Best: and most surprising was wild beyond the witchlight. The Fae setting is amazing and choice of race/connection to the fey wild immediately binds players to the world. I started with battle arena games so maybe it’s just a breath of fresh air but i really love the setting and the world maps are amazing(still need to provide your own battle maps..but that like all WotC published stuff). Witchlight is leaving me eager as a gm to explore.
Worst: I found Princes of the Apocalypse to be incredibly frustrating. It felt very mmo in the starter town of Red Larch…practically expected to have tokens with question marks above npc heads. This module requires a ton of dm work. Maps are just ok. It’s a sandbox but you need to railroad otherwise party can easily tpk while exploring. It was just too much reading and work to tie it together for me.
Side note, I did tighten up the carnival and throw in a combat mini game as one of the attractions, I finished the first section in 2 hours 30. My players were pushing on the warlock hook and I like to play fast. Still overall very enjoyable, I made a map for the snail race and everyone had a blast, scroll of haste went to the victor :D.
The setting for Rime of the Frostmaiden is so evocative and rich with potential. Coming off of playing Tomb of Annihilation, the frozen wasteland and initial hook of a land literally without light was immediately engaging. The quest hooks in the towns are suited for a typical itinerant adventuring campaign as well as a political intrigue campaign. But good Lord, is that module a raging dumpster fire.
My table really struggled with feeling like there was a main quest - rather, we felt it was just a bunch of disjointed side quests. There's hardly anything connecting the chapters to one another, the main BBEG battle takes place too soon, the final arc is so tonally different from the rest that it feels tacked on, and a watershed event early in the campaign completely destroys what the party has been doing for like the first four or so levels, with basically no agency for the players to stop it. With major surgery, it'd be excellent. As-written, it's a fantastic idea, atrociously executed. Can you still have fun with it? Absolutely, and especially if you have an experienced DM.
Yep, played it didn’t dm it. But agree..it’s just winter is harsh mechanics with zero thoughline. Felt like I was jus gaining exhaustion for little to no reason. Completely aimless plot.
The last time I used a published module was the 80's.
The GDQ stuff was a complete washout for us. No one really had a good time with it.
The Slavers stuff was more interesting. THe A series really kind of gave us a way to look beyond dungeon crawls in a real way. Dungeon crawls are pretty much a no go for my group these days.
I revisited the A series in a mix and match with Saltmarsh and Doug Niles' N1 as an intro. And that was pretty much the last time I used a published module other than a "nostalgia run" of ToH that usually comes up about once every couple years. But I don't think one can count ToH as a module anymore, lol.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Yep, I love the flavor of old school stuff. Very interested in reworking slavers for a campaign. And same, something about dungeon crawls feels very tired and outdated now. Like the ten foot pole style of room to room searching and a ton of random encounters has very limited appeal to me now.
The setting for Rime of the Frostmaiden is so evocative and rich with potential. Coming off of playing Tomb of Annihilation, the frozen wasteland and initial hook of a land literally without light was immediately engaging. The quest hooks in the towns are suited for a typical itinerant adventuring campaign as well as a political intrigue campaign. But good Lord, is that module a raging dumpster fire.
My table really struggled with feeling like there was a main quest - rather, we felt it was just a bunch of disjointed side quests. There's hardly anything connecting the chapters to one another, the main BBEG battle takes place too soon, the final arc is so tonally different from the rest that it feels tacked on, and a watershed event early in the campaign completely destroys what the party has been doing for like the first four or so levels, with basically no agency for the players to stop it. With major surgery, it'd be excellent. As-written, it's a fantastic idea, atrociously executed. Can you still have fun with it? Absolutely, and especially if you have an experienced DM.
I agree about Icewind Dale. It takes quite a bit of effort for the DM to turn the many little quests across the 10 towns into anything that looks like a campaign. Each town has individual things to do, there are about 10 locations spread around with various other encounters, but these are all effectively "one shots" that have nothing to do with the plot line. It can be played and might be ok for folks who just want a list of quests but it isn't an engaging plot line.
Examples:
- the crashed gnome ceremorph ship with laser weapons - this was actually a part of my character back story which was the only reason it seemed to fit at all.
