"Are the Authors of the Dungeon & Dragons Hardcover Adventures Blind to the Plight of DMs?"

I think the campaign books have been very different so far and have catered for different things.

The two Dragon Queen books were very linear and also straightforward to run but consequentially very railroading as befits an introductory module. Far too much so for my taste.

Princes Of the Apocalypse was the opposite and felt like a true open plan sandbox to me. There were a lot of threads to tie things together in chapter six. It’s biggest criticism - that it is too easy to get over your head - had a simple solution. Treat the surface forts as level 1 and drop enough hints about the other forts that they recognize the temples below as level 2, and decide to clear out most of level 1 first. Most parties I see are very reluctant to leave enemies behind them.

Out of the Abyss felt like a series of mini adventures linked by what was effectively a setting guide for the underdark - along with an overall campaign theme. While detail was missing in some area, I found it massively inspiring as a story arc.

Storm King’s Thunder was the most tenuous for me. I felt it was too broad geographically while the locations were a bit uninspiring, that might just be personal preference though. Ultimately I thought the adventure background and the main storyline the weakest of all the campaigns.

Lastly (for me) Curse of Strahd was quite simply the best adventure I have read or DM’d in 20 years and it is a very high bar to expect all the others to live up to. The perfect mix of sandbox, storyline and setting.

I haven’t seen Tomb of Annihilation yet. I’m kinda hoping someone else will run it for me.

The recent campaigns all offer something different and most break away from the heavily scripted and quite often unrelated slog that Pathfinder APs have turned into. We’ve really struggled with the last few we ran. Shattered Star was effectively one long linear series of rooms for the first two books, with some slightly more interesting locations we never made it past book four because of the sheer time it took.

Also I can really tell that Pathfinder APs have installments written by varying authors, the quality and in some cases the theme can vary wildly. I like how 5es campaigns feel unified. About to start Dming Princes and to be honest I can’t wait.

I want them to keep doing what they’re doing - trying new things and using what they learn.

Elfcrusher said:

If you don't think that's evidence of exactly what I'm talking about then we are not arguing about the same thing.

Click to expand...

The adventure compilation book in question is literally a "something for everyone" book (that's why it includes adventures with a variety of styles, advice on fitting them into numerous campaign settings, and also has word-count dedicated to using the book as a long-form campaign instead of just as a collection of unrelated adventures) - not a book that is for a specific sub-set of "people who want to buy adventures."

...or is Curse of Strahd being interesting to people not interested in the rest of the adventures on offer also a similar piece of evidence?

Elfcrusher said:

Oh, wait, I just realized: the one adventure supplement that interested them is Yawning Portal. This is both evidence of WotC's willingness to try a different formula and that doing so was successful in appealing to a previously untapped market segment.

If you don't think that's evidence of exactly what I'm talking about then we are not arguing about the same thing.

Click to expand...

I think you may be on to something here. The first couple years of playing 5e I was running a homebrew. I didn't buy any of the APs until Curse of Strahd--and that was mostly for nostalgic purposes and because I enjoyed reading it. I'm running CoS now that I've wrapped up my homebrew campaign, but I don't know if I'll ever get around to running Storm King's Thunder (SKT) or Tomb of Annihilation (TOA). I bought SKT because I thought I could use bits of it in my homebrew, but I didn't find must in it to repurpose--partly because of the way my campaign evolved, but also the material in that bookdidn't really lend itself that well. I suppose SKT and TOA should be easy to pull out bits to use in a homebrew, you can just grab one location and use it for a session in your own game. But I've never used them other than to enjoy reading.

You know which WotC adventure hardback I *did* get a lot of use out of? Tales from the Yawning Portal. I ran three of the adventures out of it in my homebrew. Once because I didn't have time to prepare and I kinda just shoehorned Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan in because it fit into the location they were at and it made a thematically appropriate side adventure. Another time only one player could make it and rather than cancel, his character followed a lead and did a side adventure to Forge of Fury, which was well below his level at that point, but was still a nice challenge as a solo adventure for him. The third time was running the party through Tomb of Horrors just for fun--we didn't treat it as an actual part of the campaign.

