D&D 5E How much should 5e aim at balance?

shadowmane · Sep 9, 2012

Its Morgansfort from BFRPG. Its a free download, so it was easily accessible. The first dungeon in that one is for beginning players.

Ahnehnois · Sep 9, 2012

Lanefan said:
I'm surprised to hear any supporter of any edition say this.

My expectation would be the complete opposite - most groups will use published adventures* at some point(s); some will use nothing but, and only a very few - all with highly-experienced DMs - will not use canned adventures at all.

* - note that said published adventures may or may not have been written for the edition or even game system in which they are being used.

Lanefan

All the ENW polls I've seen on the subject come up solidly in the middle. That said, my understanding is based largely on what I see in stores. Big bookstores have piles of rulebooks but rarely any adventures at all, which I think is where most beginner players especially go for their stuff. I don't know sales volumes of course, but I would guess individual rulebooks to be at least an order of magnitude higher than individual adventures (and core rulebooks to blow away everything else).

My own experience is that the concept of running a published adventure is contrary to the reason for playing. I play because I have stories to tell and this turned out to be the best venue. For me to say I wanted to play D&D, but not to want to use my own story would be thoroughly unnatural. It seems very unlikely to me that someone starting from scratch would even understand what a published adventure was, let alone feel any reason to use it. The only case in which a new player would use adventures to my thinking is if they were introduced by someone who does, either a friend or a game store employee. Even then, I would expect most people who try them to move on to homebrew stuff.

Which, again in my opinion, is a good thing. It's one of the things that makes the hobby tough from a business perspective; the better people get at it, the less need they have for any published product. It's tough to monetize a game where the customers actually do most of the work.

shadowmane · Sep 9, 2012

Ahnehnois said:
All the ENW polls I've seen on the subject come up solidly in the middle. That said, my understanding is based largely on what I see in stores. Big bookstores have piles of rulebooks but rarely any adventures at all, which I think is where most beginner players especially go for their stuff. I don't know sales volumes of course, but I would guess individual rulebooks to be at least an order of magnitude higher than individual adventures (and core rulebooks to blow away everything else).

My own experience is that the concept of running a published adventure is contrary to the reason for playing. I play because I have stories to tell and this turned out to be the best venue. For me to say I wanted to play D&D, but not to want to use my own story would be thoroughly unnatural. It seems very unlikely to me that someone starting from scratch would even understand what a published adventure was, let alone feel any reason to use it. The only case in which a new player would use adventures to my thinking is if they were introduced by someone who does, either a friend or a game store employee. Even then, I would expect most people who try them to move on to homebrew stuff.

Which, again in my opinion, is a good thing. It's one of the things that makes the hobby tough from a business perspective; the better people get at it, the less need they have for any published product. It's tough to monetize a game where the customers actually do most of the work.

Well consider. The basic rules were always sold with an adventure module to take the beginning characters through. 4E is actually the fourth edition of the Advanced rules system. I would like to see the break again with 5E. Start with the basic rules, then expand to the Advanced rules. Two products. The PHB, DMG and MM as one product, and a "Basic Set" with a stripped down PHB and DMG plus an Adventure Module to introduce new players to the game. The first, Advanced set, would be sold in book stores to the older audience. The Basic would be sold in toy stores (and book stores) and geared toward the beginning audience (10 years and older).

Ahnehnois · Sep 9, 2012

shadowmane said:
Well consider. The basic rules were always sold with an adventure module to take the beginning characters through. 4E is actually the fourth edition of the Advanced rules system. I would like to see the break again with 5E. Start with the basic rules, then expand to the Advanced rules. Two products. The PHB, DMG and MM as one product, and a "Basic Set" with a stripped down PHB and DMG plus an Adventure Module to introduce new players to the game. The first, Advanced set, would be sold in book stores to the older audience. The Basic would be sold in toy stores (and book stores) and geared toward the beginning audience (10 years and older).

Maybe; but how far back do you have to go to get to that?

Beyond the discussion of what is the case thusfar, there is a discussion about where to go next. On that, I strongly disagree with this approach. I would not want a new player to start with any kind of published adventure product. I would want them to bring their own creativity to the table, which is infinitely greater than anything you'd get out of any published adventure. To get this dying hobby off its feet we need to cultivate diversity, not start everyone off inside the same box, a box that inherently limits that creativity and excludes anyone who isn't interested in what the published adventure has to offer. The published adventure market will always be there for those who want/need it, but I would not recommend anyone towards it, most of all a beginner.

shadowmane · Sep 9, 2012

Ahnehnois said:
Maybe; but how far back do you have to go to get to that?

