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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 6521854" data-attributes="member: 22424">2 out of 5 rating for The Rise of TiamatLike "Hoard of the Dragon Queen", this adventure surprised me. Unlike HotDQ, it was not a pleasant surprise. Based on the early reviews, I had been led to expect that this was a vastly better adventure than its predecessor.It isn't.The adventure starts well, laying out various factions that can play against each other in interesting ways. This looked really good, and led me to think there would be huge scope for scheming, and role-play, and other shenanigans. My only concern here was that I was sure a better means of showing the factions must surely be better - an org chart for the evil Cult, essentially.But then things started to go wrong.The adventure is split into nine Episodes, with two of those split into several sub-episodes that should happen at different times during play.Episode one, which basically structures the adventure, which is fine. Except that this episode essentially boils down to four departmental meetings for the forces of Good. No, really.After each of the four meetings, the PCs are then presented with a choice of where to go next, pointing into two of the other episodes. Which would be fine, except that the choice is an illusion: it's not a choice of "which mission do you want to do", it's "which mission do you want to do first?" After which the PCs have to do the other mission anyway.Worse, where HotDQ provided lots of scope for different approaches within each episode, allowing PCs to fight, negotiate, or trick their way through, or even evade entire sections of the episode; here there is generally a clear 'best' solution, further reducing the scope of PC agency. A real shame.Finally, as far as the adventure itself is concerned, the climax of the adventure sees the PCs desperately fighting to prevent Tiamat being summoned. If she is, that's probably a TPK. Which means that success for the PCs is a wonderful anti-climax. Which is not ideal, to say the least.One more thing: this storyline has featured dragon-themed armies working to free a five-headed Dragon Queen from her prison. It has featured a flying castle. It has featured five colour-coded "wyrmspeakers" that act as high lords in the cult. It features an undead warrior who is allied to the cult but not total in his loyalties. It features a crown that is absolutely key to the final ritual. It features red robed wizards whose betrayal at a key moment can strongly affect the outcome. It even features a council to bring metallic dragons into the fight, and a detour to an ice-bound dungeon.Basically, I enjoyed this campaign an awful lot more when I read it twenty-five years ago and it was called "Dragonlance".And so ends the first "storyline" for 5e. Such a shame.</blockquote>

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