Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Give Me Your Dragon Heist Tips
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="lluewhyn" data-source="post: 7543896" data-attributes="member: 6887379"><p>This was one of those bizarre adventures to me. It's getting lots of love in reviews, but I have to wonder how many of those are from people reading through it as opposed to actually running it, because it's a huge mess. Lots of great idea, but horrible execution on so many things. You CAN make it a great adventure, but it will require a lot of work rewriting what the designers wrote poorly.</p><p></p><p>My biggest complaint was Chapter 3. Although it starts out with a (literal) bang, the entire chapter is a bizarre railroad of doing things a specific, non-intuitive way. Partially my fault because I sped through Chapter 2 and started Chapter 3 before I was ready, but my group threw me for a loop when they immediately interrogated the witnesses to the explosion and wanted to track down the wounded man who fled the scene with the McGuffin. And then I realized that there's nothing in the adventure to address this incredibly obvious option nor trying to track down the construct. Instead, the only option presented (other than the far out there suggestion of breaking into the city morgue and casting Speak With Dead) is to try to track down where the construct might have been made, go through some so-so RP interaction with one of the priests, and then think to cast Detect Magic on the one item that will help them, find their way to the Manor (presuming you skipped a nonsensical RP encounter that is just an Easter Egg for the DM and probably dull and pointless to the PCs), and find out that there's two different groups of people fighting there, neither of which wants the PCs there nor will the PCs understand what is happening (with the adventure as written). And that's what happened: I basically kept skipping my PCs through parts that weren't making sense to them so they could find out the Nimblewright was at the manor, and they rushed in to defend the manor's guards against the Zhentarim assailants, only to be politely thanked and asked to leave once done.</p><p></p><p>Chapter 1 and 2 are a little thin, but I think it's not too hard to get a little creative and flesh them out. Chapter 4 is annoying in the railroading of the 8 Encounter Sequence that might as well be called "Sorry Team, but Your McGuffin is in another encounter", but you could probably smooth out the transitions as others have suggested while leaving the overall structure intact. Maybe change the encounters to either be tracking down additional clues and/or finding the 3 keys to open the vault as opposed to "JUST as you caught up with the Rogue who had the Stone, he throws a Hail Mary pass to another NPC who shows up and flees to another encounter". But Chapter 3 is the one I personally think needs the most DM work, to come up with a more viable path from Explosion to fight at the Gralhund Estate, preferably with one that utilizes more player agency.</p><p></p><p>Overall, if you want to retool the adventure, try to think up of ways where the PCs could logically use decision-making and skill to progress the plot. As written, IMO, too much of it was Do the Thing the designer intended/successfully make X check or else go back to the Tavern and cool your heels until an NPC helpfully comes along and tells them what to do. Because that's the Success/Failure state of so much of the adventure: Successfully do something the designer intended in Encounter A to figure out how to get to Encounter B, or an NPC will come along and tell you how to get to Encounter B.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="lluewhyn, post: 7543896, member: 6887379"] This was one of those bizarre adventures to me. It's getting lots of love in reviews, but I have to wonder how many of those are from people reading through it as opposed to actually running it, because it's a huge mess. Lots of great idea, but horrible execution on so many things. You CAN make it a great adventure, but it will require a lot of work rewriting what the designers wrote poorly. My biggest complaint was Chapter 3. Although it starts out with a (literal) bang, the entire chapter is a bizarre railroad of doing things a specific, non-intuitive way. Partially my fault because I sped through Chapter 2 and started Chapter 3 before I was ready, but my group threw me for a loop when they immediately interrogated the witnesses to the explosion and wanted to track down the wounded man who fled the scene with the McGuffin. And then I realized that there's nothing in the adventure to address this incredibly obvious option nor trying to track down the construct. Instead, the only option presented (other than the far out there suggestion of breaking into the city morgue and casting Speak With Dead) is to try to track down where the construct might have been made, go through some so-so RP interaction with one of the priests, and then think to cast Detect Magic on the one item that will help them, find their way to the Manor (presuming you skipped a nonsensical RP encounter that is just an Easter Egg for the DM and probably dull and pointless to the PCs), and find out that there's two different groups of people fighting there, neither of which wants the PCs there nor will the PCs understand what is happening (with the adventure as written). And that's what happened: I basically kept skipping my PCs through parts that weren't making sense to them so they could find out the Nimblewright was at the manor, and they rushed in to defend the manor's guards against the Zhentarim assailants, only to be politely thanked and asked to leave once done. Chapter 1 and 2 are a little thin, but I think it's not too hard to get a little creative and flesh them out. Chapter 4 is annoying in the railroading of the 8 Encounter Sequence that might as well be called "Sorry Team, but Your McGuffin is in another encounter", but you could probably smooth out the transitions as others have suggested while leaving the overall structure intact. Maybe change the encounters to either be tracking down additional clues and/or finding the 3 keys to open the vault as opposed to "JUST as you caught up with the Rogue who had the Stone, he throws a Hail Mary pass to another NPC who shows up and flees to another encounter". But Chapter 3 is the one I personally think needs the most DM work, to come up with a more viable path from Explosion to fight at the Gralhund Estate, preferably with one that utilizes more player agency. Overall, if you want to retool the adventure, try to think up of ways where the PCs could logically use decision-making and skill to progress the plot. As written, IMO, too much of it was Do the Thing the designer intended/successfully make X check or else go back to the Tavern and cool your heels until an NPC helpfully comes along and tells them what to do. Because that's the Success/Failure state of so much of the adventure: Successfully do something the designer intended in Encounter A to figure out how to get to Encounter B, or an NPC will come along and tell you how to get to Encounter B. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Give Me Your Dragon Heist Tips
Top