D&D 5E Why is Hoard of the Dragon Queen such a bad adventure?

[FormerlyHemlock]

Also, and here is where my lack of understanding comes in: I've read a good many posts advocating player death as a teaching mechanic. I'm curious at what it teaches and, and this is most important, whom it teaches in this instance: if the character dies, the only one I can see learning is the player. If the player role played his character and it died w/o any real chance to learn first, what is learned is to meta-game. i.e. You might think you wanted to play a brave knight - but, you know, you should probably have your order's moto be something along the lines of : "Discretion be ith the bestest part of the valorous heart!"

I don't think I've explicitly advocated death as a teaching mechanic, but I'll take up this challenge anyway:

There's nothing wrong with players learning to play the game. A player who knows better can always roleplay something stupid (e.g. casting spells at undead that the player knows won't work), but a new player with no tactical knowledge cannot roleplay a tactically canny high-level PC unless and until he himself acquires knowledge of the game. The order's motto doesn't matter unless the player is on-board with discretion, unless you are the kind of DM who likes to overtly warn your players when the PCs are making a bad decision. "You're charging the hobgoblins, by yourself, on a horse, when they've got cover and 600' of range to play with? You shouldn't do that, they're just going to shoot you down, you should sneak around." I don't do that kind of thing because I think learning to play the game is part of the fun for the players.

In the hobgoblin scenario above, the charging PC got shot unconscious, but he made his death saves while the other two PCs pulled it out of the fire (one aborted the charge after the first volley, another didn't charge in the first place, and then they together snuck around and attacked the enemy position from the woods, ten minutes later, while the hobgoblins were busy examining their loot from the downed PC). So in this case, the player and the PC both survived to learn from the experience (maybe), but if the PC had bought the dust the player would still have gained metagame knowledge, and I don't think that's a negative. If the player does something which is likely to kill the PC, but he thinks it's awesome and in-character and does it anyway, then whether or not the PC dies, the player will be having fun. So, gaining metagame knowledge enables more fun without undercutting roleplaying. It's pure empowerment, and that is good.

 

[MoutonRustique]

I don't think I've explicitly advocated death as a teaching mechanic, but I'll take up this challenge anyway:
[...]
In the hobgoblin scenario above, the charging PC got shot unconscious, but he made his death saves while the other two PCs pulled it out of the fire (one aborted the charge after the first volley, another didn't charge in the first place, and then they together snuck around and attacked the enemy position from the woods, ten minutes later, while the hobgoblins were busy examining their loot from the downed PC). So in this case, the player and the PC both survived to learn from the experience (maybe), but if the PC had bought the dust the player would still have gained metagame knowledge, and I don't think that's a negative. If the player does something which is likely to kill the PC, but he thinks it's awesome and in-character and does it anyway, then whether or not the PC dies, the player will be having fun. So, gaining metagame knowledge enables more fun without undercutting roleplaying. It's pure empowerment, and that is good.

First off : thank you for taking up the challenge.

Sadly, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I say sadly because your point of view is analogue to mine own whilst the one that has me baffled is where metagame = EVIL! and character death (of the "you did not scout ahead on this regularly traveled road? here are 20 foes that want to kill you on mounts faster than you. your dead." variety) are espoused in the same textual and conceptual vicinity.

So, in the end, it's probably a case of language barrier - abuses of language on their part (such as "too easy" instead of "too straight-forward") or mis-interpretation on my part. English isn't my first language and I tend to be fairly strict in my reading...

Thanks again!

 

[Riley37]

What does HotDQ tell the GM to do if the players say "we travel at max speed, to find someone who can help those poor villagers. You know, someone with double-digit HP, or maybe whatever local lord is the protector of that village."

Does HotDQ give the DM good options, in which that response (IMO, the only sane response) also leads to an interesting story?

<http://www.pvponline.com/comic/2014/12/29/home-field-advantage>

 

[pemerton]

in all but the most open of sandboxes, there's a bit of railroading involved. You're following prewritten plot. Or course it needs to make some assumptions of behavior.

it sounds to me that whenever people complain about modules railroading and such it's like.... I don't know. They bought the module but expect that the module doesn't want you to play the story line? Why buy the module?

<snip>

Modules can't account for every single thing, and nor should they. They exist to provide a specific story.

