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

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

He writes kooky rants to hawk a book. Clickbaiter.

Dude, stop. You get triggered whenever someone criticizes something from WotC. That is a you issue, not a him issue.

Read the rest of his site or watch some of his YouTube videos. While he definitely is a curmudgeon, his opinions are generally well reasoned.

Compare him to someone like Dungeons & Discourse, who seems to just invent things to say are going to doom WotC each week for the sake of clicks.

 

[Parmandur]

What about "the fragments not really mattering", and 4 of them already been in the hands of the mind flayers, and ultimately having them (or not) only makes a mild difference?

Fairly mediocre McGuffins. Pretty easy to foil the evil plan, from a read through. Not a super strength of the book, but it isn't Forest Oracle material either.

What about a genius mindflayer not being able to solve a fairly simple puzzle?

I would have to review, but I am notntakikg his word for the description.

What about the other NPCs not being able to get to where they are?

Every NPC seemed to be logically placed on my resd-through.

Rooms description not matching the map?

I did not encounter anything like that.

Maps for players but you can't give it to them because it has info for the DM only?

The map seems to be for the DM, honestly, might need to use posties at the table.

Are they all made up by Alexander?

Quite possibly. I wouldn't need to verify if his review claimed that the sky in Faerun is blue.

 

[Parmandur]

Dude, stop. You get triggered whenever someone criticizes something from WotC. That is a you issue, not a him issue.

Read the rest of his site or watch some of his YouTube videos. While he definitely is a curmudgeon, his opinions are generally well reasoned.

Compare him to someone like Dungeons & Discourse, who seems to just invent things to say are going to doom WotC each week for the sake of clicks.

I have read him before. Never been impressed, turned off by the massive, massive vitriol.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I've read lots of them and they just baffle me. It is not necessarily the adventure, IDK. I just can't find a fruitful way to use a published adventure. Feel free to suggest one to me, lots of people have, but I just can't seem to get a hang of any of them. I've tried many times and I can't make hide nor hair of good nor bad adventures (ranked by others - not me). I much prefer running my own game.

How would you write one up?

How would you format them?

I've always wanted to see who can't use adventures publish their own just so I can see how they would organize it.

 

[dave2008]

for a great dungeon that makes a lot of sense (it's about 125 rooms, so not quite a megadungeon, but it's a big one) I recommend Gates of Firestorm Peak, which is where the far realm concept was introduced to D&D. 2nd ed, but it can be converted to 5e fairly easily (some have already done so).

For a great campaign (made of several smaller adventures), I can't recommend Dungeons of Drakkenheim strongly enough.

Ok, we have a misunderstanding. I am not talking about dungeons here, but adventures in general (though dungeons would be included in that). And I not talking about the in game logic of the adventure (or dungeon) but how to make a published adventure actually usable at the table.

Also, I looked at Firestorm Peak a long time ago as it has been recommend to me, and again just now briefly. Not for me, it is terrible, IMO, with its usability at least that was what I recalled when I did a quick peak just now. Way to much text for me.

 

[dave2008]

How would you write one up?

How would you format them?

I've always wanted to see who can't use adventures publish their own just so I can see how they would organize it.

I have no idea. For my own adventures I just have some bullet points, a few key statblocks, a map (sometimes), and my DM cheat sheet for improv. That is what works for me.

 

[SakanaSensei]

How would you write one up?

How would you format them?

I've always wanted to see who can't use adventures publish their own just so I can see how they would organize it.

I’m not gonna publish a module just to show my work, but referencing what I was talking about above could be a start.

- Never use paragraphs where bullet points and good word choice will do. This seems standard in most OSR adventures I pick up, though I usually only grab highly regarded works and am coming to that scene quite late, so there’s already a lot of curation I’m benefitting from.

- Cut-away shots of the dungeon rooms relevant to a page’s information reduce the need to reference a print out or flip back and forth. Necrotic Gnome’s adventures do this excellently. Hole in the Oak and Incandescent Grottoes are particular examples.

- There are very few circumstances in which all of the moving parts of a given situation should take more than two pages (given terse editing mentioned above), and those two pages should be on a single spread. Again, to reduce flipping. The Arcane Library adventures do a great job of this. To note, I like Justin Alexander’s advice in aggregate, have used his Waterdeep remix and did enjoy it, but it was also woefully bad at this kind of thing.

- All elements of a scenario should have direct links to other elements, preferably plural, and these should all be obvious connections. No Spelljammer-style “the DM gets to be surprised by what happens next, too!” Black Wyrm of Brandonsford does a phenomenal job of this.

 

[Ancalagon]

Ok, we have a misunderstanding. I am not talking about dungeons here, but adventures in general (though dungeons would be included in that). And I not talking about the in game logic of the adventure (or dungeon) but how to make a published adventure actually usable at the table.

Also, I looked at Firestorm Peak a long time ago as it has been recommend to me, and again just now briefly. Not for me, it is terrible, IMO, with its usability at least that was what I recalled when I did a quick peak just now. Way to much text for me.

I think I might have the thing for you.

Tomb of the Serpent Kings.

Edit: more details: a free adventure to teach people how to run/play D&D. Has some pretty neat elements. Extensively playtested (I wrote a review about it, all my complaints were addressed)

OSR: Tomb of the Serpent Kings Megapost

People keep asking for "beginner" dungeons. Everyone can name "classic" dungeons - Tomb of Horrors, Barrier Peaks, Temple of Elemental Evi...

coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com

 

[Distracted DM]

I’m actually not sure they exist anymore, but I was thinking specifically of his old “Happy Fun Hour” streams.

Same, it's nice to see inside the design process and watch him tinker out loud with different subclasses etc.

 

[Distracted DM]

The problem is that if anyone at the table needs that extra line, including the DM, then it needs to be there. I certainly do expect this kind of effort to be put in.

Oh totally agreed- like I said, it's really only beneficial to have that effort in.