Many Dungeons and Dragons players successfully guessed the location of the next published adventure as Icewind Dale thanks to a series of hints and leaks over the past six months or so, but that doesn't mean anyone saw the theme or storyline that was coming. Rather than returning to the classic Icewind Dale adventures made famous in the trilogy of Drizzt novels, Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden is aiming to deliver a modern horror-themed epic adventure that will take players from levels 1 to 12 if they can manage to survive what nature has to throw at them... And their own paranoia.

Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden takes players to a region of the Forgotten Realms that has remained mostly unexplored in officially published 5e content up to this point. Although some players may have been hoping for an adventure set in one of the other campaign settings, at least Icewind Dale has a unique feel and aesthetic to it that is going to lead to quite different play than adventures like Into the Abyss, Storm King's Thunder or other 5e campaigns.

That said, the authors of the upcoming Dungeons and Dragons book did mention some specific lessons that they've learned from prior 5e campaign books and explained some ways that Rime of the Frostmaiden will be a bit different than a lot of what has come before.

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The idea that D&D 5e is a constantly evolving game has been a core message from the development team all the way back to the DnD Next playtesting that took place before fifth edition was officially titled and released. 4e was definitely not the most popular version of the iconic TTRPG and Wizards of the Coast wanted to make sure the next iteration was more of a return to form for the game.

To achieve that, the current devs have actually adopted a design philosophy a bit more similar to what video game fans might be used to with games as service patches. No rules are written in stone and the team is willing to listen carefully to community feedback and make tweaks and adjustments from book to book to try and deliver the product that the majority of the community actually wants. With that in mind, the writers of Rime of the Frostmaiden had to look back at prior campaign adventure books and figure out what was working and what was not.

Dungeons and Dragons Icewind Dale

It's not a secret that some of the 5e adventure books have been a little obtuse and not the most GM-friendly. A book like Princes of the Apocalypse delivers a pretty cool conflict and setting, but the GM needs to do a ton of homework (and use a ton of bookmarks) to keep track of where everything is in the hardcover since it isn't organized in a very linear fashion. This design philosophy is clearly made with the sandbox approach in mind and is an attempt to not railroad players from point A to point B level after level. That said, there may be some middle ground that could make the book more user friendly for GMs, while still providing choice and free will for the players.

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When it comes to published adventures that have been the most well-received by the general community, the D&D team considers the recently published Essentials Kit to be the high water mark. Although this adventure is really a system of side quests that enhance the adventure found in The Lost Mines of Phandelver, the community responded very positively to how this adventured was presented, the way chapters were broken up, and the way that information was ordered in the short book. When it came time to write Rime of the Frostmaiden, it sounds like the devs tried to follow the Essentials Kit formula more than those presented in any of the other 5e published adventures.

While discussing the upcoming book, the authors explained that each chapter provides a clear breaking point narratively and, although there's plenty of sandbox opportunities with tons of side quests, working through the main narrative can be achieved in a pretty linear fashion and DMs won't have to do a ton of flipping through the book. For example, if there is an NPC or a monster that is only referenced once in the book, its stat block will be included right on the page where it is referenced, rather than in an appendix chapter full of stat blocks at the back of the book. This should save DMs a whole lot of flipping around and will keep everyone present in the moment and allow for better session immersion and fewer distractions.

DnD Icewind Dale Alt Cover Preview

Although fans won't be able to get a closer look at the exact structure and layout of Rime of the Frostmaiden until the book arrives in September, it definitely sounds like the creators are going through some serious effort to make it as user-friendly as possible and help avoid some of the GM headaches that came along with prior 5e campaign adventure books. The setting and the plot hooks sound very engaging, so fingers crossed that this is a big win for D&D and provides another adventure as popular as The Curse of Strahd or the Lost Mines that so many players end up starting with.

There are going to be a lot of other details about Icewind Dale and other upcoming D&D products dropping throughout the rest of the summer and early fall, so be sure to stay tuned and check back for additional news. Be sure to check back in the near future for more Dungeons and Dragons news, updates, and strategy guides. Until then, roll well, adventurers!

Dungeons and Dragons: Icewind Dale Rime of the Frostmaiden releases everywhere on September 15, 2020.

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