New DnD anthology Dragon Delves is gorgeous, but misses as often as it hits

A Dungeons and Dragons book entirely dedicated to dragons will split the fanbase into two camps. First come the dragon lovers, who will be delighted to see an entire adventure anthology about their favorite legendary monster (who is, admittedly, underrepresented in a lot of D&D games). Then there are the fantasy fans who think ‘dungeons with dragons in them’ is a tired concept that’s tough to make fresh again.

I will admit to being part of the latter camp. When Wizards of the Coast announced Dragon Delves, its latest adventure collection, I called it painfully uncreative. Having since received a review copy from Wizards of the Coast, I’m pleased to report that the finished DnD book has a lot more creativity and joy than expected. However, I’m still not all that excited to run its adventures.

While I’ve admitted a slight bias against dragons, much of my disappointment comes from D&D’s design choices. Let me explain in a bit more detail:

What is Dragon Delves?

Dragon Delves is a collection of 10 standalone D&D adventures, each ranging from levels one to 12. Each one shot features a different type of dragon, and it celebrates this by giving all 10 chapters a unique art style and a few pages on the visual history of that dragon in D&D.

Dragon Delves also employs an innovative new method of organization where the key details and stat blocks for an adventure are condensed into a step-by-step summary at the beginning of the chapter. Plus, three of the one shots feature alternative solo rules, meaning they can be played by a DM and a single player-character.

Here’s a quick summary of the Dragon Delves adventures:

• Death at Sunset – Level-one characters investigate missing villagers, a tree blight, and the doings of a green dragon wyrmling.
• Baker’s Doesn’t* – A whimsical, non-violent adventure for level-two characters who investigate a bakery rivalry, arson accusations, and a charming gold dragon wyrmling called Briochebane.
• The Will of Orcus – Level-four characters cross paths with a dastardly cult who have stolen from villagers and holed up in a nearby temple.
• For Whom the Void Calls – A sentient Bag of Holding leads level-five characters to the lair of a young brass dragon (and some very stressed-out Modrons).
• The Dragon of Najkir* – After being shipwrecked on an island, level-seven characters must solve a dispute between the monks and the young bronze dragon that lives there.
• The Forbidden Vale – A red dragon is setting dangerous fires in a valley, and level-nine characters agree to put a stop to it on behalf of the inhabitants.
• Before the Storm – Level-10 characters must contend with a black dragon that’s taken over as captain of a gang of pirates.
• Shivering Death – Level-11 adventurers head into the frozen lair of a white dragon to recover a ritual that will end a dangerous heatwave.
• A Copper for a Song* – Level-12 characters solve the riddle of a song that can rejuvenate a dying land, and the answer lies in a copper dragon’s lair.
• Dragons of the Sandstone City – Level-12 adventurers agree to bring a dragon egg to a ruined city in order to foil the plans of an evil blue dragon.

*Can be played with ‘solo’ rules.

What’s good about Dragon Delves?

Dragon Delves is undeniably the most stylish book in D&D fifth edition. Its pages are packed with glossy art of dragons. Many of these illustrations show how the DnD monsters have evolved from previous editions, but just as many take the classic creatures in a new direction. Wizards of the Coast has taken stylistic risks here to show how many different tones and stories D&D can contain – and it’s been 100% successful. Fifth edition has never looked this good.

The layout of the adventures is equal to the illustrations in terms of quality. Wizards has made a conscious effort to make each one shot clear and easy to understand. Different fonts and colors help you to identify priority information quickly. There’s a bullet-point list of stat blocks for the adventure next to a step-by-step on how to do basic prep and start running the game. It’s never been easier to start running a D&D adventure.

Despite the narrow theme of the anthology, Dragon Delves manages to offer plenty of variety. Its dragons are a mix of good and evil, with clever and complex ones presented side-by-side with the cartoonish. Similarly, the adventures offer different styles of dungeon crawl, with plenty that can be solved without violence entirely.

