GAME REVIEW: Dungeons & Dragons: Against The Giants
(Don’t Stop Me Now - Queen)
Dungeons and Dragons might not be the granddaddy of Pen And Paper RPGs, but it's absolutely the reigning champion, full stop. The child of Gygax has been around for over 40 years now, and in that time, many memorable adventures had emerged based on its rules. 2017's 'Tales From The Yawning Portal' plays like a greatest hits list, pulling several adventures from past versions of the game and modernizing them for Fifth Edition.
This review will be focusing on Against The Giants, an adventure designed for 11th Level characters. It calls players to explore three different areas, each more dangerous than the last: The hill giant Steading, the glacial realm of the Ice Giants, and the stronghold of the Fire Giant King. Should you?
(This review was written from the perspective of the DM, not the player. HUGE thanks to Kevin Saugier for basically letting me keep his copy of 'Tales' while I've run our group through the various adventures within it.)
There’s ... no way I can write a ‘short version’ of this because of how complicated this adventure can get. The closest that I can come is to suggest that while this adventure can be entertaining to play, anyone who DMs this is going to need to read the entire adventure from end to end so they can deal with a few HUGE problems that can turn the adventure into a nightmare for the DM and a cakewalk for any players that are prepared.
First Problem: The introduction to the whole adventure encourages the DM to allow their players to outfit themselves with any reasonable piece of equipment that they can think of. The adventure primer insists that this campaign is only for very experienced players. Since you’re starting at level 11, that absolutely includes magical items, as it should. The adventure insists that your players will need this equipment. Let me be the first to assure you that if you’re playing with four or five reasonably intelligent players that have built an intelligent party, they don’t need any additional help. They certainly don’t need the kind of help that this adventure insists they’ll need. Play the adventure ‘vanilla’ with your characters using the gear they currently have and dole out equipment to them later as it becomes necessary.
Second Problem: Unlike every other module in “Tales’, there isn’t much of a story to work with here. You’ll need to make up a great deal of backstory for the adventure if your party is to proceed in anything resembling a meaningful direction. You need to be prepared to write and maintain this story as the adventure progresses, which is why it’s so important that you read the adventure through to the end. There are a few curveballs in the third act that you really need to be aware of.
Third Problem: The maps in almost every single area of this adventure are HORRIBLE. You’re running around in structures designed for use by Giants, and yet they’re not sized properly. This makes any kind of tactical combat virtually impossible. A properly configured party will almos tmmediately neuter any encounter with their front line while ranged and DPS players shred your encounter like a wet paper towel. Be prepared to either re-draw every map larger, home-brew your monster stat blocks to shrink their size, or just brazenly alter the block as a whole. Or, you know, any combination of the three. Otherwise, your sessions will simply de-evolve into wading through hit point sacks, which is quite boring.
The Final Problem: The adventure can bog down BADLY in several places if your party penetrates a new area and then falls back to regroup. The way the adventure tells you to handle this will turn gameplay into a massive, time-eating slog. You’ll need to plan around this if you want to keep your players engaged.
This adventure represents a great deal of potential fun for players, especially if they’ve been working through the entire ‘Tales’ book up until this point. Level 11 is where most characters really hit their stride in terms of power. Most folks don’t get the chance to raise characters up from level 1, so this is an excellent opportunity to let a seasoned group of adventurers really cut loose. That said, I would almost recommend using this module as a resource rather than trying to run the adventure that’s directly contained within its pages. Otherwise, you’ll get bogged down in a ton of prep work.
Dungeons and Dragons might not be the granddaddy of Pen And Paper RPGs, but it's absolutely the reigning champion, full stop. The child of Gygax has been around for over 40 years now, and in that time, many memorable adventures had emerged based on its rules. 2017's 'Tales From The Yawning Portal' plays like a greatest hits list, pulling several adventures from past versions of the game and modernizing them for Fifth Edition.
This review will be focusing on Against The Giants, an adventure designed for 11th Level characters. It calls players to explore three different areas, each more dangerous than the last: The hill giant Steading, the glacial realm of the Ice Giants, and the stronghold of the Fire Giant King. Should you?
(This review was written from the perspective of the DM, not the player. HUGE thanks to Kevin Saugier for basically letting me keep his copy of 'Tales' while I've run our group through the various adventures within it.)
There’s ... no way I can write a ‘short version’ of this because of how complicated this adventure can get. The closest that I can come is to suggest that while this adventure can be entertaining to play, anyone who DMs this is going to need to read the entire adventure from end to end so they can deal with a few HUGE problems that can turn the adventure into a nightmare for the DM and a cakewalk for any players that are prepared.
First Problem: The introduction to the whole adventure encourages the DM to allow their players to outfit themselves with any reasonable piece of equipment that they can think of. The adventure primer insists that this campaign is only for very experienced players. Since you’re starting at level 11, that absolutely includes magical items, as it should. The adventure insists that your players will need this equipment. Let me be the first to assure you that if you’re playing with four or five reasonably intelligent players that have built an intelligent party, they don’t need any additional help. They certainly don’t need the kind of help that this adventure insists they’ll need. Play the adventure ‘vanilla’ with your characters using the gear they currently have and dole out equipment to them later as it becomes necessary.
Second Problem: Unlike every other module in “Tales’, there isn’t much of a story to work with here. You’ll need to make up a great deal of backstory for the adventure if your party is to proceed in anything resembling a meaningful direction. You need to be prepared to write and maintain this story as the adventure progresses, which is why it’s so important that you read the adventure through to the end. There are a few curveballs in the third act that you really need to be aware of.
Third Problem: The maps in almost every single area of this adventure are HORRIBLE. You’re running around in structures designed for use by Giants, and yet they’re not sized properly. This makes any kind of tactical combat virtually impossible. A properly configured party will almos tmmediately neuter any encounter with their front line while ranged and DPS players shred your encounter like a wet paper towel. Be prepared to either re-draw every map larger, home-brew your monster stat blocks to shrink their size, or just brazenly alter the block as a whole. Or, you know, any combination of the three. Otherwise, your sessions will simply de-evolve into wading through hit point sacks, which is quite boring.
The Final Problem: The adventure can bog down BADLY in several places if your party penetrates a new area and then falls back to regroup. The way the adventure tells you to handle this will turn gameplay into a massive, time-eating slog. You’ll need to plan around this if you want to keep your players engaged.
This adventure represents a great deal of potential fun for players, especially if they’ve been working through the entire ‘Tales’ book up until this point. Level 11 is where most characters really hit their stride in terms of power. Most folks don’t get the chance to raise characters up from level 1, so this is an excellent opportunity to let a seasoned group of adventurers really cut loose. That said, I would almost recommend using this module as a resource rather than trying to run the adventure that’s directly contained within its pages. Otherwise, you’ll get bogged down in a ton of prep work.
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