- the cave with the unkillable barbarians - there is a flame that prevents them from dying - the only way to even temporarily disable it is to cast dispel magic on it - which not every party would have access to - it can very easily become a TPK because the bad guys can't die and players may not run.
- the prison - doesn't seem to have much to do with the plot except maybe an NPC which might have some info
etc
However, the biggest problem with RotFM is that the main quest isn't the main quest.
The adventure gives very limited ways to finish it off.
The party encounters Auril at her island in the Sea of Ice. By level 7, it is certainly possible for the party to defeat the weakened version of Auril at this point. Which then apparently ends the quest to free Icewind Dale from the darkness imposed by Auril. The only ways to avoid this are to have Auril not be at home and the players decide to go off to do something else, or make Auril strong enough that the party would die trying to defeat her and then somehow convey that knowledge so that they go in search of other resources to defeat her.
This is supposed to be the tie in to Vellynne Harpell and the buried Netherese city in the Reghed glacier. These chapters are the real climax to the adventure. The party finds several powerful magic items and has to foil the goals of the Red Wizards if they wish. However, this is never emphasized as the real quest of the book - it is presented in much the same way as the other side quests with Vellynne showing up to provide some timely and tireless transportation earlier in the story and ingratiate herself with the party.
The big problem is that they party doesn't really have much reason to go to the glacier if they have already dealt with Auril and freed IWD from the darkness. UNLESS the DM knows this is all going to happen and has put in several plot points and information much earlier in the adventure to make it clear that stopping the Red Wizards or at least keeping an eye on what they are doing is as important as stopping Auril.
RotFM is an adventure that really requires the DM to read the entire thing, see what is supposed to happen and then re-arrange the plot beats and information given to the players to try to ensure that the players are engaged with both the main quests - but none of that is in the least obvious.
Yep, I did not have fun with out of the abyss(as a player)…couldn’t imagine dm’ing it with all the npc’s.
I'm currently running OOTA ... the party just escaped the Underdark and was sent on a mission to recover some legendary weapons while the King of Gauntlegrym arranges for allies to meet for a conference to discuss the dire situation in the Underdark.
The NPCs aren't that much of a problem past the first session or two depending on how many stick around. Role playing the prison with everyone there took effort though. Several were killed during the escape. Others had their own goals and ditched the party. The dwarf stuck with the party and managed to survive to the end. The myconid sprout adopted one of the characters and was quite happy to continue with the party even after Neverlight grove. Shushar the Kua-toa heretic stuck with the party for a while, was a good guide to the Kuo-toa town and also navigated the Dark lake for them. Other than that, they picked up the spider loving kobolds for part of the journey but they parted ways at Gracklstugh. Depending on the situation, the NPCs tended to fade into the background for much of the adventure.
I'll be interested to see how part 2 goes when they return to the underdark.
However, OOtA is something of a sandbox with a huge amount of boring travel time through the underdark. It takes weeks to travel between these destinations through the trackless underdark. I mostly narrated random encounters since it generally wasn't worth playing them out except for the four more extensive ones and a handful of the other possible random encounters that were a bit more interesting. I included enough to make travel interesting but not onerous (it wasn't worth spending play time on for the most part).
Yep, it’s just tough if you don’t have total player buyin from the start. Turn order gets super messy with the npcs.
Like a lot of the modules I feel there are setpieces you could grab for use later. I’m running Saltmarsh and I absolutely love the opening(haunted house) and the sinking ship encounters but the rest is a combination of samey type enemies and old school ten foot pole type dungeon crawl. Like you said I just end up throwing in my own battle maps and encounters to spice things up.
Curse of Strahd (run) - decent story line, sandbox like setup but geographically limited, the party will die if they wander to the wrong place so foreshadowing is important. However, lots of racist and possibly triggering content. However, it is supposed to be "horror", "dark", "violent", "undead", 'insane" etc so some of it isn't surprising - and some of it contains content similar to some of Grimm's fairy tales - which are also dark. So, if you don't mind the content, the story of the vampire ruler of Barovia can be worth playing.
