D&D 5E The Larger Failure of "Tyranny of Dragons"

[cmad1977]

I think the biggest failure of HoTDQ is that it doesn’t say, in big red letters on the first page, ‘consider this book tone a sourcebook and NOT a roadmap. Take what works for you and discard what doesn’t!’.

 

[plisnithus8]

Literally my first experience with Hoard...
First text box in the book: “Players [1st level], you approach a city that has an adult blue dragon attacking.”
PCs: “Nope.”
DM: “Um, okay, then the campaign is over.”

 

[Jd Smith1]

I personally found it to be not as bad as Dragon Heist or Mad Mage, which isn't saying much. The maps were third-rate, and the entire scenario felt tossed together and cliche-ridden.

Would it kill them to actually put together a decent adventure fighting the drow? Or the Illithid?

 

[plisnithus8]

The maps were third-rate, and the entire scenario felt tossed together and cliche-ridden.

Hoard has a castle where it was almost impossible to tell if rooms had a ceiling/roof.

 

[Parmandur]

Yes, but to be clear - the thing gets 4.5 stars on Amazon.

Do not take the vocal opinion of detractors in discussion forums to be reflective of the general opinion of the work.

I agree that Hoard is one of the worst 5E Adventures, honestly, but that's praising with faint damnation. Not a bad place to be, and it has a lot going on for it.

 

[Charlaquin]

It regularly comes up as the worst adventure for 5e, so this isn't just my opinion. If you were able to enjoy it, more power to ya.
I can say that Horde of the Dragon Queen (which I did run) is the weakest adventure I've run since I started the hobby in 1989.

It regularly comes up as the worst adventure for 5e when you ask people who regularly spend their free time discussing D&D in online forums. If this tells us anything, it’s that DMs, and especially long-time DMs, tend not to like it. But it doesn’t give us much of an indication about how more casual players feel about it.

 

[Jd Smith1]

It regularly comes up as the worst adventure for 5e when you ask people who regularly spend their free time discussing D&D in online forums. If this tells us anything, it’s that DMs, and especially long-time DMs, tend not to like it. But it doesn’t give us much of an indication about how more casual players feel about it.

True, but if the DM doesn't like it, his or her players will never see it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

However, it has cost players the official "traditional" published D&D campaign. ...", 5e has "Tyranny of Dragons." And it seems that Wizards wants to release only one campaign per theme (Demons, Devils, Giants, Elementals, Lich, Vampire, etc.) And our only big dragon adventure is a trainwreck that no one will play.
What do you think?

Oh, it started off pretty terrible and didn't get much better, but there's turkeys in every flock.

I really doubt they'd do a re-release on a module no one is playing.

All of 5e is essentially a re-release, anyway.

I can only assume they fixed the early broken encounters, too.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Yes, but to be clear - the thing gets 4.5 stars on Amazon.

Do not take the vocal opinion of detractors in discussion forums to be reflective of the general opinion of the work.

To add more context, because every official 5e book published does extremely well on Amazon (no book has below 4 stars), the best way to find the community's "worst adventure" is to compare them to each other.

Hoard of the Dragon Queen is tied for last with Dungeon of the Mad Mage, at 4.3 stars.

Rise of Tiamat however gets 4.6 stars, tying with Storm King's Thunder and better than Princes of the Apocalypse (4.5), Out of the Abyss (4.5), Tales from the Yawning Portal (4.5), and Dragon Heist (4.5).

The newly released Tyranny of Dragons collected book also has a 4.6, though it has so few reviews I wouldn't take it very seriously...

Anyway, the point is that the first half of ToD (Hoard) is definitely not liked as much as other releases, but RoT is slightly better than the average release.

 

[clearstream]

Literally my first experience with Hoard...
First text box in the book: “Players [1st level], you approach a city that has an adult blue dragon attacking.”
PCs: “Nope.”
DM: “Um, okay, then the campaign is over.”

Either the DM is comfortable running an open-world campaign, where players can indeed say no to any narrative thread, or they need to think about consequences. Maybe both!