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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 6377473" data-attributes="member: 7006">And thus we have the true results of what a module like Hoard of the Dragon Queen gets for a review... it's all dependent on the playstyle of the person running it.- If all you want are encounters or "set pieces" with no established story to get in the way (because you intend on creating your own story)... HofDQ probably is kind of a waste.  Too much story or plot you get "railroaded" through or have to delete.- If all you want is an adventure that you can run straight from the book with no interest in adding/adapting/changing anything to fit your campaign (in other words, kind of use it *as* a campaign)... HotDQ will be a waste if the encounters or fights themselves aren't interesting enough for you to run, or if the story doesn't grab you.  If the fights and the story fit your particular style however, HotDQ might work wonderfully as a campaign.- If all you want is a plotline or timeline of events that your BBEG is moving towards, fully expecting to fill in backstory and other scenes depending on where your characters go (and you have no problem changing or even completely removing specific chapters if the characters don't go in that particular way)... then HotDQ is probably fairly worthwhile.  There are many very interesting and different type of roleplaying "adventures" that occur during the module (turn back a village invasion / masquerade in an enemy camp / dungeon crawl / three month caravan journey / investigation of mystery / journey through foreboding terrain to take over a castle / negotiate with or destroy member of the opposing force / fight in a flying castle.)  A whole series of different types of scenarios, all connected together with a plotline you can follow or add to as you see fit.- If you see any written and established plot reasons to get from episode to episode as "railroading" (because they did not offer up or try to justify more than one way to do it)... then you probably will find HotDQ a waste.  The book offers a single primary reason to go from one to the next because it's probably the one that most groups would end up using.  But that gives the impression that either that's the only way to do it (and thus you as DM have to force your characters to take the breadcrumb, hence the "railroad")... or that the writers don't care about other ways of DMing since they only gave one (rather than offer multiple connective possibilities to allow sandboxy DMs many ideas of where the players might take the story -- or offer no connective possibilities whatsoever so that the individual DMs have to rely entirely on what their players did to make the justifications to move on to the next scenes.)- If all you want is a series of individual episodes or encounters to take apart and insert into your own adventures without worrying about or even bothering connecting them together ... HotDQ might be a mixed bag.  Some might work for you and some might not.  They don't have the page count to really delve (pun intended) deep into any one set piece to make it completely unique (compared to another longer module you might be able to pick up), but you do get a series of seven really different styles and types of scenarios (unlike say the 4E Dungeon Delve book which was *only* 30 short dungeon delves).All of these are ways in which the original in-depth review helps out a lot.  Because if you read it... you really will get a sense of where you yourself lie when it comes to all these different ways of running games.  You'll either read it and think "This review is exactly the kind of thing I see, and it hits on all the ways this adventure does nothing for me."  Or else you read it and think "This review is negative towards all the various aspects of module design that never bother me or that I change or adapt anyway, so I can't take it at face value."  Or wherever you might fall in between.</blockquote>

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