Tomb of Annihilation (played) - generally good, also a sandbox, the big issue is that a lot of the adventures are distributed around the edge of Chult which makes it impossible to travel to these locations to do a lot of side quest content and still fit inside the time line of the death curse. The ticking clock is an important part of the story and should be used to motivate the party especially since the jungle travel is very slow. A lot of the side quests are tied to the choice of guide and there are a range of decent ones. The biggest problem is the lack of content in the jungle to carry the characters from level 4->7 so that they are ready for Omu. When we started playing it, we were using XP for leveling and running random encounters in the jungle was incredibly repetitive and boring and they didn't provide that much ability to advance. The DM eventually included some other modules from DMsGuild to fill out the interior of Chult. You could also add The Hidden Shrine of Tamaochan from Tales of the Yawning Portal if the DM is looking for more low tier 2 content. The rest of the adventure from Omu onward ran pretty well though we started using Milestones for leveling at some point.
Storm Kings Thunder (played) - huge sandbox covering most of the Sword Coast. Also ties into some of the other published modules a bit since the Dragon cult plot line is going on at the same time. It was generally ok but the players have a lot of choices to make in terms of where to go and which content to engage with.
Ghosts of Saltmarsh/Tales from the Yawning Portal (run/played) - a bunch of short adventures that can be tied together into a campaign. Generally good.
OOtA (running) - see previous post.
RotFM (played about 3/4 - defeated Auril) - see previous post.
Yep, I’m kind of now. where I’m looking at these as ‘how much work do i need to put in to make this work?’. Dragons of Icespire Peak is nice because there are cool things you can pull out and add to other campaigns-easy plug and play. But also quality of maps is something to consider too. Like Dragons of Icespire Peak has like 4 maps….total. No tavern, No battlemaps, not even an arrival map for first encounter.
I mean it’s kind of expected you need to supplement material a bit but when this legwork turns into a chore it’s an issue. I have been pleasantly surprised by the maps in the second part of shattered obelisk. First dungeon map(the mine) is excellent.
Yep, I’m kind of now. where I’m looking at these as ‘how much work do i need to put in to make this work?’. Dragons of Icespire Peak is nice because there are cool things you can pull out and add to other campaigns-easy plug and play. But also quality of maps is something to consider too. Like Dragons of Icespire Peak has like 4 maps….total. No tavern, No battlemaps, not even an arrival map for first encounter.
I mean it’s kind of expected you need to supplement material a bit but when this legwork turns into a chore it’s an issue. I have been pleasantly surprised by the maps in the second part of shattered obelisk. First dungeon map(the mine) is excellent.
Weird.
My copy of Dragon of Icespire Peak - both printed and online has 16 maps. It has a Sword coast map zoomed in on the area south of Neverwinter, a map of Phandalin and 14 additional maps, one for each of the missions. I actually thought DoIP had a decent number of maps when I ran it.
On the other hand, Lost Mines of Phandelver only has 5 maps plus the Sword Coast and Phandalin for a total of 7. I don't have the extended LMoP.
However, a lot of products leave out maps for the smaller encounters ... LMoP doesn't have a map for the horses in the road encounter for example ... but that could be because they expected a DM to use theater of the mind or they figured it was a small enough encounter, the DM would just sketch it if they wanted a map for it.
I guess just what’s missing is the in between stuff, they stop at a manor, or summoned to a council room. I mean for me I just like having visuals even for social encounters.
The setting for Rime of the Frostmaiden is so evocative and rich with potential. Coming off of playing Tomb of Annihilation, the frozen wasteland and initial hook of a land literally without light was immediately engaging. The quest hooks in the towns are suited for a typical itinerant adventuring campaign as well as a political intrigue campaign. But good Lord, is that module a raging dumpster fire.
My table really struggled with feeling like there was a main quest - rather, we felt it was just a bunch of disjointed side quests. There's hardly anything connecting the chapters to one another, the main BBEG battle takes place too soon, the final arc is so tonally different from the rest that it feels tacked on, and a watershed event early in the campaign completely destroys what the party has been doing for like the first four or so levels, with basically no agency for the players to stop it. With major surgery, it'd be excellent. As-written, it's a fantastic idea, atrociously executed. Can you still have fun with it? Absolutely, and especially if you have an experienced DM.
I agree about Icewind Dale. It takes quite a bit of effort for the DM to turn the many little quests across the 10 towns into anything that looks like a campaign. Each town has individual things to do, there are about 10 locations spread around with various other encounters, but these are all effectively "one shots" that have nothing to do with the plot line. It can be played and might be ok for folks who just want a list of quests but it isn't an engaging plot line.
