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

[txshusker]

Well, what's the major reason for the creation of an AP? To give the players a long term thing to play without having to worry about creating a new scenario every session or two. And with this one, at a time when all the rules still aren't published and known. So the length of the two shouldn't really surprise anyone at this point in time of 5e introduction.

And the other reason for the creation of such a long adventure.... a significant time between book introductions to the world from WotC. Starter set and online basic rules! Cool! Now what?... oh, nothing......... Sweet, the official PHB, finally! Awesome! Now what?!..... ........ oh, nothing ....... ...... ...... ...... oh, WotC needs to make money so they put out a long adventure to cover time before the MM comes out because the published rules don't have enough info for DMs to competently create adventures of their own?.... Finally, the MM!.... what? The DMG has been delayed?.......

This AP was made to introduce players and get people up to speed on the newer rules of play the starter kit and basic rules did not cover. In a year, when options are out there, conversions of other DnD and PF versions are easy and another book or two are published, I would be surprised if people are playing this at first level unless a DM doesn't want to think about adventure creation.

These still only take you to 10th/11th lvl, right? That leaves a lot of room at the top for individualized playing.

 

[Prism]

Railroading isn't a bad thing. But when it consumes the entire life of a PC, holding them hostage throughout the campaign. That's when it gets to be an issue.

I think this adventure tries to play over to great a level span which is why it is difficult to allow choice. If we compare to the Red Hand of Doom, it succeeds because it allows the players to some extent to tackle the smaller scenarios in almost any order with only the first and last couple being determined by timings. 6th to 8th level characters can handle a wide variety of encounter difficulty. The Hoard struggles a bit because it chooses to start at 1st level and rapidly progress the PCs up to 8th. As written it would be difficult to create episodes that can be shifted in order until you get to the last two or three.

Having said all that I have found the individual episodes very open in nature. We are in the middle of the castle episode. How do you get in? Entirely up to the group - sneak, fight, climb the walls, disguise, use magic? Go in the night or day? Very good design

 

[jayoungr]

A lot of people complain that their characters have no reason to try to save Greenest from the raiders. This overlooks the fact that the book does provide a set of character background hooks to help ensure that the PCs will be invested enough to get involved. Individuals or groups may choose not to use those hooks, but it's not the fault of the writers.

 

[Prism]

This is exactly the problem with published adventures these days. They are not adventure modules, they are pre-written stories. I have no use for a story already told, for actual play.

I do think there is a place for this kind of adventure although its not everyone's cup of tea. This one is basically a chase. The cult are up to something and on the move. The party is on the back foot and needs to follow them and track them down. If you are going to have a linear adventure path this one is a pretty good attempt at it and doesn't hide from what it is. I just think its too extended - basically 8 levels long

 

[Evhelm]

As I've stated elsewhere, I'm enjoying HotDQ so far, but my experience is probably idiosyncratic. Players be warned; possible spoilers ahead!

I'm running the AP after my players have already saved Phandalin and reached 4th level (The Starter Set was very good, btw!). Some thoughts after reading the entire AP but only running episodes one and two.

Pros:

• Regarding Episode 1: Since the PCs already met a dragon in the Starter Set, and this one is bigger, they were suitably afraid. Similarly, they were able to do what they needed to do earlier, and hoped they could find a way to do so in Greenest as well. This was a great encounter to remind them (after they'd been real heroes in Phandalin) that the world is still a big and scary place, and they're not always going to be the toughest in the area. For my group, this was encouraging--where there are powerful enemies, there are powerful treasures!
• Although the varied play styles of each episode made some of my players uncomfortable (episode two they were particularly squeamish), they're enjoying doing something a little bit different each session.
• By starting the PCs at level 4, instead of level 1, they have a lot more options a lot faster for how to deal with encounters they face. Similarly, they *believe* they are stronger than they were at first level, and so they naturally take on harder challenges all by themselves. I didn't have to modify any encounters significantly to pose a challenge. (The fight at the Temple in Greenest was particularly tough since my PCs chose to take on two of the attacking groups at once!).
• The immediacy of the threat to Greenest and the subsequent threat of an *army* camped "in its backyard" has been a tremendous motivator. My players always want to be drawn in; they love having choices, but they hate not having *clear* choices. A "total sandbox" would be terrible for them, and this gives them what they want: clear goals that they can accomplish how they wish.
• We're having fun!
• The encounter with Cyanwrath is something my players have never done before: publicly make a life-threatening sacrifice to be noble, or be mercenaries instead of heroes. They were stunned by the reality of their decisions, and enjoyed squirming as the party's martial character was slowly beaten to a pulp by a half-dragon.

