D&D 5E In an adventure called Dragon Heist I want only two things...

[Coroc]

well don't judge a book by its cover they say...

i would have difficulties to run it, since silver is my standard currency in high medieval campaigns (did not read it, but upthread some 1 wrote about gold coins)

 

[ccs]

Wait, it doesn't have anything to do with either? Glad I don't buy WoTC adventures.

It does.
A "Dragon" is a GP minted in Waterdeep.
A lot of them have been stolen in the adventures backstop.
Now clues to the hoards location have been found & 4 BBEG groups are trying to re-steal them. The pcs are also in on the search/trying to stop that.
And there IS a dragon (monster) involved at the end....

 

[jgsugden]

It does.
A "Dragon" is a GP minted in Waterdeep.
A lot of them have been stolen in the adventures backstop.
Now clues to the hoards location have been found & 4 BBEG groups are trying to re-steal them. The pcs are also in on the search/trying to stop that.
And there IS a dragon (monster) involved at the end....

Spoilers - but there are two dragons in the adventure - if you follow some paths.

I agree that the name of the adventure and the experience of the adventure are not well aligned. I would have called it, "Waterdeep: Hunt for the Golden Dragons", but what can you do?

The adventure makes a lot of assumptions and puts the PCs on a series of tracks. They are steamrolled to follow those tracks to completion, with some background information available to allow the DM to take them off the track for a bit. However, the big problem is that Waterdeep is such a massive city, there is either a lot of potential ways to wander away from the main plotline and never return, or it feels like the PCs are tied down by the DM and not allowed to freely role play living in the city, depending upon what the DM does.

In an environment, I think you're better off with:

1.) One session adventures that can be resolved fully within a single day.
2.) Things that grow out of the background of the PCs so that they're all invested.

A money hunt just doesn't do it.

 

[Retreater]

Also, as someone currently DMing this, I cannot imagine how tedious and terrible roleplaying the planning of a campaign-long Heist would be. Unless you used mechanics like what is used in Blades in the Dark (in which case, why are you even playing D&D).

 

[moriantumr]

I ran Dragon Heist for an AL table all the way through. We all had fun despite the fact that AL had some severe limitations, especially for this adventure, had 7 players, and only one of those players really is not a murderhobo. I had to do a lot more prep to make sure I was well ahead of the story, but it was both fun and engaging for my self and the players. They enjoyed both interactions with dragons, learned a bit about waterdeep, and tried hard to not get thrown in jail while acquiring things to make their new inn successful.

 

[Mistwell]

Spoilers - but there are two dragons in the adventure - if you follow some paths.

We just met a "friendly" dragon underwater.

He had gold in a sunken ship. Possibly quite a bit of it. And he just made a deal (through us) to gain even more gold by controlling the weather over the city.

Don't think it has not crossed our mind to heist his treasure!

 

[pukunui]

Yeah, they really blew the marketing on this one. Not just the name but the tag line, which claims the gold is yours for the taking ... except it’s not really because the adventure is quite heavy-handed about making sure the PCs obey the law and giving the money back to the city is the expected action should the PCs manage to get their hands on it.

A more accurate description of the adventure would be that it’s about stopping the chosen BBEG from pulling off a heist of the gold.

... but that would remove their agency and feel really streamrollered. I would not have been a fan.

Considering that the adventure already removes agency and heavily railroads the players (see what happens if the PCs get the macguffin “too early”), I’m not sure that one more railroady bit would make that much difference.

 

[Parmandur]

I mean, yeah, it's not a hard concept. It's not a hard campaign to design, conceptually, but I guess sometimes you design the campaign first and come up with kinda-bizarrely-misleading title for it later.

The titles are actually one of the last parts they finish with these books, oddly enough.

 

[Shiroiken]

The Dragon in question apparently refers to Dragons being the currency of Waterdeep. And there's no heist.

You might be able to reach Dragon's 8, especially if you counted familiars.

If it was higher level, you could add in some henchmen and or followers to get up to 11

 

[Guest 6801328]

WotC editor: "So, I read your draft. It's presented as a sandbox, but it's really one of four different railroads. Where are the plot twists, surprises, or really anything interesting?"

WotC writer: "Because we're going to call it 'Dragon Heist'. Players will be blown away when they realize 'dragon' refers to a coin, and that the heist happened a long time ago."

WotC editor: (long pause)

WotC writer (nervously): "Get it?"

WotC editor: "This is genius."