Examples:
- the crashed gnome ceremorph ship with laser weapons - this was actually a part of my character back story which was the only reason it seemed to fit at all.
- the cave with the unkillable barbarians - there is a flame that prevents them from dying - the only way to even temporarily disable it is to cast dispel magic on it - which not every party would have access to - it can very easily become a TPK because the bad guys can't die and players may not run.
- the prison - doesn't seem to have much to do with the plot except maybe an NPC which might have some info
etc
However, the biggest problem with RotFM is that the main quest isn't the main quest.
The adventure gives very limited ways to finish it off.
The party encounters Auril at her island in the Sea of Ice. By level 7, it is certainly possible for the party to defeat the weakened version of Auril at this point. Which then apparently ends the quest to free Icewind Dale from the darkness imposed by Auril. The only ways to avoid this are to have Auril not be at home and the players decide to go off to do something else, or make Auril strong enough that the party would die trying to defeat her and then somehow convey that knowledge so that they go in search of other resources to defeat her.
This is supposed to be the tie in to Vellynne Harpell and the buried Netherese city in the Reghed glacier. These chapters are the real climax to the adventure. The party finds several powerful magic items and has to foil the goals of the Red Wizards if they wish. However, this is never emphasized as the real quest of the book - it is presented in much the same way as the other side quests with Vellynne showing up to provide some timely and tireless transportation earlier in the story and ingratiate herself with the party.
The big problem is that they party doesn't really have much reason to go to the glacier if they have already dealt with Auril and freed IWD from the darkness. UNLESS the DM knows this is all going to happen and has put in several plot points and information much earlier in the adventure to make it clear that stopping the Red Wizards or at least keeping an eye on what they are doing is as important as stopping Auril.
RotFM is an adventure that really requires the DM to read the entire thing, see what is supposed to happen and then re-arrange the plot beats and information given to the players to try to ensure that the players are engaged with both the main quests - but none of that is in the least obvious.
If I could print this out and wave it frantically in Chris Perkins' face shouting "THIS!!!", I would. Completely agree.
You're absolutely right about the lack of party motivation for the final arc/"main quest".
Our party left Auril's fortress with the book after killing her roc. This made Ythryn that much more pointless to us, because we'd already achieved half the main quest. We harbored huge personal grudges against Auril and wanted revenge, and nothing in the Netherese dungeon felt relevant to defeating her. We tried to be good players and manufacture reasons to keep going, but we eventually bailed and headed back for a rematch with Auril. The DM turned it into a huge showdown amidst the ruins of Bryn Shander, and it was an epic conclusion to the campaign.
Personally, I don't think the evil wizards add anything to the story, especially since it has nothing to do with the winter/sun theme. Ythryn would be an awesome endgame if there were some kind of ancient Netherese god-killing weapon down there, and that's the only thing that can defeat Auril and bring back the sun. Say Auril knows about it and thus has the key to the glacier locked up tight in her vault (which, for heaven's sake, doesn't have those stupid tests). Turn the Summer Star you find in the Lonelywood quest into a component of that weapon, and make all the town quest rewards either lead to info about this weapon or pieces of the weapon. Then have the final showdown against a goddess in an ancient buried city be the climax of the campaign. Because she's a bloody goddess and deserves to be the BBEG!
Also, as someone who's suffered through the jungles of Chult not once, but twice...I agree with everything you said about that, too.
The setting for Rime of the Frostmaiden is so evocative and rich with potential. Coming off of playing Tomb of Annihilation, the frozen wasteland and initial hook of a land literally without light was immediately engaging. The quest hooks in the towns are suited for a typical itinerant adventuring campaign as well as a political intrigue campaign. But good Lord, is that module a raging dumpster fire.
My table really struggled with feeling like there was a main quest - rather, we felt it was just a bunch of disjointed side quests. There's hardly anything connecting the chapters to one another, the main BBEG battle takes place too soon, the final arc is so tonally different from the rest that it feels tacked on, and a watershed event early in the campaign completely destroys what the party has been doing for like the first four or so levels, with basically no agency for the players to stop it. With major surgery, it'd be excellent. As-written, it's a fantastic idea, atrociously executed. Can you still have fun with it? Absolutely, and especially if you have an experienced DM.
