D&D 5E L&L 8/19/13: The Final Countdown

[pemerton]

Regarding the "editon warring" comments, I don't quite get it, 4e is the game I am currently playing, but it doesn't mean I have to like all of it and critize the problem areas and hope they don't repeat them in 5e?

For what it's worth, I didn't read any of your posts as edition warring.

I think 4e skill challenges is probably the worst example of the edition. It's a new mechanic which I actually like, but if you try to learn how to run one by using the skill challenges described in the first module Keep on the Shadowfell, they don't really work out (in my opinion).

I don't know the KotS examples (the 4e modules I own are H2, P2 and E1) but there are skill challenges in H2 that are poorly conceived - I'm thinking especially of the one with the ghosts - because the author hasn't given any sense of dynamics or motivation that might drive the encounter forward.

I think the DMG has the right advice for skill challenges, but it's poorly presented (eg spread over too many pages, and diluted by distractions) and the examples aren't well thought out in their content or the presentation. A big contrast for me is Robin Laws's "Narrator's Book" for HeroWars - all encounters in HeroWars can be resolved along the lines of a skill challenge (ie an extended context that resolves the scene) but the way the sample scenarios are presented in that book does a much better job of indicating to the GM how the scene might be narrated and resolved dynamically in response to the players' action declarations for their PCs.

I think much too little effort is being put into the first adventures that are made and into examples of good gameplay.

I agree with this, although I think my judgements of what counts as a good first adventure might be different from others'. For instance I have a copy of Sunless Citadel (though I've never run it) and nothing about it screams "good adventure" to me. The best low-level TSR/WoTC adventure I know is Night's Dark Terror, and old B/X module that I used for my 4e campaign. It has built-in dynamics (interesting villains, factions etc), a nice mix of NPCs, multiple sites for the PCs to explore, and mutiple points of thematic entry for getting the players engaged with what's going on.