In the PDF age all adventures should be compatible with all editions

[GregoryOatmeal]

Sorry, more about the edition treadmill.

Suppose I have a 1E copy of Village of Hommlet and my group plays 4E. I want to share that experience with them. My options are
- Remake encounters for 4E based on my 1E copy
- Rebuy the 4E version of what I already own for $77 on ebay
- Convince my gaming group to learn 1E or a retroclone and make characters for that
- Look for an adaptation on the internet
All of those options are terribly inconvenient. They guarantee that D&D adventures have limited shelf-life and limited value. That needs to stop.

As WOTC begins selling PDFs (whenever that day comes) going forward all WOTC adventures should be compatible with all editions. I should be able to play a new 5E adventure in 2E without any difficulties. With technology WOTC could:
- Include a code in future products that allows the purchaser to download a PDF addendum containing monster stats, skill checks, etc. that make the module 1E/2E/3E/4E and even possibly PF/C&C compatible.
- Publish different PDF products for all editions. Essentially they'd be the same book with numbers and rules changed for compatibility with different editions. Purchasing the base book or PDF would give access to all of the various PDFs.
- Crowdsource module conversions from a centralized wikipedia-style webpage where members could vote on the best adaptation. They could also strategically control what aspects of the document are modifiable so users don't insert an outside copyrighted image into their work.

When you had to rely solely on books it was simply unrealistic to support every edition. You couldn't print four nearly identical Tomb of Horrors books, send all of them to the gaming store and expect all of them to sell. Those days are over. I want a code in Madness at Gardmore Abbey that lets me have a 1E and 3.5 PDF of the same material.

And yes, I know ENworld already does this with their 4E/PF APs and Goodman Games does it with 3.5/C&C. And that's awesome.

 

[Vegepygmy]

When you had to rely solely on books it was simply unrealistic to support every edition.

It still is.

 

[Mark CMG]

This is a good idea though it is difficult to find a way to make it cost effective to support more than one or two editions, even for (perhaps especially for) a small publisher. I'm working on a new line of CMG products called Narrative Adventures which are meant to be useful to GMs of all editions and systems. Essentially system-free, they will include notes and suggestions on how to scale and convert the adventures when necessary. I'm also planning to include a limited licensing agreement within each Narrative Adventure to allow anyone to utilize the primary IP, the names of people, places and items, in conversions. I further plan to link (on my site and at the points of purchase) to the various conversions so that folks can more easily find someone who has done some of the heavy lifting of statting up those elements that would most naturally require that sort of explicit detail. Hopefully, while I couldn't create specific addendums myself for the all of the various systems and editions, the addition of the limited licensing agreement and linking support will bridge the gap between what is missing and what is needed. This seems a practical method of accomplishing what would otherwise not be cost effective for a smaller publisher, though I am not sure if a larger corporation would feel comfortable supporting their own products in such a manner.

 

[Vascant]

I think this is one of those, "in theory it sounds great but will lose a lot during execution" ideas. Granted it costs no more for printing but designing and writing such beasts will cost more because simple no one is good at all editions, so you will need multiple writers in most cases. I also think adventures will start to become more cookie cutter and generalized rather then tailor fit for a specific edition. Look at DungeonADay.com as an example, they choose to drop 3.5 and use Pathfinder and there are not huge differences between those systems, can you imagine trying that between 1e and 4e?

 

[Umbran]

When you had to rely solely on books it was simply unrealistic to support every edition.

It is not particularly realistic in electronic format, either. It takes development and playtesting time and effort for each edition supported - and time and effort equal cost.

For anything you are trying to sell, there's a cost/benefit balance to be hit. If the sales you are likely to garner for the extra effort don't pay for that effort, well, then you don't go through that effort.

And that's not considering how not all adventures will be *good* in all editions, even with conversion.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

WotC has done this at least once before: http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4tut/exemplars

Please note that this was before the MM3, so the monster damage ratings need to be upped again!

Sorry, more about the edition treadmill.

Suppose I have a 1E copy of Village of Hommlet and my group plays 4E. I want to share that experience with them. My options are
- Remake encounters for 4E based on my 1E copy
- Rebuy the 4E version of what I already own for $77 on ebay
- Convince my gaming group to learn 1E or a retroclone and make characters for that
- Look for an adaptation on the internet
All of those options are terribly inconvenient. They guarantee that D&D adventures have limited shelf-life and limited value. That needs to stop.

As WOTC begins selling PDFs (whenever that day comes) going forward all WOTC adventures should be compatible with all editions. I should be able to play a new 5E adventure in 2E without any difficulties. With technology WOTC could:
- Include a code in future products that allows the purchaser to download a PDF addendum containing monster stats, skill checks, etc. that make the module 1E/2E/3E/4E and even possibly PF/C&C compatible.
- Publish different PDF products for all editions. Essentially they'd be the same book with numbers and rules changed for compatibility with different editions. Purchasing the base book or PDF would give access to all of the various PDFs.
- Crowdsource module conversions from a centralized wikipedia-style webpage where members could vote on the best adaptation. They could also strategically control what aspects of the document are modifiable so users don't insert an outside copyrighted image into their work.

When you had to rely solely on books it was simply unrealistic to support every edition. You couldn't print four nearly identical Tomb of Horrors books, send all of them to the gaming store and expect all of them to sell. Those days are over. I want a code in Madness at Gardmore Abbey that lets me have a 1E and 3.5 PDF of the same material.

