D&D 5E Rime of the Frostmaiden Post-Mortem (Spoilers)

[Paul Farquhar]

Played Abomination Vaults. It absolutely has these same glaring problems. Including a completely stocked dungeon that has never been explored that is 15-minutes from a medium sized town on the most densely populated island in Golarion and several hundred apex predators living within a single complex in apparent balance.

That's very common in D&D. Really, if you want to go looking for plot holes, the entire multiverse fall apart.

 

[Retreater]

Played Abomination Vaults. It absolutely has these same glaring problems. Including a completely stocked dungeon that has never been explored that is 15-minutes from a medium sized town on the most densely populated island in Golarion and several hundred apex predators living within a single complex in apparent balance.

Yes, and I even wrote a Post-Mortem about that one too, if anyone is interested...

Pathfinder 2E - PF2: Second Attempt Post Mortem

I'm posting this to collect my thoughts and share the experience I had running PF2 for a second group in a second campaign. In no way am I trying to fault the players in either of the groups (some of whom frequent these boards), nor am I saying that anyone's opinions of PF2 are wrong. If you...

www.enworld.org

Between the two, I would hold Rime to higher standards for the following reasons:
1) 5e is a more established system. It should be very well oiled at this point.
2) Wizards has the biggest game on the market and should have the resources for the best writers and editorial staff.
3) When an adventure is billed as a "simple dungeon crawl" it gets more leeway from me than a massive campaign built on decades of lore.
4) Players can at least leave the Abomination Vaults. If you get tired of the monster hotel design, go to another adventure. Once you start playing Rime, you are trapped and can't leave the North.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Once you start playing Rime, you are trapped and can't leave the North.

Err, no. It doesn't say anywhere PCs can't leave. It might be very difficult to take the pass across the mountains, but there are plenty of abilities PCs could use to make it easier, especially as they gain levels. Or they could take a ship from Revel's End, a whale from Angajuk's Bell, or a Griffin from Skytower Shelter. Or take one of several entrances to the Underdark. Or even leave on an alien spaceship!

 

[wicked cool]

Thanks Blue, Swedish chef, Ancalagon & Greg. Glad the cavalry arrived!

I have been enjoying Rime. But, I am glad I did not run it out of the tin.

Being one of the undead (I am a teacher of 16-18s) + not as young as I used to be + am a parent means I am time poor, and thus would really like a campaign to be ready to run as is. Like Curse of Strahd nearly was or Phandelver. Or stuff from Kobold Press tends to be.
Covid disruption (illness), stress from the pandemic & general fatigue, plus in the UK, being thrown to the wolves by the Govt over excessive workload/ lack of a catchup plan/no extra teachers/no ££, have all been taking their toll on me & the group. Fortunately Rime has a Roll20 module. Unfortunately, uploading stuff, fiddling with content like npc/critter stats, creating new floorplan maps for sandboxing/ 'frostboxing'.... all have added to the time factor... am very glad we are in a dungeon (caves of hunger).... but am aware I need to create new maps for Ythryn. Battle maps that should be in the Roll20 package TBH. Oh well!

Thanks for the support. Discovered the Unfollow button, so have used that, so the person who was arguing for the sake of arguing can't see my posts or me theirs. Seemed like a win win!

Hoping to run either Radiant Citadel or Kobolds Shadow planar adventures when they come out in the summer.

May your dice roll true & folks like JA continue to help us construct fun & intellectually interesting games and

"Like Curse of Strahd nearly was or Phandelver". Or stuff from Kobold Press tends to be-they need go to back to this . Even the new Mercer adventure suffers from not out of box

 

[Swedish Chef]

Err, no. It doesn't say anywhere PCs can't leave. It might be very difficult to take the pass across the mountains, but there are plenty of abilities PCs could use to make it easier, especially as they gain levels. Or they could take a ship from Revel's End, a whale from Angajuk's Bell, or a Griffin from Skytower Shelter. Or take one of several entrances to the Underdark. Or even leave on an alien spaceship!

I have not read the module. We're only just at the beginning of it - literally just completed the Good Mead section. From what we understand, as explained by the DM, the Ten Towns populations have been trapped for 2 years.

But that is a huge, inconsistent plot hole nonetheless. If the populations can get out with a bit of effort, why have they remained behind in order to starve/be "batteries" for Auril? How/why are they living more or less "normal" lives under such extreme conditions? If the conditions really aren't that extreme and commerce is able to continue with relative ease, why bother to make any sacrifices at all?

As I stated in another post, the premise behind the module is interesting. The implementation is less than ideal. Are we, as a group, upset that we paid for the module (we all split the cost of the Roll20 subscription/module). Nope. Is the DM spending time reviewing the module and working through alternative suggestions to close some of the glaring plot holes? Absolutely. I did the same with Avernus. My group loved that module as well, despite some of the plot difficulties.

