Dungeons & Dragons: Tales from the Yawning Portal Late Review

Review copy courtesy of Wizards of the Coast.

A bit late to the party, as usual, but without much further ado, here is my Tales of the Yawning Portal review. At the time of writing this, I've read through the book and have run The Sunless Citadel.

Pros:

• Lots of maps for dungeon delving
• Production values we've come to expect for this edition (including art)
• 7 adventures/dungeons with a nice spread of levels

Could Go Either Way:

• It's all reprints and no new material (bonus if you like the originals, like the new version of D&D and don't want to convert them yourself)
• Very dungeon delve heavy (if you like that it's great, if you like more narrative based stuff you won't be happy)
• No new player creation stuff. It's all about the dungeons and adventure (anyone who read my previous reviews knows that's how I like it)!
• Bundle of older D&D adventures updated to newer version (for new players who are interested in some of the older stuff this could be great but it makes it a far harder sell to the veterans)
• Adventures are kind of release date clustered (if you just want good dungeons, you won't care)
• Maps can shift styles from adventure to adventure due to the massive year gaps between them (if you like consistency, it's a con but if you like seeing different styles, it's a pro)

Cons:

• The adventures included are quite disconnected. Connecting them together requires some serious work and creativity and still will probably end up feeling episodic. Not sure I'd end a campaign with Tomb of Horrors either.
• No PDF*

* Denotes nitpicking.

Introduction

It's obvious D&D has a history. It's been around a while and from modern role-playing games to some of the strange criticisms modern games sometimes receive, D&D has left its mark. Part of that history is the large pile of D&D modules created over the years. It's not so surprising then, at least to me, that sooner or later we'd get re-releases of some old adventures for the new version of D&D. Tales from the Yawning Portal is a collection of 7 previously released adventures, converted to the 5^th edition rules, that explores some of that history.

The Adventure

New Old Monsters

Well, I guess they aren't really new monsters since they are from adventures previously released. Still, there are a few new ones for this edition. My favourite is probably the vampiric mist. However, the list isn't as big as it would first appear. Some of them, such as the spell casters, are copied exactly from Volo's Guide to Monsters. They also only take up about 18 pages so it's clearly not the main draw. On one hand it's convenient and nice not to need to buy Volo's Guide as well but it does bring down the useful page count down a little bit.

What You Need to Play

You'll need the core books. They are still making no effort to reference the SRD or the basic rules. Still, it looks like you can mostly get away with them if you really need to and if you know what you are doing when creating your own monsters. Still a bit disappointing though. Would've been a nice feature to keep in this edition.

The Adventures Themselves

Well, it's not just one adventure this time. We've got 7 of them. Naturally, since the adventures included aren't originally from the same edition or time period it makes things a bit difficult to talk about. Still, let's give it a shot.

There is a lot of dungeon delving here. Dead in Thay, in particular, is a massive monster dungeon. The structure of the adventures is to give some background and then define the dungeon for the adventure. If you love dungeon delving, and a lot of adventures seemed to be dungeon delves back in the day, you'll probably like this. There are also a lot of maps and encounters that naturally come with a lot of dungeon delving. Such things make for good inspiration. However, if you wanted some variety you might be disappointed. If you are a veteran player and you like the idea of running these adventures for D&D 5^th edition without having to do a conversion yourself, this might be exactly what the doctor ordered. Likewise, if you are new Dungeon Master and wanted to see/run some adventures from D&D history, it'll be right up your alley. If the idea of re-released adventures is one you outright hate, there isn't much I can say or can be done to change your mind.

The adventures cover a wide range of levels and can flow from one to another if needed. That is in theory, at least. I would be hesitant in running such dungeon delving heavy adventures back to back unless your players really like that kind of thing. I'd also be hesitant in ending a campaign with Tomb of Horrors. Whenever I saw it played, it was usually reworked to allow some kind of respawn mechanic (players were avatars of gods, there was some kind of cloning machine, the players weren't interested in role-playing their characters and just wanted to have the badge of finishing the tomb, etc.).

