Hey folks, I'm wrapping up an extremely off-the-rails "Rise of Tiamat" campaign. I currently own both PotA and OotA. My plan is to take 6 months off from DMing in order to prep the next campaign (I learned the hard way during HotDQ & RoT that I need to spend more time prepping before launching a campaign).
I'm trying to decide which to run. At first I was thinking OotA for SURE, on account of these reviews calling it stuff like "One of the best campaigns for D&D in the past 20 years" or whatever. But then I'm looking at the (admittedly small handful of) reviews and seeing that PotA is still trending higher. I have only skimmed through the two hardbacks, not wanting to distract myself too much while closing my current campaign. My struggle is that I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around what happens in OotA (no great summary anywhere) and gauging how much prep work it will require vs PotA.
I have the following questions:
1. Which campaign requires more prep to run from the book?
2. Which has a stronger story, in your opinion?
3. What is it about OotA that makes it "harder" for novice DMs to run than PotA? (I've read this is the case, but am not sure why?)
As a background on the group: I run a party of 4. Guessing that I'll pick up a fifth for the next campaign. We usually meet weekly, assuming I'm adequately prepared.
I don't have a ton of time to answer, but PotA did not impress me at all when I flipped through it in the bookstore, whereas OotA impressed me enough that I bought it, rolled up a party of four PCs for solo play so I could test it out before offering it to my players, and then liked it so much that I started a new (off-weeks) campaign with my players before running even the first chapter in solo mode.
I love the fact that it functions as kind of an extended DMG for the Underdark (lots of random tables and terrain hazards), the NPC backstories for your fellow slaves, the fact that every chapter has notes on what kind of lighting exists in the area... there are things I hate too (permanent anti-magic zone in the slave pens, of all places--who would waste effort on putting
that there instead of just killing the spellcasting slaves?) but so far they've been easy to change.
I haven't gotten past chapter two yet, and it's possible my satisfaction could change, but so far I'm still loving it. (I do like what I've glanced at in later chapters, and am looking forward to some nice battles against Duergar elemental knights.)
RE: question #3, my speculation is that perhaps the things which I love about OotA (freeform nature) are also things which make it harder for novice DMs to run, because it's not pre-scripted. I'm still fairly new as a DM myself and I admit that I had some trouble getting things rolling the first session--the players weren't eager to gather information or meet NPCs or do anything proactive, and it wasn't until the drow guards attempted to kick one of the PCs and he started a fight that things got back in comfortable territory. It would not shock me if the next session were a TPK and we re-started with a new party back in the slave pens, being a little bit more cautious this time about starting a fight with a whole drow outpost...