Good morning,
following you for a long time and with the current newsletter topic I had to send you a comment. Why? Because I totally made the same experience with this adventure you made. I bought all the campaign guides and "how to"s for Princes of the Apocalypse on DT and even though they had great advice it meant reading the same amount of pages (250+) again just to master the original 250 pages of PotA. And even though it made the DM job a lot easier it was still a hell of work instead of a hell of fun. And in the end we stopped half way through the adventure because it only works if you put the players by their noses and pull them through it as the designers planned.
So much potential. The air cult worked really good for us and they became kind of ongoing foe for the campaign even though they would have been the easiest to wipe out. The water and the earth cult where okay but never really grabbed my players personal feelings. And the fire cult - I only got them there by force. Even though there was a druid in the group.
And after we ended the campaign I just felt burned out.
So yeah, coming back to doing your own stuff is what I really want to do. Even though 5e still feels ... harder for to me to design encounters that fits the groups power level than every other edition of D&D before. That's why I love Castles & Crusades a lot more than 5e but my player love 5e so we play it.
Thanks for showing me that I'm not alone with my feelings about Princes of the Apocalypse. Game on!
Hauke
following you for a long time and with the current newsletter topic I had to send you a comment. Why? Because I totally made the same experience with this adventure you made. I bought all the campaign guides and "how to"s for Princes of the Apocalypse on DT and even though they had great advice it meant reading the same amount of pages (250+) again just to master the original 250 pages of PotA. And even though it made the DM job a lot easier it was still a hell of work instead of a hell of fun. And in the end we stopped half way through the adventure because it only works if you put the players by their noses and pull them through it as the designers planned.
So much potential. The air cult worked really good for us and they became kind of ongoing foe for the campaign even though they would have been the easiest to wipe out. The water and the earth cult where okay but never really grabbed my players personal feelings. And the fire cult - I only got them there by force. Even though there was a druid in the group.
And after we ended the campaign I just felt burned out.
So yeah, coming back to doing your own stuff is what I really want to do. Even though 5e still feels ... harder for to me to design encounters that fits the groups power level than every other edition of D&D before. That's why I love Castles & Crusades a lot more than 5e but my player love 5e so we play it.
Thanks for showing me that I'm not alone with my feelings about Princes of the Apocalypse. Game on!
Hauke