All of that said, it would be pretty easy to take a hand full of adventures from here and use them to create a campaign. 2-3 adventures could be combined into a sort of mini-campaign and padded out with more story elements and origin work. I like quite a few things from the dungeons presented here. Some of them are plot hooks, some of them are traps, some of them are encounters, but in general there is quite a lot here that can be used, retooled, or just plain lifted if you don't plan to run it. The number of maps makes it quite easy to retool for your own person use. Some are easier than others, though. Dead in Thay has such a large dungeon that parts can be recycled quite easily, but others would need to be sectioned off. This kind of sectioning off often makes it difficult to show your players a map, if you like doing it that way. If you make your players sketch their own maps, it isn't a problem. 

The selection of adventures is interesting. It's quite dungeon delve heavy, as I mentioned earlier, but there are 2 other potential problems. Dead in Thay came out quite recently so a newer player might have already tried to run it using the now outdated D&D Next playtest rules. Around that time there was also a D&D Next conversion in an issue of Dungeon Magazine for Tomb of Horrors (I want to say #213). If you've already got those recently, it's even harder to give a good argument for a newer version. This is compounded by the closeness of D&D Next compared to D&D 5e, especially in the case of later versions of D&D Next, making conversions pretty easy. The balance might be slightly different, but it does affect the value of the book when 2 of the adventures are less appealing.

What I've said so far may have come out more negative than I intended. I like classic adventures and I enjoyed getting the chance to read some old adventures updated to the rules system I'm more familiar with. However, the heavy dungeon delving and disconnect makes it one of those things that you'll either love or hate. If you like shorter games that can be finished in a few sessions, these kinds of smaller adventures may be exactly what you needed as well. All of this makes it hard to point at something and say “this is great”. I almost need to do 7 reviews. Instead it's a bunch of things that can go either way.

The Art and Book Build Quality

The build quality is more of the same we have come to expect. Some wavy pages may still be found but the binding seemed good and the page layout and design is inline with the rest. I like the cover art, though it still doesn't dethrone Rise of Tiamat as my favourite cover art. Luckily you can see some examples of the art and make a call yourself on the Wizards of the Coast website.

Price

It's the same list price we've gotten used to at 49.95 USD. If you are Canadian it's still 63.95 CAD. As always, you can find it for cheaper if you look online at the right places. Obviously this won't support your local games store. Make the choice that works for you.

What I felt was Missing

Besides what I already mentioned, there is the PDF thing I keep mentioning every time and have to continue to do so. These adventures are provided as PDFs already by Wizards of the Coast so a compilation of them would've been nice. It would have been really nice for completion's sake and for historical curiosity to include the original versions of the adventures too. Sure, they'd be unplayable using 5^th edition rules but there were some conversion notes given earlier in the edition. It would also help the value for some people. Not too surprised they didn't do it though since it would probably appeal to only a small part of the community, and be unusable without getting the old rules for most.

The publishing date spread is interesting. We have 4 adventures between 1978 and 1981 and then 2 from 2000 and an odd man out published in 2014. That's a pretty interesting 20 year gap. I would have been curious to see how they would have done with a 4^th edition adventure. The rules and economy of actions for players were so different it might have been more like a rewrite than a conversion. For those you liked that edition, it could also serve as an example of how to convert them over, assuming it turned out well.

With the page count being 248, I think they could have stuffed another short adventure or two from D&D history in here. Just a little more value would have helped make the book more appealing I think and closer to a must-buy.

Free Stuff

Some material is provided for free on the Wizards of the Coast website and can be found here. Compared to previous releases, it's not much. I don't think that's so unexpected since the book is conversions of modules they still sell on D&D Classics.

Summary

This is a hard one to talk about for me. The disconnected nature of the adventures makes it, for me, a book I'd far more likely use for parts and to pick and choose a small subset. Running all of them in a row would be tough unless your group really likes dungeon delving. Tomb of Horrors also has a risk of not going over well as a campaign finisher. On the other hand, if you are a newer player to D&D and want to see some of the older adventures from before your time, it could look tempting. It's a similar situation if you fondly remember these adventures and don't want to have to convert them yourself. However, it's hard for me to recommend it ahead of some of the other stuff we've already had in this edition. It's not a bad book, especially if a bunch of smaller adventures from D&D history appeal to you, but I don't think the value is as good as some other adventures we've had. It's also very dependent on the kind of game you like. Still, I liked the chance to get an updated look at these adventures since I had no prior experience with 4 out of 7 of them. If anyone reading this has questions, feel free to ask.