The largest obstacle in adventure writing these days is that the art of SCENARIO design seems to have been forgotten. A scenario based adventure sets the stage for the status quo prior to engagement by the PCs but doesn't otherwise dictate anything regarding their involvement.

An adventure module is not and should not be a story. It should be ready made content for actual play.

<snip>

The end result is a good old fashioned scenario based adventure with an initial situation set up, the arrival of the players, and who knows what craziness to follow.

On this point my tastes are closer to those of ExploderWizard than Evenglare and Mephista.

It is not hard, in principle at least, to design an adventure that frames a situation for the players to engage via their PCs, but is open-ended as to outcome. I think Robin Laws provides some good examples in his HeroWars Narrator's Book, and the Penumbra line of modules for d20 are generally pretty good in this respect also.

But these adventures tend to have less material in them than many prospective purchasers seem to prefer - just enough to frame the initial situation, perhaps provide a little bit of guidance on how it might develop as the PCs initially enter into it, then the material for the crunch. If you are going to provide a lot of material, than either it probably has to be a railroad, because the outcome of scenario A has to frame the PCs into scenario B, or else a whole lot of locale descriptions (like the traditional dungeon).

and if the PCs pull off the 1%, the adventure tells the DM to just replace the dead half-dragon with an equally strong replacement half-dragon in a later encounter, so that the PC's victory doesn't even matter (instead of having said later encounter being significantly easier as reward)

We had great fun with the 1 round single combat vs. Cyanwrath. It worked very well to make the story of our game more memorable.

<snip>

imagine being the player/PC. Even if there is little to no chance of taking the half-dragon down, the player/PC doesn't know that!!!! The effect achieved by the fight is what is important. The PC becomes a minor hero because he saved the innocent wife and kids, and there is built up animosity towards Cyanwrath and the cultists.

That's strong interactive story telling. Who cares if the outcome is nearly pre-determined.

On this issue I generally agree with Neechen.

In particular, I agree that downstream operational consequences (eg a later encounter being significantly easier) is not the only form of meaningfulness. (Indeed, if that makes that later encounter a bit boring then from the point of view of the players it's not even really a reward.)

If the outcome is nearly pre-determined, then as a player I would prefer to know that when I make my choice to take a stand. In D&D this can be a bit hard to signal without meta-gaming, because a 5th level NPC looks much the same as a 1st lvel one. I don't know how HotDQ handles this particular point.

 

[Nebulous]

For what it's worth, i think they were trying something new and exciting, and having a blue dragon attacking a town at the kickoff of a L1 adventure IS exciting. Hell, that's how Skyrim started, and we weren't expected to fight that mother either! I think it comes down to the fact that the scenario doesn't give the players much choice. You WILL enter the town, you WILL save villagers, you WILL confront the dragon until it flies off and leaves you alone, you WILL fight the half-dragon and it WILL kick your ass. And a roleplaying game is all about choice. Which is why it's not a videogame.

 

[Rhenny]

For what it's worth, i think they were trying something new and exciting, and having a blue dragon attacking a town at the kickoff of a L1 adventure IS exciting. Hell, that's how Skyrim started, and we weren't expected to fight that mother either! I think it comes down to the fact that the scenario doesn't give the players much choice. You WILL enter the town, you WILL save villagers, you WILL confront the dragon until it flies off and leaves you alone, you WILL fight the half-dragon and it WILL kick your ass. And a roleplaying game is all about choice. Which is why it's not a videogame.

This is definitely a knock against HoDQ. It is a railroad, plain and simple.

 

[Nebulous]

This is definitely a knock against HoDQ. It is a railroad, plain and simple.

Are there other major railroady stuff later or does it get more open and sandbox? I can't badmouth it too much because I have not run it. My gut feeling though is that it would have taken a lot of work to change stuff in the scenario, and that defeats the purpose of paying for a pre-made scenario. And maybe this is a minor gripe, but I did not like the physical design and layout of the product. At all.

 

[KarinsDad]

Nope. Return to TOEE has zero tells that there is a blue dragon in the moat house. If you walk in the front door of Secret of the Slaver's Stockade (A1 (did I get the name wrong?)) you eat a troop of orcs armed with a flamethrower. If you are stupid in Hall, you're going to stumble right on that major encounter. In Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, you wind up in a pitched battle with virtually every inhabitant of the dungeon in the first room.

Nothing to do with making up minds. Sorry, you're just mistaken here.

The blue dragon in the moathouse???

That wimp?