And yes, I know ENworld already does this with their 4E/PF APs and Goodman Games does it with 3.5/C&C. And that's awesome.

WotC has done this with a very few adventures already. However, I don't think you could expect WotC to spend all that time and effort.

A program will not be enough. A human would have to look at all the NWP checks, etc, add them to editions that didn't use them in a complex manner, etc.

The "balance" of the monsters would be troublesome. Editions prior to 3e didn't have "challenge ratings" and so monsters of levels far above and far below the party level would be common. In that one 3e to 4e conversion that I saw, WotC did try to fix that (eg cut the number of orcs in half, etc), but that's something that a computer program can't handle.

An example:

Encounter Level 7 (1,700 XP)

Make the following replacements for this encounter:

Replace the gibbering mouther (M) with the monster of the same name (see Monster Manual, page 126).
Replace the average psurlon (P) with a grell philosopher (see Monster Manual, page 144).

No program can do that.

My understanding is that WotC's DnD division is small, and so can maintain profitability. I don't think WotC could make a lot of money converting adventures like that.

Also, many adventures are just bad. This isn't edition dependent; while many 2e adventures suffered from too many encounters, so did Keep on the Shadowfell. (In fact, I'm not sure I've seen a good pre-written 4e adventure yet, but then I've lost my copy of the adventure that came with Monster Vault, and that one looked a lot better.) And even those that aren't could really use a trimming of the number of encounters, removing excessive railroading (I've never played in any of those terrible FR and Dragonlance adventures that I've heard so much about, fortunately), getting rid of unfun reactive traps and so forth.

I see little point of converting PDFs of non-adventuring material into newer editions either. I don't need cheesy kits and prestige classes. Flavor stuff rarely needs much in the way of rules. And in 4e, monster generation is transparent enough I can convert NPCs all the way from 1e myself. (I did just that last week with Knellict, the wizard antagonist from the 1e Bloodstone adventures.)

And to top it all off, since WotC couldn't possibly do this with speed, 5e would roll around around before they've finished converting everything. I just don't see the point.

I much prefer the idea of crowdsourcing. Only those who are interested would work on it, presumably for little to no money. I would expect only popular and well-written modules would get converted.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Certain versions of the game are already easy to convert on the fly. For Castles & Crusades, a 1E/D20 derivative, a DM can convert anything through at least 3E (I can't speak about 4E, since I've never run it) on the fly. I doubt it's the only version of the game that's true for.

But WotC has no economic incentive to sell to people who aren't buying their books, when they could, in theory, create new adventures so awesome and compelling that they'd get people to switch over to buying their current system and all of its related products.

 

[GregoryOatmeal]

Certain versions of the game are already easy to convert on the fly. For Castles & Crusades, a 1E/D20 derivative, a DM can convert anything through at least 3E (I can't speak about 4E, since I've never run it) on the fly. I doubt it's the only version of the game that's true for.

I'm planning on running "The Slaying Stone" (4E) in C&C. I'll let you know how it works out. C&C is pretty much my favorite thing ever, although it's hard to get people to play it.

But WotC has no economic incentive to sell to people who aren't buying their books, when they could, in theory, create new adventures so awesome and compelling that they'd get people to switch over to buying their current system and all of its related products.

Eh...the adventures probably wouldn't cause people to switch. But they could sell them WOTC adventures, even if they aren't playing a current WOTC edition. That's an incentive?

 

[GregoryOatmeal]

Granted it costs no more for printing but designing and writing such beasts will cost more because simple no one is good at all editions, so you will need multiple writers in most cases.

You would need to spend additional time, but I think this is overestimating the difficulty of translation. If you play-test and fine-tune each version to perfection, well, that would exponentially add cost. But you would also be adding value to the product so it appeals to more demographics, increasing sales. It's about hitting that balance.

And 1E and 2E seemed pretty unbalanced and poorly thought out at times, so why not continue that tradition?

I also think adventures will start to become more cookie cutter and generalized rather then tailor fit for a specific edition. Look at DungeonADay.com as an example, they choose to drop 3.5 and use Pathfinder and there are not huge differences between those systems, can you imagine trying that between 1e and 4e?

4E is where this gets tricky. It's pretty obvious you can't turn a plot-thin, layer cake dungeon like Keep on the Borderlands into a fun 4E module without seriously reworking it.

Your assumption is that adventures are tailor-made for their editions, which I suspect isn't true in every case. For example Keep on the Shadowfell and Pyramid of Shadows may have looked good as mindless 3.5 dungeon crawls. However they're such slogs in 4E that I found them to be unplayable. I suspect the designers were still trying to design for an old edition and didn't really understand the beast they were working with. As 3.5 modules with faster combats I can see them being more enjoyable.

I don't think most modules were tailor-made for editions. Besides the writing, art style, and combat mechanics I can't see anything about the original Ravenloft that was innately 1E and couldn't be directly translated into anything besides 4E.

Generally speaking translation from 1E to 2E to 3.5 to PF and C&C should be pretty minimal. Going from pre-4E to 4E is extremely problematic. Going from 4E backwards requires redesign but is certainly doable (but also open up sales potential to new demographics)

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Eh...the adventures probably wouldn't cause people to switch. But they could sell them WOTC adventures, even if they aren't playing a current WOTC edition. That's an incentive?

I don't think it's enough of an incentive. WotC has a hard enough time selling good adventures to DMs (they're competing with DM time, after all).

They'd be selling to a smaller audience.