Rant - the BAD HEXCRAWL in Tomb of Annihilation

As you know, I finished running CoS and now I'm probably starting Tomb of Annihilation.

Again, CoS is "a great campaign, with many AWESOME ideas, but also confusing as hell, badly organized, and full of problems."

And now I'm reading Tomb of Annihilation

Oh well. I won't even... 

Look, it is basically the same thing.

But why? 

WotC modules are FULL of great stuff - Ravenloft, Chult, Acererak, the Tomb of Horrors... But this stuff is DECADES old. Admittedly, the put this stuff together in a cool way. I LIKE these modules. Mostly.

But why do I prefer 5e to, say, AD&D or 2E? Well, it is a bit EASIER. The rules make more sense. There are fewer exceptions, but more character options.

But the supplements are all VERY HARD to run. 

The maps are horrible for navigation - they give the DM no clue on where to go. 

The map on CoS in an HEX map... but there is no reason to use it for an hexcrawl. All the significant locations are on roads. Either they've never heard of point-crawls, or they... what? They make it hard on purpose? You have to CALCULATE the distances??? Why doesn't the book just give them to you?

On how are these maps supposed to work, anyway? They are BIG - great for putting in your wall, but not that great for hiding behind a DM screen!

ToA comes with a big map... NOT for players, but for DMs. Players get a small map with blank hexes to fill. Oh, most hexes have NOTHING on them, BTW. Okay. At least is is an hexcrawl.

How do you organize hex-crawls? 

Well, let's see one example from Hex Crawl Chronicles, issue 1:

Easy, right?

The design is really simple, but efficient. 

There are a couple of apparent imperfections - the relevant hexes should be marked on the map, the contrast could be better - but other than that, we always know where to look for. 

The numbers are in the ToC, and even if they weren't, it is easy to see that 1418 comes before 1522, and both com before 1602 , etc.

If you're looking for a particular hex int he map, this is also easy - if you start in 606 and go north, you're in 605. South, 607. East from 606 is 706 (or 705). West, 506 (or 505.

And this is a 24 page product.

Now let's look at my OSR adventure, The Wretched Hive (an hex dungeon, not an hexcrawl, but anyway):

Hexes are marked A, B, C, D... Each color represent one thing. This distinction is marked in the (hyperlinked) table of contents. also, numbers (1, 2, 3) represent another thing.

Just choose the room, click on the ToC, and you're there. Or turn to the relevant page.

And if you open in a random page (page 21, above), each room is color-coded, and in alphabetical order.

Now let's look at Tomb of Annihilation.

Do you see the problem?

First, if you're looking for a place in the map, you have to look all over to find the place in the map. North, south, east... just go look for it.

Try it - click on the map and look for Kir Sabal.

I'll wait. Bear in mind that the actual map is four times larger or more.

Found it?

Okay, let's say the PCs arrived there...

Now you have to find it in the book. Let's see... chapter 2. 50 pages long.

Oh well:

So, we have 50 PAGES with no reference in the ToC. 

Oh, but that's okay - they are in alphabetical order! So let's look for "Kir Sabal"... Open the book somewhere between page 41 and 91 and... 

In which letter are we???? I have no idea. 

Coincidentally, Kir Sabal is in this page... But you have to flip back and forth until you find what you're looking for.

See the letters A, B, C, D and E on the right? I made this in Microsoft paint to show how easy it is to make things easier.

They even made it in the Monster Manual! See the red circle:

And it was even LESS necessary there - since you can easily see which letter you're in (blue circle).

How does WotC get away with this?

Well, other people FIX THE MODULES for them.

There is a numbered hex map of Chult someone made for free. Empty hexes? Well, here is 100 different encounters. Certainly online forums have better solutions for ToA than being TELEPORTED to a big PORT in the begging of the campaign, or better motives to fooling around with dinosaur races and side-quests on a strict time limit. I'll find them.

Just look at this!

BTW, it is the same for CoS. Somebody calculated the distances in Barovia for free, with page numbers (MAN do I wish I had found this BEFORE running the campaign!). There is good map of Barovia to give to your players (although I didn't find one for Chult and I might have to draw something myself).

And there are dozens of guides to 5e modules in the DM's guild (well, as you've seem, I'm writing my own guide to CoS). This are bestsellers. People NEED this stuff.

The problem is - these are things that should be included in the modules. You shouldn't need to find a SEPARATE GUIDE to run a campaign, let alone make your own.

And, of course, these days I'm running games online... But I cannot find a LEGAL PDF of Tomb of Annihilation, which would me me immensely. At least I could ctrl+f the locations.

In short...

D&D is a gateway RPG for many people who have never played before. It shouldn't be unnecessarily hard to run if there is no added value. Heck, NO module should be hard to run for no reason!

The ideas are awesome. All this IP that Gygax, Arneson and others invented years ago are very cool, and there are good creative people in WotC that know how to use this stuff (mostly). The maps LOOK great. The art in ToA is BEAUTIFUL. 

But the books are terrible to USE. Do people actually PLAY this stuff before publishing it? Or do they just expect the fans to organize it for them?

It bums me out. I bought all these 5e books and I want to USE THEM, not look at them. These books got positive reviews online. WotC has lots of fans that will defend this stuff and I know a few people will get angry at me for pointing these errors (fortunately, not many people).

Oh well. I'll do my best. Continue writing my own adventures, I guess. Try to use the books I bought the best I can. 

I might try to put a guide to CoS in the DMs guild. It might sell more than some of those "third party" products out there, since I'm sure there are many people trying to make sense if this stuff. Potentially, a lot more than are looking for books that are not "official D&D"".

Anyway, I'm sorry if this sounds too negative. Back to helping you guys with CoS and finding someone to help me with ToA. Rant over.