotten Realms, the Sword Coast, and there are 17 contained adventures that could be played sequentially to get folks from level 1 to level 16-17? Something similar could be attained with Journeys through the Radiant Citadel, but it was an unknown setting (the Radiant Citadel) that essentially did plane hopping to diverse cultural lands. Something that's traditionally done via Sigil and the Planescape setting, which was released a year later and might have canabalized some of it's sales. And/or just was a bit more familiar and less socially/culturally charged to most folks running D&D.
