Dragon Heist: Chapter 2 (or Wake Me When It Is Over) - (mild spoilers)

[Spo]

I was recently invited to a regular gaming group by someone I met at a game store. I rolled a fighter to compliment the group's composition (wizard, warlock, ranger, rogue, bard, cleric). They had already had a session or two and I was joining them for the beginning of Chapter 2.

When they introduced themselves, they filled me in on all the adventures that occurred in chapter 1. I drooled as I heard about the troll fight, the kenku warehouse and the gazer (?) battle and was ready to sharpen my battle axe for chapter 2.

Now, I don't consider myself a murder hobo and I knew this was going to be more a city-based adventure rather than a dungeon crawl, but I ASSUMED that simply meant more Gangs of New York-style adventuring. Instead, I get This Old House play with the occasional Tavern Tycoon Hard-Mode thrown in. We spent the entire session picking out our bedrooms, being visited by various guides shaking us down for money, and going window shopping (couldn't buy anything bc we poor). The only person really interested in the neighborhood was the wizard that had to buy all his spell ingredients.

When the GM started giving us the rundown of costs versus profit and when we would see our investment back, I could envision being on Shark Tank and Mr. Wonderful telling us to take the Tavern out back and shoot it.

My fighter is going for the samurai subclass, and when I made him I did not foresee him becoming Tom Cruise in Cocktail (maybe more like Tom Cruise in Last Samurai).

Granted, we haven't started any "faction quests" which are supposedly forthcoming, but this initial introduction (for me at least) left me wanting. Does it get better or should I just pickup a proficiency in busing tables?

[Unoriginal]

Your DM put the emphasis on the "run the tavern" section of this chapter, it seems. It's a stylistic choice, I myself prefered start with introducing the neighborhood and next the faction sidequests.

Said sidequests may contain interesting combats, depending which you pick and how your DM runs them.

You're normaly not obligated to engage in tavern business if you don't want to, but the urban life of Waterdeep is among what gives the module its charm, including talking with a fair bit of NPCs to figure out what's going on. Think less "Gangs of New York" and more "Sherlock Holmes" with Robert Dowey Jr.

[Damon_Tor]

Your DM put the emphasis on the "run the tavern" section of this chapter, it seems. It's a stylistic choice, I myself prefered start with introducing the neighborhood and next the faction sidequests.

For my table, I basically just handwaved the Tavern management stuff. Raenar helped them secure a loan (off screen, because boring) for initial investments and the various guilds came in and assured everyone they would have the details covered. The Tavern is there to make the players feel anchored and invested in the city, not to be a business sim, so unless you have players that are really into that sort of thing just skip over it, let it work itself out. The real purpose of the chapter is to establish the players with the factions of the city, the Harpers, the Zents, the Grey Guard, etc. You should be out running cool little side missions, not sitting in the Tavern patching drywall.