There are some wonderful set pieces here, too. That sinking ship in The Dragon of Nakjir cleverly injects some excitement into an adventure that largely lacks combat. Baker’s Doesn’t comes with a charming side effect that could turn your entire party into gingerbread men. A Copper for a Song features some surprisingly dangerous laughing gas.

The solo mode adds some additional variety and approachability. The rules changes are minimal, but it presents a new way to tackle an adventure. Plus, it means that fans aren’t barred from entry just because they lack a large group to play with.

What’s not good about Dragon Delves?

In many ways, Dragon Delves is a soaring success. So, why did I feel so deflated reading through the adventures?

The main issue is narrative. At every turn, Dragon Delves makes lazy storytelling choices, and without compelling writing or plot hooks, my interest waned.

In some cases, this lack of narrative is justifiable. Wizards of the Coast has clearly designed these adventures to slot into any DnD campaign. It makes sense, then, that most of the one shots lack a clear setting or setup. In leaving out any reason why your party would be in this situation in the first place, Wizards creates space for you to customize the adventure to suit your own campaign.

That excuse simply doesn’t fly in other cases, however. Take, for example, the opening plot hook for Dragons of the Sandstone City.

The adventure begins with the party witnessing a petty robbery. It assumes that the characters will leap at the chance to prevent this small-fry crime. If they do, the woman who had been robbed hands them the dragon egg that’s key to the entire adventure.

Why? The woman has decided, presumably because you intervened in the theft of the egg, that this is your “destiny”. Let me remind you that this destiny involves slaying a powerful dragon who plans to conduct a ritual that could doom the entire region. You, some helpful strangers from off of the literal street, are apparently the only people fit for the job. No further explanation is given.

Dragon Delves is rife with these kinds of plot hooks. The villain of an adventure sees the error of their ways at the drop of a hat in one conclusion. One dragon gives the party a list of utterly meaningless busywork if they don’t sufficiently prove themselves throughout the dungeon crawl.

Plot hooks and characterization are easy for DMs to add in themselves, but in a premium D&D product, but these writing flaws go far beyond the surface level. There are many cases where they make the gameplay feel lazy or simply unexciting.

Returning to Dragons of the Sandstone City, this adventure later blocks a party’s progress by throwing a sphinx’s riddle in their path. Fortunately, this isn’t one of those ‘fail to unlock the door, get locked out forever’ situations. Unfortunately, that’s because Wizards have made the entire riddle pointless – anyone who fails it can simply buy their entry into the ancient city in question.

For every adventure that does something interesting, there’s one that feels generic and uninspiring. The Forbidden Vale is the only adventure that truly creates an illusion of player choice, offering a story with moral complexity and a dungeon that can be approached in three different ways. The rest are simplified to the point of railroading, with a reliance on ‘because I said so’ logic that dampens their sparkle significantly.

With so much of this book’s page space taken up by art and history lessons, Wizards has had to be sparing about each adventure’s level of detail. This has resulted in some excellent organizational choices, but it has also stripped the character and complexity out of many of the one shots.

The core design of the dungeons and their accompanying monsters remains strong. This means that these adventures can still be plenty of fun with a creative table of players. However, in a book that so clearly wants to make learning how to play D&D as easy as possible for a new DM, a pre-written adventure should give them less work to do, not more. It should also set a clear standard – that just because an adventure is easy to run, that doesn’t mean it can’t be creative, unique, or meaningful.

Wizards of the Coast has shown in past anthologies that it’s capable of juggling quality dungeon design with rich storytelling. Candlekeep Mysteries and Journeys to the Radiant Citadel are some of the most exciting first-party D&D products of recent years. Dragon Delves is good, but in a world where these books have changed the game for D&D adventures, ‘good’ isn’t really good enough.

Want to share your opinion on Dragon Delves? Join us in the Wargamer Discord. Or, if you’re looking to the future, here’s what’s coming up on the year’s DnD release schedule, as well as the latest on DnD classes and DnD races.