D&D 5E Oh no! They want to play a "bad" adventure

[aco175]

I find the larger problem as DM is to be Waterdeep itself. There is soooo much written about it and how large and fantastic is is. It is a bit overwhelming to DM. I would think mostly since there are so many places for the players to want to explore. I ran a side quest into Waterdeep for an adventure. The players followed maybe half of what I thought and planned. Suddenly they were off in the docks planning a side assassination or another off starting an orphanage, while a 3rd wanted to find a dealer for an ancient holy symbol he picked up a few levels back and I completely forgot about. It was chaos trying to 'put the sins back in the box' so to speak.

 

[Nebulous]

Is there a full street map of Waterdeep available for Roll20? That would be awesome to have the entire city to explore.

 

[Retreater]

Yeah. All the options and going off the rails is a concern. Especially since we're playing on Roll20 where everything has to be programmed and planned in advance.

 

[Bolares]

Is there a full street map of Waterdeep available for Roll20? That would be awesome to have the entire city to explore.

Yeah, the adventure on roll20 comes with a gigantic map of the city

 

[Bolares]

Yeah. All the options and going off the rails is a concern. Especially since we're playing on Roll20 where everything has to be programmed and planned in advance.

There is a great section of the book detailing the city, so should it go off the rails I believe you can esaily improvise

 

[Retreater]

Is Volo's Guide to Waterdeep (2e) still a good resource? I think I have a copy in my attic if it's worth digging out.

 

[Bolares]

Is Volo's Guide to Waterdeep (2e) still a good resource? I think I have a copy in my attic if it's worth digging out.

Never read it, but the section on Dragon Heist is also writen by Volo

 

[Mistwell]

I try to DM a pretty democractic table, with all of us getting a say in what we play. And because of real world issues including families and careers, I'm the defacto DM all the time.
I also research a lot and get pretty strong opinions of what I'd want to run for my various groups, ones that I think they'd enjoy and what would fit my skills as DM.
We just completed The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, and the group picked Dragon Heist to start with new characters. Honestly, it would be the absolute last of the adventures in consideration for me.
But the group is excited, even purchasing a copy of the adventure for me.
They're expecting a fun romp through a city. They are also notoriously not great at taking notes, interacting with NPCs, etc, and our play schedule hampers "thinking" adventures. (We play a couple hours every week, late at night after work, kids are in bed, and everyone just wants to blow off steam.)
So here are my questions....
Generally speaking, how do I raise my enthusiasm for an adventure I'm not especially excited to DM (after reading numerous reviews that it's one of the worst WotC adventures)? [Maybe you've run it, and it's not as awful as the reviews suggest? Even that encouragement would help.]
Anything that would help running a city-based mystery? (This is out of my wheel house these days. I haven't run an urban adventure in D&D in over 20 years.)
More specifically, is there a way to improve this adventure without changing too much? (I have it on Roll20, where we play exclusively, so adding a lot of encounters, DMs Guild supplements - which is recommended in the "Enhancing" thread here on ENWorld - will be difficult to do.)

We're playing through it right now, and having a blast.

We don't find it to be a railroad at all.

Mind you, it's because our DM is just keeping an open mind. It's an entire city to play with. Some of it has adventures written in the book, and some of it you will have to make up on the fly as you go along.

Right now, the party is considering the possibility of plotting a heist against a neighboring house to the tavern we took over. We're pretty darn sure that is not something covered in the book, but the DM will roll with it if we decide to go for it. We already cased the joint a bit, but then got pulled into a side quest for the Emerald Enclave or one of those groups.

 

[Retreater]

Sounds like prepping side encounters, making urban themed maps, etc, would be a good way to spend my time?

 

[jayoungr]

We just completed The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, and the group picked Dragon Heist to start with new characters. Honestly, it would be the absolute last of the adventures in consideration for me.
But the group is excited, even purchasing a copy of the adventure for me.

So, this is pretty much how I ended up running Tyranny of Dragons, back when it was the only full-length hardback adventure available and was also roundly panned on this board. And my group had a wonderful time with it if I do say so myself, and they still talk about that campaign more than two years after it finally ended at level 20.

My first piece of advice is to try to stay positive. Don't think of it as "a bad adventure." Try to get into your players' enthusiasm.

My second piece of advice is to read up on all the suggestions you can find for running it, especially if anyone has tips on how to make the NPCs more vivid. Which brings me to the next point...

More specifically, is there a way to improve this adventure without changing too much? (I have it on Roll20, where we play exclusively, so adding a lot of encounters, DMs Guild supplements - which is recommended in the "Enhancing" thread here on ENWorld - will be difficult to do.)

It's really not that difficult. I'm running Curse of Strahd on Roll20, and I've added several supplements from the DM's Guild. Most of them come with their own maps that you can upload, and some are even starting to include tokens. There are lots of good YouTube channels with tips on how to easily set up custom monsters, etc., in Roll20 (I can recommend some that helped me, if you want).