# Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle: A Railroady Adventure and Exclusive Gen Con D&D Next Softcover Ruleset



## RaeneJagad

Perfect on my Android phone. Interesting review. Wasn't sure overall if you'd recommend it as worth spending money on though.


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## Blackbrrd

I just finished reading your criticism and found it well written with many good points. Reading (and running) adventures is for me a way of learning how to run the game. When they have silly things like a single-roll skill check that stops the adventure from proceeding if run as written shouldn't be in the adventure. It should be an example in the rules on how NOT to use skill checks.

I have no idea why they use so little time making good use of skills in adventures since the situations you would use skill checks can often be the most awesome free form role playing inducing situations you get when playing.


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## EYEforanEYE

Well done review.   Blunt, to the point, and extremely honest and that is what makes a review glow.  As with any given module, the DM is wise to read front and back, point the glaring issues, make corrections and then play the module from a different perspective.  WOTC has a lot to learn from other module making companies but in time, I am certain they will catch on and come up with some better product.


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## Olgar Shiverstone

Good review.  Shame the adventure isn't better structured, but good to see there are positives in other areas.


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## Hutchimus Prime

Well-written but very personalized review. Too many, "I like to...", "I want...", and "I don't want..." for an objective review, but well-written and thorough.


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## bryce0lynch

Every review is personalized; at least I disclose my prejudices. The goal is for there to be enough information for you to make an informed choice based on your preferences.


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## EYEforanEYE

Hutchimus Prime said:


> Well-written but very personalized review. Too many, "I like to...", "I want...", and "I don't want..." for an objective review, but well-written and thorough.




Reviews of anything to include gaming products need to be personalized otherwise it is not a review.  When I write reviews of gaming products, I get intimate with the product in question therefore becoming personal is part of the reviewing process.  What I do not want to see is a "cookie cutter" review...


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## NewJeffCT

I haven't read through the entire four adventures yet so far, but I found the initial hook to be a bit weak - a huge dragon has just attacked a local keep.  You 1st level adventurers, go help investigate it.  I'm thinking at least 50% of the gamers I've dealt with since I've been gaming from the late 1970s would think, "I just learned to pick up a sword, (or cast my first spell or pick my first pocket) I can't fight a dragon!!!"  (of course, the other 50% would be "Huzzah!  I want to make my mark on the world, what better way than to become <insert PC name here> the Wyrmslayer!")

I do agree that I really like that they tell you how monsters in the area react - i.e., if you spend more than 2 rounds exploring here, roll on the encounter table as the noise will attract attention.

I agree somewhat on the disguised villain, though I do like the overall concept and I think a good DM can handle it without it being too rail-roady.  It's easy enough to have the party get sidetracked or not led directly by the nose.


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## NewJeffCT

Blackbrrd said:


> I just finished reading your criticism and found it well written with many good points. Reading (and running) adventures is for me a way of learning how to run the game. When they have silly things like a single-roll skill check that stops the adventure from proceeding if run as written shouldn't be in the adventure. It should be an example in the rules on how NOT to use skill checks.
> 
> I have no idea why they use so little time making good use of skills in adventures since the situations you would use skill checks can often be the most awesome free form role playing inducing situations you get when playing.




I think that's a nod to old school D&D.  I remember once we ended up locked in a cell back in 2E days.  The strongest PC failed his "bend bars/lift gates" check, and each PC after that failed as well.  The way the old rules were written, you could not try again until you hit the next level... but, if you're stuck in a cell, how can you go up in level?  You're just going to sit there and eventually die of thirst and/or starvation.  Basically, you were stuck because you failed the check.

(We ended up telling the DM that the rule was stupid and not very cinematic, and he handwaved it and allowed us to try again until we succeeded.)


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## Luatriv

Perfect review


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## Hutchimus Prime

How helpful would materials from the old "Under Illefarn" and "The North" be when running Dragonspear?


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## NewJeffCT

Hutchimus Prime said:


> How helpful would materials from the old "Under Illefarn" and "The North" be when running Dragonspear?




Not sure about _Under Ilefarn_, but Dragonspear Castle starts in Daggerford, so I assume anything that helps flesh out Daggerford and the surrounding environs would be helpful.


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## am181d

I bought a copy, but haven't gotten a chance to go through it yet. It's disappointing to hear that it feels railroady. I enjoy event-based adventures, but they need to be flexible. You cover the most likely player options and then give the DM the tools to improvise when the players surprise you. Designing an adventure where players have, at best, the illusion of choice is definitely bad design, and it's what gives event-based adventures a bad wrap.


