Lidgar
Gongfarmer
My group says hello!If these players exist, I haven't met any.
My group says hello!If these players exist, I haven't met any.
There seem to be a lot of external pressures at that company. For example, they tend to hire a lot of freelancers to write bits of each adventure (instead of hiring full time writers). They also seem to face some corporate pressure to 'synergize' their products across media (e.g. the rumor that the balder's section of avernus was added to tie in to the video game (which is still not fully out)). And of course they've committed to nostalgia-based products. That would be the favorable way of saying it. The less favorable view is that they are not careful as editors or project managers (either for content or language), and they know they can rely on the community to fix or change their products (and even get paid by those fixes via dm's guild).
It is so much more than a starter set, though. IMO.I guess when they release a new starter set nearly 5 years after the basic game, a forum of (mostly) seasoned players aren't going to pay it much mind. (See also no reviews on here of Stranger Things, Rick & Morty.)
One thing I would note, from looking at the lists-
The only "classic" yet completely new adventure is LMoP. Phandelver is, near as I can tell, the only generally acknowledged great adventure they've put out, and that was in 2014.
It's now 7 years later, and most of the upper echelon adventures (such as CoS) are from borrowed material. Most of the "new" adventures are either polarizing at best (Tomb of Annihilation) or generally considered trash, with some people enjoying it (Waterdeep, Avernus).
This does not seem to be a great hit rate on the APs.
I would say that the overall quality has been ... fine. But it does seem really really weird that we are now seven years in, and it's hard to think of a single brand-new AP that I can wholeheartedly recommend.
Isn’t Rime new, not based on previous adventures? I mean, yes it’s set in Icewind Dale, but I don’t think it’s a reimagining or reproduction like Tomb of Annilihation (which struck me as a reimagining of Isle of Dread/Forgotten City & Tomb of Horrors), Curse of Strahd or Ghosts of Saltmarsh. And what about Candlekeep? It’s all new.
And in my opinion, if you’re going to put “Dragon Heist” in a title, there damn well better be a dragon you’re stealing from…
The two box sets are sand boxes, and I'm at a loss to understand how having stuff that happens in one area, but is not tied to a BIG STORY is bad, but I read that a lot about those two. Not everything advances the plot.
YMMV, of course, but most adventures are go to location X and kill stuff. I'd guess the vast majority of every quest is that in DnD history.Icespire Peak isn't bad because not everything is tied to the big story. It's bad because it's quest after quest of "go to location X and kill everything." I mean, not EVERY quest is that, but way too many are - or turn out to be, once the players arrive.
An introductory adventure should present a fuller picture of what the game is. There isn't enough exploration and very little role-playing at all. "Go get your next mission off the quest board" is shockingly bad, imo. Yes, a good DM can fix it, but as written that's just weak and uninteresting.