I agree about Icewind Dale. It takes quite a bit of effort for the DM to turn the many little quests across the 10 towns into anything that looks like a campaign. Each town has individual things to do, there are about 10 locations spread around with various other encounters, but these are all effectively "one shots" that have nothing to do with the plot line. It can be played and might be ok for folks who just want a list of quests but it isn't an engaging plot line.
Examples:
- the crashed gnome ceremorph ship with laser weapons - this was actually a part of my character back story which was the only reason it seemed to fit at all.
- the cave with the unkillable barbarians - there is a flame that prevents them from dying - the only way to even temporarily disable it is to cast dispel magic on it - which not every party would have access to - it can very easily become a TPK because the bad guys can't die and players may not run.
- the prison - doesn't seem to have much to do with the plot except maybe an NPC which might have some info
etc
However, the biggest problem with RotFM is that the main quest isn't the main quest.
The adventure gives very limited ways to finish it off.
The party encounters Auril at her island in the Sea of Ice. By level 7, it is certainly possible for the party to defeat the weakened version of Auril at this point. Which then apparently ends the quest to free Icewind Dale from the darkness imposed by Auril. The only ways to avoid this are to have Auril not be at home and the players decide to go off to do something else, or make Auril strong enough that the party would die trying to defeat her and then somehow convey that knowledge so that they go in search of other resources to defeat her.
This is supposed to be the tie in to Vellynne Harpell and the buried Netherese city in the Reghed glacier. These chapters are the real climax to the adventure. The party finds several powerful magic items and has to foil the goals of the Red Wizards if they wish. However, this is never emphasized as the real quest of the book - it is presented in much the same way as the other side quests with Vellynne showing up to provide some timely and tireless transportation earlier in the story and ingratiate herself with the party.
The big problem is that they party doesn't really have much reason to go to the glacier if they have already dealt with Auril and freed IWD from the darkness. UNLESS the DM knows this is all going to happen and has put in several plot points and information much earlier in the adventure to make it clear that stopping the Red Wizards or at least keeping an eye on what they are doing is as important as stopping Auril.
RotFM is an adventure that really requires the DM to read the entire thing, see what is supposed to happen and then re-arrange the plot beats and information given to the players to try to ensure that the players are engaged with both the main quests - but none of that is in the least obvious.
Ice wind dale is odd because it really has 3 main story lines that only kind of interact Auril's eternal winter, Ythryn and the Chardalyn dragon. The book is set out to let players explore eventually stumbling on the chaldaryn dragon then if they succeed finding ythryn is a sequel quest that comes from Vellyne but the adventure is named after Auril and many of the early exploration quests are about how terrible she is. So allot of players will come in expecting to challenge Auril only to to be redirected to the Chardalyn dragon and then Ythryn.
I personally think it kind of works better as a setting book. As in it feels like the entire book is an " adventures in ice wind dale" section of a larger source book. There a bunch of different ways to move stuff around to create different quest lines and goals.
You can run the chardalyn dragon as it's own quest line by sprinkling fragments of chardalyn around leading to the cackling chasm and then to sunblight for a short level 1-6 adventure then if you want to continue have vellyne give them the the quest for ythryn
You can run the search for ythryn by following rumors about netherese artifacts leading to a member of the brotherhood and eventually ythryn. Possibly using the chardalyn as a red herring because it seems like netherese technology
You can run Auril by running multiple mini quests about how terrible she is, possibly leading to finding Ythryn and using the resources there to destroy her home or just challenging her in her abode.
Finally there are a few one shots and mini quests in there like the Id ascendent, hunting Arveiaturace and the trials of Auril so you could run a campaign of like an adventuring corporation there doing odd jobs or run a single session game.
I just find the exhaustion mechanics in icewind..well exhausting. 5e isn’t a survival game. At its heart it’s a tactical combat game with light rpg elements. The problem is the designers are either ignorant of the system they are designing for or are actively designing against it. Not that it can’t work but the number of player facing books vs rules facings books since 2014 makes things difficult.