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## NewJeffCT

I didn't get the impression that the disguised villain (DV) is forcing the PCs in a certain direction and that they have no choice.  The adventure makes it clear that the DV does nothing to arouse suspicion on itself while progressing through the swamp, while it tries to lead them to location (a).  Sure, it can be abused by a bad DM, but the text says if it can't lead the PCs to location (a), it tries to lead them to location (b) and you skip (a) entirely.  I know the players I've DM'd for in the past and groups I've played in, if the DM's NPC is trying to get you to go in a certain direction, everybody's spider-sense will be tingling and the DV's jig would soon be up... they do include a nice marsh encounter table in there in case the players decide to use "exploration" turns moving through the swamp/marsh.


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## Walker N. Waistz

*There's personalized, and then there's this...*

I learned way less about this adventure than I did about the reviewer's personal philosophy of module design. Doesn't really help me determine if this something I want to try and acquire or not (which, since it was a GenCon exclusive, would obviously take a lot of effort).


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## NewJeffCT

Walker - you can buy copies on eBay if you really really wanted it.  The price has come down from GenCon week and the week after GenCon.


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## RichGreen

Very thorough and enjoyable personal review! I managed to get a copy – someone going to GenCon kindly picked one up for me – but haven't read it yet. From what you are saying the approach seems very different to the much more freeform Murder in Baldur's Gate.


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## DocSER

I can provide a bit of a complement to this review -- as someone who played through the whole adventure at Gencon.   The only way we got through it in the time allowed was that the DM throttled back on random encounters when he noticed we were more interested in getting through the narrative than literal implementation of module.  He was also nice enough to only punish us for our haste at the end when the punishment was entertaining (where we did not follow-up on leads we knew were there but were on a ticking clock).  

The adventure had some nice set pieces and some classic-feeling trap/exploration elements.  It reminded me of some of my memory of 1E play -- which is a bit different than 1E as written and re-read today.  I don't want to provide spoilers but I thought the set-pieces were better than the overall plot and may warrant the price of the adventure.

My group took advantage of the options for talking to NPC/villains -- maybe a bit too much.  We talked our way through at least 3-4 of the major encounters.  This sped things along and was fun for RP purposes but your group will need to calibrate that to their own interests.  Luckily, this is an element that groups seem likely to calibrate themselves.  

My chief complaint **vague spoiler** is that there almost no link between the actions of the adventures in the first 80% of the adventure and what happens in the climax.  The party could have jumped right in to the last part of the adventure and the climax would play out the same.  In fact, we openly wondered what happened to all of the mcguffins we chased in the first part of the adventure  **vend spoiler** 

The problems with the adventure did not spoil our fun.  We openly joked about obvious DV moments.  We quickly got past the problems with the hook (we just took the obvious hints and wanted to buy in to the story), ignored the railroad-y components, and the problems in the late part.  

The strongest part of the adventure was how well it trained people on their characters and illustrated the steady progression through levels.  I left the playtest much more optimistic about the state of DNDNext.


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## NewJeffCT

Thanks for the good information DocSER.  I'm definitely going to read more into the adventure, and also try to get a better feel for 5E.  I'm also wondering how long the DV would fool my old group if they had no access to the actual adventure.


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## habaal

The best pre-written modules I have had the pleasure to read were "Wrath of the River King" and "Courts of the Shadow Fey", both by Wolfgang Baur. These were open-world, Sandbox mini-settings with lots of adventures and mini-stories thrown in, and they provided sophisticated mysteries to solve, an actual sense of discovery, great characters, a coherent and consistent atmosphere, and clever stories.


If you want great adventure design, I would suggest a read-through:


http://www.wolfgangbaur.com/projects/


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## DocSER

Our group was making jokes about the DV within minutes.  RPGs have gone to this well too many times for it to be a surprise.


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## delericho

Hutchimus Prime said:


> Well-written but very personalized review. Too many, "I like to...", "I want...", and "I don't want..." for an objective review, but well-written and thorough.




There's no such thing as an objective review. We're all influenced by our viewpoint, and unavoidably so. I'd much rather have the reviewer be as upfront as possible with his views than try (and fail) to be objective. That way, if I know the reviewer loves 'A' and hates 'B', while I hate the one and love the other, I know to disregard his opinions in this area.


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## RaeneJagad

Thanks DocSER it sounds ideal for my purposes with some tweaking.


