Quote from: tenbones;782917BUT... Sapplatt you said the thing that I WISHED they would have done:

give me a big blowup version of the map. MAN... what a missed opportunity. I have buyers remorse now.

I really hope WotC and their partners revive the use of regional player maps. One thing I hated about 3E and 4E adventures is they would go to the expense of including awesome full-colour maps... of a single encounter area that would be used in a single session for 60-90 minute battle. But I have to shank something together for a player map of the region that will used for 8-12 sessions all session long. Why not go with the map that has more utility?

Quote from: Skywalker;782922And this has been true to an extent of D&D adventures since the very beginning. Dragonlance is a veritable railroad. Even GDQ is a linear series of smaller sandbox adventures. Then you have those adventures in the middle like Night Below or Red Hand of Doom that are sandboxy at times, but still have an element of linear structure to support the length of the cmapaign.

True. I just hope we at least see more of Night Below/Red Hand of Doom format. And really, whatever the need for a sequential adventure to cover levels 1-15, there's no excuse for scripted encounters. At all. They're just bad design by writers who think they have a better idea of what will make for a dramatic scene than anything the DM and players come up with on their own.

Quote from: Haffrung;782926True. I just hope we at least see more of Night Below/Red Hand of Doom format. And really, whatever the need for a sequential adventure to cover levels 1-15, there's no excuse for scripted encounters. At all. They're just bad design by writers who think they have a better idea of what will make for a dramatic scene than anything the DM and players come up with on their own.

Scripted encounters aren't bad design per se. Whether they are good or not they work is both a matter of preference and implementation. D&D has historically had a number of successful adventures that use scripted encounters to some extent, including both Night Below and Red Hand of Doom.

At the moment, its very hard to determine if the negative reactions to Hoard of the Dragon Queen are an issue with implementation, or just a matter of preference. I suspect both, though more the later than the former. I hope to confirm this when my copy arrives.

There is currently five sandbox adventures for 5e (Phandelver, Crystal Shard, Baldur's Gate, Scourge of the Sword Coast and Dead in Thay) and one adventure path campaign (Hoard of the Dragon Queen). I think it makes sense to cater to both styles to some extent, if the idea is to support the widest audience.

Quote from: Haffrung;782926I really hope WotC and their partners revive the use of regional player maps. One thing I hated about 3E and 4E adventures is they would go to the expense of including awesome full-colour maps... of a single encounter area that would be used in a single session for 60-90 minute battle. But I have to shank something together for a player map of the region that will used for 8-12 sessions all session long. Why not go with the map that has more utility?

Totally! Dragon Magazine had the beautiful Forgotten Realms map of the whole continent in quarters.

This map - http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120201174035/forgottenrealms/images/1/10/Map_-_Faerun_-_3E.jpg

I got mine all laminated - it's massive. They need to do that with 5e - like in the module. The map they have in there for the Sword Coast is REALLY good. I just want MORE.

Quote from: tenbones;782963Totally! Dragon Magazine had the beautiful Forgotten Realms map of the whole continent in quarters.

You farging bastage, now I want to bust out the Grey Box and get my Daggerford on.

Quote from: CRKrueger;782974You farging bastage, now I want to bust out the Grey Box and get my Daggerford on.

My Cyclopaedia of the Realms book is currently sitting next to my 5e PHB

Quote from: tenbones;782917give me a big blowup version of the map.

You can have it (though it will cost you 30 bucks)

Quote from: kobayashi;783212You can have it (though it will cost you 30 bucks)

The image on that site is quite large. It wouldn't blow up to full poster size but you could print it at A4 and even A3 pretty well.

Read through it last night and came away thinking it felt a bit unfinished and sketchy.

Maybe they have bitten off more than they can chew - it covers levels 1 through 7, with lots of overland travel in just 94 pages, an eighth of which are taken up by art. Or maybe it's the contrast between the high production values and solid binding, and the somewhat sparsely described NPCs and locations.

