Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and the old splintering the fan base chestnut...

[Reynard]

Yes.
But still less than doing an adventure from scratch.

In my (30+ years) experience that is not the case. It is significantly easier to create your own adventures or even run them on the fly than to run the typical modern published one. Adventures now are by and large written to be read rather than played (a fact I was told by no other than James Jacobs in case you think I am just saying things that come to mind) and trying to extract the important information for the table out of the walls of text is arduous. If you want to also change its setting and not do a half assed job of it, that's even more work.

 

[Oofta]

In my (30+ years) experience that is not the case. It is significantly easier to create your own adventures or even run them on the fly than to run the typical modern published one. Adventures now are by and large written to be read rather than played (a fact I was told by no other than James Jacobs in case you think I am just saying things that come to mind) and trying to extract the important information for the table out of the walls of text is arduous. If you want to also change its setting and not do a half assed job of it, that's even more work.

I think this varies a lot with DM style and preference. I prefer running my own stuff because I make up too much stuff on the fly based on what the PCs do and make notes later. I'm not good at remember that on page 32 paragraph 3 it's critical that Bob the Butcher is really Borris the Warlock and that he's allergic to cats.

Other people and players are OK with railroad (or railroad-adjacent) style that mods require.

 

[Jester David]

In my (30+ years) experience that is not the case. It is significantly easier to create your own adventures or even run them on the fly than to run the typical modern published one. Adventures now are by and large written to be read rather than played (a fact I was told by no other than James Jacobs in case you think I am just saying things that come to mind) and trying to extract the important information for the table out of the walls of text is arduous. If you want to also change its setting and not do a half assed job of it, that's even more work.

Then. Don’t. Buy. Them.
It’s simple. If your DMing style doesn’t mesh with published adventures and you find it hard to parse and update... then don’t. Save yourself $50.

But your experience are not universal.
Not everyone has the time to plan out plots, sketch maps, create NPCs, or balance encounters. Published adventures are a solution for that. And many DMs can parse through the “walls of text” and mix a published adventure with some improvisation.

Is it a half-assed update? Maybe. But I’m not going to judge. And if the players have fun, who cares if it’s a quote-unquote perfect update. Everyone makes campaign settings and adventures their own anyway...

 

[Reynard]

I think this varies a lot with DM style and preference. I prefer running my own stuff because I make up too much stuff on the fly based on what the PCs do and make notes later. I'm not good at remember that on page 32 paragraph 3 it's critical that Bob the Butcher is really Borris the Warlock and that he's allergic to cats.

Precisely.

Other people and players are OK with railroad (or railroad-adjacent) style that mods require.

At least as it relates to the overall subject, I don't think it matters whether it is a railroad or a sandbox. If it is steeped in the lore of the setting and the important bits are buried in prose, it's a pain.

 

[Oofta]

Precisely.



At least as it relates to the overall subject, I don't think it matters whether it is a railroad or a sandbox. If it is steeped in the lore of the setting and the important bits are buried in prose, it's a pain.

I've enjoyed some mods, but I'm more likely to just grab some specific scenes and NPC hooks than to use the actual adventure. I'm not sure I'd do it very often if I wasn't getting credit for DMing at my game store. Well, that and I've had to put up with it if I want to support the public campaign.

 

[Parmandur]

How extensive are those suggestions? Does each chapter go into detail? Do they name specific NPCs, factions and other setting elements as replacements for those from the Realms?

It's an Appendix, don't have access to the book at the moment, but it is fairly extensive. It covers geography and faction substitution for various NPCs.

 

[robus]

To answer your other question: why would WotC bother nailing it to Waterdeep so solidly in the marketing?
Because it's better to have some default flavour and setting than no setting and require DMs to invent a city on their own. The Realms is a placeholder rather than generic names (like early 1e and BECMI effectively was) or a setting that is made up for adventure (like 4e).

That's probably a good way to look at FR. It's WotC's Disneyworld equivalent, in that it tries to offer a variety of entertainment options but all within the same setting. And it comes with a matching set of lovers and haters!

 

[Mercule]

How extensive are those suggestions? Does each chapter go into detail? Do they name specific NPCs, factions and other setting elements as replacements for those from the Realms?

Having run PotA in Eberron, the suggestions were kinda half-baked. The groups they suggested to replace the factions were only passingly similar (if that), which means the hooks didn't actually hook. The bits about where to locate the adventure weren't horrible, but weren't particularly astonishing, either. There were problems with the map scale for that particular adventure (like, it was internally inconsistent) that gave me fits. Basically, that one was pretty easy to scrub off the Realms, but a bit harder to add Eberron flavor. I know Eberron well enough that I could adapt, but I did so by mostly ignoring their advice.

Tyranny of Dragons was considerably harder to convert. In fact, after trying to get ahead of the game while running the starter set, I just gave up. By the time I got done, it was more like I was using the same adventure outline, but totally different details. It probably would have been fun enough, but PotA came out and looked easier.

Curse of Strahd is explicitly in its own realm, so conversion isn't really a thing. I don't think the recommendations for hooks were good -- and really view anything setting specific as a waste for that book, anyway.

I haven't tried to convert any of the others, due to the speed we move through things. I don't think OotA would convert well. SKT might, though I've heard that it has some tight coupling to the Realms in a couple places. From what I've read, people have had very good success with converting ToA to use in Xen'drik or Q'Barra. I do not plan to even consider Dragon Heist. I can't imagine that it isn't tightly coupled to Waterdeep and/or that trying to Sharn-ify it wouldn't be at least as bad as ToD

Gamers have been scratching off the serial numbers of modules in specific settings for EVER - I seem to be misunderstanding why you believe this 5e module would be any different in difficulty to adapt?

Yeah. It's easier to remove setting-specific elements than it is to add different setting-specific elements. People who play in Eberron don't do it just because it's not the Realms. They do it because it's Eberron. Also, multiple small adventures (the old modules or Dungeon Magazine) offer more opportunity for interludes than the 128 page mega-adventures.

 

[Parmandur]

I was honestly curious. The only example I have is Yawning Portal which only suggests locations for the various adventures, not any actual adaptation to make them into Eberron (or whatever) adventures.

And i am going to repeat this just because I want to be clear: all I am suggesting isn't likely is that an average DM with an average level of setting mastery could convincingly adapt an adventure deeply rooted in the Realms to one similarly rooted in a setting with a different strong flavor such as Dark Sun or Eberron ON THE FLY.

The average DM is already running the game in the FR, or a FR compatible Homebrew (just remove all reference to the Red Wizards, and replace with my original creation, the Fuscia Mages of Kalay, etc.). Anybody who is playing an intrinsically non-compati let Homebrew world isn't buying these books (or books, per WorC), while anybody playing Greyhawk or Dragonlance is hardcore and willing to work for it.

 

[Reynard]

The average DM is already running the game in the FR, or a FR compatible Homebrew (just remove all reference to the Red Wizards, and replace with my original creation, the Fuscia Mages of Kalay, etc.). Anybody who is playing an intrinsically non-compati let Homebrew world isn't buying these books (or books, per WorC), while anybody playing Greyhawk or Dragonlance is hardcore and willing to work for it.

Do you really think so? I'm not so sure. Lots of DMs are worldbuilders first, so lots of them that have at least what they think of as unique settings probably still buy adventures. And I don't think only hardcore, experienced DMs are the only ones using other settings. The core books name drop Eberron and Dark Sun and Planescape. It's not wildly speculative that gamers new to the hobby might be intrigued by such names and go hunting down used books and PDFs.