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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[Celebrim]

And I am wholly unconvinced that you had a competent group of adventurers. Good?

We got through Tomb of Horrors with no knowledge of the text, which you say shouldn't happen.

You keep making assertions that I find laughable, based on my own experience.

My assertions are backed by evidence. I'm describing how we survived the module. I was a fairly experienced player with an 11th level thief, and a couple of potions and scrolls. Using rope and a 10' pole for probing, and not rushing into anything, we got through most of the module. I can describe the path we took in detail. We made it to the vault, made the mistake of trying to fight Acerak, lost a few characters to soul drain, and ran as fast as we could away. That's with zero knowledge of the module. I would consider that a fairly average experience based on talking to other oldbies. I have heard of parties that died in the Devil's Mouth, but we were already pretty freaked out by that point (though hadn't lost anyone) so we didn't even touch the Devil's Mouth.

The exact same group TPKed on 'Hidden Shrine', wasting time on the side trek to the vampire(again, vampire at this party level!!) thinking that we'd found some clever bypass, with half the party dead by midway into the first level, and no one managing to get out before we all died of the carbon monoxide. Every group I've ever ran 'Hidden Shrine' for has TPKed. Being intimately familiar with both modules text at this point, I consider 'Hidden Shrine' vastly more unfair for all the reasons I have hitherto mentioned.

That said, you original statement (it's hard because it's a competition module) doesn't hold water. Because S1 (Tomb of Horrors) was originally written for competition- the first Origins Con, not the '79 Origins Con like C1. A little pre-history for you.

They are both competition modules, and I'm intimately aware of the history of both. The fact that they are both competition modules in and of itself does not prove which is harder. I'm doing that by referencing the text and details of the module. You aren't.

Now, it's totally fine for you to have an idiosyncratic view! You are welcome to say, contrary to the experience of the vast majority of people that have played the game, that the original Tomb of Horrors is a cakewalk that can be accomplished by first level players with a few scrolls, and the C1 is, "The Real Tomb of Horrors." Similar to saying that "Lionel Ritchie is the Beethoven of our times," it's, you know, your opinion man.

Again, I'm repeatedly making reference to the texts of the two, and you continue to appeal logical fallacies. You have not once made any attempt to explain your opinion, and are instead appealing to the modules reputation or other irrelevant crap.

 

[Patrick McGill]

I doubt the adventures will be heavily revised or reimagined if at all. From the Forbes interview it seems to me it'll be the exact adventures, updated for 5e with modern art, maps, and aesthetics with information for putting them in different settings.

Which is exactly what I would want out of this book. I own a few of these already, but having them in a nice hardcover with the conversions done for me would make this an instant buy for me.

Call it lazy if you want, but I think that's a bit cynical and a little insulting. They've been churning out new stuff the whole edition life cycle. It's fine to release a Greatest Hits album every now and then.

 

[darjr]

Just a random thought now that I've gotten through the comments, but are these adventures meant to played consecutively, or are they just smaller "bite sized" adventures to be thrown in your campaign at any time?

I think they've said they want it to serve both interests.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Prakriti]

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

The Labyrinth product page on Amazon and the Tales from the Yawning Portal product page on Wizards have the same ISBN and the same release date. Labyrinth most definitely was the code-name for Tales from the Yawning Portal.

And if anyone feels "deceived" by the code-name... well, welcome to code-names. That's the whole point. You (consumers) aren't even meant to hear them. One of the reasons code-names exist is so that employees can discuss the product without fear of revealing the product's nature to eavesdroppers. And "Labyrinth" makes about as much sense as "Cloak" or "Dagger" (the code-names for previous adventures), so if anyone based their expectations on the code-name, and now finds themselves disappointed, then they really only have themselves to blame.

 

[Jester David]

Which you have no idea if that's true. Precedent suggests otherwise. CoS is essentially a reboot of I6 plus new adventures wrapped around it to form a lvl 1-10 campaign.

There was a degree of laziness to CoS as well. There wasn't a new plot. It wasn't a sequel. Large sections of the Castle were identical to what was written before. It wasn't an update where you were returning to the castle and everything had changed.

Compare this to Storm King's Thunder that was inspired by Against the Giants but every single dungeon was completely redesigned and reimagined. Whole new dungeons, whole new plots, whole new NPCs. I have my problems with STK, but a lot of work went into that and it's a great example of being inspired by the past and nostalgic but doing its own thing.

At a minimum we can expect them to redo art and maps, upgrade mechanics and build a more coherent storyline both internal to each adventure and around the campaign as a whole.

Yes, they're updating the maps and the art. Which they'd do anyway. That really is the "minimum" to be called an update. Otherwise it'd be a "reprint". And when you're only doing the very minimum that's.... lazy.

IF they update and heavily revise, then it won't be "lazy". But right now we don't know for sure.

For most players these adventures are brand new..perhaps they've heard rumors. Parents, aunts and uncles or older cousins murmuring about that time they're 9th level paladin battled King Snurre or their elf fighter/magic-user/thief got teleported naked into a giant briar patch.

"Most"?
I think you're greatly overestimating how many new people have gotten into the game. Or how many players have family/friends who are experienced gamers.

I played or ran 4 of these. Some multiple times in multiple editions. Not one of my current players have. I am thinking of starting a lunch group at work and this product sounds like the perfect product for that.

That's great.
But if you've already run them I assume you have a copy. Or can get ahold of one of the dozens of reprints for a song. You could probably buy a used copy of every single adventure in this hardcover for less than the $60 asking price.

 

[darjr]

*sigh* why does there have to be acrimony and anger in a thread about games.

I intend to run this as deadly as possible with a group who is interested in doing just that.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Charles Rampant]

Then you can causally discuss how them young whippersnappers need to mollycoddled with "story," and "surviving," and "meaningful character options," and that back in the old days, we used to walk five miles, in a blizzard, both ways uphill, just so that our first level magic user with three hit points could get killed by a kobold in Keep on the Borderlands in the first combat after casting his one magic missile.

Haha! One of the weirder parts of this forum is the way that the older members describe 'good adventuring', aye. I once saw someone exclaim that the problem with the new APs is that they were harder to run than the old modules; if a 32 page storyless dungeon isn't easier to run than a 256 page full-story adventure, then I'd be worried!

 

[Prakriti]

This is not lazy if only for the fact they are redoing all the art and maps

Not from what I saw. The maps they showed in the Forbes video -- for Against the Giants, Dead in Thay, Tomb of Horrors, etc. -- already existed. They aren't redoing them, because they already re-did them during 3E and 4E. All the NPC portraits, likewise, came from the D&D Next playtest. I have them, and I've used them in my campaigns.

I would guess that 80-90% of the work on this book was already done before they decided to make it.