This is why I miss the old 1e modules. You didn't have to invest $30 and 20 sessions. You could mix purchased with homebrew. Or brew a campaign from many disparate modules. You didn't have to be in the jungles for 20 sessions. Just a couple sessions and then move on to a desert adventure. Sometime it is satisfying to have a nice tight story arc and consistent theme--that's what I'm enjoying with CoS now. But other times (most of the time) I like to run my campaigns more like a Conan or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser book. A bit of frozen tundra survival one session, jungle-temple horror the next, high-seas piracy in another, leading an army in antother, top it all off with some palace intrique and gonzo elder-horror diversions.

So, I also hope to see more books like TotYP, but I would hope that rather than recycling old adventure, they highlight the best of DMs Guild and give new authors a chance. Mix new work from the old guard, attract new players with adventures from Matt Colville and Matt Mercer, and include some from names few people have heard of but that are doing great work in DMs Guild. Include links to VTT-ready images and PDF's of print-friendly battlemaps and 2D miniatures and terrain. Even 3D-printer files.

Currently, I meet this need with Kickstarter, because I can get the physical book with nice formatting and artwork and many also come with pawns and other adventure-custom aids. Patreon has been less useful for adventures with the exceptions of EN5ider, which has been a great reasource.

I'm not throwing myself into the business argument here, but it does feel to me like there is a lot of untapped potential for what can be WotC can do with their adventure material.

Elfcrusher said:

Honestly I suspect this is probably true, but my data set is pretty limited. It seems like an awful lot of people buy the APs even though they then complain about them. So, at least for now, tweaking the formula might not serve any purpose.

On the other hand, I know a group of teenagers who play D&D who are not buying the APs. They are homebrewing all their adventures. They have disposable income so that's not the problem. They just don't find the APs appealing.

Could they be convinced to buy APs if they followed a different formula? I don't know. And if WotC adheres to a policy of "don't fiddle with something that doesn't seem to be broken" we never will know.

EDIT

Oh, wait, I just realized: the one adventure supplement that interested them is Yawning Portal. This is both evidence of WotC's willingness to try a different formula and that doing so was successful in appealing to a previously untapped market segment.

If you don't think that's evidence of exactly what I'm talking about then we are not arguing about the same thing.

Click to expand...

Well, it's the internet.....so yeah, people will complain after buying the product. And then they'll continue to buy the product, and continue to complain. It's the nature of the beast.

And I'm sure we can come up with individual anecdotes that support a desire for any and all types of products. I don't know if one group of teenagers homebrewing is all that meaningful. It's cool to hear about, but is it that big of a deal? Not really....it's one example of who knows how many.

Also, I'd say that of all their products, Yawning Portal is the most different. It specifically bucks the long adventure design that all the other adventure books adhere to. I'd also say it's the least useful as a metric for gauging interest in different products because it is a reworking of existing adventures. The bulk of the work was already done in prior editions. It goes out of its way to use a variety of adventures from multiple editions to appeal to as many people as possible (with the notable exception of 4E). I wouldn't expect such a work to really be a useful metric for coming up with another multi-adventure book that had to be designed whole cloth, or for any other kind of niche book that deviated from their proven products. An entirely original series of multiple small adventures as opposed to conversions from prior editions, or a more niche product with a different presentation like a boxed set, would likely require the involvement of much more of the design team to complete.

Finally, I am not saying they should never deviate, or never fiddle with something that isn't broken, as you put it. I'd be happy to see them do that. I just think that it is something a little further off, once they've a better idea of the staying power of the current edition. Branching out too early could hinder the momentum they have built up.

Instead, I like that they continue to subtly tweak the approach, and to use different elements and themes in the adventures and supplements. I find each book has quite a lot to offer, whether it's to mine for simple dungeons by breaking the adventures up into bite size pieces, or whether it's interesting villains or organizations to drop into an existing campaign. For now, that's a smarter approach in my opinion. Leaving a more drastically different product for further down the road.

AaronOfBarbaria said:

The adventure compilation book in question is literally a "something for everyone" book (that's why it includes adventures with a variety of styles, advice on fitting them into numerous campaign settings, and also has word-count dedicated to using the book as a long-form campaign instead of just as a collection of unrelated adventures) - not a book that is for a specific sub-set of "people who want to buy adventures."

...or is Curse of Strahd being interesting to people not interested in the rest of the adventures on offer also a similar piece of evidence?