I like most of the plot elements, and love that many episodes, especially in the city under siege, are freeform, leaving it up to the players how and in what order they want to tackle the challenges. But it reads like it will take a lot of prep work from the GM (and/or great improvisation skills) to really make it sing.

Also, there's a lot of encounters in the first episode, although with weak foes. A bunch of bad rolls, and a group of 1st level characters may well end up sitting out most of the action.

So, yes, B- ... and not exactly for first time GMs.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;782826Why oh why is the whole " for new DMs" excuse trotted out as a defense of scripted storylines?

It's practically a truism that what experienced players think new GMs want is actually the exact opposite of what they want and need:

"They need a railroad!" No. They don't. Railroaded plots are actually extremely difficult to GM successfully. What new GMs need are robust scenarios that don't fall apart the minute a player makes the "wrong" choice.

"They need super simple rules!" No. What new GMs want are clear-cut answers about how to adjudicate specific situations. The ideal system for a new GM is one of medium weight that provides lots of specific support for a wide range of actions without getting into a lot of special circumstances or fiddly math.

I finished my review yesterday. You can find it at tenfootpole, or here on the front page/reviews section of the therpgsite.

Quote from: bryce0lynch;783376I finished my review yesterday. You can find it at tenfootpole, or here on the front page/reviews section of the therpgsite.

Thanks for the link. Excellent review, really nailed what's missing in this adventure.

I gmed the first episode last night.

Short version : my players liked it a lot (4 players, three of them veteran players who started playing with AD&D1e).

Longer version : I changed some things here and there. The attack took place at night while the PCs were already in the village and I didn't use the "save the mill" and "sally port" encounters.

What worked
The Appendix A which allows you to give each PC a good reason to be there is excellent. The players felt their characters were at the center of something important, they didn't wait for someone to give them orders : "we're here to learn more about this Cult of the Dragon and kick their ass". They were very proactive and I did not need to have an NPC (=Governor Nighthill) showing them what to do next.

The Awesome part or "why I stopped worrying and learned to enjoy dice and randomness"

One of the PC, a dragonborn paladin accepted the half-dragon challenge. This guys has 57 hp and quite frankly is expected to mop up the floor with a level 1 character but, as always, dice come into play...

First attack : I get a 1, I described how the mighty halfdragon just ends on his butt after slipping in the mud. The player did not taker advantage of this, just saying "come on man, just get up and let's finish this".

I attack again... and get another 1 ! This time I say the half-dragon looses his weapon... The paladin points his weapon at him and basically says "you're screwed, now get off my lawn", the villagers in the keep see the paladin as a great champion, the players are high-fiving each other.

So is it the best campaign ever ? Of course not, but my players enjoyed this first episode a lot, we just had a great time. Episode 2 is already planned for next week...

Whoa.  Trying to avoid spoilers here, but for those of you who have the book, check out the event that starts midway through the first column of page 36.

At first, I didn't pay much attention to this encounter. Then I looked up the CRs for the adversaries in the HotDQ appendix.

Holy crap.  Each one is a CR 8. The party at this point is not presumed to be any higher than 5th level.

According to the basic DMG guidelines, a "deadly" encounter for a party of 4 level five characters is supposed to be set around 4,400 experience points.

The encounter above would have a value of 15,600.

Edit: I'm talking about the free online appendix, because that's where the entries appear in this case.

Quote from: Saplatt;783892Whoa.  Trying to avoid spoilers here, but for those of you who have the book, check out the event that starts midway through the first column of page 36.

At first, I didn't pay much attention to this encounter. Then I looked up the CRs for the adversaries in the HotDQ appendix.

Holy crap.  Each one is a CR 8. The party at this point is not presumed to be any higher than 5th level.

yeah, the PCs will probably get the tar kicked out of them. However, there is not much incentive for the things in question to actually kill them. So they will probably just knock the PCs out and do something unpleasant with their unconscious bodies.

It's going to be a first-class ass-kicking. I suppose it doesn't have to be fatal, but it still bugs me that, unlike the situation with higher-profile monsters, I don't think most PC groups would see this coming until it's way too late.