This was supposed to be released at Gencon.  Did anyone here who was at gencon pick it up?  Just wondering how it is.  Seemed kinda neat.

I did preorder and pick it up.  Unfortunately, with all the other goodies I bought I haven't been able to dig in yet.  Lots of interesting art, from full color to sketches and art from 1st edition on.  I only downloaded the first couple of play tests so I can't say what is different in this one, but the intro did say that it would already have been superceded by newer packets, which makes sense as it must have gone to print a while ago.

Flashman, welcome to theRPGsite (or rather, given your joining date, welcome back)! And I'd be interested in a more detailed report from you or anyone else who's got it, when time permits.

Thanks, Pundit. I finally get some free time this weekend and it's on my list to dig into.  I had to laugh when I saw my post count and joining date.  I kind of lurked for a while and then forgot I even had an account.  This summer I had my fill of the climate/moderation at rpgnet and was kind of bumming about it, but then had an epiphany that there was a place for "misfit toys" after all and that I already knew where it was.  

I have a copy of this, but haven't had a chance to really do much with it yet. It does feature old artwork from previous editions of the game, which is kind of neat from a nostalgia standpoint (but I understand that the final Next product will have new artwork, so that's a bummer).

In a casual flip-through it looks like there isn't any character generation stuff, but instead a focus on some pregen characters with general "how to advance them" guidelines.

Basically, it's a book with 4 adventures that form a mini-campaign.

They seemed to have a lot of copies left at the end, so I would be surprised if they didn't offer some way to order some if you missed GenCon.

Our fellow poster bryce_lynch has his review already up on tenfootpole.org if you are curious.

I'm sure someone will eventually add a review for this site as well, as there's a very healthy review section here. But as of yet this topic and bryce's review seems to be it.

There are threads on WOTC's board, Dragonsfoot, rpg.net, and ENworld, as well as a couple of smaller places. None really have any discussion though.

It's railroady but otherwise generally good. The magic items and treasures are not all straight out of the book, which is great for communicating a magical feeling. An example is a +1 shield with an apple tree standard on it. Once a day you can reach in and pluck an apple from the tree to use like a healing potion. That's an EXCELLENT magic item. The adventure also rewards exploration and reinforces a certain type of play. You can to most of the monsters and the vermin act like animals. It's also a bit verbose for my tastes and has several 'bad' skill checks ... like roll a 14+ to go on the adventure sorts of things.

The first of the four adventures is the best. The four combined take you from level 1-10, which seems fast. The physical layout (idk what this is called? the font choices, columns, sidebars, etc?) is something I don't usually comment on but in this case I think the faux notebook paper and post-it note humor is nice. It has art from 'every previous edition' although I really only noted the 1e stuff. There is at least one inside reference; there's a kindly lizard man named after a popular WOTC forum member who recently passed away.

Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle review on tenfootpole

Oh wow I just read Bryce's review here. The feel with the wizard's hanging the shield with the tree crest and all that sounds really cool. The structure, with railroad, NPC pushing the party along, the built-in difficulty in retrieving the keys as a default assumption, the ton of read-aloud text... that sounds like a list of cardinal sins of adventure module design, to me.

I absolutely agree on the NPC "push along" bullshit. I'm willing to be kind & generous about the railroad and keys since I'm pretty sure this is a part of wider thing to reset from 4e to 5e. It does, however, reveal the flaw in "we want to tell great stories." Fuck your great stories.

The read-aloud is different though. I'm pretty sure I saw a quote, maybe from Mearls, about how no one paid attention to read-aloud after the second or third sentence. Does anyone else remember that quote?


I think my biggest disappointment is the arrangement of the adventure. I would have preferred something more ... sandboxy. I'm pretty sure they could have done this with just some small changes in the layout/org. That would have made it much more appealing to players who like a freer style, while still enabling the guys who want a story.

Yeah. Sometimes you've got to get an idea across in a module by providing some form of text that could theoretically be read aloud, like say a paragraph of players' intro into the adventure, or some lines of dialog that give a better idea of the type of thing an NPC would say and how at this or that point of an interaction, if triggered, but my assumption is that these things if included should be internalized/understood by the DM before play begins, and then paraphrased, reworded, role-played in the moment, and never-ever read from the page word for word. That's the surest way of destroying an ambiance, to me, unless you're an amazing out-loud reader who can make the words come alive as you decipher them on the page, of course, but I assume this is a rather uncommon gift to have when compared to the natural DM skill of imagination and impromptu restitution you just have to learn as you run live games.

Huh, we have come to the point where being explicit that a regular wooden door is immune to poison and psychic damage is necessary. And not just necessary but must be written in the door text for each and every door the party comes across. I wonder if this is the point where the Rubicon has been crossed.

At the very least it is instructional to future module designers about what not to do.

(edit: I think it has more to say what sort of customer attitude has dominated the conversation than WotC's module creation capacity. At some point you have to write off a foolish demographic because such fools are too ingenious.)

Does it still follow the 4e Set Piece Encounter design philosophy?

Combat > Skill Challenge > Combat > Combat > ad nauseum

Because if they haven't done away with this design, then WOTC modules are going to remain complete and utter shit...

Indeed they have done away with it.

Quote from: Benoist;685162Oh wow I just read Bryce's review here. The feel with the wizard's hanging the shield with the tree crest and all that sounds really cool. The structure, with railroad, NPC pushing the party along, the built-in difficulty in retrieving the keys as a default assumption, the ton of read-aloud text... that sounds like a list of cardinal sins of adventure module design, to me.

I am starting to get interested in reading a copy of it now.  It is true that railroads are bad, but they also provide structure when learning the game.  It may be bad structure, but Paizo adventure paths show that it can be interesting.  

The text blocks were a feature of many of the good TSR modules as well.  I agree they should be tightened but it seems like a good sign that designers are going back to classic modules and trying stuff from them out.  Now it would be better if they picked out the good parts specifically, but at least they are testing approaches and breaking out of the most recent paradigm.  

That's not a bad sign.

The question is whether this is indicative of how they plan to make their future modules, or if this was really just something they specifically made to highlight details of the system?