Click to expand...

Oh come on. Pretend we are singing "One of these things is not like the others, one of these things is not the same..." are you REALLY not going to pick Yawning Portal from amongst the adventure books? Are you seriously claiming that all the books are equally different from each other, and that therefore Yawning Portal is not an outlier?

hawkeyefan said:

Well, it's the internet.....so yeah, people will complain after buying the product. And then they'll continue to buy the product, and continue to complain. It's the nature of the beast.

And I'm sure we can come up with individual anecdotes that support a desire for any and all types of products. I don't know if one group of teenagers homebrewing is all that meaningful. It's cool to hear about, but is it that big of a deal? Not really....it's one example of who knows how many.

Click to expand...

I completely agree. Note that after agreeing with you that I think my own hypothesis is probably wrong...based on gut feel not data...I simply offered this anecdote as more interesting evidence, not as proof of anything.

Also, I'd say that of all their products, Yawning Portal is the most different. It specifically bucks the long adventure design that all the other adventure books adhere to.

Click to expand...

Yes. Exactly my point.

I'd also say it's the least useful as a metric for gauging interest in different products because it is a reworking of existing adventures. The bulk of the work was already done in prior editions. It goes out of its way to use a variety of adventures from multiple editions to appeal to as many people as possible (with the notable exception of 4E). I wouldn't expect such a work to really be a useful metric for coming up with another multi-adventure book that had to be designed whole cloth, or for any other kind of niche book that deviated from their proven products. An entirely original series of multiple small adventures as opposed to conversions from prior editions, or a more niche product with a different presentation like a boxed set, would likely require the involvement of much more of the design team to complete.

Click to expand...

Yes, I do think there's a problem of replicability. Although the group of teenagers in question have all started playing D&D with 5e, so there's no nostalgia issue, a big factor for them is the inclusion of Tomb of Horrors. Even for new players the history of ToH has meaning. So that might not be replicable.

But I do believe the illustrative point still stands that even though WotC's "Adventure Path" model is working great, they tried something different, that involved a much different style of play from the Adventure Paths, and that different thing converted a new customer.

Finally, I am not saying they should never deviate, or never fiddle with something that isn't broken, as you put it. I'd be happy to see them do that. I just think that it is something a little further off, once they've a better idea of the staying power of the current edition. Branching out too early could hinder the momentum they have built up.

Click to expand...

Oh, sure. I'm not making any claims about when you decide that it's time to pour profits into R&D. Who knows to what extent their Hasbro overlords would even let them do so?

Instead, I like that they continue to subtly tweak the approach, and to use different elements and themes in the adventures and supplements. I find each book has quite a lot to offer, whether it's to mine for simple dungeons by breaking the adventures up into bite size pieces, or whether it's interesting villains or organizations to drop into an existing campaign. For now, that's a smarter approach in my opinion. Leaving a more drastically different product for further down the road.

Click to expand...

I'm the perfect example of the customer who kinda breaks the "rules" of how this is supposed to work. Even though I really don't like the Adventure Paths (except Ravenloft...but that might be nostalgia) I buy them anyway. For how long, I don't know. But until then they won't make any extra money from me by writing the product I actually want.

And I don't, of course, know how many people out there are like me, versus how many people are not buying the APs, but would buy a parallel product line that was designed differently. And neither does Aaron.

Elfcrusher said:

Are you seriously claiming that all the books are equally different from each other, and that therefore Yawning Portal is not an outlier?

Click to expand...

I didn't claim "equally different".

Things I did claim:
Tales from the Yawning Portal is a "something for everyone" styled product. That claim was explicit.
Someone being interested in one adventure, but not the others, is not necessarily an indication that books of an approach other than "something for everyone" would do well in the current market. That one was implied.
Curse of Strahd is in a similar position to Tales from the Yawning Portal, as it is the sole adventure some people are interested in out of those published by WotC for 5th edition.

And if I were personally asked to pick one adventure book of those currently published as being "not like the others", I'd tell the person asking me this: they are all different in some ways, and the same in others, so you're going to have to devise some scale upon which to weight the variety of differences (example: this one's linear, that one's not (though it's megaman style in that choosing your path through the content also adjusts the overall difficulty). this one's chapters are loosely related, that one's chapters flow directly into each other, and so on) if you want an answer any more accurate than "they are all different in some ways, and the same in others."