Beyond the discussion of what is the case thusfar, there is a discussion about where to go next. On that, I strongly disagree with this approach. I would not want a new player to start with any kind of published adventure product. I would want them to bring their own creativity to the table, which is infinitely greater than anything you'd get out of any published adventure. To get this dying hobby off its feet we need to cultivate diversity, not start everyone off inside the same box, a box that inherently limits that creativity and excludes anyone who isn't interested in what the published adventure has to offer. The published adventure market will always be there for those who want/need it, but I would not recommend anyone towards it, most of all a beginner.

To the player, the published adventure is a non-starter. They're in the adventure whether its a published one, or one the DM created. The published adventure is there to assist novice and/or ill-prepared DM's in playing a pick-up game. Either way you go, the DM will eventually start creating his own world for the players to play in.

Magil · Sep 9, 2012

shadowmane said:
Well consider. The basic rules were always sold with an adventure module to take the beginning characters through. 4E is actually the fourth edition of the Advanced rules system. I would like to see the break again with 5E. Start with the basic rules, then expand to the Advanced rules. Two products. The PHB, DMG and MM as one product, and a "Basic Set" with a stripped down PHB and DMG plus an Adventure Module to introduce new players to the game. The first, Advanced set, would be sold in book stores to the older audience. The Basic would be sold in toy stores (and book stores) and geared toward the beginning audience (10 years and older).

They did something like this in 4th edition, the "Red Box," around the same time they started the "Essentials line." I don't know how popular it was. I do know a lot of the players online didn't much care for the essentials line (I thought it was fine), but in terms of sales, I have no idea how successful the Red Box was. Of course, it came out a long time after the release of the 4th edition core.

Aenghus · Sep 9, 2012

I generally prefer to start with printed adventures that I then customise to suit my needs, and the players and PCs. I'm running it for.

I find initial adventure ideas difficult to come up with, but I'm good at modifying and elaborating already-existing ideas, so I find printed adventures very useful for me to give me a framework to work with.

Now I can come up with my own adventures, but it tends to be too much effort, compared to adopting a pre-existing professional adventure with maps etc already done for me.

billd91 · Sep 9, 2012

shadowmane said:
To the player, the published adventure is a non-starter. They're in the adventure whether its a published one, or one the DM created. The published adventure is there to assist novice and/or ill-prepared DM's in playing a pick-up game. Either way you go, the DM will eventually start creating his own world for the players to play in.

Or the published adventure is there for DMs who have little time to prepare or for those who prefer to have someone else do a lot of the work for them. I've been DMing for 30 years and I like running published adventures.

Lanefan · Sep 9, 2012

Ahnehnois said:
My own experience is that the concept of running a published adventure is contrary to the reason for playing.

See below...

Ahnehnois said:
I play because I have stories to tell and this turned out to be the best venue. For me to say I wanted to play D&D, but not to want to use my own story would be thoroughly unnatural.

Yes, but isn't it simply easier to bend one or more canned modules into your story than to design everything from scratch?

I'm about half and half, I use canned modules where I can and my own homebrew where I can't, or where there's no canned module that fits.

It seems very unlikely to me that someone starting from scratch would even understand what a published adventure was, let alone feel any reason to use it.

And we talk about barriers to entry into the hobby. Well here's one - a new group not only has to learn the system but the DM is also expected to learn adventure design on the fly.

Canned adventures - good well-written canned adventures - need to be available from day 1 and their use encouraged; at the same time the DMG needs to have a section devoted to adventure design (it'd be a first).

Lan-"never mind the adventure-path types, where everything's pre-canned"-efan

Emerikol · Sep 9, 2012

Nowadays I'd mostly do my own. But I have used adventure modules often in past years. If I see something good that fits I have no problem adapting it. I collect old school modules actually. I would think any strategy that WOTC develops though would have to target the adventure path audience. It seems popular. I do think most modern WOTC modules are crap.

D&D 5E How much should 5e aim at balance?

shadowmane

First Post

Ahnehnois

First Post

shadowmane

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Ahnehnois

First Post

shadowmane

First Post

Magil

First Post

Aenghus

Explorer

billd91

Not your screen monkey (he/him)

Lanefan

Victoria Rules

Emerikol

Adventurer

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