Originally posted by thorbardin:
Hey Fallstorm, thanks for being an adult.
Sometimes these boards can be very opinionated, with little to no chance of anyone accepting another's views. Everything you've said makes sense, and I cannot disagree, as it is what your group experienced. Which sucks.
Sorry you had a rough experience, only because I know how it can totally suck the fun out of the whole endeavour. Recently my group decided to do a throwback to the great Dragonlance modules. I remembered them fondly from highschool 25 years ago, and half our group had never played older versions of D&D. It's funny how nostalgia can make things appear better than they ever were. Anyway, we all played the premade famous characters (I was Raistlin), and finished the first module DL1 in about 8 session. It was so railroady, and randomly punishing, and silly in places (making multiple alternate dex and str saves to cross a stream), with unimportant and unclimactic PC deaths, little to no NPC interaction, incredibly costly random monster encounters followed immediately by big set piece encounters, and a dragon at the end that killed two PCs. It was so much unfun... we've officially disbanded as a roleplaying group to enjoy some board and card games for a while. (We're also waiting for the 5e DMG, and for me to prepare our next rpg campaign, but we're a bit burnt by that experience). It wasn't any single players (or even our DM's - I've been taking a break) fault... the adventure was designed to follow the books, and our DM followed the module text to the letter, and with the end point known ahead of time... all the the players can do is climb aboard the train and hope for a good time. If they strayed from their course, there were groups of 20 draconians to point us in the right direction, uncrossable rivers, marching armies and even clouds in the sky pointing the way. Sadly, it wasn't all that much fun. So, I can commiserate.
I have armchair (as in haven't played it but have read it) problems with HotDQ... most of which are about it being too railroady. All the motivation seems to come from outside the group by NPCs the players just happen to meet moments before they are needed to do something that progresses the story - and usually with a bag a gold just in case. Even if the mayor doesn't like the players because they are all cowards, he does point them towards the raider's camp for example, and there they find a monk, who points them to a cave, and then the mayor points them to a town, and that monk meets them to point them to a caravan, and so on. If you have railroady and instakill player issues this early on, I'm afraid it doesn't "improve" as it progresses imo. Having read the whole thing, I'm not going to run it. It will take quite a bit of work from me to make it appear that the player's have free choice, by following the adventure through their own motivations, and by placing hooks that they want to follow up on, without needing an npc to tell them "do this now, pretty please - there's some gold in it for ya'".
Hey Fallstorm, thanks for being an adult.
Sorry you had a rough experience, only because I know how it can totally suck the fun out of the whole endeavour. Recently my group decided to do a throwback to the great Dragonlance modules. I remembered them fondly from highschool 25 years ago, and half our group had never played older versions of D&D. It's funny how nostalgia can make things appear better than they ever were. Anyway, we all played the premade famous characters (I was Raistlin), and finished the first module DL1 in about 8 session. It was so railroady, and randomly punishing, and silly in places (making multiple alternate dex and str saves to cross a stream), with unimportant and unclimactic PC deaths, little to no NPC interaction, incredibly costly random monster encounters followed immediately by big set piece encounters, and a dragon at the end that killed two PCs. It was so much unfun... we've officially disbanded as a roleplaying group to enjoy some board and card games for a while. (We're also waiting for the 5e DMG, and for me to prepare our next rpg campaign, but we're a bit burnt by that experience). It wasn't any single players (or even our DM's - I've been taking a break) fault... the adventure was designed to follow the books, and our DM followed the module text to the letter, and with the end point known ahead of time... all the the players can do is climb aboard the train and hope for a good time. If they strayed from their course, there were groups of 20 draconians to point us in the right direction, uncrossable rivers, marching armies and even clouds in the sky pointing the way. Sadly, it wasn't all that much fun. So, I can commiserate.
I have armchair (as in haven't played it but have read it) problems with HotDQ... most of which are about it being too railroady. All the motivation seems to come from outside the group by NPCs the players just happen to meet moments before they are needed to do something that progresses the story - and usually with a bag a gold just in case. Even if the mayor doesn't like the players because they are all cowards, he does point them towards the raider's camp for example, and there they find a monk, who points them to a cave, and then the mayor points them to a town, and that monk meets them to point them to a caravan, and so on. If you have railroady and instakill player issues this early on, I'm afraid it doesn't "improve" as it progresses imo. Having read the whole thing, I'm not going to run it. It will take quite a bit of work from me to make it appear that the player's have free choice, by following the adventure through their own motivations, and by placing hooks that they want to follow up on, without needing an npc to tell them "do this now, pretty please - there's some gold in it for ya'".
.48 There is reference to Voaraghamanthar and it states that "Characters should not encounter either of these dragons face to face in this adventure (they are likely to meet in The Rise of Tiamat)" but now that Rise of Tiamat is out, I searched and was unable to find any reference...
