Worldwide D&D Adventures - missed opportunity?

I was at my venue today looking through the worldwide D&D material. I noticed that there is very little there for the experienced D&D player. The two adventures are, as announced, "The Mad Alchemist's Lair" and "The Forgotten Forge."

Well, the Forgotten Forge is the adventure from the back of the Eberron book. While it's a good adventure for this type of event, and certainly is good as an introduction to Eberron, many players will have played through or read this already.

The other adventure, on the other hand, is a very basic, introductory adventure to D&D. It's basically a D&D "demo." Indeed, it's straight out of the D&D Basic game.

I think it would have been nice if one of the adventures set up for this event was original. That way, those experienced players actually can play without having to replay one they've played in before (and recently).

Opinions?

Agreed.

Actually, it may have been a good opportunity to revisit one of the "classics", say, (Return to) White Plume Mountain updated to 3E? This would have fitted with the overall theme of looking back and looking forward.

IMO/YMMV etc....

It's an Ad promotion for Hasborg.

And that is not a criticism! But it has no relevance to us. (They're trying to promote "Pilsner Urquell" to the masses, but we're already hardened "Stella Artois" drinkers.)

I'm running the event for my FLGS and there's been a lot of interest, particularly in the Eberron module. That is until all these people interested in Eberron discovered it's just the adventure out of the book, which they've either read or already played.

As well, the write-up says that characters will be provided for "The Forgotten Forge" will be provided online. Well, turns out that's not the case and the response I got from the RPGA Program Manager was the people should just roll up their own or use the non-Eberron characters used in the demo game module.

Methinks not enough thought or planning went into this and I'm quite disappointed.

It's not really a concern here. At my store, this event is about getting new players excited about the game, and the materials we've gotten are fine for that purpose.

I'm sure I'll get some experienced players who have already read or played the Forgotten Forge, but there's still a lot they can do. They can run a game for the newbies (I've got GMs on hand but if we get a horde we might need more), they can play as "ringers" in one of the adventures and help new players along a bit, they can hang out and paint minis at the simultaneous minis-painting workshop we're running, or they can grab some dice and an adventure and run their own pickup game.

There's really no excuse to stand around scratching your head and wondering how you're going to have fun at this event -- you've got dice, snacks and fellow players, how much else do you need?

spacecrime.com said:

It's not really a concern here. At my store, this event is about getting new players excited about the game, and the materials we've gotten are fine for that purpose.

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Yes, that's a excellent goal. However, this event should also be about celebrating D&D. Who would want to do that more than the experienced, regular players?

Yes, some of them can run games for the new players. However, I expect that most people at this event will be those with experience in D&D (of varying degrees).

Also, the experienced players can run their own games outside the canned adventures (indeed, the local venue with a lot of gaming space is doing this) for those players who already have played in or ran the existing adventures, or who would find "The Mad Alchemist's Lair" too simplistic.

However, the missed opportunity I'm referring to is the shared experience. Imagine if WotC had put some effort into creating a special adventure for this event. If it was even halfway decent, it would probably be considered a classic simply because of how many people will have ran it or played in it. Also, WotC could clean it up, maybe expand it, and release it as a product later to add to its mystique.

Now, the Forgotten Forge will probably touch that level of experience. More people will have played in it, it will be many players first (and sometimes only) taste of Eberron. I just think it would have been so much more if it had been something special for this supposed special event.