I’m a big fan of punishing adventures and games, in case you haven’t figured that out by now. Part of the reason it grabbed me was a bit of nostalgia, sure, but also for seeing more published adventures take the route of “this is hard and you’ll probably die”.
While I’m not new to the game, and not some OSR grognard, but also not entirely nostalgic of these adventures having never played the originals (beyond Tomb of Horrors and Tamoachan conversions for 4th edition) it sure did capture my attention. It’s hard to say what the true target audience is, but that’s irrelevant because I’m going to venture to say that Tales from the Yawning Portal captures all of them at least in some capacity. The answer lies somewhere in between I suppose. For those new to D&D, are they really seeking out classic adventures previous editions? For those who are already longtime players of D&D, are they really going to jump on board with 5e if they haven’t already? I mean not that redoing an old 1st edition adventure in 5e would actually accomplish that (the OSR crowd is especially impossible to please) but re-capturing an already decided demographic is hard. Rose Colored Glasses?Īll of this nostalgia, but is it for you? During a discussion on the Pixels & Polyhedrals show we discussed who exactly this product was meant for. Overall though, the quality of the contents is great with nice flourishes to touch up the organization of these otherwise elderly adventures. Are poster maps not a thing anymore? I feel like they’ve been neglected in recent years, likely due to the popularity of digital options. We have several adventures that have multiple large maps, crammed onto standard 8.5 x 11″ pages – it works well for reference but involves a lot of flipping back and forth and there’s nothing to plunk down on the table. Unfortunately, this gazetteer of dungeon delves doesn’t come with poster maps. Regardless, these are all very nice touches. Especially since this means WotC is assuming people are running Dragonlance and Greyhawk games in 5e when they haven’t released any campaign setting materials for them…yet. The text outlines inserting the adventure into Dragonlance, Eberron, Forgotten Realms, and Greyhawk universes which is nice.
How long to run tales from the yawning portal how to#
There’s updated artwork for all of the adventures, an overview of the synopsis of each broken up into easily digestible paragraphs along with a brief history of the original module, and how to place the adventure into your world. The book itself is as you would expect from any other offering from WotC for 5th edition, fantastic quality. Also like the originals, these are faithful recreations of these old adventures – no rounded corners or sharp edges filed down, they’re lethal. You can also entirely skip this tavern premise and just run the adventures by themselves as one shots or inject them into your campaign however you see fit, they all stand entirely on their own, just as the originals did.
It isn’t the most original, but it gets the job done and the tavern cliche is honestly quite charming. The campaign glue that tries to stick all 7 of these adventures together is the premise that player characters are within a tavern called the Yawning Portal and gather there overhearing rumors from mysterious patrons and the barkeep himself as hooks in order to seek out each adventuring locale. It’s comprised entirely of adventures from first and third edition, with one exception, “Dead in Thay” having came from the 4e days. Yawning Portal offers a sampling of some of the best, and most iconic dungeons within the hobby bound in a hardback tome for use as standalone delves or as part of an ongoing campaign. Clocking in at 248 pages, Tales from the Yawning Portal brings home 7 classic D&D adventures filled with dungeoney goodness that’s been converted for use with 5th edition.
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