D&D 5E Let's Talk About Yawning Portal

I'd love to hear more opinions on adventures OTHER than Tomb of Horrors (which I never intended to run except as a lark).

I'm really not sure what to think about Against the Giants. Months ago, I was considering running my own conversion of it, but the players never took the bait, and the campaign went in a different direction. I'm sort of glad for it, because the adventure seems very combat-heavy, and giants aren't the most interesting foes. What do others think?

For the last few months, I've been running Against the Giants with my group, converting to 5e on the fly. We're nearly finished G2, the big difference is I didn't reduce the numbers of any of the monsters in the modules, just straight up one-for-one conversions. It was really fun going through G1 as the players had to cook up all sorts of devious plans to get past the Great Hall, which ended in a tremendously entertaining battle. G2 has been a bit of a grind, however. The party has been using guerrilla hit-and-runs with some initial success, but the huge area of the rift makes it difficult for them to withdraw, and a group of frost giants are a lot harder to put down than a group of hill giants. So with the TftYP version now available, I'll be using it moving forward into G3.

The other thing we quickly discovered is that giants are a helluva lot more dangerous compared to previous editions. Their range attacks with boulders are hugely devastating, more so than I ever remember them being before 5e, so they are extremely deadly to fight from a distance and melee. I found such adversity brings out the best creativity in players tho, they have fared pretty well with only a 2 or 3 deaths in the series so far. Presenting each of the groups of giants as different cultures (hill giants as primitive cavemen, frost giants as ruthless Norse vikings, and the upcoming fire giants as militaristic Roman empire) has made it interesting for them, too.

My other campaign has been a 5e conversion of Dwellers of the Forbidden City - where I plan to drop Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan and the party will be entering it on our next session. I'm looking forward to it, as its one of the original classics I've never had a chance to play or run, and I'll be using the TftYP version.
 

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I was a little disappointed that the AtG stuff was based directly on the original, and not the really nice updates that Perkins did a few years back. It even had another chapter with Stone Giants and more stuff in the area around the Steading, etc.

As far as I know, it held true to the original, while adding to it. The work was done (aside from 5e conversion) why wouldn't they use it?

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Actually, I realized that I still have copies of the Perkins ones. The maps are surprisingly different, but somewhat superficially so.

Anyone here remember them?
Yep. Those were done for 4th Edition. I bought some of the maps from Mike Schley when I was thinking of running G1-3.

But you're right, they're significantly different from the originals. So either way, Wizards would have had to do a conversion to 5th Edition, and they probably (rightly) thought that people would prefer a conversion of the original rather than a conversion of a conversion.

Plus, I believe giants were Large in 4th Edition, and the maps wouldn't have worked with the Huge-sized giants of 5E. Giants were Large in 1E too, but the original maps were a little roomier, I think, so it's less of an issue (although you'll see some of the hallways in the Hill Giant steading are too narrow for them to comfortably move through).
 

Yep. Those were done for 4th Edition. I bought some of the maps from Mike Schley when I was thinking of running G1-3.

But you're right, they're significantly different from the originals. So either way, Wizards would have had to do a conversion to 5th Edition, and they probably (rightly) thought that people would prefer a conversion of the original rather than a conversion of a conversion. Plus, I believe giants were Large in 4th Edition, and the maps wouldn't have worked with the Huge-sized giants of 5E. Giants were Large in 1E too, but the original maps were a little roomier, I think, so it's less of an issue.
It looks like you are right. They shrunk the place for 4e. Nice maps, though. I can see why you thought of using them.

I ran it back in 4e when the Dungeons came out, but I barely remember the details. I remember enjoying it, though.

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Yep. Those were done for 4th Edition. I bought some of the maps from Mike Schley when I was thinking of running G1-3.
I bought those maps from Mike Schley as well. When I saw them, its what inspired me to run Against the Giants for 5e in the first place. I use them with an overhead projector on my game table and it looks amazing, although I've had to make a few adjustments because, as you said, they are slightly altered from the original maps. It sure has added the cool factor to revisiting these old modules.
 

I'm less familiar with Forge of Fury, but it looks good. I'd like to come up with a good hook that will entice the players to explore the whole thing and not just down to the third level. As it is, none of the adventure hooks really give players a reason to tackle Nightwing.
Forge of Fury is good. I've played it in 3e and run it converted to 1e.

Simple hook to draw the party down to Nightwing: have the mission be a simple McGuffin retrieval, and put it in his hoard.

I'm really not sure what to think about Against the Giants. Months ago, I was considering running my own conversion of it, but the players never took the bait, and the campaign went in a different direction. I'm sort of glad for it, because the adventure seems very combat-heavy, and giants aren't the most interesting foes. What do others think?
The G-series are wonderful slugfests (so yes, lots and lots of combat) and I've never met a player yet who didn't like clobbering giants. That said, the giants in G1 are mostly about as smart as a bag of hammers which after a while can get boring from the DM side. The ones in G2 and G3 can, however, be as smart as you want to make them*; giving you-as-DM a chance to have some fun as well. :)

* - unless the 5e conversion has gone out of its way to dumb them down; I haven't seen TftYP yet. Frosties and Fire Giants in the past have always had some brains to work with, which makes them great opponents.

Lan-"if the impossible ever happens and I get some players who don't already know these modules off by heart I'd gladly run them again"-efan
 

I'm less familiar with Forge of Fury, but it looks good. I'd like to come up with a good hook that will entice the players to explore the whole thing and not just down to the third level. As it is, none of the adventure hooks really give players a reason to tackle Nightwing.
Whoa.

Your players sure are entitled.

What happened to the good old-fashioned reason "it's there"...? What more do you need?

You youngsters sure are hard to please...!

;-) ;-) ;-)


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I have run a lot of games since 1980. Highly arbitrary deadly games simply aren't as popular with players as some DMs like to remember.
I know, I have been there.
Lethal arbitrary death is ok in solos with quick character gen, but even then it pales.
Now YMMV, but for you, there are ways to tweak 5e easily to make it more deadly, turn off death saves, remove saves, whatever.
However, might I ask? What do your players want and enjoy?

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