Worst Published Adventure Starts

[FitzTheRuke]

The worst I remember is the intro to Pathfinder's Serpent's Skull adventure path. The heroes start the game unconscious and under attack, with their gear scattered all over the beach that they were just shipwrecked on.

My players just about walked.

Man, my group would love that. What about it did your group not like?

EDIT: Hadn't read the following comments when I posted this.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I'm with @DEFCON 1, except that I read the opening. I read it, but if it's bad, I don't even notice, because I will just make something else up. You might think that would mean that I noticed that it was bad, but it's not so much that - it might be perfectly good, but just not what I would do. I don't think about it long enough to decide which it is. I just make something else up instead.

Like the above Baldur's Gate example. I've run it, but I don't remember what might be bad about it because I don't remember what I kept of it. I may have used something, but I may have thrown it all away. This goes for the whole adventure, so I don't tend to notice the "bad bits".

I ran "Out of the Abyss" twice, and both groups had fun being Drow Prisoners! I think the opening of OotA was one of its better parts. The middle was harder. My memory of that Adventure would lead me to criticize it mostly for the fact that there's not a lot in there that gives a DM any insight on what to run for ANY GIVEN SESSION. It has a campaign story, but very little info on what to do TODAY. It's a lot of work for a DM, and probably pretty bad for a new DM to run.

I could see a lot of groups flubbing that opening, though! Does that make it "bad"?

 

[Retreater]

Don't know if it's "the worst," but this one is so bad that it has a negative effect on the rest of the adventure...

Tomb of Annihilation.
The Death Curse is causing the highest level, most important people in the world to whither away. So let's teleport a group of 1st level characters to a different continent to see if they can fumble through the jungle to figure it out.
It's a great adventure, but the start is terrible and illogical. The motivation to do the adventure also puts an impossible time pressure on the group so they can't enjoy or explore the environment.

 

[TheSword]

Agreed. A little sidebar with a heads-up would have been appreciated. "Hey, so, we originally wrote this introductory encounter to be a "surprise" for your players, but it is a very challenging start to the game and not everyone will enjoy being hobbled so severely before they even roll initiative. If you think your players might not enjoy this sort of thing, here's an alternate way to run the shipwreck..."

So devils advocate - is that not on the GM? All the understanding the PCs will have at the start comes from the DM?

I started Skull and Shackles with no equipment, no spellbook or holy symbol, enslaved to a cruel pirate master. That was the premise. I didn’t shock the players they knew it was coming. Part of the challenge of the first part was getting your shiz together.

The play is the thing. If there is fertile ground for adventure I don’t really care.

 

[CleverNickName]

So devils advocate - is that not on the GM? All the understanding the PCs will have at the start comes from the DM?

Yep, I agree. But the topic of this thread is "Worst Published Adventure Starts," so that was the angle I was coming from. As it was published, Serpent's Skull didn't work for us, and I would have appreciated them publishing a little more advice.

 

[Ringtail]

The Beginning of Hoard of the Dragon Queen has had some problems.

For the uninitiated it begins with an attack on a village. An army of cultists, kobolds and oh yeah... a honkin‘ adult dragon. (This adventure starts at Level 1...)

The adventure expects the party to rush into town to save the day. Its quite cinematic and honestly? Pretty cool. There's a mini siege and some one-on-one combat. The big issue is that no level 1 player wants to run straight towards a big honkin' dragon. I ran into this issue and I've seen enough people online have similar experiences. The dragon of course honks off after the initial bombardment but its still more a deterrent than a call to adventure. It also assumes your PCs are heroic and altruistic, which yeah maybe that's a session 0 conversation before you start this book, but even without the dragon some more scrupulous PCs might wait until the battle is over. You can of course, fix this easily, such as waiting for the party to be in town for the attack begins but its still a bit odd.

It does make for a pretty enjoyable railroad though.

Mod edit: Edited out some less-than-great language. Please remember this is a family place. ~Umbran

 

[Ringtail]

The motivation to do the adventure also puts an impossible time pressure on the group so they can't enjoy or explore the environment.

This was the worst for me. My group and I were having a ball exploring and generally doing hexcrawl shenanigans, but the looming spectre of the apocalypse was starting to kill our vibe. Our DM finally just said "Don't worry about that, you got time, have fun."

 

[Retreater]

This was the worst for me. My group and I were having a ball exploring and generally doing hexcrawl shenanigans, but the looming spectre of the apocalypse was starting to kill our vibe. Our DM finally just said "Don't worry about that, you got time, have fun."

And the time crunch is near impossible. Your quest giver and most others will have died weeks before you find the dungeon.

 

[Reynard]

This was the worst for me. My group and I were having a ball exploring and generally doing hexcrawl shenanigans, but the looming spectre of the apocalypse was starting to kill our vibe. Our DM finally just said "Don't worry about that, you got time, have fun."

It is like every CRPG ever: the world is ending! Oh, hey, can you deliver this note for me?

 

[TheSword]

Don't know if it's "the worst," but this one is so bad that it has a negative effect on the rest of the adventure...

Tomb of Annihilation.
The Death Curse is causing the highest level, most important people in the world to whither away. So let's teleport a group of 1st level characters to a different continent to see if they can fumble through the jungle to figure it out.
It's a great adventure, but the start is terrible and illogical. The motivation to do the adventure also puts an impossible time pressure on the group so they can't enjoy or explore the environment.

Level is a an out of game construct not an In game construct. A NPC can’t tell the difference between a 5th level fighter and a 1st. Plus presumably that merchant that sets them the quest doesn’t have Elminster’s mobile number. Even if he was free.