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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[Demetrios1453]

And yet... when people on the boards complain that there are no short adventures for 5E and then other folks mention the completely reasonable assertation that converting all the old classic modules on DMs Guild is actually fairly easy... the standard refrain is that they just don't have the time or desire to do it. "I'd rather pay WotC to do it!"

So guess what? This product is PRECISELY those people's fault. They were the ones constantly complaining that all WotC's 5E adventures were Paths, but yet were too lazy to convert old adventures for themselves when they needed them. "Give us shorter adventures! And not 3rd party or Adventurer's League stuff! Fully checked and playtested WotC adventurers!"

So now WotC's now just given them what they kept demanding because they wouldn't accept anything else. The lesson of course being... be careful what wish you for.

I'm wondering if the release of TftYP will be in part to test the waters to see if anthology-style APs are viable for future releases. The best way to ensure a more APs of this type would be to release one with all the "greatest hits" and the resulting hype as a result. I'm thinking that if this is a success (and from what I'm seeing, most people are pretty excited over it, especially those new to the hobby who are hugely intrigued by the prospect of experiencing these legendary adventures for themselves), we'll see an anthology-style AP every couple of years or so down the line. But I imagine that future ones will probably have more original content along side some classic modules as a sweetener. That's probably why they didn't cram classics like Expedition to the Barrier Peaks in this one, so as to hold them back for future products of this type...

 

[Demetrios1453]

The reason this is "low effort" is more for us than for them. They know that their Adventure Paths are long and people are still playing through older ones like Out of the Abyss, much less recent ones like Storm Kings. This is a light break for players and DM's to give them time to digest the material they already have released.

As to why they decided to remake old adventures rather than make new ones? Sales. 5th Edition is made to get people playing D&D. Old fans that left or stopped playing, new fans that never played, any and everybody. By remaking sure fire hits they guarantee sales will be positive. Sure some will complain, but a lot of DM's, old and new, will buy it regardless to have the conversions.

And, as others have said, it will give them more time to work on the upcoming rules expansion book. I'm perfectly fine with them saving time by releasing a product like this if it means that the rules expansion book gets extra playtesting and balancing time.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[vivsavage]

Very uninspiring. Obviously WOTC's new product model of releasing only a handful of D&D books per year must be working for them, but it has left me with a severe case of the "meh"s, especially when the variety of the releases has been lacking. If Dragon magazine were still around, it wouldn't bother me as much. Oh well, most people seem to be happy.

 

[Celebrim]

No worries, but you know that if you run the module for tournament play, you shouldn't use your regular characters, should use the (real world) time limit of 2 hours, and just score the adventure when time expires?

And time will expire before the characters, barring a truly bad party.

Aha!

 

[Aelfricanthathalas]

As @barasawa mentioned upthread, the movie version of Ready Player One is scheduled for release soon (originally December 2017 but shifted to March 2018 to avoid clashing with Star Wars). I have not been following the development of the movie very closely, but Tomb of Horrors is such an integral part of the plot of the book, I'd be surprised if it wasn't also featured in the movie. I think the fact that Warner Bros. are producing both Ready Player One and the new D&D film increases the odds of that even further.

WotC would be foolish not to have a 5e product on the shelves which incorporates Tomb of Horrors by the time the movie gets released, so it seems plausible that this was a factor in determining which dungeons to include in Tales from the Yawning Portal.

Considering Roy Lee in an interview revealed that the Yawning Portal would be prominent in the movie:
http://collider.com/dungeons-and-dragons-movie-story/

[FONT=&amp]"Lee also revealed that the movie will take place entirely in the realm rather than having people transported from our world into the realm. He also said that the Yawning Portal will feature prominently and “it’s going to be one of people’s favorite set pieces.”

[/FONT]This is the most plausible reasoning behind the choice of title and modules to include to tie in product and movie, which has been stated before from other personnel from D&D.

 

[TwoSix]

So guess what? This product is PRECISELY those people's fault. They were the ones constantly complaining that all WotC's 5E adventures were Paths, but yet were too lazy to convert old adventures for themselves when they needed them. "Give us shorter adventures! And not 3rd party or Adventurer's League stuff! Fully checked and playtested WotC adventurers!"

While it's not my fault in the sense I've never asked for shorter adventures, it is my fault in the sense that I would never spend the time updating a module I had to print out from DMsGuild. I'm willing to accept half blame here.

 

[alienux]

But it's possible to eagerly await this release AND acknowledge that it's low-effort.

I completely agree. I'm not so concerned with how much effort they're putting into it as much as the fact that they're releasing these modules in a current book 5E style. It's win/win for me.

 

[darjr]

[video]http://players.brightcove.net/2097119709001/4kXWOFbfYx_default/index.html?videoId=5271747797001[/video]

Mike Mearls talks about the book and shows off some more art, including maps. I'm not sure of what all I see in there, any clue by fours?

The above is from the sage advice page about the new book

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/01/06/tales-from-the-yawning-portal-question-answers/

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm pretty hype. This is a cool way to talk about dungeons from other worlds, and a dungeon compendium has wonderful utility.

I like it better than sticking the Tomb of Horrors in Chult, by far.

A pause in the storyline is good, too - I'm still neck-deep (heh) in Curse of Strahd, guys!