D&D 5E Which are the most popular types of WOTC Adventures for 5e?

[Mistwell]

I am curious. If we were to make a list of all the official WOTC 5e Adventures and ranked them by sales, and then by popularity in terms of reviews, what would that list look like?

I am wondering if we'd find certain types of adventures are more popular than others for 5e. For example, where does "plot driven railroads with set piece combats" or "sandbox exploration" or "dungeon crawl" or "role playing heavy political/mystery" etc. find itself on such rankings?

My suspicion is Curse of Strahd is close to the top of both the "sales" and the "reviews" charts, but I don't know for sure.

Is there an existing list which ranks the official adventures based on the sales data we have from places like Amazon, Roll20, FG, etc?

 

[DND_Reborn]

Come up with a list, and make a poll, and maybe you will find out?

CoS was ok, but so predictable IMO. I just started running Frostmaiden, but so far prefer it. I love TftYP (particularly AtG because I played it a lot in 1E and 2E) probably the most.

 

[el-remmen]

I am loving Ghosts of Saltmarsh (I was already familiar with the 1E versions of the main path and a couple of the ones from Dungeon). I bought Tales from the Yawning Portal on a whim and immediately regretted it because the maps were terrible - too small and colored awfully. I wish they'd stick to black and white or blue-tone maps. Thankfully, I have some of the original modules so I'll use the maps from them or download the original versions from internet scans to supplement the 5E adaptation.

 

[Aldarc]

I am loving Ghosts of Saltmarsh (I was already familiar with the 1E versions of the main path and a couple of the ones from Dungeon). I bought Tales from the Yawning Portal on a whim and immediately regretted it because the maps were terrible - too small and colored awfully. I wish they'd stick to black and white or blue-tone maps. Thankfully, I have some of the original modules so I'll use the maps from them or download the original versions from internet scans to supplement the 5E adaptation.

Maps do not seem to be this edition's strong suit.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I bought Tales from the Yawning Portal on a whim and immediately regretted it because the maps were terrible - too small and colored awfully

I actually like the maps for the most part, but I agree they are often too small. What should be a full-page map is barely one-quarter page, etc. But, like you said, you can find wonderful maps online (great battle maps ones if you want to pay for them--I bought ones for AtG).

 

[Helldritch]

In order of preference (excluding starter set and essentials as they stop at 5th level)
1) CoS (Both of my group had a blast in this one).
2) TftYP.
3) DotMM (current game, but it is postponed until we are no longer in lock down...)
4) OoTA
5) ToA.

Not having played RotFM. But I do plan to run it.

 

[Mistwell]

I am interested in the favorites of people here, so keep them coming. But I am even more interested in sales data, and massive aggregated review data.

Here is the list:

Lost Mine of Phandelver

Hoard of the Dragon Queen

The Rise of Tiamat

Princes of the Apocalypse

Out of the Abyss

Curse of Strahd

Storm King's Thunder

Tales from the Yawning Portal

Tomb of Annihilation

Dragon Heist

Dungeon of the Mad Mage

Hunt for the Thessalhydra

Ghosts of Saltmarsh

Dragon of Icespire Peak

Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus

The Lost Dungeon of Rickedness: Big Rick Energy

Rime of the Frostmaiden

 

[Shiroiken]

As a DM, I do not like APs. I'm currently running a Saltmarsh campaign, having splashed a couple of TftYP adventures in, and will wrap things up after The Final Enemy. As it's a nice location based sandbox, I can easily revisit it with the old (or some new) PCs at a later date. The only other one I've run is part of Lost Mine of Phandelver, which is an excellent introductory adventure (I've used it 3 times to introduce people to 5E).

I've played in OotA, but it was... terrible. Not only was it a super-railroad, but we really had no idea what we were doing or why. Currently playing in BGDiA and enjoying it, but probably not because of the adventure. The DM is a huge fan of the Abyss/Hells, and he's been adding all kinds of stuff, expanding the adventure quite a bit. We've been told by the DM that the adventure is normally a railroad, but he's given us plenty of options... most of what we choose keeps us on the railroad anyway.

 

[R_J_K75]

We've been told by the DM that the adventure is normally a railroad, but he's given us plenty of options... most of what we choose keeps us on the railroad anyway.

Once the DM says "this adventure is a railrod but Im going to let you have choices", etc for me it seems counter productive. The DM should've given the players the illusion of having options while staying on the adventure path IMO. This way the players would have been none the wiser and felt like their decisions had consequences and results.

 

[Aldarc]

I am interested in the favorites of people here, so keep them coming. But I am even more interested in sales data, and massive aggregated review data.

Lost Mine of Phandelver and Tales from the Yawning Portal. I prefer dungeon modules over straight-up adventures, which tend to be a little too linear for my tastes.