[D&D] Best D&D-ish adventure that doesn't require a PhD?

bjj8383 · Feb 19, 2018

I've run parts of Savage Tide and Expedition to Demonweb Pit, some of the older Pathfinder paths, and I spent today reading over the first installment of Age of Worms. And regarding all of them, I have one question:

Why the sh** fu** are these plots so bloody complicated?? I feel like in order to run these, either as a DM or player, you'd need a PhD and a wall-sized flow chart to make heads or tails of it.

The thing is, I'm DMing for a group at the moment who really, reallllly suck at that sort of detail work. They just want to have a plot-driven adventure that doesn't require the use of libraries of footnotes or mountains of spreadsheets.

So my pleading question is, what printed purchasable Lvl 1-20 adventure best fulfills these two criteria:

1) Plot: Keep it simple. No layers-up-layers of subterfuge and superfluous details.

2) If I'm paying for an adventure, I want it to bloody well contain ALL of the primary plot information I need. It seems to me that, of all the adventures I mentioned above, I somehow end up doing literally half of the work anyway. (And not because "every group is different" and I need to create stuff due to our unique shenanigans. I mean, in these printed adventures, there is usually zero work done to connect the dots. HOW do the PCs know to go to the plot-central castle? WHAT on earth does this artifact have to do with anything? If they don't find Important Clue #1, WHAT specifically do I do? If I'm forking out $50, I. Want. Straightforward. Instructions.)

By the way, I'm not limited to pure D&D. Pathfinder/3rd Party/Other are fine.

Thankyouthankyouthankyou for meaningful help!

ccs · Feb 19, 2018

I found these three from Pathfinder very good:

1) Wrath of the Righteous (with or without using the Mythic Powers book for PF)
It's a pretty straight forward anti-demon adventure ideally geared for good guys like Paladins.
Had great fun playing this one.

2) Skull & Shackles
The party is part of the crew of a pirate ship.
This could get fairly RP detailed as the characters are often in constant contact with 20-30+ NPCs.
I would recommend buying & reading through all 6 instalments as some of the NPCs are named in book 1, but then key details (that would've been handy to know from the get-go) are revealed in books 2+ - after you've probably had to make something up.
You might also want to search out some better rules for ship-to-ship combat as what's included is a bit weak.
Had a lot of fun DMing this one because I literally had boat loads of NPCs to play.

3) Reign of Winter.
The PCs track down Babba Yagga using the Dancing Hut, getting ever further from home - including a trip to another planet & to Russia circa 1918 (with tanks!).
Book #3 - you'll want to read this & answer a few WHYs? for yourself. Because if you don't the
Maiden /Mother/Crone dungeon is an odd assortment of encounters. One of wich, the finale, just doesn't make any sense if your characters manage to take a long rest.
Still, I'm having a great time running this & greatly looking forward to when the party gets to fighting WWI tanks in book 5.

You might also look backwards to adventures from BECMi/1e/2e
A lot of these are self contained adventures only granting a lv or two. Maybe three depending.
Linking them together requires some work if you want an over-arching plot, but that's not too hard.

smetzger · Feb 20, 2018

One thing that I have found helpful is to find an active message board or story hour that is associated with the mega-adventure/adventure path.

This way you have a resource for your plot questions and advice on when your players do something a bit different.

Monte's boards had a dedicated section for RttToEE and it helped me immensly the first time I ran it.

Jhaelen · Feb 20, 2018

bjj8383 said:
Why the sh** fu** are these plots so bloody complicated?? I feel like in order to run these, either as a DM or player, you'd need a PhD and a wall-sized flow chart to make heads or tails of it.

Well, for many groups it will take years to play through an entire adventure path. If the plot was too transparent, they'd realize what's going on way too early to have any fun plodding through another six full-length adventures before they finally get to do what they figured out months ago.

You may want to have a look at 13th Age's 'Eyes of the Stonethief' Megadungeon. It uses an extremely flexible layout allowing you to make the plot as simple or complicated as you like. The end goal is also rather obvious right from the start: find a way to kill the Stonethief!

TerraDave · Feb 21, 2018

Maybe try some more classic adventures? They tend to have more going on then first meets the eye, but plot is very straight forward.

Tales from the Yawning Portal has Forge of Fury that I am running right now. The backstory is well done, but each part is pretty straight forward. As for the PCs, once they are in a dungeon, they only thing they "have" to find is like a key to open a door.

Other adventures in their include Against the Giants in which, yes, you have to go fight giants. Tons of tactical choices and some twists, but that really is the plot. Hidden Shrine of Tamochoen, specific trick and traps are involved, but the plot is "don't die".

There are other examples like this.

Eltab · Feb 21, 2018

White Plume Mountain (From Yawning Portal) offers a straight-forward plot: Find these three Magic Weapons. There are plenty of fights, encounters, puzzles, and traps along the way. The dungeon itself, conveniently, splits into three parts. Hmmm, I wonder what that signifies?

But the fun part - and where you can start writing your own plot, at whatever level of complication you desire - is: what happens when the previous owners tell the PCs to give them their stuff back?

UngainlyTitan · Feb 24, 2018

I have a group like that and they were working their way through the "Princes of the Apocalypse" with out any bother at least until the limitations of my internet connection but an end to me DMing for a while.

Jacob Lewis · Feb 25, 2018

You didn't specify what kind of PhD was required. But then again, neither has any published D&D adventure in the history of the game. You are free choose.