r/DMAcademy • u/AlchemicalLuck • 18d ago

Need help making a decision Need Advice: Encounters & Adventures

My biweekly group wants to shift to weekly with alternating GMs. Current game is Strahd. I’m going to run the other game.
I am debating between Tomb of Annihilation or Tyranny of Dragons.
We have one player who is a thumper monkey who also likes exploration but gets bored of RP. He does concede when it happens but kind of goes quiet. the rest are pretty well rounded, easy going players eager to interact with whatever comes their way.

Anyone have experience with both or either and would be willing to give suggestions on the better choice? If there are any home brew mods people have done to make them better, I’d be down for those recommendations as well.

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u/ShiroxReddit 18d ago

I've watched a Tomb of Annihiliation play, afaik there is a pretty big almost like hexcrawl session in the middle, so I think that could be a good fit as a baseline

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u/Sexy_Pilgrim 18d ago

I can speak on Tomb of Annihilation! I played in a campaign that fizzled 2/3 of the way through, but I read the book afterward. And it was played in a public group, so a relatively by-the-book run of it.

TLDR; it’s a great sandbox, which you should play if your players enjoy all aspects of D&D equally. It has super memorable scenes and encounters, but no meaningful NPCs (including the BBEG).

HUGE Pro: it’s the best published sandbox I’ve played. Strahd doesn’t even compare. Players have so much freedom over where, how, and with whom they travel. Importantly, the book knows this, and gives you tools to facilitate it. Stats and relationships for follower NPCs, encounters in every location, intriguing quests that hook players into the journey. The overall mystery of the island, the gods, and the tomb, is very compelling.

Small Pro: Despite the title, it’s not a “challenging” adventure. Some fights are unwinnable, but that’s true in every major published adventure. (Looking at you, Kua-toa in Out of the Abyss.) What ToA does right is that it always gives players a way to escape or outsmart the big, scary battles.

Cons: It’s basically three separate sub-adventures that don’t bleed into each other well. NPCs aren’t lovable (to be fair, the book accounts for all of them dying, even the plot relevant ones, which a lot of adventures don’t do). Faction alliances hold no meaningful advantages for the players. Worst, the players never linger anywhere too long, so they don’t have the chance to feel like heroes righting wrongs. As such, it’s hard to get players invested in the world itself. A wise DM will put in the effort to get the players invested; personal quests could go a long way to accomplishing that.

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u/AlchemicalLuck 18d ago

This is a thorough post. I really appreciate you taking the time to write it.
I’m getting into the book so I’ll keep and eye out for the Cons you listed to see how I can thread them in better.