I purchased the Legacy of the Crystal Shard adventure in September 2016 and had only played 5th edition a couple times prior to deciding to run this as my very first 5e adventure. What initially drew me to the adventure was its focus on story, the three different paths the adventure could go and the idea of choosing one path would lead to consequences in the other two paths.
As I mentioned to Bill and Rob when I first approached them in October 2016:
quote:
This game will be a little different than some of my past games because it will primarily be story-based. Still somewhat open-ended though, as in the players will not be railroaded through the adventure, but there is a definite end to the game. It just might take a while to get there due to the slow nature of PbP. For this to work though, I need solid, non-flaky players which as you know are something of a crapshoot on RPoL.
By this time in November 2016, Bill had recruited all of you to round out the cast and we were in the midst of character generation, waiting for the holidays to pass to begin the game. We launched on 1 January 2017 and worked through the adventure over the next 22+ months. I kind of figured it would take about 2 years to complete the adventure and had hoped we could retain all of the players to see it through the completion. We only lost one along the way, which is kind of remarkable, so thanks for all the help in vetting the cast, Bill!
Overall, I enjoyed the adventure as well. It was definitely a challenging adventure to run due to its relatively non-linear presentation and the fact the mechanics were sketchy and/or based on early "D&D Next" assumptions. But I liked the overarching story of 3 separate villains mucking up Icewind Dale and felt like you guys had an opportunity to shape the history of the region through your characters' actions.
In hindsight, I think I could have done a better job selling Akar Kessell as a villain, but his main role was as a villain in the Dwarven Valley, and your character sacrificed that hook in favor of the other two hooks. So you really didn't get to learn much about him and he is only in the final act as a hanger-on and not the main villain.
Splitting up the party was also a drag. During that time, I started having doubts on my ability to see this game through to completion and was happy to work everyone back together and phase out the non-contributing party member who caused the split in the first place. Things definitely got better once the two groups reunited, at least from my standpoint. Note to self: don't allow PbP parties to split up anymore. It never works out well!
At any rate, I am curious to know what you specifically liked or didn't like about this adventure, the way I ran it, writing/posting style, etc. Any feedback is appreciated, as I am always working to improve my craft and get better as a storyteller and DM.
Thanks again!
Shane