Steve Winter (1)Critiques

Pretty rough. Typos abound, there are errors in maps and descriptions, and the art is just bad, with a few exceptions. I looked up Bryan Syme (the illustrator) and a lot of his stuff is quite good, so I'm guessing that panicked deadlines had a lot to do with all these issues. Perhaps these issues have been resolved in later editions than I had. The core adventure is quite good, but a DM would need to do a lot of heavy lifting here.

Original: Hoard of the Dragon Quenn (Tyranny of Dragons) Dungeons & Dragons 5th

Het valt op hoe verschillend W&H ertegenaan kijken vergeleken met hoe Mary Kirchoff en Steve Winter Tas portretteren.

In Wanderlust toont hij enorm veel intelligentie, vooral als speurder voor vallen, verborgen gangen, en meer (zie laatste deel van het boek). Voor W&H is hij grappiger, ietsje dommer in z'n acties, ... Hier is het precies een wat volwassener Tas en dat vergt wel een gewenning. Centraal draait het om een toekomstvoorspellende armband, voor de troonopvolger van de Dargonesti elven, ofte de zee-elven. Flint moest 'm maken, 't was een geheime opdracht. Tas, in een typische Kenderbui, heeft die 'toevallig' in z'n bezit, maar geeft 'm dan door aan anderen - in de hoop goed te doen en hem zo terug bij Flint te bezorgen -, waardoor ie na verloop van tijd in de verkeerde/evil handen terechtkomt. En zo trekken de 3 (Tas, Flint en Tanis) samen met Selena (die de armband liet maken) op avontuur.

Soms komt het verhaal wat kinderachtig/simplistisch over, maar algemeen gezien is het zeker de moeite waard om te weten hoe Tas bij Tanis en Flint is verzeild geraakt en hoe de groep beetje bij beetje uitbreidt per boek.

My feelings about this adventure path are...mixed. There is definitely a lot of potential here, and I have enjoyed running it for my game group. At the same time, it really feels like it was rushed to production as the first adventure path for D&D 5th Edition. I noticed a number of omissions and errors (incorrectly labeled map areas, unlabeled areas, labeled areas with no corresponding descriptions, etc) that I think would have been caught had there been more time available in the publication cycle.

In hindsight I think I would have been better served by choosing something else for my first experience as a GM/DM. Now that I have run it once I think I have a better handle on it, and I do want to run it again for another group. With additional preparations on my part.

This adventure is looking 10 times better than Hoard of the Dragon Queen. More flushed out, not so linear, and some nice design features. They saved money on rougher paper but the artwork is still pretty good. I'm not sure if I like the references to online resources or not. Part of me thinks that's sort of a cop out. Overall, the adventure seems pretty hard and I'll be a little surprised if it doesn't result in a total party kill by the end of the whole thing. At least it looks like fun getting there.

I'm a little late reading this. It was published in 2004 so now it's more like 38 years of adventure.

This was cool if a little confusing. I always thought that Richard Garfield owned Wizards since he was the creator of MTG. But obviously I was wrong since he was only mentioned once in the entire book. It was interesting to hear about the lawsuits that prevented Gygax from working on D&D stuff and that meant the company had to call things "Advanced" D&D or else they had to pay Arneson.

I didn't like how they had 2 different stories going across multiple pages. It was cool to kind of get to know some of the personalities who's names I've been seeing on products since I was a kid.

I really think it needed a "conclusion" type entry. The ending just kinda dropped off.

Tasselhoof Burrfoot was a brilliant creation of Weis and Hickman. A loveable, adorable cleptomaniac that grabs your heart strings and makes you laugh. And, he is much better suited as a secondary character not the main protagonist. This novel, while fun at times, was mostly fluff. If you collect Dragonlance you'll want it. If you're just looking for a good story in the Dragonlance world, there are better titles.

This book is designed to go with the old AD&D 2Ed. roleplaying game. In spite of the fact that this system has been out of use for years I still look upon this as the quintessential publication on psionic powers for all roleplaying games.

- Peter K.