Tales From The Yawning Portal - 7 Classic Dungeons Updated To 5E!

Coming in April is WotC's next official D&D product, Tales from the Yawning Portal. This hardcover book contains seven classic dungeons updated to 5th Edition, from adventures such as Against the Giants, Dead in Thay, Forge of Fury, Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, Sunless Citadel, Tomb of Horrors, and White Plume Mountain. This is, presumably, the product previously codenamed Labyrinth. It's set for an April 4th release, for $49.95.

When the shadows grow long in Waterdeep and the fireplace in the taproom of the Yawning Portal dims to a deep crimson glow, adventurers from across the Sword Coast spin tales and spread rumors of lost treasures.

Within this tome are seven of the deadliest dungeons from the history of Dungeons & Dragons. Some are classics that have hosted an untold number of adventurers, while others are newer creations, boldly staking a claim to their place in the pantheon of notable adventures.

The seeds of these stories now rest in your hands. D&D’s deadliest dungeons are now part of your arsenal of adventures. Enjoy, and remember to keep a few spare character sheets handy.

For use with the fifth edition Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master’s Guide, this book provides fans with a treasure trove of adventures, all of which have been updated to the fifth edition rules. Explore seven deadly dungeons in this adventure supplement for the world’s greatest roleplaying game:

• Against the Giants
• Dead in Thay
• Forge of Fury
• Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan
• Sunless Citadel
• Tomb of Horrors
• White Plume Mountain

Find it on WotC's site here. Forbes has an interview about it here. Mearls says "We're announcing a new D&D product, a book coming out this spring. It is called Tales from the Yawning Portal(out March 24th in local game stores and April 4th everywhere else) It's a collection of seven of the most famous dungeons from Dungeons & Dragons history. They're all collected in one hardcover book. The idea behind it is not only do you want to capture some of the most famous dungeons from the game's history, but we also wanted to give a selection of adventures that you could in theory start at Level 1 with the first dungeon and play all the way up to Level 15 by playing the adventures one after another."

Cover Image

Gibbering Mouther

Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan



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[Patrick McGill]

Just a small thing - U1 (and the rest of the U series) are not Gygax. They were written by TSR UK.

Oh geez, I never realized that. Just looked at the module and you're absolutely right.

 

[Staffan]

I really wonder why they cannot write something new.

Like I said, they've been doing this for 40 years. You'd be hard-pressed to come up with something that hasn't been done before - particularly considering that during those 40 years, they've done Planescape, Dark Sun, and Spelljammer, for some pretty weird stuff.

Humanoid invasion? Red Hand of Doom, or Under the Dark Fist.
Planar invasion? Black Spine.
Weak humanoids in super-fortress? Dragon Mountain, or Axe of the Dwarfish Lords.
Hunt for multi-part artifact in order to defeat some threat? Rod of Seven Parts.
Trap/puzzle dungeon? Tome of Horrors, Crypt of Lyzandred the Mad.
Weird and crazy mega-dungeon? Undermountain.
Resisting and throwing off occupation? Sword of the Dales adventure series.
Visiting weird places? The Great Modron March, or Ruined Kingdoms.
Underdark? D1-3, Night Below.

This is even more true if you want to write a book that's the basis of a whole campaign (and that seems to be Wizards' plan, at least with the previous offerings).

 

[Queer Venger]

Meh.
So much meh.

It takes almost no effort to update products from 1e to 5e. I've done White Plume Mountain and Castle Ravenloft pretty much on the fly during the playtest.
In his AMA on Reddit, in response to a question on converting old adventures to 5e, Mike Mearls responded with
"Yes, as long as they are part of the content covered by the Guild. I'd suggest extending the adventure with new content rather than just copying it, because updates to 5e are fairly easy. I think you'd need to add a personal spin to it to get attention."
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/413uu7/dd_ama_with_mike_mearls_and_chris_lindsay_115/cyzk3tv/
Adding a framing device isn't "a personal spin".

And they *just* reprinted three of these in the Dungeons of Dread S-Series compilation so it's not like they're hard to find. The rest will be on DMsGuild in Print on Demand shortly, if not PDF. That is if you're not able to find a used copy anywhere (which is unlikely given how often these were reprinted).

And we just got effective updates of the Giants adventures. I was pretty critical of Storm King's Thunder initially as I felt it was just a retread, but this is *exactly* what this sounds to be.


This just feels like a super, super lazy product.
There had better be a TONNE of extra monsters. And hopefully tweaks, surprises, and revisions to the adventures. I expect not just an update but a complete rewrite. We've learned a lot about adventure design since most were written.


I know a lot of people wanted smaller adventures. Despite being able to strip out dungeons in Princes of the Apocalypse and Storm King's Thunder effortlessly. And despite the numerous small Adventurer's League adventures now on the DMsGuild. And despite the myriad past adventures that are easily updated.

Now, I'm not against that per se. But I'd rather that be NEW small adventures that are linked together. Where people can have those small adventure and I can have my story. Seven giant dungeon crawls lack that story.

Im a professional, and all of my players are professionals in competitive careers; I do not have time to convert anything. I want a finished, polished, final product that can allow me to jump right into the fun with my gaming groups. This is right up my alley, its a product that I can play right out of the box with minimal prep. That's why I pay $49.99.

 

[guachi]

D&D has become the 40 year old guy who still wears his highschool football letterman jacket every day and spends his nights sitting in a recliner drinking Bud Light and flipping through his senior yearbook with tears in his eyes thinking "those were the days."

D&D - Al Bundy Edition.

Though I am that 40-year old guy (42...) who is happy he has enough money to buy original copies from ebay or rpgnow for $5 and print them myself. So it's an odd nostalgia in that many of these are modules I'd only read about or others had owned.

 

[guachi]

from twitter [MENTION=4036]Jeremy[/MENTION]ECrawford A thing I dig in Tales from the Yawning Portal: tips for setting the adventures in various worlds—particularly FR, GH, DL & EB.

And no Mystara. It's only the setting for the highest selling RPG product ever, the Red Box Basic. And its line of Gazetteers were very good sellers, too. And it's D&D's second setting, after Greyhawk. (Blackmoor existed though not published).

 

[MichaelArkAngel]

So they are recycling old modules I already have, played, and retuning them for 5E? no thanks. I find this a lazy money grab from WOTC, when they could finally add some solidity to higher level gaming, perhaps an adventure for levels above 12?

You won't be getting my money, when I can already translate my old modules to 5E.

 

[Iosue]

If I have any complaint about this product, its that I wish they went whole hog on it. If you're showing off classical adventures from D&D's history, hit every edition. Don't just give us some AD&D classics of the 70s and early 80s, a couple 3rd Edition adventures, and a 5e playtest adventure. Throw in a Planescape adventure from 2nd Edition, a classic from Expert D&D like Castle Amber, and Reavers of Harkenwold from 4th Edition. Or, go all the way with different settings. One from Greyhawk, one from Mystara, one from Krynn, one from the Forgotten Realms, one from Dark Sun, one from Eberron, and one from Nentir Vale.

But I'm not one to let the perfect be the enemy of the good!

 

[Iosue]

D&D - Ted Bundy Edition.

Al Bundy. You're thinking of Al Bundy. Ted Bundy would be a completely different weird 40-year old D&D!

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[SkidAce]

Well, as I said, it's my advanced age (37) the very concept of twitch boggles my mind - why the blazes would I want to watch other people play games when I can play them myself? But I know I'm hopelessly out of date.

I'm 53.

Listening to Critical Role while I run is fantastic. Great stories and plenty of ideas.