D&D 5E D&D 5e Adventure Reviews

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Tales from the Yawning Portal has been the most enjoyable of all of them, with Curse of Strahd just behind it.

Yes, it's dungeon adventures. The BEST dungeon adventures ever published. If you don't like dungeons that's fine. But dinging them for "not having enough story" when the point is to be the dungeons and dragons part of Dungeons and Dragons seems odd to me. That's like dinging Baseball for not being Basketball.

A lot of the dungeons inside Tales from the Yawning Portal are good and have stories, but the one that is the least drawing to me is Forge of Fury, which seems like it would just be a stale adventure.

 

[Mistwell]

A lot of the dungeons inside Tales from the Yawning Portal are good and have stories, but the one that is the least drawing to me is Forge of Fury, which seems like it would just be a stale adventure.

It's awesome.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

It's awesome.

If you say so. I've personally never run it, but was going to adapt it to my Spelljammer campaign to possibly make it more interesting. It's nice that you like it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Curious to know how you understand "sandbox," since your "scenario" definition is how I would understand sandbox. Dragon Heist is very strongly that style of story...a series of scenarios that set a scene for players to interact with...

Sandbox is broader for me. No mini-adventures, just a bunch of maps, tons of NPCs with their households, goals, holdings, etc., monster lairs (but not like mini-adventures again to be clear), and lots of detail on what is going on. But little direction as to what the PCs should do, and the expectation that this will all fall apart as the PCs interact with it.

It sound like DH has some of that but hasn't got the freedom that usually has, or the flexibility, so is more of a "Bioware" design. Nothing wrong with that but will suck if you expected a linear AP.

 

[Parmandur]

Sandbox is broader for me. No mini-adventures, just a bunch of maps, tons of NPCs with their households, goals, holdings, etc., monster lairs (but not like mini-adventures again to be clear), and lots of detail on what is going on. But little direction as to what the PCs should do, and the expectation that this will all fall apart as the PCs interact with it.

It sound like DH has some of that but hasn't got the freedom that usually has, or the flexibility, so is more of a "Bioware" design. Nothing wrong with that but will suck if you expected a linear AP.

Yeah, it's probably one of the least linear designs WotC has published...ever.

 

[dave2008]

The fact that all the Demon Lords are severely gimped so that you can defeat them at low (relatively speaking) levels vastly diminished that aspect, imo.

Good point, but it gave me something to start with. With little effort I was able to boost Demogorgon to CR 34

 

[Magister Ludorum]

Interesting to see this rated so high. Most of the discussion I've heard about it seemed to be that it was a bit of an incomplete mess that needed a serious re-work.

I didn't run it, but as a player Dragon Heist was my favorite of the published 5e editions.

 

[S'mon]

Good point, but it gave me something to start with. With little effort I was able to boost Demogorgon to CR 34

I kinda like how weak the 5e demon lords and arch-devils are compared to top-level PCs; it reminds me of 1e! And it's easy to compensate by giving them hordes of minions.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yeah, it's probably one of the least linear designs WotC has published...ever.

The funny thing is this kind of sells me on Dragon Heist quite a lot. I'm not a great fan of linear adventures that take up more than about three sessions myself (the ideal length of a linear, pre-gen adventure for me is about 3-6 table hours, maybe 8 at a stretch). Whereas my brother is really good at running linear pre-gen stuff, and has run some fantastic largely-linear pre-gen campaigns, including the classic literal railroad, Horror on the Orient Express. I just lose interest if things have to happen in a specific order. I want chaos and surprise.

 

[Mort]

The funny thing is this kind of sells me on Dragon Heist quite a lot. I'm not a great fan of linear adventures that take up more than about three sessions myself (the ideal length of a linear, pre-gen adventure for me is about 3-6 table hours, maybe 8 at a stretch). Whereas my brother is really good at running linear pre-gen stuff, and has run some fantastic largely-linear pre-gen campaigns, including the classic literal railroad, Horror on the Orient Express. I just lose interest if things have to happen in a specific order. I want chaos and surprise.

Then you won't like Dragon Heist!

I'm not sure where @Parmandur is coming from in saying the adventure is non-linear.

The adventure is expressly written that A MUST come before B, B MUST come before C etc.

There is a tiny bit of leeway in sidequests, but not that much - and they don't really matter to the advancement of the plot.

The fact the story could have different villians doesn't change that. The DM picks the villian. PCs have no say (I suppose the DM could ask the PLAYERS which villian they ultimately want) and even if they did, the story still progresses in a completely linear manner.