D&D 5E D&D Beyond Reveals New Golden Vault Details

Over on D&D Beyond you can read more about Keys from the Golden Vault, including information on 3 of the 13 adventures, the Golden Vault organization itself, and an overview of how the heist adentures within work.

What Is Keys From the Golden Vault? 13 Heist-Centric Adventures

Gather your crew and get to planning—you're going on a heist! The latest book from D&D takes characters of all levels on epic heists. Learn more about t...

www.dndbeyond.com

Four of the adventures include:

• The Stygian Gambit (for 2nd-level adventurers): Case a Nine Hells-themed casino and steal the prize for the Three-Dragon Ante tournament that's currently taking place.
• Prisoner 13 (for 4th-level adventurers): Infiltrate a remote prison in the tundra of Icewind Dale and extract information from an inmate.
• Vidorant’s Vault (for 7th-level adventurers): Break into the safe of a renowned thief, bypassing its many security features en route.
• Fire and Darkness (for 11th-level adventurers): Navigate the grim fortress of an efreeti and retrieve an artifact of unimaginable evil, the Book of Vile Darkness.

 

[Parmandur]

D&D may not be the best game for specific options like a heist game but games built on specific styles aren’t even good at anything but their specific style without major tweaks whereas D&D just needs some mild tweaking that doesn’t break anything or change the overall game.

I don't think 5E would be the best choice for All-Heists, All-The-Time campaign...but...a book of premise one shots focused on individual heists that can fit into a broader D&D campaign...? That's something.

 

[EthanSental]

Argumentum ad populem proves inly that a thing is popular.

So what’s the debate term for stating an option that is unpopular with the main population of a situation?

My point is most players don’t think the game is a big pile of meh…it’s popular cause people enjoy it and wouldntt be playing it if it was a big pile.

 

[Haplo781]

My point is most players don’t think the game is a big pile of meh…it’s popular cause people enjoy it and wouldntt be playing it if it was a big pile.

Begging the question/circular logic.

If you're going to do nothing but engage in logical fallacies there is no point in continuing this discussion.

 

[Weiley31]

I wonder if there'll be any new monsters in this? The stat block for Prisoner 13 has some cool features!

It's a neat monk stat block.

 

[Clint_L]

Begging the question/circular logic.

If you're going to do nothing but engage in logical fallacies there is no point in continuing this discussion.

As far as I can tell, they are advancing an argument that leads logically to a conclusion:
Premise 1: the game, a pastime, is popular
Premise 2: popular pastimes are usually enjoyable/people wouldn't play it if it wasn't enjoyable (they basically frame both a positive and negative construction of the same premise)
Conclusion: the game is enjoyable

I think we can all agree on Premise 1. Premise 2 is reasonable though debatable (for example, maybe people just play it because of nostalgia, good advertising, the bandwagon effect). The conclusion is therefore reasonable though debatable.

A circular argument would be if they assumed what they were attempting to prove. For instance, if they argued that the game must be good because it is so fun to play. But that's not what they did. They presented popularity as evidence that the game must be good. Debatable, but not circular.

Edit: In terms of truth tests, they appealed to the consensus test, which is generally considered a valid though weaker test, depending on the degree of consensus and expertise of the population in question. In this case, expertise is a non-issue, since enjoyment is a subjective quality.

 

[Zaukrie]

Can we not spend the whole thread arguing about DnD?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Right? This book just popped up on my radar with those words.

Same here, it's really the only part so far the interests me. Wonder if we can expect a Book of Exalted deeds in this book or an upcoming book as well.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Mark me as someone not enthused.

Yes you can run a heist in D&D, you could run a dinner party in D&D.

However other systems can give you so many more interesting options for heists IMO, frex: Mission clocks in The Sprawl, flashbacks in BitD, astral security in Shadowrun, investigative skills in gumshoe, etc.

I love D&D for dungeon crawling, especially with random encounters, reaction rolls and morale, but it'd be one of my least favourite systems for a heist campaign.

How good is gumshoe at action-horror? How about running a mercantile operation or an assassin’s guild, or taking over a city?

5e, IMO, isn’t even that good at dungeon crawls. It’s not dangerous enough without modification. What it’s very good at is “save the day” adventures, exploring a world, and at providing tools to build a “cool OC” and having them fight monsters.

And at resolving distinct actions taken in order to achieve a specific goal. Which is why it ports so easily.

It isn't even really about rules in general. The problem is that the density of PC options outside of combat is so low that you can't actually make a good crew. A book like this should be paired with a PC facing "heist PHB" -- but WotC would not and probably could not provide that. Maybe some DMsGuild folks will offer some mechanics, but I think people would just be better off choosing a game that provides actual options outside of combat.

I don't think 5E would be the best choice for All-Heists, All-The-Time campaign...but...a book of premise one shots focused on individual heists that can fit into a broader D&D campaign...? That's something.

Yep 5e is excellent for a heroic fantasy campaign that could go into any secondary genre at any time.

Ya know what’s great about knowing that BiTD flashbacks work really well? If you add them to 5e…it just works. 5e doesn’t have a totally different set of narrative control mechanics to get in the way, you just give the PCs a limited resource for declaring feedbacks, and the rest is just a matter of how you run that adventure.

 

[Reynard]

How good is gumshoe at action-horror? How about running a mercantile operation or an assassin’s guild, or taking over a city?

5e, IMO, isn’t even that good at dungeon crawls. It’s not dangerous enough without modification. What it’s very good at is “save the day” adventures, exploring a world, and at providing tools to build a “cool OC” and having them fight monsters.

And at resolving distinct actions taken in order to achieve a specific goal. Which is why it ports so easily.



Yep 5e is excellent for a heroic fantasy campaign that could go into any secondary genre at any time.

Ya know what’s great about knowing that BiTD flashbacks work really well? If you add them to 5e…it just works. 5e doesn’t have a totally different set of narrative control mechanics to get in the way, you just give the PCs a limited resource for declaring feedbacks, and the rest is just a matter of how you run that adventure.

But you actually have to do that. And by that I mean WotC actually has to do that. If this adventure is to be successful, a couple orders of magnitude more people need to buy it than have even heard of Blades in the Dark. So if heists require those specialty mechanics, THIS BOOK needs to provide them.

Now, maybe it does. I don't think we have seen a ToC. But if it doesn't, WotC is once again trying to force square pegs into round holes. At best, it's just lazy.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But you actually have to do that. And by that I mean WotC actually has to do that. If this adventure is to be successful, a couple orders of magnitude more people need to buy it than have even heard of Blades in the Dark. So if heists require those specialty mechanics, THIS BOOK needs to provide them.

Now, maybe it does. I don't think we have seen a ToC. But if it doesn't, WotC is once again trying to force square pegs into round holes. At best, it's just lazy.

Looking back at their horror book, I’m not especially worried. In fact I can’t think any “square peg round hole” books wotc has put out for 5e.