| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| DoveArrow |
Posted - 12 Aug 2023 : 07:53:12
This is the second time I've tried playing in Out of the Abyss and I have to say, I don't understand how anyone finds the opening to this adventure fun. The characters start off in prison. The drow make the characters do meaningless tasks for what feels like an eternity. If you do anything that upsets the drow, they do ungodly amounts of damage to you. You learn nothing about anything from them. There's no real way to escape. If you try to escape, it means almost certain death. And so you just... sit around for literally hours of real world time waiting for the demon attack that you aren't supposed to know is coming. It's like they went out of their way to create an hours long introduction that goes nowhere and affects nothing.
This doesn't feel like a professionally designed intro. This feels like the intro I would expect from a first time DM on a power trip. What is the point of this introduction? How did an entire design team look at this and say, "Yup. This is fine."
I recognize that the rest of the adventure is better, but I'm just wondering, what are players supposed to do during this point in the game except wait for the actual story to start? |
| 17 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| PattPlays |
Posted - 16 Mar 2024 : 23:18:56
quote:
Originally posted by Delnyn
Out of the Abyss gave me that "Alice in Wonderland" impression.
This was intentional by Chris Perkins.
I have commented on many threads since 2016 about my efforts running many games using OOTA as my primary source. After a years long campaign with 'shuffled' elements and referring to Elemental Evil and Storm King's Thunder our game finally petered out into a permanent hiatus about one session away from the Vault of Kings and Bruenor's Throne in Gauntlgrym. I had a set-piece encounter with Baphomet (and Zelraun as a temporary ally as a Chronomancer) on the surface outside of Triboar and it was quite spectacular. Baphomet, one of the weaker Demon Lords, absolutely would have destroyed this lvl 12 (with powerful Skill Trees homebrew and revamped class features) party of four. What's insane to me is the disparity between that party and another party which fought Baphomet underneath Shining Falls in the ruins of Ammarindar (the Hellforge) where this party rolled insane luck with critical upcast inflict wounds and fantastic bigby's hand usage to hold the demon lord in place. The surface-fight party only banished the Beast Lord with Matt Mercer homebrew on their archmage ally enabling force-failed banishment saves tearing through legendary resistance. This underground party took down over 300 hit points in a few rounds- both parties had heavy hitters Mazed for basically the entire fight.
I love OOTA but my main difficulties with it twofold.
One, there's no clear way to get to Gauntlgrym and "after you get your letters you travel to the lost city of the dwarves, cut to the vault of kings" is just ridiculous. I had to pour over all of the realms' history to get a suitable array of options to enter the lost city from the surface- which is where the party is supposed to be when you introduce the lost city.
Two, the story does not communicate that there is a magical surefire solution to the problem of the demon lords until you have jumped through multiple hoops. Up until meeting with Vizeran Devir (you normally don't run into him unless you've been to Gravenhollow- which you almost can't reach or even know about until you've been to Mantol Derith- which you almost can't reach or even know about until you've been to Gauntlgrym- Which you can't reach or even know about until..) the player characters have no idea what the big plan is and assume that they have to get powerful enough to beat the demon lords themselves or come up with a solution.
Assuming you throw away the prison escape and start at a more modest level, maybe even going from the surface into the underdark and back to the surface like I did, there isn't enough fuel in the adventure to get the players to feel like they're doing anything right. This adventure lends itself greatly to being combined with the Demonic Cult Boons from other 5e materials and have the party fighting many Demon Lord specific cults (highlights of our campaign no doubt) and weakening the Demon Lords by fighting their insane followers.
But the book wants you to just grind out levels and learn about the horror, get back to a 'normal life' knowing there are threats to cosmic stability underfoot, fast travel to a lost city, nearly fast travel EVERYWHERE from this point out, and just hit all these gated secret locations to learn what nowhere point of interest to go to next.
The book would have lent itself greatly to having a drow tell the player characters early on that Vizeran Devir west of Menzoberranzan is the best person to talk to about banishing the demon lords. Then the party can take a collective sigh of relief. A wizard can fix this! That would have communicated at level one that this is not an adventure where you are expected to kill or banish each demon lord on your own. Without this, players are going to assume they are supposed to execute each one without any help and that is very discouraging.
PS: need to help your party escape Velkenvelve? Throw every book suggestion at once. Jorlan's gambit, demons attack, all of it. |
| Jayson_Neverstop |
Posted - 16 Mar 2024 : 05:07:21
This was the first 5e adventure I used with my players.
The way I did it, the Demon Lord that passed through left such a chaotic mess, the Drow were preoccupied with dealing with it, giving a window of escape for the characters. I let them find basic equipment that fit their classes(Wizards found their original spellbooks) and they got away from them.
The early mini-dungeons were enough for them. after solving them, they made it to the surface...... |
| Delnyn |
Posted - 10 Sep 2023 : 14:42:32
Out of the Abyss gave me that "Alice in Wonderland" impression. |
| TomCosta |
Posted - 22 Aug 2023 : 04:05:26
I really enjoyed Out of the Abyss. The first chapter does require the DM to move things along, however. |
| Delnyn |
Posted - 14 Aug 2023 : 19:27:13
quote:
Originally posted by LordofBones
I once did an Erevan Ilsere stat sheet just to spite him. It's half-finished on my HD.
