D&D 5E Justin Alexander's review of Shattered Obelisk is pretty scathing

[Umbran]

It seems to me there are some folks who really are just so set against the blog's author that they will die on any hill that belittles him.

Mod Note:
It seems to me that making this discussion about the other posters is a classic way to dismiss people's points without actually addressing them.

If you don't want to address their points further, that's fine. But stooping to personal accusations is not an appropriate alternative. Don't make it personal.

 

[doctorhook]

This thread has turned into talking about “Where did that hydra come from?” and “This map doesn’t need a key!” for so many pages that all the other criticisms are being drowned out.

Personally, the point from the review that concerns me the most is that the new content isn’t integrated in an intelligent way. Alexander points out a lot of missed opportunities for foreshadowing, but instead glowing goblins just kind of appear for some reason. Why haven’t we spent 20 pages talking about that instead?

 

[mamba]

This thread has turned into talking about “Where did that hydra come from?” and “This map doesn’t need a key!” for so many pages that all the other criticisms are being drowned out.

Personally, the point from the review that concerns me the most is that the new content isn’t integrated in an intelligent way. Alexander points out a lot of missed opportunities for foreshadowing, but instead glowing goblins just kind of appear for some reason. Why haven’t we spent 20 pages talking about that instead?

harder to argue against?

 

[Parmandur]

This thread has turned into talking about “Where did that hydra come from?” and “This map doesn’t need a key!” for so many pages that all the other criticisms are being drowned out.

Personally, the point from the review that concerns me the most is that the new content isn’t integrated in an intelligent way. Alexander points out a lot of missed opportunities for foreshadowing, but instead glowing goblins just kind of appear for some reason. Why haven’t we spent 20 pages talking about that instead?

We all agreed that was a failing and moved on with our lives.

 

[doctorhook]

We all agreed that was a failing and moved on with our lives.

Fair enough! I guess I’m hoping for suggestions and solutions

 

[Parmandur]

Fair enough! I guess I’m hoping for suggestions and solutions

Now, I haven't done this yet, myself, but some thoights. My first suggestion if you run the Adventure is to read through and take note of any Eldritch or Far Realmsian Monster or occurrence, like the Nothic or the new Grell (!), and brainstorm how they might be related to the history of the Dwarven kingdom in the area that fell to the Mindflayers. Working out a combined chronology of what went down is probavly a good idea.

The Forge of Spells is not.explained in this book, and the reason why they probsvly left that blank just iccured to me: in the paay nine years there must be literally millions of "here's the real deal with the Forge if spells..." that have been made by DMs running Lost Mines. Coming up with a canonical true story that negates all those could br a problem. So, if you ran Loat Mines and came up with that...figure out how.to plif it in. If you didn't, figure out how to plug it into the Mindflayer Scooby-Dooo villain plot.

 

[pukunui]

Fair enough! I guess I’m hoping for suggestions and solutions

Maybe start an "Enhancing Shattered Obelisk" thread?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Oh, well, I've changed my mind now, I found another "unkeyed dungeon" in the very first chapter! I figure this has to have, like, six or seven keyed locations, or I might get confused:

I think the mockery is unwarranted. And unhelpful.

 

[Parmandur]

I think the mockery is unwarranted. And unhelpful.

Would you say that, perhaps, I have "overstated" the matter...?

Fair criticism, that.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

For me, its:
Advantage/Disadvantage mechanics!
Assembling and managing the "Avengers" team of designers that wrote 5E.
Strong sense of what made D&D (especially B/X) unique and timeless.

The only one of those things which has the slightest relation to his skill as a designer is Advantage/Disadvantage. Which, you may have noticed, is both massively over-used and rather a frustrating ceiling in a variety of ways, such that it is no longer the absolute darling of the community.

So...yeah. Not exactly a great showing, here.

Most importantly (and the key to 5E's success):
The vision to design D&D to be as inclusive and intuitive as possible.

Unless you happen to be one of the people who finds it extremely exclusive of your interests, of course. Y'know, the people whose preferences got openly mocked with edition-war rhetoric in an actual, professional podcast. Or openly mocked in an actual, published post about the playtest.

The vehicle may be any color you want, as long as the color you want is black.