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Best: and most surprising was wild beyond the witchlight. The Fae setting is amazing and choice of race/connection to the fey wild immediately binds players to the world. I started with battle arena games so maybe it’s just a breath of fresh air but i really love the setting and the world maps are amazing(still need to provide your own battle maps..but that like all WotC published stuff). Witchlight is leaving me eager as a gm to explore.
Worst: I found Princes of the Apocalypse to be incredibly frustrating. It felt very mmo in the starter town of Red Larch…practically expected to have tokens with question marks above npc heads. This module requires a ton of dm work. Maps are just ok. It’s a sandbox but you need to railroad otherwise party can easily tpk while exploring. It was just too much reading and work to tie it together for me.
Side note, I did tighten up the carnival and throw in a combat mini game as one of the attractions, I finished the first section in 2 hours 30. My players were pushing on the warlock hook and I like to play fast. Still overall very enjoyable, I made a map for the snail race and everyone had a blast, scroll of haste went to the victor :D.
Best: Icewind Dale. Worst:...also Icewind Dale.
The setting for Rime of the Frostmaiden is so evocative and rich with potential. Coming off of playing Tomb of Annihilation, the frozen wasteland and initial hook of a land literally without light was immediately engaging. The quest hooks in the towns are suited for a typical itinerant adventuring campaign as well as a political intrigue campaign. But good Lord, is that module a raging dumpster fire.
My table really struggled with feeling like there was a main quest - rather, we felt it was just a bunch of disjointed side quests. There's hardly anything connecting the chapters to one another, the main BBEG battle takes place too soon, the final arc is so tonally different from the rest that it feels tacked on, and a watershed event early in the campaign completely destroys what the party has been doing for like the first four or so levels, with basically no agency for the players to stop it. With major surgery, it'd be excellent. As-written, it's a fantastic idea, atrociously executed. Can you still have fun with it? Absolutely, and especially if you have an experienced DM.
Yep, played it didn’t dm it. But agree..it’s just winter is harsh mechanics with zero thoughline. Felt like I was jus gaining exhaustion for little to no reason. Completely aimless plot.
Kind of want to remix it into ice wind dale..same time the module left such a bad taste I never want to deal with it again haha.
The last time I used a published module was the 80's.
The GDQ stuff was a complete washout for us. No one really had a good time with it.
The Slavers stuff was more interesting. THe A series really kind of gave us a way to look beyond dungeon crawls in a real way. Dungeon crawls are pretty much a no go for my group these days.
I revisited the A series in a mix and match with Saltmarsh and Doug Niles' N1 as an intro. And that was pretty much the last time I used a published module other than a "nostalgia run" of ToH that usually comes up about once every couple years. But I don't think one can count ToH as a module anymore, lol.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Yep, I love the flavor of old school stuff. Very interested in reworking slavers for a campaign. And same, something about dungeon crawls feels very tired and outdated now. Like the ten foot pole style of room to room searching and a ton of random encounters has very limited appeal to me now.
Yep, I did not have fun with out of the abyss(as a player)…couldn’t imagine dm’ing it with all the npc’s.
I agree about Icewind Dale. It takes quite a bit of effort for the DM to turn the many little quests across the 10 towns into anything that looks like a campaign. Each town has individual things to do, there are about 10 locations spread around with various other encounters, but these are all effectively "one shots" that have nothing to do with the plot line. It can be played and might be ok for folks who just want a list of quests but it isn't an engaging plot line.
Examples:
- the crashed gnome ceremorph ship with laser weapons - this was actually a part of my character back story which was the only reason it seemed to fit at all.
- the cave with the unkillable barbarians - there is a flame that prevents them from dying - the only way to even temporarily disable it is to cast dispel magic on it - which not every party would have access to - it can very easily become a TPK because the bad guys can't die and players may not run.
- the prison - doesn't seem to have much to do with the plot except maybe an NPC which might have some info
etc
However, the biggest problem with RotFM is that the main quest isn't the main quest.
The adventure gives very limited ways to finish it off.
The party encounters Auril at her island in the Sea of Ice. By level 7, it is certainly possible for the party to defeat the weakened version of Auril at this point. Which then apparently ends the quest to free Icewind Dale from the darkness imposed by Auril. The only ways to avoid this are to have Auril not be at home and the players decide to go off to do something else, or make Auril strong enough that the party would die trying to defeat her and then somehow convey that knowledge so that they go in search of other resources to defeat her.