LoB,
Could you send the stat sheet to me via PM? I could use the laughs, even if the stat sheet is not finished. |
| LordofBones |
Posted - 14 Aug 2023 : 00:34:22
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Delnyn
I would ignore the intro and replace with something like the caravan ride to Mantol Daerith in the Menzoberranzan boxed set. If you think the Out of the Abyss intro was bad, check out what one of our former scribes concocted:
http://candlekeep.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=23357
That was one hell of a discussion... KingArchCEV was a piece of work; I think he'd be a great subject for a dissertation by a psychology major.
I once did an Erevan Ilsere stat sheet just to spite him. It's half-finished on my HD. |
| PattPlays |
Posted - 13 Aug 2023 : 21:02:58
quote:
Originally posted by DoveArrow
This is the second time I've tried playing in Out of the Abyss and I have to say, I don't understand how anyone finds the opening to this adventure fun. The characters start off in prison. The drow make the characters do meaningless tasks for what feels like an eternity. If you do anything that upsets the drow, they do ungodly amounts of damage to you. You learn nothing about anything from them. There's no real way to escape. If you try to escape, it means almost certain death. And so you just... sit around for literally hours of real world time waiting for the demon attack that you aren't supposed to know is coming. It's like they went out of their way to create an hours long introduction that goes nowhere and affects nothing.
This doesn't feel like a professionally designed intro. This feels like the intro I would expect from a first time DM on a power trip. What is the point of this introduction? How did an entire design team look at this and say, "Yup. This is fine."
I recognize that the rest of the adventure is better, but I'm just wondering, what are players supposed to do during this point in the game except wait for the actual story to start?
Then just start at lvl 5 with an original 'in' to the northdark. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 13 Aug 2023 : 18:32:57
quote:
Originally posted by Delnyn
WoTC could have avoided the fuss by not using FR as the default setting. The Points of Light setting from 4E would have served admirably well.
Oh, there are MANY missteps WotC could have avoided by not using the Realms! |
| Delnyn |
Posted - 13 Aug 2023 : 17:36:17
WoTC could have avoided the fuss by not using FR as the default setting. The Points of Light setting from 4E would have served admirably well. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 13 Aug 2023 : 15:49:29
quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik
My point was that they should know what they're doing after four decades and five iterations.
So when they release products which fail to meet the minimum standards, it can only be because (one way or another) they simply don't care anymore. They've already published the DMG at least five times now so being unable to reference or integrate the adventure with the DMG is not a valid excuse anymore.
Part of the problem is that the current design team seems determined NOT to look at prior material...
And I am convinced that there is no one at WotC empowered (or willing) to say "okay, look, I'm sure you did put a lot of thought into this, and it's clear this thing is your baby, but we can't go with this as written. X has to be dialed way back, and Y simply has to go." |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 13 Aug 2023 : 14:26:55
My point was that they should know what they're doing after four decades and five iterations.
So when they release products which fail to meet the minimum standards, it can only be because (one way or another) they simply don't care anymore. They've already published the DMG at least five times now so being unable to reference or integrate the adventure with the DMG is not a valid excuse anymore. |
| Delnyn |
Posted - 13 Aug 2023 : 14:04:39
If I remember correctly, some of those early modules such as G1-3: Against the Giants came out before the Dungeon Master's Guide was published. I wonder if TSR cut corners on the module to devote more time on DMG. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 13 Aug 2023 : 08:09:02
lol the early 1E modules were sometimes awful products, poorly written, half-unplayable.
But you'd think that they'd refine the formula and adhere to higher standards decades later when 5E was the new thing. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 12 Aug 2023 : 20:33:23
quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik
quote:
How did an entire design team look at this and say, "Yup. This is fine."
They didn't playtest the module. Or they didn't write it well, forgot to mention the interesting narrative. Or they just don't care.
The early 5e adventures are known for having a lot of issues and bad writing. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 12 Aug 2023 : 18:48:37
quote:
Originally posted by Delnyn
I would ignore the intro and replace with something like the caravan ride to Mantol Daerith in the Menzoberranzan boxed set. If you think the Out of the Abyss intro was bad, check out what one of our former scribes concocted:
http://candlekeep.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=23357
That was one hell of a discussion... KingArchCEV was a piece of work; I think he'd be a great subject for a dissertation by a psychology major. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 12 Aug 2023 : 14:08:02
quote:
How did an entire design team look at this and say, "Yup. This is fine."
They didn't playtest the module. Or they didn't write it well, forgot to mention the interesting narrative. Or they just don't care. |
| Delnyn |
Posted - 12 Aug 2023 : 12:52:18
I would ignore the intro and replace with something like the caravan ride to Mantol Daerith in the Menzoberranzan boxed set. If you think the Out of the Abyss intro was bad, check out what one of our former scribes concocted:
http://candlekeep.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=23357 |
