I love Forge of Fury. When I run it, I make the NPCs and factions more dynamic. The core design is great, but having the black dragon randomly pop out of the chasm by the entrance was a ton of fun. Scared the heck out of the players.
D&D 5E (2014) What is your favorite encounter site or dungeon from an official module?
- Thread starter Reynard
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Zardnaar
Legend
I ran it with a group last year. It was great. I've quite enjoyed tge anthology adventures and missed this one in 3.0.
Did you have much to do with getting it reprinted?
Benjamin Olson
Hero
People have mentioned a couple specific ones but I think in general the major encounter locations and dungeons of Lost Mines need to be highlighted (Cragmaw Cave, Cragmaw Castle, the Redbrand Hideout, the Phandelver Mine, whatever that ruined town with the Dragon was called). They all were of reasonable digestible sizes, but still had interesting things going on, usually (or, depending on how you played it, always) had some sort of factional dispute players could theoretically exploit, with minor tweaks they had sensible enough ecology, and, a rare thing indeed in dungeons, all of them made more or less made enough sense to exist as locations that it didn't bother me (even if I feel like everyone in town would have figured out the Redbrand hideout). Both Cragmaw sites and the Redbrand hideout also had multiple entrances.
I've run the module 3 and a half times without really getting bored of it. I think a lot of the reason for that, other than bringing in different material from Icespire Peak or my own imagination each time I run it, is that the central locations all lend themselves to enough variety of approaches and resolutions that they remain fun to run for different groups. My only major critique is that since it is intended to be beginner DM friendly they really should have had specific instructions and supports for what happens when an enemy raises an alarm at one of these locations, because literally every group I've run it for has had at least one of these locations turn into a giant them vs. nearly every enemy in the location battle, and trying to figure out what all the enemies are and what they would do on the fly sucks.
I've run the module 3 and a half times without really getting bored of it. I think a lot of the reason for that, other than bringing in different material from Icespire Peak or my own imagination each time I run it, is that the central locations all lend themselves to enough variety of approaches and resolutions that they remain fun to run for different groups. My only major critique is that since it is intended to be beginner DM friendly they really should have had specific instructions and supports for what happens when an enemy raises an alarm at one of these locations, because literally every group I've run it for has had at least one of these locations turn into a giant them vs. nearly every enemy in the location battle, and trying to figure out what all the enemies are and what they would do on the fly sucks.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Phandelver is still by far the best 5e adventure in my opinion. All of the dungeons in it, though small, are very solidly designed, and it does a great job of being very open-ended while still giving players clear goals and a sense of forward momentum.
The Sundering adventures were also quite good, and between them and Phandelver I was very hopeful for the adventure design direction of 5e, and instantly picked up Hoard of the Dragon Queen when it came out, only to be massively disappointed by it. It really feels like 5e adventure design peaked immediately and then took a sharp downturn, eventually managing to level back out to just being “fine,” but nothing after Phandelver really wowed me again like it did.
Yes! I put together the list for Tales from the Yawning Portal. I used sales numbers, both print and PDFs, as a starting point. I also did a lot of research on forums and social media to see which adventures people chatted about.
Evaniel
Filthy Casual (he/him)
I'd offer another vote for Forge of Fury. I'll also say that I really, really enjoyed Ythryn from Rime of the Frost Maiden. I don't find extended dungeon crawls with the 5e rules to be very fun, but Ythryn's approach as a broad, shallow sandbox of mini-dungeons works really well for it. My group liked exploring that area a lot.
I agree those are all excellent adventures. However, I think there are many very, very good official adventures for 5E. The problem with most of them is structural. If you tweak the story logic, you've often got a great premise, lovely maps, and interesting encounters.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
I agree that 5e’s adventures have great premises, lovely maps, and interesting encounters. I disagree that having those things tied together by such flawed structures constitutes a “very, very good adventure.” It constitutes something that a committed DM can make into a good adventure, but it is not one on its own.
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