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## delericho

Good review. Though perhaps not _quite_ good enough to be worth reading twice. 



bryce0lynch said:


> Therein lies the first problem with the product. One of the first things the adventure tells us is “The adventures are structured in such a way that makes it *difficult* for the characters to obtain the four keys. Even if the characters do everything right most or all of he keys are *likely to end up* in the bad guys hands.”




Emphasis mine. Those conditionals are surely the difference between a railroad (where the PCs _can't_ influence the plot) vs an adventure where the odds are merely stacked heavily against them?



> Finally, there’s a very common mistake. You have to pass a skill check to go on the adventure. Seriously, if you fail the check then you don’t get the information needed to go on the adventure in the first place.




Yeah, that's terrible. It's almost as bad as the scene in "Expedition to the Demonweb Pits" where, in order to progress, the PCs _must_ consult a specific NPC... and immediately before meeting this NPC they are explicitly told not to trust said NPC.

But...



> This is NOT the correct way and by placing it in an introductory product...




Is this an introductory product, though? Sure, it's the first 5e product, but given that it was a Gen Con exclusive, the intended audience must surely be attendees (and their home groups). By their nature, Gen Con attendees are surely not new to this whole "roleplaying" thing.

It's still bad design, no question about that. But I'm not convinced it's _especially_ horrible by virtue of being "an introductory product".



> Let’s talk read-aloud text. There’s a lot. WAY too much. WOTC has published articles about the problems of read-aloud text, but they still do it poorly. I was trying to find a reference I came across once. It said something to the effect that players eyes glaze over after two or three sentences of read-alound.




Yeah, that's frustrating. Both WotC and Paizo _know_ read-aloud text is problematic, and both still overuse it.

The problem is that it's hard to write this stuff in a way that makes sure to convey all the important information to the players, and since the only things they know about their environment are the things the DM tells them, missing information can be a real problem. Still, I've seen at least one good solution to the problem - provide the DM will bulet-point lists of the salient points, and trust him to deliver that to the players.


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## NewJeffCT

delericho said:


> Good review. Though perhaps not _quite_ good enough to be worth reading twice.
> 
> 
> 
> Emphasis mine. Those conditionals are surely the difference between a railroad (where the PCs _can't_ influence the plot) vs an adventure where the odds are merely stacked heavily against them?
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah, that's terrible. It's almost as bad as the scene in "Expedition to the Demonweb Pits" where, in order to progress, the PCs _must_ consult a specific NPC... and immediately before meeting this NPC they are explicitly told not to trust said NPC.
> 
> But...
> 
> 
> 
> Is this an introductory product, though? Sure, it's the first 5e product, but given that it was a Gen Con exclusive, the intended audience must surely be attendees (and their home groups). By their nature, Gen Con attendees are surely not new to this whole "roleplaying" thing.
> 
> It's still bad design, no question about that. But I'm not convinced it's _especially_ horrible by virtue of being "an introductory product".
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah, that's frustrating. Both WotC and Paizo _know_ read-aloud text is problematic, and both still overuse it.
> 
> The problem is that it's hard to write this stuff in a way that makes sure to convey all the important information to the players, and since the only things they know about their environment are the things the DM tells them, missing information can be a real problem. Still, I've seen at least one good solution to the problem - provide the DM will bulet-point lists of the salient points, and trust him to deliver that to the players.




Interesting - as a DM, I love the read-aloud text.  The players know to pay attention when they get it and that it contains important material and sets the scene, unlike when I'm running an NPC that the players are not 100% sure they can trust and if their information is important or not.  I like it so much that when I design my own adventures, I include read-aloud text in it as well. (I do typically tweak the read aloud text in published adventures to fit the current campaign, but usually not much)

As I said above, the "make a skill check or you can't go on" was pretty common in old school modules, so it could be a nod to them.  I specified one where the PCs were trapped in a prison cell and the only way to escape for a low level party was to make a bend bars/lift gates check.  If the entire party fails, you can't make another check until you level in 1e/2e D&D.  But, if you're stuck in a cell, there is no way to level.


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## NewJeffCT

DocSER said:


> Our group was making jokes about the DV within minutes.  RPGs have gone to this well too many times for it to be a surprise.




I guess I've run enough friendly NPCs over the years that my players would be more surprised by a betrayal.  The only time I really remember it not working was from Rise of the Runelords - the PC that won the admiration of Aldern Foxglove from that initial encounter immediately thought something was odd about the guy.  I guess I played his admiration as too over the top.  But, the guy dropped out for the rest of Burnt Offerings after giving them their reward, and they forgot about him until he started calling out the PC in The Skinsaw Murders.


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