Morrus said:

Title in quotes, because it's the name of the article.

http://dmdavid.com/tag/are-the-auth...dcover-adventures-blind-to-the-plight-of-dms/

Interesting. I've only run Curse of Strahd, but I didn't experience any real difficulty with that. I think my main problem with prepublished adventures is adventure locations with a lot of described rooms which you have to read (to make sure they're not important) but which don't really add anything. In a house, for example, unless it's important that the broom closet and the bathroom be described, I'd rather they just left that to me. It does add to the prep time. And I've never been fan of "you're on the second floor landing, there's a door to the left and right" style stuff for something like a house -- I'd rather say "This is the second floor; there's a couple of bedrooms, a bathroom, and a locked room. What do you want to do?" rather than reveal each of those details individually. Naturally, I'd do so more flavourfully than that, and hold back anything important.

But I felt Strahd was pretty easy to run. Most APs I've found fairly easy (though our own ZEITGEIST really does require a lot of reading beforehand). Sandboxes require more pre-reading than linear adventures, as the latter you only have to read as far as your PCs will get today, while in a sandbox you have to be familiar with a lot.

I'm running a collection of short loosely-linked wilderness adventures for Adventure in Middle Earth (5E) right now, and that's sitting me great. I only have to read each adventure one at a time, and don't have to read the whole book just in case. Nice bite-sized chunks. That's definitely the easiest format for me. Well, other than just winging it, which is by far the easiest format for me (and usually has the best results).

Dunno. What do you think?

Click to expand...

It's an interesting post. I kind of have a different sort of issue with the AP approach, but I also recognize that for a published mass market game, they are probably the best option for their business model in terms of the economics in producing them, and for overall sales potential.

Where DM David seems to be seeing a disconnect is in the expectations of the DM, and mostly because there are so many different types of players out there. But the number one player they have to foster to is the casual player who plays the game by picking up a couple of rule-books and an AP and off they go. In another 6-12 months they'll be ready for another AP, and maybe somebody else in the group DMs, and the game continues.

This approach would favor a more linear adventure, but they are trying to promote multiple play-styles, even if they aren't doing a great job with some of them. In particular, I think they are addressing in an indirect way the "standard" approach of OD&D/AD&D - the campaign.

Back in the day the rule books made it quite clear that the DM was expected to design their own world, however much was needed, and populate it with dungeons. Published adventures could easily be dropped into a DM's campaign, and usually had some notes on how to do that. Some adventures went so far as to explicitly call out areas for the DM to expand. When they started publishing campaign settings, they still left things largely open for the DM. Greyhawk was more of a framework initially, and the original Forgotten Realms identified several regions (like Sembia) that "they would never publish material for so the DM could make it their own." That didn't last, of course...

In other words, the "norm" was that the DM was responsible for the setting, story hooks, etc. Even if using a published setting and published adventures, the idea was that the DM was running a campaign, that somethow tied them all together.

The APs seem to be designed with this approach somewhat in mind. Some more than others. But there really hasn't been much in the rules to support this. Yes, the DMG has a lot of things to help create a campaign world, but the publication of APs implies that it's not really needed. Instead, they've seemed to substitute "sandbox" for campaign. The idea that having a lot of space for people to explore and no explicit single linear path gives this illusion.

And really, that's the crux of the problem. Without an actual campaign to support the adventures, when the PCs go off track, there aren't other options for them. Most of the APs give the illusion of a campaign by existing in the same setting. And the other supplements have continued to be centered on that setting. But the APs stand alone. They function more like a video game, where there are defined limits to where you can go, and there are other interesting things, and occasionally beneficial things, for side adventures, but there is one plot.

In a campaign, there is no "one plot." If the PCs decide not to follow this plot, they find another one. You can make them as sandboxy as you'd like, ultimately there is still the one plot to return to, or you select a different AP.

When the play is campaign based, then a single character generally isn't essential to the continuation of the game. When one adventure is completed, there are others to explore. When one character dies, others (whether already created or not) are there to write the next part of the story. Some characters have big stories, some little. Exploration itself is often the adventure, and play focuses more on the setting and the character's place in it, rather than the characters specifically and, as has become more the norm, the advancement of those characters.

