D&D 5E Here's A Look At 3 Adventures from the Radiant Citadel

Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel features 13 adventures, all written by people of colour. Here's a quick peek at three of them, as details start to emerge across the internet!

• Salted Legacy (1st level, Surena Marie). Rival merchant families are at war in the Night Market. Various challenges such as a timed cooking challenge.
• Written in Blood (3rd level, Erin Roberts). Based on the black experience in the Southern US, features a haunted farm and commoners who becoming violent; the adventurers need to figure out why without harming them.
• Shadow of the Sun (11th level, Justice Arman). Persian-themed, factions in a city ruled by a celestial being are in conflict.

D&D 5E - The Next D&D Book is JOURNEYS THROUGH THE RADIANT CITADEL

We peered, poked, squinted, flipped, and enhanced the teaser image that WotC put out last week, and it turns out we got it right -- the next book is, indeed, Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel. Wraparound cover art by Evyn Fong Through the mists of the Ethereal Plane shines the Radiant...

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The full list of adventures is:

• Salted Legacy
• Written In Blood
• The Fiend of Hollow Mine
• Wages of Vice
• Sins of Our Elders
• Gold for Fools and Princes
• Trail of Destruction
• In the Mists of Manivarsha
• Between Tangled Roots
• Shadow of the Sun
• The Nightsea’s Succor
• Buried Dynasty
• Orchids of the Invisible Mountain

 

[Paul Farquhar]

D&D is designed for violence.

So is the USS Enterprise, covered in phasers and photon torpedo launchers.

"Si vis pacem, para bellum"

 

[Vaalingrade]

D&D as it is all about violence.

He said, complaining about a D&D product that is not about violence.

 

[Jer]

D&D is designed for violence to be the first option which is why it makes sure that every character is good at violence with everything else being optional.

This was true for editions before 5e. 5e actually tones it down and makes it much easier for players to come up with non-violent solutions to problems in ways that previous editions the rules often discouraged. 3e tried but the skill system just didn't work, 4e tried with skill challenges and flattening out the differences in skills across levels but that often clashed with the cool powers and stunts that made combat the most fun choice for that edition.

I'm not quite sure what the mix is in 5e that makes it work - I think the combination of bounded accuracy, de-emphasis on miniatures, and fewer explicit combat options for characters pushes the players into looking at other solutions as being "just as fun" as combat. I've run more games of 5e with no combat in a session than any previous edition of D&D - it runs a lot more like other non-D&D games than any previous edition I've ever run in that sense.

 

[DarkCrisis]

So is the USS Enterprise, covered in phasers and photon torpedo launchers.

"Si vis pacem, para bellum"

The enterprise is designed for scientific exploration, it just can also defend itself. The Defiant is a Federation ship designed for fighting

 

[ART!]

The arguably combat-centric-ness of the 5E rules is there for when combat does happen; those rules being that way doesn't mean playing the game must always be about combat happening.

Bread is mostly flour, but the size, age, quantity, and quality of the eggs is an essential part of making some kinds of bread. There are of course eggless breads that one can enjoy.

 

[Ixal]

This was true for editions before 5e. 5e actually tones it down and makes it much easier for players to come up with non-violent solutions to problems in ways that previous editions the rules often discouraged. 3e tried but the skill system just didn't work, 4e tried with skill challenges and flattening out the differences in skills across levels but that often clashed with the cool powers and stunts that made combat the most fun choice for that edition.

I'm not quite sure what the mix is in 5e that makes it work - I think the combination of bounded accuracy, de-emphasis on miniatures, and fewer explicit combat options for characters pushes the players into looking at other solutions as being "just as fun" as combat. I've run more games of 5e with no combat in a session than any previous edition of D&D - it runs a lot more like other non-D&D games than any previous edition I've ever run in that sense.

Not really. In 5E too all characters are by default good combatants and the primary way classes are different from each other are combat abilities. The amount of tools 5E gives you to affect non combat situation is minimal.
Can you still play without combat? Sure but when you do you are basically freestyling and don't need D&D at all.
Other systems do give you tools to affect non combat situations so that there is a benefit of using the system over playing make believe.

 

[Parmandur]

The arguably combat-centric-ness of the 5E rules is there for when combat does happen; those rules being that way doesn't mean playing the game must always be about combat happening.

Bread is mostly flour, but the size, age, quantity, and quality of the eggs is an essential part of making some kinds of bread. There are of course eggless breads that one can enjoy.

Oooooooo, rock solid analogy.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Can you still play without combat? Sure but when you do you are basically freestyling and don't need D&D at all.

This book and Witchlight are providing the tools to play without combat.

 

[Jer]

Can you still play without combat? Sure but when you do you are basically freestyling and don't need D&D at all.
Other systems do give you tools to affect non combat situations so that there is a benefit of using the system over playing make believe.

No you're not freestyling in 5e. You're interacting with the skill system, which is the best version of the skill system that D&D has had since they added it to the game in 2e. With the skill system in 5e you can do social and investigation adventures and it works much better IME than the skill system in 3e or 4e did.

They've also actually secretly integrated the combat system into the skill system in a way that scales your combat ability as if it were just another skill. They don't present it that way so it still looks like your combat scores are special but they're not - mechanically the proficiency bonus for combat rolls is exactly the same as it is for skills. (They did this for 4e too, but because the combat system was much more about powers than raw bonuses it isn't as well integrated since the skill system didn't really have the same scope). The 5e skill system is actually the heart of the game, it's just been well hidden under a layer of "traditional D&D language" to make it less obvious to those of us who have been playing the game across multiple editions - but new players figure it out very quickly. (In fact it was watching my groups of teenagers and seeing how they see the skill list as the major focus of their character sheet rather than their combat bonuses as the first step towards my realization of what Wizards actually did with the 5e redesign and starting to appreciate it a bit more than I had in the past).

There's a solid modern game engine at the heart of 5e. I could pretty easily run a Vampire-style political intrigue game with it if that was what my players were into.

 

[Mournblade94]

Not really. In 5E too all characters are by default good combatants and the primary way classes are different from each other are combat abilities. The amount of tools 5E gives you to affect non combat situation is minimal.
Can you still play without combat? Sure but when you do you are basically freestyling and don't need D&D at all.
Other systems do give you tools to affect non combat situations so that there is a benefit of using the system over playing make believe.

This has been happening since its inception. IN all editions Ive had sessions where we just roleplay. You don't need rules of roleplaying it just happens. D&D is just as good for roleplay as any other system since rules would probably get in the way of roleplay.

But non violent solutions are actually done better mechanically through things like (Ironically) WHFRP, and HERO.