This is supposed to be the tie in to Vellynne Harpell and the buried Netherese city in the Reghed glacier. These chapters are the real climax to the adventure. The party finds several powerful magic items and has to foil the goals of the Red Wizards if they wish. However, this is never emphasized as the real quest of the book - it is presented in much the same way as the other side quests with Vellynne showing up to provide some timely and tireless transportation earlier in the story and ingratiate herself with the party.
The big problem is that they party doesn't really have much reason to go to the glacier if they have already dealt with Auril and freed IWD from the darkness. UNLESS the DM knows this is all going to happen and has put in several plot points and information much earlier in the adventure to make it clear that stopping the Red Wizards or at least keeping an eye on what they are doing is as important as stopping Auril.
RotFM is an adventure that really requires the DM to read the entire thing, see what is supposed to happen and then re-arrange the plot beats and information given to the players to try to ensure that the players are engaged with both the main quests - but none of that is in the least obvious.
I'm currently running OOTA ... the party just escaped the Underdark and was sent on a mission to recover some legendary weapons while the King of Gauntlegrym arranges for allies to meet for a conference to discuss the dire situation in the Underdark.
The NPCs aren't that much of a problem past the first session or two depending on how many stick around. Role playing the prison with everyone there took effort though. Several were killed during the escape. Others had their own goals and ditched the party. The dwarf stuck with the party and managed to survive to the end. The myconid sprout adopted one of the characters and was quite happy to continue with the party even after Neverlight grove. Shushar the Kua-toa heretic stuck with the party for a while, was a good guide to the Kuo-toa town and also navigated the Dark lake for them. Other than that, they picked up the spider loving kobolds for part of the journey but they parted ways at Gracklstugh. Depending on the situation, the NPCs tended to fade into the background for much of the adventure.
I'll be interested to see how part 2 goes when they return to the underdark.
However, OOtA is something of a sandbox with a huge amount of boring travel time through the underdark. It takes weeks to travel between these destinations through the trackless underdark. I mostly narrated random encounters since it generally wasn't worth playing them out except for the four more extensive ones and a handful of the other possible random encounters that were a bit more interesting. I included enough to make travel interesting but not onerous (it wasn't worth spending play time on for the most part).
Yep, it’s just tough if you don’t have total player buyin from the start. Turn order gets super messy with the npcs.
Like a lot of the modules I feel there are setpieces you could grab for use later. I’m running Saltmarsh and I absolutely love the opening(haunted house) and the sinking ship encounters but the rest is a combination of samey type enemies and old school ten foot pole type dungeon crawl. Like you said I just end up throwing in my own battle maps and encounters to spice things up.
Comments on other modules:
Curse of Strahd (run) - decent story line, sandbox like setup but geographically limited, the party will die if they wander to the wrong place so foreshadowing is important. However, lots of racist and possibly triggering content. However, it is supposed to be "horror", "dark", "violent", "undead", 'insane" etc so some of it isn't surprising - and some of it contains content similar to some of Grimm's fairy tales - which are also dark. So, if you don't mind the content, the story of the vampire ruler of Barovia can be worth playing.
Tomb of Annihilation (played) - generally good, also a sandbox, the big issue is that a lot of the adventures are distributed around the edge of Chult which makes it impossible to travel to these locations to do a lot of side quest content and still fit inside the time line of the death curse. The ticking clock is an important part of the story and should be used to motivate the party especially since the jungle travel is very slow. A lot of the side quests are tied to the choice of guide and there are a range of decent ones. The biggest problem is the lack of content in the jungle to carry the characters from level 4->7 so that they are ready for Omu. When we started playing it, we were using XP for leveling and running random encounters in the jungle was incredibly repetitive and boring and they didn't provide that much ability to advance. The DM eventually included some other modules from DMsGuild to fill out the interior of Chult. You could also add The Hidden Shrine of Tamaochan from Tales of the Yawning Portal if the DM is looking for more low tier 2 content. The rest of the adventure from Omu onward ran pretty well though we started using Milestones for leveling at some point.