Cons:

• The AP did require a lot of work to prepare on my part. The parts that didn't initially fit together made me go out and find clarification (here on ENWorld and elsewhere) about what the authors intended versus what time/the-state-of-the-rules allowed.
• I'm uncomfortable with some of the more open-ended pieces that don't seem to change much based on the PCs actions. Episode 4 is the biggest culprit of this; it seems to be a mini tour of the Realms, but it doesn't actually do any touring! Running such an open-ended episode the way it seems intended would take 2-3 times as long as the other episodes and my PCs would feel lost/purposeless for most of it. (Or, they'd get into trouble in a way that could ruin their chances of success in the module later on.)
• The villains and other NPCs aren't as endearing to me as the LMoP NPCs and villains. I can already tell that they're not quite as memorable for my PCs either, because the random cultists they encounter (which I describe on the fly) are already being referred back to as potential "name-dropping" by me as the DM (i.e. people they expect to see later). The fight with the half-dragon is a notable exception to this: Cyanwrath was both memorable and fun to hate.
• HotDQ is not really playable without intending to also run RoT. I know they're two halves to a whole and this is not surprising, but I still can't really wrap my head around why the PCs would feel they've accomplished anything at the end of the last episode of HotDQ. This seems really, really odd to me. Production-wise, it seems like they should have just released both books together or called them (literally) Part 1 and Part 2.

 

[KarinsDad]

A lot of people complain that their characters have no reason to try to save Greenest from the raiders. This overlooks the fact that the book does provide a set of character background hooks to help ensure that the PCs will be invested enough to get involved. Individuals or groups may choose not to use those hooks, but it's not the fault of the writers.

So a subpar initial premise is ok, as long as the adventure designers give the PCs background hooks that the players might not be interested in at all (or alternatively, the PCs might already have backgrounds)?

Hmmmm.

I find it interesting that people use the word "complain" when someone dislikes something written by a game or adventure designer. Subpar design is subpar design. Shy of a few sentences here and there, there are few detailed reviews of HotDQ out there that explain why it is so good (alternatively, there are quite a few detailed reviews ripping it). I could use the word "justify" as a negative connotation about people who justify anything written down by a designer as quality, regardless of the actual quality (for example, I've read a lot of justification that HotDQ is not polished because the rules were not yet finished, but that seems to lack substantial merit as well; why would the incompleteness of rules prevent a good overall adventure or numbers for locations on a map?). There are people who rate everything they read as 4 out of 5, or 5 out of 5 (one sees quite a bit of this on Amazon ratings, click on all reviews of some reviewers and they always rate high), but that doesn't mean that everything they read rates such high ratings ("The Adversary", part of the Sundering series comes to mind as an atrociously subpar book that some people gave rave reviews of; possibly the worse D&D novel ever written, shudder ).

 

[Mephista]

There are people who rate everything they read as 4 out of 5, or 5 out of 5 (one sees quite a bit of this on Amazon ratings, click on all reviews of some reviewers and they always rate high), but that doesn't mean that everything they read rates such high ratings ("The Adversary", part of the Sundering series comes to mind as an atrociously subpar book that some people gave rave reviews of; possibly the worse D&D novel ever written, shudder ).

HEY! I like the Adversary! Frankly, I rate it far higher than the rest of the Sundering novels.

Just because you don't like something doesn't mean its not an awesome story.

 

[trentonjoe]

I am playing this so it's from an players eyes.

I like HotDQ. I absolutely loved Chapter 1. The pace and time restraints made the whole thing interesting. I didn't mind the challenge or dragon.

I like the dungeon crawl part as well (Chapter 3?). There were some logic issues in it but that may have been our DM pulling some punches.

Chapter 2 and 5 were a little to "it only works if you do exactly this" for my tastes but not awful.

I generally prefer to play in games where there isn't a "right" answer but I it isn't a deal breaker to me.

 

[KarinsDad]

HEY! I like the Adversary! Frankly, I rate it far higher than the rest of the Sundering novels.

Just because you don't like something doesn't mean its not an awesome story.

I couldn't imagine a more uninteresting cast of self doubting and loathing characters ever. The amount of teenage angst in the novel was beyond nauseating and I could barely read 3 pages at a time.

I prefer my protagonists to be a bit more heroic and a lot less whiny and self absorbed. Almost every character in that book was tightly wrapped around their own axle to the point that they could barely interact with each other without their personal mental anxieties shouting for attention. Each character was a bloated caricature of what the author was trying to convey for them and there was hardly any adventure in the story at all. Just personal misery and consternation. It was hard to find any D&D in the story at all aside from a few (city/organization) names and a few spells.


But, to each their own. Game on!

 

[Shemeska]

There are people who rate everything they read as 4 out of 5, or 5 out of 5 (one sees quite a bit of this on Amazon ratings, click on all reviews of some reviewers and they always rate high),

I shy away from Amazon reviews unless they really go into depth and it's clear that they actually read the book in question. There's been a bit of a trend lately with novels receiving 4 and 5 star reviews even before the official release of the book from people receiving free, advance copies.