D&D 5E Waterdeep: Dragon Heist Post-Mortem (Spoilers)

[cfmcdonald]

Just to be stupidly pedantic - Keep on the Borderlands absolutely was intended as a starter kit to customise.

I wonder if that might explain some of the difference in approach here. Early, 1e and 2e modules especially, absolutely expected DM's to modify and flesh them out. To the point of deliberately leaving areas blank or giving suggestions for what the DM might do to flesh it out.

I'd almost argue that it's the Adventure Path modules that have been presented as complete and containing everything needed to run them. Which is something kinda new in modules.

Here's the copy on the front of B2, emphasis mine:
"This module includes a cover folder with maps and a complete description booklet to form a ready-made scenario for DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® Basic Set. It has been specially designed for use by beginning Dungeon Masters so that they may begin play with a minimum of preparations."

There have been a handful of "fill-in-the-blank" modules (B1, Ruins of Undermountain), but IMO the vast majority have been intended to be ready-to-play as written, and this is by no means something new.

Of course all modules require some degree of "fleshing out." Every possible action the player's might take can't be anticipated in advance. That's very different from completely rewriting them or pulling bits and pieces from them as inspiration.

The notion that Dragon Heist is not meant to be played as written- I just don't get it? I mean it is notorious for its railroading. Is this some kind of trick by the author? When they say "don't let the PCs get the MacGuffin whatever you do" they really mean "do whatever you want! It's a freeform sandbox for you to make your own!"

 

[Paul Farquhar]

A question I often wonder, if I wasn't on forums and such, watching YouTube videos, etc., would my perspective of these adventures be different? Would I be able to tell Dragon Heist was a "bad" adventure? Do I really need tips and tutorials to run the adventures?
So I look at some of the adventures I've DMed:
1) Curse of Strahd - no real advice taken from the Internet (with the exception of some interpersonal issues, but nothing about the adventure itself) - ran great.
2) Princes of the Apocalypse - no advice taken from the Internet - ran fine
3) Storm King's Thunder - no advice taken from the Internet - ran poorly
4) Dragon Heist - lots of advice taken from the Internet - ran poorly
5) Dungeon of the Mad Mage - no advice taken from the Internet - ran poorly
6) Rime of the Frost Maiden - lots of advice - ran poorly
7) Tomb of Annihilation - no advice - ran great
8) Out of the Abyss - no advice - ran ... average?

What is the revelation from this? I don't know. Maybe that a great adventure is going to run great (for me) without any external sources, but no external sources is going to make something "bad" run well.

I don't really think the module matters that much, apart from how into the story and themes you are. When you are in the zone even the clumsiest writing and scrappiest maps became awesome, and when you are not you can turn the most brilliant writing into bantha fodder.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

First time DM wants to run, they pick up a module or adventure and run it. That's been true since Basic D&D days.

In the olden days a module was a map of some caves with some monsters and treasure scattered around. It's pretty much impossible to go wrong with that (and is still a good place to start for new DMs). But once you start adding things like story, plot, and characters it becomes impossible for a written adventure to cover every eventuality.

 

[Lyxen]

In the olden days a module was a map of some caves with some monsters and treasure scattered around. It's pretty much impossible to go wrong with that (and is still a good place to start for new DMs). But once you start adding things like story, plot, and characters it becomes impossible for a written adventure to cover every eventuality.

Actually, it's not impossible to do a good job of that with simple techniques. In a cave with a non-trivial labyrinth, there are some paths but after that the players are free to go to visit them in any order they want. You can absolutely design intrigue scenarios that way. I usually do that, and it's a technique that we perfected for LARPs (one out of many that we used when designing 2-3 days events for up to 250 people, free to go wherever they want on the site) and called the bumper plot.

The principle is that you have a series of "bumpers", usually NPCs but it can also be information site. They can be fixed or mobile, and they can react to some characters and not others. And they can sometimes react to one other. And you just let the PCs loose in that environment. Depending on the order of encounters and their choices, they can have very different adventures, but it's still fairly controlled because they need information to progress anyway. It is bounded and complete, and it will have at least a solution. Especially on TTRPG when you can easily take shortcuts and make some encounters happen (in a LARP, it's a bit more complicated because you need to track the progress of the PCs and maybe help them now and then when travel time across the site and the luck of finding the right people means that it could take a very long time).

It's not that hard to create such a scenario, and it's one of my favourite techniques especially when I'm pressed for time, I just create a few interesting NPCs with some information and let the players loose. Arguably, it requires more improvisation capability on the DM's part, but some of the best adventures are that way, especially city ones. I have been re-reading the Assassin's Knot, and it's build more or less that way, for example.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Actually, it's not impossible to do a good job of that with simple techniques. In a cave with a non-trivial labyrinth, there are some paths but after that the players are free to go to visit them in any order they want. You can absolutely design intrigue scenarios that way. I usually do that, and it's a technique that we perfected for LARPs (one out of many that we used when designing 2-3 days events for up to 250 people, free to go wherever they want on the site) and called the bumper plot.