Storm Kings Thunder (played) - huge sandbox covering most of the Sword Coast. Also ties into some of the other published modules a bit since the Dragon cult plot line is going on at the same time. It was generally ok but the players have a lot of choices to make in terms of where to go and which content to engage with.
Ghosts of Saltmarsh/Tales from the Yawning Portal (run/played) - a bunch of short adventures that can be tied together into a campaign. Generally good.
OOtA (running) - see previous post.
RotFM (played about 3/4 - defeated Auril) - see previous post.
Yep, I’m kind of now. where I’m looking at these as ‘how much work do i need to put in to make this work?’. Dragons of Icespire Peak is nice because there are cool things you can pull out and add to other campaigns-easy plug and play. But also quality of maps is something to consider too. Like Dragons of Icespire Peak has like 4 maps….total. No tavern, No battlemaps, not even an arrival map for first encounter.
I mean it’s kind of expected you need to supplement material a bit but when this legwork turns into a chore it’s an issue. I have been pleasantly surprised by the maps in the second part of shattered obelisk. First dungeon map(the mine) is excellent.
Weird.
My copy of Dragon of Icespire Peak - both printed and online has 16 maps. It has a Sword coast map zoomed in on the area south of Neverwinter, a map of Phandalin and 14 additional maps, one for each of the missions. I actually thought DoIP had a decent number of maps when I ran it.
On the other hand, Lost Mines of Phandelver only has 5 maps plus the Sword Coast and Phandalin for a total of 7. I don't have the extended LMoP.
However, a lot of products leave out maps for the smaller encounters ... LMoP doesn't have a map for the horses in the road encounter for example ... but that could be because they expected a DM to use theater of the mind or they figured it was a small enough encounter, the DM would just sketch it if they wanted a map for it.
I guess just what’s missing is the in between stuff, they stop at a manor, or summoned to a council room. I mean for me I just like having visuals even for social encounters.
If I could print this out and wave it frantically in Chris Perkins' face shouting "THIS!!!", I would. Completely agree.
You're absolutely right about the lack of party motivation for the final arc/"main quest".
Our party left Auril's fortress with the book after killing her roc. This made Ythryn that much more pointless to us, because we'd already achieved half the main quest. We harbored huge personal grudges against Auril and wanted revenge, and nothing in the Netherese dungeon felt relevant to defeating her. We tried to be good players and manufacture reasons to keep going, but we eventually bailed and headed back for a rematch with Auril. The DM turned it into a huge showdown amidst the ruins of Bryn Shander, and it was an epic conclusion to the campaign.
Personally, I don't think the evil wizards add anything to the story, especially since it has nothing to do with the winter/sun theme. Ythryn would be an awesome endgame if there were some kind of ancient Netherese god-killing weapon down there, and that's the only thing that can defeat Auril and bring back the sun. Say Auril knows about it and thus has the key to the glacier locked up tight in her vault (which, for heaven's sake, doesn't have those stupid tests). Turn the Summer Star you find in the Lonelywood quest into a component of that weapon, and make all the town quest rewards either lead to info about this weapon or pieces of the weapon. Then have the final showdown against a goddess in an ancient buried city be the climax of the campaign. Because she's a bloody goddess and deserves to be the BBEG!
Also, as someone who's suffered through the jungles of Chult not once, but twice...I agree with everything you said about that, too.
Ice wind dale is odd because it really has 3 main story lines that only kind of interact Auril's eternal winter, Ythryn and the Chardalyn dragon. The book is set out to let players explore eventually stumbling on the chaldaryn dragon then if they succeed finding ythryn is a sequel quest that comes from Vellyne but the adventure is named after Auril and many of the early exploration quests are about how terrible she is. So allot of players will come in expecting to challenge Auril only to to be redirected to the Chardalyn dragon and then Ythryn.
I personally think it kind of works better as a setting book. As in it feels like the entire book is an " adventures in ice wind dale" section of a larger source book. There a bunch of different ways to move stuff around to create different quest lines and goals.
I just find the exhaustion mechanics in icewind..well exhausting. 5e isn’t a survival game. At its heart it’s a tactical combat game with light rpg elements. The problem is the designers are either ignorant of the system they are designing for or are actively designing against it. Not that it can’t work but the number of player facing books vs rules facings books since 2014 makes things difficult.