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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[dagger]

The levels and number of characters required for the Giants modules should be interesting.

 

[lowkey13]

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[JeffB]

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).

Perhaps they should just change their focus to different products then?

I don't buy that argument. Their creativity is hampered by the need to produce "safe" products that will sell to thier business need. So re-hash old themes and convert old adventures.


There are plenty of great adventures being produced today for D&D games without the D&D logo (and I buy them!)

 

[MonsterEnvy]

This is not lazy if only for the fact they are redoing all the art and maps, rewriting and reformatting the adventures. (They are going to much more pretty and easier to read.)

This is not an easy thing and the production values alone with the redone art will be nice to check out alone.

 

[dave2008]

Oh sorry, I forgot to drink the Kool Aid this morning before I came on.... my mistake

What are you talking about?

 

[Celebrim]

I've run them both countless times, and I would disagree with your assessment.

Let's assume both play as written.

The key differences between the two are:

1) 'Hidden Shrine' has hideous time pressure. In 'Hidden Shrine' you are under a horrific clock. The poisonous gas will kill the whole party in a few hours. You can't take a single rest. You have to race to get out of the lower levels or you will die. 'Tomb of Horrors' has no time pressure. You can explore, use spells, and rest and reset as needed.
2) 'Hidden Shrine' has vastly tougher monsters relative to party level. The 'Will O' The Wisp' alone is more dangerous to a party of the suggested level than every single monster in Tomb of Horrors is to the party of its suggested level (sans Acererak, who is a special case) combined. It's AC makes it almost unhittable. It's electrical damage is brutal. 'Wisps' are one of the single most dangerous monsters in 1e AD&D. To have one in 'Hidden Shrine' for low level poorly equipped characters is more brutal than anything in Tomb of Horrors, because there is just no answer to it.

I have never seen a party make it out of 'Hidden Shrines' first section. In my opinion, I could give a typical party the text of 'Hidden Shrine' and many would have a hard time getting out even knowing the whole module in advance. It's that hard. On the other hand, I wouldn't at all be surprised for even average parties to make it to at least the chamber of pillars in 'Tomb of Horrors' having no knowledge of the module, and it's pretty easy to describe how to 'beat' the module using a party of 1st level characters. On a scale of difficulty, I'd put 'Tomb of Horrors' at a 8 out of 10, and 'Hidden Shrine' as a 10 (one of two I'd rate as 10's among published modules, the other being Ravenloft).

 

[Jester David]

This is not lazy if only for the fact they are redoing all the art and maps, rewriting and reformatting the adventures. (They are going to much more pretty and easier to read.)

This is not an easy thing and the production values alone with the redone art will be nice to check out alone.

But they're not thinking of a half-dozen brand new dungeons filled with traps and features. They're not designing those dungeons and creating new maps, but using existing maps and details.

How much rewriting is unknown. And this is the big question regarding the adventure.
If they're heavily revising and reimagining the dungeons, then it might be a lot of work. Because the author is trying to keep the most iconic elements but make them more approachable. Make easier to interact with without the single explicit solution that no one will guess. Keeping what makes the adventure classic while making in modern in terms of writing, presentation, and adventure design.
Or... they could just be giving everything an editing pass and updating the game mechanics.

If it's the latter, then, yes, it's super lazy.

 

[lowkey13]

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[John R Davis]

Not massively interested in this, but would be good if they one or two of these really really brutal, and good for one off adventures.

 

[Jester David]

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.

Fair enough. Except that converting stuff is pretty easy. 1e adventures can be converted on the fly. WotC doesn't need to reprint, they just need a pamphlet with the monster statblocks. I converted White Plume Mountain on the fly using monsters from the playtest and the S-Series hardcover reprint.
And I converted Madness at Gardmore Abby as well, which I did while watching a film and actually building encounters "by the book" rather than swapping monsters in and out. It was pretty effortless.

High level 3e modules might be hard, as they might have classed monsters and NPCs that don't have easy conversions. But WotC is only doing some low level ones, which would be super easy. You barely need to convert things, as the math is almost the same with low level 3e monsters. You could almost run Sunless Citadel or Forge of Fury straight.

All this is assuming no updates exist online. 5 seconds on google will find numerous threads like this:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1133
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/2rdl1n/5e_tomb_of_horrors_conversion/


Now, WotC could be taking this a step further and revising the adventures. Changing the forty-year-old design aesthetics. Reimagining the classics but making the "solutions" to the problems less a very specific spell and some of the traps less auto-kill.