D&D General Dragon Delves?

[J-H]

I don't recall seeing a bunch of discussion of this book. How was it?
My 12yo wants to know what he's running soon, and I'm having him stick with pre-written adventures to help him develop a broader skillset.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I got it because I was running my first 5.5 game, after a couple years hiatus from DMing, and wanted something I knew would be balanced for 5.5. Bonus points that it came out like three weeks before our session 1 for that group, so I knew nobody was going to have already played it.

I only ran the first adventure. It was fine. WotC published campaigns are generally more trouble than they're worth once someone has some experience under their belt (just too many poorly indexed and poorly laid out details to keep track of), but the anthology books usually have something for most people's tastes and the style is less difficult to navigate in a short adventure.

I'd recommend a newbie DM start with Lost Mine of Phandelver if the group hasn't played it already. Even with needing to update stats to 5.5, I feel like its still the 5e adventure written most with the idea that the DM is probably a first-timer in mind. If you also have the essentials kit its very easy to borrow locations and encounters from that and learn to make a campaign your own.

 

[Charlaquin]

I too got it and have only run the first adventure from it so far. But it was fun. All of the adventures in it are short and self-contained, so I wanted it to add to my repertoire of things I can pull out at short notice, and I think it’ll probably work well for that. Tonally they’re all over the place though, so I wouldn’t try to string them together into a campaign, personally.

 

[the Jester]

The quality of the adventures varies, but overall, it's pretty good with some great bits. I've got it and have actually played (not run) a couple of the adventures, and they were fun. Some of the higher level adventures have some pretty big flaws as I recall- but I haven't cracked it since first reading it, after I realized that I was going to be playing through some of it.

 

[The Glen]

The book suffers from a serious amount of padding. There's like 30 pages of full color art, which is previous art from earlier editions of different dragons. It's rather noticeable

 

[dave2008]

The book suffers from a serious amount of padding. There's like 30 pages of full color art, which is previous art from earlier editions of different dragons. It's rather noticeable

You got it backwards. The padding is all that crazy adventure stuff. The meat of the book is the dragon art. Well, at least that is why I got it!

 

[Burnside]

I think it's the best hardcover D&D book published by WotC in the past 2 years.

I review each adventure in this thread, starting on page 4:
Dragon Delves Dedicated to Chris Perkins

Podcast review here:
Power Word TALk: July 2025

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I strongly recommend Heroes of the Borderlands for a first-time DM. It's really an exceptional on-boarding experience. (I am one of those who previously said Phandelver was the best D&D starter adventure ever, for what it's worth.)

That said, while I own Dragon Delves, I haven't done more than flip through it yet, so those are my only sort-of helpful two cents.

 

[Milli Rabbit]

I don't recall seeing a bunch of discussion of this book. How was it?
My 12yo wants to know what he's running soon, and I'm having him stick with pre-written adventures to help him develop a broader skillset.

For a broader skill set, I do like Heroes from the Borderland and a bunch of adventures from the Forgotten Realms books for 5.5e. Im running Wild Beyond the Witchlight right now with my kids and I always love the emphasis it has on solving problems without combat. Really fantastic adventure.

 

[Sulicius]

It’s a different adventure anthology than those that came before, because of its focus on easy to prep and run layout.

I have ran most of the adventures, many as a one-shot on short notice. For that, they are great. Very easy for me to run.

Yes, that does mean they have less depth, but that can be added to taste.