Has WotC saturated the published adventure market or are the two latest adventures not very popular?

[gyor]

It's a combination of Adventure Fatigue and Official Release Fatigue. There were 4 official books this year (instead of the usual 3), and IMO that is too many. It doesn't help that 3 of those books were released within a short time frame. It's too much too fast.

Horse crud, it's doing fine, not everything has to be number 1 in sales, it's doing well enough honestly. Some people might simply be tired of the sword coast already too, I know I'd like to explore the rest of the realms.

Sorry not buying into this bloat myth, we are no where near that point.

Still I think they should focus more on areas that have been neglected now, like Settings, fewer APs in exchange for more settings is a smart move because Setting books are fun to read even when not playing a game in a particular region. Plus maybe a few more focused player options books would be nice.

Still books don't have to sell nearly as many books as the core to be successful.

I think DMM is the coolest and most well done AP in the game and it can use TotYP to expand it further.

 

[Hussar]

I'm just starting to run Dragon Heist, and, yeah, I can see why some people wouldn't like it.

It's much more of an adventure outline than an adventure path. It's VERY open ended with a bajillion NPC's and it does hand a great deal of work off to the DM to bring it to the table.

This is not something you can just sit down and play. Plus, since a lot of it is very sandboxy, it's a style that won't appeal to a fair number of DM's as well.

Fortunately, if you head over to Reddit or DM's Guild, there's a mountain of goodies to add on to this module, both free and pay, that makes my life a lot easier.

I'm really looking forward to it.

 

[robus]

I have come to the hard realization that published hardcover adventures are just not for me. I own PoTA, COS, SKT, OOTA, DH, and DOMM. I have never run any of them until Dragon Heist because I just didn't like the scale of them and the amount of work needed to run them well. I don't see any of them as adventures to just pickup and run as written. I like the stories of them all and in the future hope to mine parts of them to use, but I doubt I will every run any of them as is. I am wrapping up Dragon Heist here in a couple sessions. I ended up adding 2 DMs guild adventures to my Waterdeep campaign as well as made all of their faction quests into smaller encounters instead of skill checks and full "heists" to get each of the 3 vault keys.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to combine LMoP, ToD, SKT and OotA into an extended campaign (players now at level 17) so I’ve gotten good use out of a number of the adventures.

On top of that I am struggling with all of the "source" books that they keep putting out. I have them all and I find most of them fairly worthless. I didn't find much use for SCAG, rarely open Volos. I just bought MToF and haven't even looked at the book yet. The only one I have actually used so far has been XGtE. That is $200 of books at retail that I find little use for. The player options they add to the books are generally available through Unearthed Arcana. The monsters I enjoy but I hate that they sprinkle player and DM materials through all of those books forcing me to buy them all if I want it. I am getting fatigued. I love to collect books but unlike my 1E and 2E collections, I am not finding much use for many of the 5E ones I have bought.

I here you. Xanathar’s has definitely been my go to book of those. I indexed Volo’s looking for Underdark monsters (of which there were some) but SCAG and MtoF (except for the monsters) have not seen much use.

 

[MNblockhead]

I'm glad that WoTC is trying new approaches with DotMM, DH, and Ravnica.

Mega dungeons seem to have long fallen out of favor, but I like that you have a detailed setting that doesn't rail-road you into a story. The story is what your players make of it. I'm happy that they are taking a risk and publishing books that are not for "everyone". I'm hoping that these books will show that a books can appeal to only party of a fan base and still do well.

 

[gyor]

I'm glad that WoTC is trying new approaches with DotMM, DH, and Ravnica.

Mega dungeons seem to have long fallen out of favor, but I like that you have a detailed setting that doesn't rail-road you into a story. The story is what your players make of it. I'm happy that they are taking a risk and publishing books that are not for "everyone". I'm hoping that these books will show that a books can appeal to only party of a fan base and still do well.

Not for everyone is still a lot of people so it's worth it.

 

[oreofox]

Would love to see the return of small scale modules. Small level range, softcover, able to drop into any adventure, with a price to reflect that ($15). Guess that's why I am thankful for companies like Kobold Press.

I would love for them to make some softcover books like they did back in 3rd edition (Masters of the Wild and such), or even smaller hardcovers (like Arms and Equipment Guide). But ever since 3.5 WotC has been averse to ever touch a softcover again. Everything has to be giant 256 page hardcover book with large amounts of full color images. Another Starter Set type adventure would be nice. Doesn't even have to be for levels 1-5. Of course, Paizo has basically dropped such small modules in favor for their monthly APs.

In a way I would love to have monthly installments for APs like what Paizo does, but not for the price Paizo asks. $25 per "issue" makes the entire path cost $150 without the subscription, which is 3x what a WotC published adventure costs. I mean, they are already releasing 2 adventures a year anyway. Would probably make them a bit easier to "digest" by getting them in smaller installments. Make them softcover, keep the non-adventure story out of it, and charge like $10 or $15 per installment. Gives them an overall increase in revenue (they'd be 60-90 dollars for the whole thing). Or maybe I'm just talking out of my back end about that. It's late, and I've been awake for 18 hours. So sorry if nothing made much sense.

 

[CapnZapp]

My biggest beef is that every medium- or high-level effort is still geared towards weak/new players with unoptimized characters, maybe not even using the crunch in the book: feats, mc, magic items.

 

[Bitbrain]

My copy of Dungeon of the Mad Mage finally arrived, and as a newish DM (6 sessions!), I prefer WD: DotMM to WD: DH

Each level of DotMM can be taken and dropped into my setting wherever I need it.

The same cannot be said of Dragon Heist, which easily one of the most Forgotten Realms-specific 5e adventure paths I've ever seen.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm not particularly interested in either. I think some of it is that the Shiny newness is finally starting to wear off D&D 5e.

This has happened with my group as well.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

My copy of Dungeon of the Mad Mage finally arrived, and as a newish DM (6 sessions!), I prefer WD: DotMM to WD: DH

Each level of DotMM can be taken and dropped into my setting wherever I need it.

The same cannot be said of Dragon Heist, which easily one of the most Forgotten Realms-specific 5e adventure paths I've ever seen.

Well, that's the thing, it's very old school. Tunnels connecting rooms full of monsters make it very easy to keep the party on the rails whilst creating an illusion of freedom, so it's very easy to DM.