In other words, the focus has shifted towards the progression of a character through their "character build" and how they will reach the heights of their extraordinary abilities, than the world around them. That's not good or bad, just different. But it does make designing published adventures different, in my opinion. Even in the sandboxy parts of an AP, there need to be hooks to remind the PCs of what their ultimate "purpose" is. DMs get frustrated when there is a specific storyline (as there is in all of the APs), and they have difficulty getting the players to follow it.

I prefer a world where characters can wander into near certain death. They should watch for warning signs and be prepared to run away. But the game's core design now is more around "balanced" encounters, and not "wasting time" on encounters that are too easy, and that there should always be a chance of success (and the chances are higher in 5e than earlier editions). These are the expectations the rules as written set, and then the APs sometimes challenge those expectations. Expectations (possibly carried over from things like video games) are that a character shouldn't die in a side adventure, for example. It's an oft-repeated "truth" that a character dying in a random encounter is a bad thing.

These attitudes make it difficult for a DM to handle a sandbox wrapped around an AP. Combined with the presentation that implies that an AP is a self-contained "campaign" makes this worse. In theory at least. As I said, I've mostly heard good things about the APs, because it's been the more casual players that want to be part of a bigger story. So they are OK with the idea that they need to follow that plot. In which case the biggest problem is the DM having to figure out how to help them do that if they stray too far.

Elfcrusher said:

I completely agree. Note that after agreeing with you that I think my own hypothesis is probably wrong...based on gut feel not data...I simply offered this anecdote as more interesting evidence, not as proof of anything.



Yes. Exactly my point.



Yes, I do think there's a problem of replicability. Although the group of teenagers in question have all started playing D&D with 5e, so there's no nostalgia issue, a big factor for them is the inclusion of Tomb of Horrors. Even for new players the history of ToH has meaning. So that might not be replicable.

But I do believe the illustrative point still stands that even though WotC's "Adventure Path" model is working great, they tried something different, that involved a much different style of play from the Adventure Paths, and that different thing converted a new customer.



Oh, sure. I'm not making any claims about when you decide that it's time to pour profits into R&D. Who knows to what extent their Hasbro overlords would even let them do so?



I'm the perfect example of the customer who kinda breaks the "rules" of how this is supposed to work. Even though I really don't like the Adventure Paths (except Ravenloft...but that might be nostalgia) I buy them anyway. For how long, I don't know. But until then they won't make any extra money from me by writing the product I actually want.

And I don't, of course, know how many people out there are like me, versus how many people are not buying the APs, but would buy a parallel product line that was designed differently. And neither does Aaron.

Click to expand...

Sure, none of us actually know. But I think basing a guess on the size of the design team, the success of the model so far, and things like that are likely more meaningful ways to gauge things than an anecdotal bit about a specific play group.

And for the record, I have plenty of problems with the Adventure Path model in general. But I don't find any of those problems to be so troublesome that I can't get use out of each of the books I've purchased so far. That's why I posted earlier about players realizing they can use the material however they want. And I would say WotC would be wise to remind people of that.

AaronOfBarbaria said:

The adventure compilation book in question is literally a "something for everyone" book - not a book that is for a specific sub-set of "people who want to buy adventures."

Click to expand...

All those adventures were call-backs to classics, tough, and TotYP did come out after fans had been asking for more old-school, smaller, modules (adventures), more in the soft-bound, fold-out-map vein. Instead, we got another hardcover, of such adventures, bundled.

My guess is that the only thing TotYP really clearly conveyed is that WotC's supply chain doesn't deliver itty bitty soft-bound modules in a sufficiently profitable way.

...or is Curse of Strahd being interesting to people not interested in the rest of the adventures on offer also a similar piece of evidence?

Click to expand...

Elfcrusher said:

Oh come on. Pretend we are singing "One of these things is not like the others, one of these things is not the same..." are you REALLY not going to pick Yawning Portal from amongst the adventure books? Are you seriously claiming that all the books are equally different from each other, and that therefore Yawning Portal is not an outlier?

Click to expand...

CoS & TotYP, among others, are calling back to classic modules. So they're not that different in some ways.

But, yeah, TotYP has a different format than the others, no question.