D&D General Matt Colville on adventure length

[mamba]

Which is why we should advocate for mandatory Enworld membership for all new DMs! This way, we could guide them towards high quality D&D play.

I feel like half the people here will tell them that that is an oxymoron

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This is a good point; and slowing down the levelling rate is IMO a good idea no matter what else is involved.

Whereas I find it exactly the reverse. Spending four+ sessions at level 1 in 5e is the most painfully boring experience I've ever had in TTRPGs. I'd rather never play at all than stretch that horrible slog out any longer.

 

[tetrasodium]

Whereas I find it exactly the reverse. Spending four+ sessions at level 1 in 5e is the most painfully boring experience I've ever had in TTRPGs. I'd rather never play at all than stretch that horrible slog out any longer.

That's not the acceleration wotc designed. They took a game where most groups are probably only going to get to about level ten or so give or take a couple & have it an advancement rate that tries to assure that within a year of regular sessions you can get an additional dozen or so levels give or take .

 

[Charlaquin]

The AL seasons that go with the various published adventure books mimic this structure. They usually have two or three mini-arcs, each with its own "on-ramp," and are set in a limited location. Admittedly, the adventures vary widely in quality, but there are enough good ones to make the project worthwhile. It's kind of sad how neglected they are.

My personal problem with the AL adventures I’ve read and/or run is their structure is extremely restrictive.

 

[MerricB]

My personal problem with the AL adventures I’ve read and/or run is their structure is extremely restrictive.

Yeah. When you're designing for a party of unknown composition, unknown needs and have to be finished in 3.5 hours (or less!), it gets very, very hard to design. The more freedom you give players, the more the DM has to prep (and length of adventure gets very erratic).

Having players only complete half the adventure before time is called is NOT fun.

And that aspect of DM prep? Really important. A lot of DDAL DMs are running games at conventions, where they run several different adventures in a row. If a 4-hour slot takes 20 hours to prepare because of of all the options... it's not going to go that well.

(I've seen some incredibly long adventure texts - 50+ pages! - for a four-hour slot. Not fun to prep).

I know there are great DDAL adventures out there, but skilled practitioners of the art? Not that many. (Look to people like Greg Marks, Robert Adducci and Shawn Merwin to see what is possible with the form; not an exhaustive list).

Cheers,
Merric

 

[MerricB]

Whereas I find it exactly the reverse. Spending four+ sessions at level 1 in 5e is the most painfully boring experience I've ever had in TTRPGs. I'd rather never play at all than stretch that horrible slog out any longer.

I find very odd the love of level 1 play that some people have. Or even level 0 play! I appreciate that it exists, but I don't want to spend a long time there.

The initial scheme that Wizards designed was basically:
1 session for levels 1 & 2,
2 sessions for each succeeding levels

(Although a few would take longer. Sessions being roughly 4 hours in length).

So, to reach level 20 takes 36 sessions or thereabouts. Except possibly longer.

When we compare this to the speed Gygax suggested in the OD&D days, to reach level 9 would take a year (40-60 sessions), and each 50 sessions thereafter would give 2-3 levels.

The fact is that there is GREAT variance about the way people play these games. At present, I have one group that meets fortnightly for 3-hour sessions, and another group that meets weekly for 3-hour sessions. In the past, I had weekly 2-hour sessions, or fortnightly 4-hour sessions... and that's a lot more regular than many people.

My last level 1-20 campaign took about 3 years of mostly fortnightly sessions. (About 60 or so?)

Cheers,
Merric

 

[Lanefan]

Whereas I find it exactly the reverse. Spending four+ sessions at level 1 in 5e is the most painfully boring experience I've ever had in TTRPGs. I'd rather never play at all than stretch that horrible slog out any longer.

Can't speak to 5e specifically, but IME low-level play in general can be a blast because players - not yet being too attached to their characters - will have them try the craziest things; which puts the entertainment value way beyond the high end of the charts.

My preference is for a campaign whose real-time duration is "open-ended" and measured in years. To achieve this, the base levelling rate has to be much slower than the 3e-4e-5e model has it; and there's other tricks a DM can use to slow the overall advancement speed down. 2e as written, and 1e if one doesn't give xp for gp, got it right.

 

[jayoungr]

My personal problem with the AL adventures I’ve read and/or run is their structure is extremely restrictive.

They do vary widely in quality (as I said), but there are so many of them that I bet there are some you would like.

 

[Lanefan]

I find very odd the love of level 1 play that some people have. Or even level 0 play! I appreciate that it exists, but I don't want to spend a long time there.

The initial scheme that Wizards designed was basically:
1 session for levels 1 & 2,
2 sessions for each succeeding levels

(Although a few would take longer. Sessions being roughly 4 hours in length).

So, to reach level 20 takes 36 sessions or thereabouts. Except possibly longer.

Which means the campaign is essentially over in well under a year, assuming weekly play. That's barely enough time to get nicely settled in.

For contrast: the game I play in hit session 1000 last month; it started in 2007. The game I run started in 2008 and hit session 1000 last summer (and great fun was had by all at a reunion game in celebration). Both games are 1e-adjacent, and both games have had periods where two parties were run in parallel hence two sessions were run per week.

 

[jayoungr]

Having players only complete half the adventure before time is called is NOT fun.

Sure, but if you're running them at home, time isn't a factor. And if you're taking a sequence of 3 or so AL adventures to mimic an oldschool module, you can sometimes even make them a sandbox.

I just think people should be open to at least investigating the possibilities. I ran the Curse of Strahd AL season as a home campaign a few years ago, and it's one of the most successful things I've ever done for that group of players. (They liked it better than the actual Curse of Strahd, although that was partly due to the fact that I ended up having to modify CoS quite a lot in ways that didn't always work optimally.)