The principle is that you have a series of "bumpers", usually NPCs but it can also be information site. They can be fixed or mobile, and they can react to some characters and not others. And they can sometimes react to one other. And you just let the PCs loose in that environment. Depending on the order of encounters and their choices, they can have very different adventures, but it's still fairly controlled because they need information to progress anyway. It is bounded and complete, and it will have at least a solution. Especially on TTRPG when you can easily take shortcuts and make some encounters happen (in a LARP, it's a bit more complicated because you need to track the progress of the PCs and maybe help them now and then when travel time across the site and the luck of finding the right people means that it could take a very long time).

It's not that hard to create such a scenario, and it's one of my favourite techniques especially when I'm pressed for time, I just create a few interesting NPCs with some information and let the players loose. Arguably, it requires more improvisation capability on the DM's part, but some of the best adventures are that way, especially city ones. I have been re-reading the Assassin's Knot, and it's build more or less that way, for example.

Can you extend that from a single dungeon to a 10 level "Adventure Path" though?

My personal view is "Adventure Paths" are the worst thing that ever happened to the game. Short modules work fine because there are a limited number of directions things can go in, but once you start trying to string them together to tell an epic story it turns into a railroad for inexperienced DMs, or "throw the book away" for experienced ones.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Is this some kind of trick by the author? When they say "don't let the PCs get the MacGuffin whatever you do" they really mean "do whatever you want! It's a freeform sandbox for you to make your own!"

It doesn't matter what the book says. The rules say, "If the players come up with something clever that the author hasn't thought of, then they get the McGuffin. Sort it out DM."

 

[Lyxen]

Can you extend that from a single dungeon to a 10 level "Adventure Path" though?

Hmm, that's an interesting question, and I would tend to say "yes" since it's what I do in my campaigns. The trick there is to have recurring NPCs (and of course some non-recurring ones). Depending on the events and the location, you find some NPCs again, maybe with new information. If you look at the best AP published, this is exactly what they do, with recurring NPCs. And it's not the only trick in the book.

My personal view is "Adventure Paths" are the worst thing that ever happened to the game. Short modules work fine because there are a limited number of directions things can go in, but once you start trying to string them together to tell an epic story it turns into a railroad for inexperienced DMs, or "throw the book away" for experienced ones.

Well, it's a matter of taste. The alternative to having no AP is a large sandbox. Some groups prefer that and it's fine. But there are also a lot of people who like an epic storyline, which no sandbox can provide because you need some sort of uber-arc to do this.

And after that, it's a question of degree, I think the people running perfect sandboxes or complete railroads are very rare, it's always a compromise. Most of the people at our tables are extremely experienced, and still we very much enjoyed most of the AP that we played through. Our desire to have a great epic story with recurring NPCs that we loved and hated and could relate to completely overshadowed the fact that yes, there were mandatory points to get through. However, good AP (and there are quite a few out there) also provide very varying ways to get through these points, or even to ignore them, and so we never really felt constrained. Yes, in Jade Regent, we knew that we had to travel with the caravan to get to Tian Xia, but it was an epic journey, we made numerous choices during the way, had many great interactions with NPCs in the caravan and many surprises. After that, to each their own...

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The alternative to having no AP is a large sandbox.

No, you can run a reactive epic story. You could do it in a print book if it was infinitely long to account for every action the players could possibly make. But in the absence of infinite books we have a human DM to create fresh plot whenever the players do something different to the book.

 

[Retreater]

No, you can run a reactive epic story. You could do it in a print book if it was infinitely long to account for every action the players could possibly make. But in the absence of infinite books we have a human DM to create fresh plot whenever the players do something different to the book.

I think there could be a middle ground. Here's what it would take, as I see it:
1) Smallish-focused chapters detailing specific adventure sites and other locations
2) A thematic unity to those chapters
3) A sort of nebulous and simple story to tie the sites together
4) Logic would dictate options for parties would go next (future chapters)

Sure, you can't predict everything a party might want to do. They might want to leave the North and charter a boat to the jungles of Chult, but that's on your group then (or on you to wrangle them back or to find another book to fit their interests).
And this is basically, in theory, I think what many of us expect from campaign adventures like Rime of the Frost Maiden or Dragon Heist. Usually when I have problems with a campaign adventure, it's because it fails to meet one or more of my expectations.

Rime had #1 and #2, but fell apart in #3 and #4. The story was not connected for most of the sites. There was no reason or logic to visit many of them, and the entire second half of the book had nothing (NOT A SINGLE THING) to do with the theme of the previous part of the book. It would be like publishing Dragon Heist and Dungeon of the Mad Mage in the same book, because they're both in Waterdeep.

Since this is a thread about Dragon Heist, where does it fail to meet my expectations? I think it's in #2 (the "switch-around-villains" concept means that the unifying theme of the adventure suffers) and #4 (if an adventure were truly logical, you wouldn't need railroads.)

 

[Lyxen]

No, you can run a reactive epic story. You could do it in a print book if it was infinitely long to account for every action the players could possibly make. But in the absence of infinite books we have a human DM to create fresh plot whenever the players do something different to the book.

An AP can be reactive, and we played most of them that way. Some have built in options, others you can improvise. But it has a story, and especially with the tiers progression, a good long story works if there is proper foreshadowing, albeit at the right level and the right time, and for that, unless you are a master of foreshadowing like Zelazny, you still need an idea of the uber-arc and where it's leading. It can still be reactive, but you at least know how things fit together. And it's an AP.