The general complaint I see with most modules from WOTC at the moment is that they don't seem to go through a vetting process to try and remove the really big plot holes. Most DMs don't worry about the small inconsistencies. Most players don't care about the small inconsistencies. Every module back to the beginning has varying degrees of issues in terms of plot holes. People have complained about them all that time. I think it is fair that they request that WOTC improve the process a bit more, especially with their more structured release schedule giving them more time to edit the books.

 

[Retreater]

Err, no. It doesn't say anywhere PCs can't leave. It might be very difficult to take the pass across the mountains, but there are plenty of abilities PCs could use to make it easier, especially as they gain levels. Or they could take a ship from Revel's End, a whale from Angajuk's Bell, or a Griffin from Skytower Shelter. Or take one of several entrances to the Underdark. Or even leave on an alien spaceship!

All passages out of the North are frozen. There is no trade. Sure - the party (once they're high enough level) can just teleport, but that's a far cry from "just walking back to town, less than 15 minutes away" like in Abomination Vaults.
The ideas you suggest - while they're all possible - are things that aren't readily apparent to the group.
1. Let's go up north and hope to find a ship that can navigate the frozen waters - because even the people who live in the Ten Towns don't use this resource (otherwise, most people would've fled the area).
2. Because players think "oh, there's probably a sentient whale up here that we can use as a submarine."
3. Let's climb up in the mountains and hope that there's a tribe of goliaths who train griffins who will let us use some to make a foolish expedition into the frozen darkness of perpetual night to hope that we can make it before we freeze to death.
4. This random passage to the Underdark MUST lead out of the North and into warmer climates.
5. My group actually thought about leaving on that spaceship, joining a colonizing force of mind flayers. To them it sounded like a better adventure than Rime.

 

[Retreater]

As I stated in another post, the premise behind the module is interesting. The implementation is less than ideal. Are we, as a group, upset that we paid for the module (we all split the cost of the Roll20 subscription/module). Nope. Is the DM spending time reviewing the module and working through alternative suggestions to close some of the glaring plot holes? Absolutely. I did the same with Avernus. My group loved that module as well, despite some of the plot difficulties.

This is an adventure that I ran on Roll20. It could be just me, but I find that running on a VTT, I feel less empowered to change up the adventure. You've gotta make new maps, alter NPC statblocks, load up new encounters. It's so much more work than what I would do at an in-person game.
When an adventure has sloppy design and makes more work for me (even on top of the work of figuring out how to smooth it over), it frustrates me.
My experience with Rime was sort of the last straw about using official Wizards adventures. I can't see wanting to run any of them in the future.

 

[BenTheFerg]

This is an adventure that I ran on Roll20. It could be just me, but I find that running on a VTT, I feel less empowered to change up the adventure. You've gotta make new maps, alter NPC statblocks, load up new encounters. It's so much more work than what I would do at an in-person game.
When an adventure has sloppy design and makes more work for me (even on top of the work of figuring out how to smooth it over), it frustrates me.
My experience with Rime was sort of the last straw about using official Wizards adventures. I can't see wanting to run any of them in the future.

Yes.
I have been running Rime on Roll20.
Did so to save the effort of all the bureaucracy of adding material into Roll20 which I was doing for my Eberron homebrew.
Thought to myself: I'll run a premade campaign since adding stuff on Roll20 is a be-atch!
That went well!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

All passages out of the North are frozen. There is no trade. Sure - the party (once they're high enough level) can just teleport, but that's a far cry from "just walking back to town, less than 15 minutes away" like in Abomination Vaults.
The ideas you suggest - while they're all possible - are things that aren't readily apparent to the group.
1. Let's go up north and hope to find a ship that can navigate the frozen waters - because even the people who live in the Ten Towns don't use this resource (otherwise, most people would've fled the area).
2. Because players think "oh, there's probably a sentient whale up here that we can use as a submarine."
3. Let's climb up in the mountains and hope that there's a tribe of goliaths who train griffins who will let us use some to make a foolish expedition into the frozen darkness of perpetual night to hope that we can make it before we freeze to death.
4. This random passage to the Underdark MUST lead out of the North and into warmer climates.
5. My group actually thought about leaving on that spaceship, joining a colonizing force of mind flayers. To them it sounded like a better adventure than Rime.

None of them are easy, but if players decide to focus their attention on leaving it's an achievable goal. But it's a matter of matching your choice of adventure to your players, either by knowing the stuff they like, or discussing the tone and themes in session zero. Rime of the Frostmaiden is a great adventure - if it's the sort of thing your players like. Just like every other adventure. I wouldn't run Abomination Vaults or Dungeon of the Mad Mage with my players, I know they dislike big dungeon crawls. And one of my players loathes Curse of Strahd, having had it fail twice. Poor DMing would be to choose an unsuitable adventure for their group and then blame the adventure rather than their poor choice.

Call of the Netherdeep is not a bad adventure by any means, but there are some groups I just know it wouldn't work for.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I find that running on a VTT, I feel less empowered to change up the adventure. You've gotta make new maps, alter NPC statblocks, load up new encounters.

This is true, but I find it helps to not buy the adventure through the VTT, rather to transfer it over from another medium. Then you can do the customisation at the same time. It's a lot more work that way though.