D&D 5E Anyone else feeling "meh" about recent 5e releases?

[Hussar]

To me, Dragon Heist is a setting book first with a pretty thin veneer of adventure layered on top. There are well over a hundred named NPC's in the book, for example. Locations detailed galore, most of which you will never use in a single run of the adventure. But, as a starting point to run Waterdeep adventures for the next 20 levels? FANTASTIC resource.

Only real problem is, folks look at it and think it's an adventure first. It really isn't. It's a setting guide first with lots of plug and play encounters to sprinkle around your sandbox.

 

[Parmandur]

To me, Dragon Heist is a setting book first with a pretty thin veneer of adventure layered on top. There are well over a hundred named NPC's in the book, for example. Locations detailed galore, most of which you will never use in a single run of the adventure. But, as a starting point to run Waterdeep adventures for the next 20 levels? FANTASTIC resource.

Only real problem is, folks look at it and think it's an adventure first. It really isn't. It's a setting guide first with lots of plug and play encounters to sprinkle around your sandbox.

It's really a fairly bizarre book, more like notes from another DMs urban sandbox.

My hypothesis was that originally, Dragon Heist started life as an opening chapter to Dungeon of the Mad Mage, similar to the Baldur's Gate chapter in Descent to Avernus (Perkins has said that in the original design, the Mad Mage's apprentice Manshoon was the one and only villain, with the multiple villains idea attributed to Matt Mercer's consultancy on the book), but both sections went rogue and split into two books.

 

[Vael]

It is posts like this that make me question whether people have actually bothered to read the books or just jumped to a conclusion based on a cursory glance of the covers.
Dragon Heist is spelled out as a treasure hunt in the Introduction of that book.

I suppose calling it Waterdeep: Dragon Hunt would have a widely different connotation.

The whole thread is about whether we're feeling "meh" on 5e, and when the adventure was announced, I was into it. A DnD heist? Sounds cool. Then the reviews came in, I flipped through a copy in the local bookstore, and said "meh". Because I'm meh on Waterdeep, meh on the Realms, and was disappointed that it wasn't a heist adventure. For those it speaks to, I'm glad. But it's not for me.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't think casuals are going to mine adventures. It's old hat for salted players.

When you have popular editions tie in adventures will be well regarded.

The best ones usually come a few years into an editions lifecycle but before it starts heading downhill.

The most popular ones are usually early and mid cycle ones.

Not absolute of course and there's always an exception somewhere.

Anybody DMing any version of D&D is not a "casual." WotC has bent over backwards to show people how to mine these books (SKT goes into detail on how to do so with all the APs to that point, for instance).

 

[Parmandur]

The whole thread is about whether we're feeling "meh" on 5e, and when the adventure was announced, I was into it. A DnD heist? Sounds cool. Then the reviews came in, I flipped through a copy in the local bookstore, and said "meh". Because I'm meh on Waterdeep, meh on the Realms, and was disappointed that it wasn't a heist adventure. For those it speaks to, I'm glad. But it's not for me.

So you haven't read it.

 

[Vael]

So you haven't read it.

No. Am I wrong though? Because every comment I've read here doesn't make me want to.

 

[Parmandur]

No. Am I wrong though? Because every comment I've read here doesn't make me want to.

Doesn't match my experience, and most reviews have been overall quite positive (it had firmly positive reception here on ENWorld's review aggregate before the forum change).

The set plot doesn't have a "heist" railroaded in, but all the ingredients are there, and if the plot goes off the rail at any point it will become a heist on one of the villains lairs almost certainly. The adventure is weirdly almost designed expecting everything to go sideways but continue on anyways.

 

[Zardnaar]

Bought CoS on Tuesday, glad I didn't buy Dragon Heist

 

[Parmandur]

Bought CoS on Tuesday, glad I didn't buy Dragon Heist

Different strokes for different folks: I haven't regretted it for a moment.

 

[Zardnaar]

Different strokes for different folks: I haven't regretted it for a moment.

I'll buy it eventually. I'm missing that one DotMM and STK which I have read.