D&D General Former Head of D&D Says Vecna: Eve of Ruin Was Not Going To Feature Obelisk Plot

Ex D&D head Ray Winninger commented on Chris Perkins' interview with Polygon where the latter revealed that Vecna: Eve of Ruin was originally going to feature a culmination of a long-seeded time-travelling obelisk plotline, saying that "That’s not actually the case."

The Polygon interview was posted on February 8th, and Winninger responded on BlueSky two days later:

I wrote the original brief for this product. It was originally supposed to be a campaign that celebrated D&D’s 50th by sending the players on a tour of all the classic settings we reintroduced for 5E—Ravenloft, Eberron, Spelljammer, DL, and, of course FR—to battle a multiversal threat.

Lots of cameos from D&D notables. The campaign book was also supposed to include guidelines for incorporating your own home brew world(s) into the story. The final battle was to take place in the dungeon below Castle Greyhawk, where everything started.

Had Chris led it, I don’t doubt he would have picked up the thread of the obelisks he placed in his earlier adventures (and I like the ideas he lays out), but that wasn’t the original intent. Not sure why the staff drifted away from my brief, but Im sure they had their reasons.

The product was certainly never intended to be any sort of “coda” to 5E. We never saw the revised core books anything but a continuation of 5E.

Perkins originally told Polygon that "The reason it was dropped was that different people were in charge of the adventure design... I had rolled off a lot of my hands-on product work to help out with other parts of the business. And so, when I creatively walked away from the day-to-day adventure creation, we sort of lost the plot." He went on to say "The original plan, in my mind, was that we would actually culminate the story by going back in time to fight the Netherese Empire... It was always on our radar to bring Netheril back in some way. And this was the way I envisioned it happening, because the only way you could really fight Netheril again is to travel back in time."

It seems, though, that Perkins' plan never got into development, although he did indicate that "We actually did some concept artwork on Netheril in anticipation of ending the obelisk story there, and it never coalesced".

The final version of Eve of Ruin was a high level adventure in which players visit Sigil, and are tasked with assembling the Rod of Seven Parts, each piece of which is located in a different D&D world, from the Forgotten Realms' Underdark to Dragonlance's Krynn, Ravenloft, Eberron, and more.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

this was neither Winninger nor the last time they went to the castle

I think you might want to check the names of the contractors who wrote that 1E Module.

Here let me help.

 

[Pr1ke]

Really enjoying being a player in this campaign. It’s doesn’t feel like a railroad. It opens with the premise that you will hunt for the rod of seven parts and each chapter leaves it up to the player entirely how they secure each part. I don’t see what choice as a player is being constrained.

Thats because we somehow ended up calling a linear plot structure a railroad by default, even though it doesnt necessarily involve any railroading at all.

 

[Cergorach]

Either way it was going to be a giant railroad

And this was VERY clear from the outset, a rollercoaster themepark, but not an issue if you knew what you were getting into.

In our group we went through only a small part (Neverwinter and it's flip side), and other maps were reused when the situation changed (DM/players). But I would have enjoyed the rollercoaster themepark because I knew what I was getting into as a player. It would have been different if the expectation was something entirely else.

In the same way that Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage is a mega dungeon crawler, it's a great experience if that's what your group is interested in at that time. But should be avoided if the group wants something else entirely. Imho this is the case with any adventure/campaign, when reality does not match expectations, people will most often not have a good time.

 

[TwoSix]

I wonder what Ray thinks was gained by disputing what Perkins said?

I don’t see anything actually being disputed. This is just clarification of the timeline over authorship and design intent.

 

[aco175]

Changing heads of development is like the Goodies movie.

New guy now writing the story.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think you might want to check the names of the contractors who wrote that 1E Module.

Here let me help.

View attachment 429634

Well I recognize 4 of those names.

 

[Artamo]

I think you might want to check the names of the contractors who wrote that 1E Module.

Here let me help.

View attachment 429634

I hardly think he was responsible for making the call on the direction of that book.

Who knows? Maybe that wanted a do over!?

 

[CF07]

I find that pretty much all published adventures are railroads. A book can provide a situation with 16 possible resolutions, but it generally can't provide 16 different situation that may or may not come up depending on how the PC's decide to proceed. I remember a lot of complaining from DM's back in the AD&D days that, when running a module, players would immediately wander off to do something the module didn't account for.

They are, for the reasons you suggest, though of course you the DM could pillage the book for ideas or come up with your own ending if it fits your group better.

I run both more plotted, story-based games and more sandbox, sometimes for the same players. There are good and bad aspects to both. Plotting can become onerous if the PCs are totally just on rails, but with some groups it's really best to do it, and having multiple ways to solve the problems helps keep player agency alive even in a more story-mode game. I've also done more sandboxy kinds of things where once they commit to a quest it's more of plotted story but when they're done they are free to go to a different quest.