I DMed that three times. It was a tough fight, but one that all three groups handled. The Irontooth fight was harder than that and often resulted in PC death. Granted, a lot of groups out there had dead PCs or even TPKs from that dragon, but RtToEE has an NPC on the way to the moathouse that tells the PCs that there is a dragon there.

Not quite as powerful as the dragons in LMoP and HotDQ. In RtToEE, it's a level 12 dragon with a 6D8 (27/13) line breath weapon (i.e. few PCs per attack) vs. 4th level PCs. In LMoP, it's a Level 14 dragon with 12D6 (42/21) cone breath weapon vs. 3rd level PCs and in HotDQ, it's a level 16 dragon vs. 1st/2nd level PCs (I forget the number of dice for this guy, but it doesn't matter, even a saving PC goes unconscious). Granted, PCs have a few more hit points in 5E than 3E, but on the other hand, so do the dragons.


I thought you were talking stuff like the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief where the DM is cautioned on the first page about PC level and how many magic items the PCs should have, the PCs know ahead of time that they are fighting giants plus unknown allies, and the PCs arrive at dusk while the giants are partying. Btw, I've done the Steading quite a few times as well and just knocking down the door works totally fine. I had a group once fly up to the roof, blow up the throne room and then piecemeal the rest of the place later on since the toughest foes were taken out while the PCs had full resources. Extremely difficult fight of 30+ foes vs. the party, but magic makes all the difference (old style illusions, area effects spells, wall spells to block off an entire side of a room, old style darkness spell where the PCs fight from under it and can see, but the giants are in the dark and cannot see, etc.).


Yes, there can be impossible or nearly impossible scenarios in many modules. The differences are with the "tells" and the setup. LMoP gives one PC a background that encourages him to fight the dragon which should rarely lose to a party of 4 3rd level PCs. The PCs go to a village, have a bunch of fights with twig blights and some other stuff, then they typically fight the dragon. After using up a bunch of their resources, they are expected to fight a dragon that probably heard them fighting and should be ready for them.

In RtToEE, the PCs may or may not have a fight with a frog. Then they fight the dragon which can lose to basically fresh 4th level PCs (it happened multiple times in our games).

HotDQ puts the dragon right in front of first level PCs and expects them to ignore it and enter the town anyway.

Good design vs. bad design.


Your point that there are extremely tough and even deadly fights in a lot of old modules does not justify bad design in this one.


Btw, running tough encounters one shot is usually a lot tougher than running tough encounters as part of an ongoing campaign. Most players play one shot PCs a lot less effectively than they do PCs that they have been running for months or years. Also, magic items for one shot PCs tend to be standardized ones whereas campaign magic items often have more of a backstory and/or cooler abilities. It's just the nature of the beast. When the DM has a year of running a game, there are a lot of opportunities to add in cool magic items. For a one shot, it's usually some +1 or +2 items, some potions, wands and a few minor specials at best. Which makes the difference between an impossible fight and a deadly fight.

Most low level modules (like LMoP and HotDQ) for a brand new game system are closer to one shot games than campaign games. The players and DM are not as familiar with the game system (i.e. fewer optimized PCs), there are no splat books for special abilities, the players have not played the PCs for months or a year in order to learn team tactics, etc.

 

[Parmandur]

Are there other major railroady stuff later or does it get more open and sandbox? I can't badmouth it too much because I have not run it. My gut feeling though is that it would have taken a lot of work to change stuff in the scenario, and that defeats the purpose of paying for a pre-made scenario. And maybe this is a minor gripe, but I did not like the physical design and layout of the product. At all.

Past the first few episodes (which are used in OP, I believe) things are way more open-ended. Most of the episodes could be cut out and run as stand-alone modules, probably.

 

[Blackwarder]

For what it's worth, i think they were trying something new and exciting, and having a blue dragon attacking a town at the kickoff of a L1 adventure IS exciting. Hell, that's how Skyrim started, and we weren't expected to fight that mother either! I think it comes down to the fact that the scenario doesn't give the players much choice. You WILL enter the town, you WILL save villagers, you WILL confront the dragon until it flies off and leaves you alone, you WILL fight the half-dragon and it WILL kick your ass. And a roleplaying game is all about choice. Which is why it's not a videogame.

No it doesn't, the episode clearly state that if the characters don't enter the town than the cult forces pillage and burn to thier heart content and leave at dawn.

Warder