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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pukunui" data-source="post: 8619879" data-attributes="member: 54629">Sorry. I've been following the Rime discussion in the other thread, so I was addressing the OP's concerns in that broader context, rather than just the "orcs on stairs" scenario.Something I've found is that there's a world of difference between reading an adventure and running it. So many times, I've read through an adventure and thought "Wow, this is really cool! I want to run this." And then, later, when I sit down to prepare it, all sorts of issues pop up that I just didn't see/think of when I was initially reading it.For example, when I first read through the Acq Inc book's adventure, Orrery of the Wanderer, I thought it looked like a helluva lot of fun. But when I sat down and was actually running the first episode, the nonsensical nature of the opening scenario suddenly became glaringly obvious - the 1st level PCs are tasked with tracking down two missing city guards in a series of tunnels beneath Waterdeep. At least one of the guards has made it all the way to the end, and yet there's hardly any evidence of the guards having passed through each encounter ahead of the PCs. As an experienced DM, I was able to add some details (footprints in the dust on the floor, for instance) and determine on the fly that the traps reset themselves or that various monsters only showed up after the guards had gone through. But a new DM might struggle a bit with the whole premise.When I come across nonsensical stuff like this in the middle of the game, I like to talk to my players about it, and we all have a bit of a laugh. Sorry. "Plot holes" may not have been the best term. As I said above, I was also speaking in the broader context of [USER=42040]@Retreater[/USER]'s Rime discussion.Yeah, I don't really like The Sunless Citadel either. I do, however, like its two sequels, The Forge of Fury and The Speaker in Dreams. The Standing Stone also looks good, but I haven't had a chance to convert and run it yet.That said, I think Red Hand of Doom was probably WotC's best 3e era adventure. It had some issues, for sure, but was generally a pretty solid adventure.I really like ToA as well. I'm most of the way through a second run-through of it. Madness at Gardmore Abbey seems to be pretty well regarded. I own it but haven't run it. (When 5e first came out, I started to convert the adventure but ended up running other things instead.)Dragon Heist is like a "how to" of how not to write an adventure. It's got all the things you're not supposed to do in it, including forcing your players down a railroad and having uber-powerful NPCs show up to resolve the climax while the PCs watch and all that jazz.The "Great Upheaval" opening adventure was not included in the playtest packet for SKT, and I think it shows. The connective tissue between it and the rest of the adventure is really weak. That said, Storm King's Thunder itself is a solid adventure that doesn't need a lot of tweaking to run with minimal prep. I really enjoyed both playing through it and DMing it.I also really like the "Trouble in Red Larch" opening adventure from Princes of the Apocalypse. It's a solid little starting town with some fun things to do and a nice mix of adventure and intrigue. It's become my Village of Hommlet for 5e. I've used it several times to kick off longer-running campaigns.That said, Princes of the Apocalypse itself has numerous issues. One of the more glaring ones was that as initially written you couldn't actually resolve the opening hook (find the missing delegation) because the authors had omitted the location of the various people you were supposed to find. This has since been rectified via errata, but the adventure still includes numerous glaring omissions. I made a whole thread about it back in the day: <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/problems-with-princes-of-the-apocalypse.468666/" target="_blank">Problems with Princes of the Apocalypse</a></blockquote>

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