What's wrong with current high-level mega-modules

[Ragnar_Deerslayer]

The problem with current high-level mega-modules (e.g., Necropolis, City of the Spider Queen) is that they are little more than dungeon crawls. Don't get me wrong, dungeon crawls have their place, but at high levels? At high levels (teens) I should be doing something A) high profile and B) affecting lots of people, earning the attention of local political powers and going on kingdom-shaking quests, as well as having my deeds sung about by bards across the land. And yet, here we go again, enter the dungeon, go EIGHT FREAKIN' LEVELS doing deeds that are only indirectly connected to the problems of the world above, and come out at 18th level as continent-shaking powerhouses that, strangely enough, nobody's ever heard of.

Am I the only one who thinks the whole "back to the dungeon" philosophy was a complete step in the wrong direction? That "third edition rules, first edition feel" was a complete misunderstand of what I wanted out of an RPG?

Come on. If I want a dungeon crawl, I'll get a computer game. Diablo, anyone? Icewind Dale? Computers take care of the mechanics of combat, making dungeon crawls their forte. When I come to the tabletop RPGs, I want character development, immersive storylines, and plot development. The problem is, I got more character development and a better storyline out of the Baldur's Gate CRPG than any published RPG module or series of modules.

Where are those players and DMs who cut their teeth on fantasy novels like Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Prydain, the Belgariad, and the Riftwar Saga? Why do they have to make their stories from scratch, instead of being able to buy a campaign off-the-shelf?

It's been done before (Call of Cthulhu comes to mind). Why not in the fantasy market?

Here's what I want out of a high-level mega-module. Half of them in a module that covers eight levels would be a dream come true.

In an epic (not Epic) mega-module, the PCs should:
* play important roles in a major war
* get caught up in court intrigue
* journey to exotic lands (eg, as ambassadors, or on a quest for a person/ thing)
* go plane-hopping (shopping trip in Sigil! Undercover recon in the Demonweb Pits! Invade the Nine Hells with an army of paladins!)
* defeat a powerful dragon
* uncover a plot by an evil cult
* have a recurring villian
* get betrayed
* get framed/ go outlaw/ clear their names
* face their pasts
* rescue a princess
* avenge the death of a loved one
* make important/powerful friends
* get captured/ escape
* protect a cute (or annoying) kid/ sidekick/ princess/ monster/ bard.
* save the world
* visit home after becoming famous

Anything to add to the above list? Anyone developing a mega-module like the one discribed above?

Ragnar

 

[Celtavian]

re

A module is created for the masses to use. It is really up to the DM to tailor it to fit into their campaign world and supply the intrigue their players might desire. I still believe the majority of players enjoy simple dungeon crawling best with minimal outside interference from politics and the like that the more intellectual minded gamers might enjoy.

A huge problem I have with my own players at times is their complete and utter lack of an education, whether personal or institutional. When you personally read a breadth of material from religious and philosophical texts to discussions on physics and biology, it becomes somewhat of a chore to find players with equivalent interests that might enjoy a more expansive adventure involving political and religious concepts and situations.

Its just the usual cliche of appealing to the lowest common denominator when it comes to module design. For good or for ill, that means exciting dungeon crawls with lots of combat.

 

[Psion]

The problem with current high-level mega-modules (e.g., Necropolis, City of the Spider Queen) is that they are little more than dungeon crawls. Don't get me wrong, dungeon crawls have their place, but at high levels? At high levels (teens) I should be doing something A) high profile and B) affecting lots of people, earning the attention of local political powers and going on kingdom-shaking quests, as well as having my deeds sung about by bards across the land. And yet, here we go again, enter the dungeon, go EIGHT FREAKIN' LEVELS doing deeds that are only indirectly connected to the problems of the world above, and come out at 18th level as continent-shaking powerhouses that, strangely enough, nobody's ever heard of.

Um, maybe it's just me, but neither of the sample modules you mentioned seem to fit this mold. The are both way more extensive than eight levels of a single dungeon. In the case of CotSQ, the players are travelling in the underdark. In the case of necropolis, they are travelling in a foreign land and are NOT widely known there. The reasons for their involvement is pretty clear.

Is your objection only that they involve dungeons at all?

Am I the only one who thinks the whole "back to the dungeon" philosophy was a complete step in the wrong direction?

Oh no. Well, I don't think it was a step in the wrong direction, but I do think the push in that direction has been too strong and it has become way too much of a focal point for balancing of the game (hence silliness like pokemounts.)

That "third edition rules, first edition feel" was a complete misunderstand of what I wanted out of an RPG?

Well, that's NG's slogan. If that doesn't appeal to you, you can't exactly blame them for honesty in advertising. There are other options out there.

Come on. If I want a dungeon crawl, I'll get a computer game. Diablo, anyone? Icewind Dale? Computers take care of the mechanics of combat, making dungeon crawls their forte. When I come to the tabletop RPGs, I want character development, immersive storylines, and plot development. The problem is, I got more character development and a better storyline out of the Baldur's Gate CRPG than any published RPG module or series of modules.

Eh. I like diablo, but I wouldn't be playing D&D if it didn't offer me something diablo didn't. Diablo is a tactical exercise with the reassurance that you will never really die. The worse that can happen is if you get bushwchacked by some lightning enhanced baddie, you'll lose some experienec and waste some time trying to get some goodies back. This is much more shallow than that rather more gritty feel of knowing every fight counts.

And, I might add, when I and my generally associated group of gamers play, it's more than just a dungeon crawl, again a way that Diablo could never hope for. My players bring the PCs personalities to life. The GM have reasons for the dungeons, and consequences in a world.

Of course, with purchased dungeons, you have to work the events and people into your world. Some DMs are sloppy about it, but some adventures make this task easier than others.

Where are those players and DMs who cut their teeth on fantasy novels like Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Prydain, the Belgariad, and the Riftwar Saga? Why do they have to make their stories from scratch, instead of being able to buy a campaign off-the-shelf?

I make my own stories more than store-purchased, simply because I find that if you WANT character development and you WANT campaign development, it is a lot easier to do so when you control the events of the game. It's tough finding a comfortable fit otherwise.

Here's what I want out of a high-level mega-module. Half of them in a module that covers eight levels would be a dream come true.

In an epic (not Epic) mega-module, the PCs should:
* play important roles in a major war
* get caught up in court intrigue
* journey to exotic lands (eg, as ambassadors, or on a quest for a person/ thing)
* go plane-hopping (shopping trip in Sigil! Undercover recon in the Demonweb Pits! Invade the Nine Hells with an army of paladins!)
* defeat a powerful dragon
* uncover a plot by an evil cult
* have a recurring villian
* get betrayed
* get framed/ go outlaw/ clear their names
* face their pasts
* rescue a princess
* avenge the death of a loved one
* make important/powerful friends
* get captured/ escape
* protect a cute (or annoying) kid/ sidekick/ princess/ monster/ bard.
* save the world
* visit home after becoming famous

Sounds like a good list to me.

Anything to add to the above list? Anyone developing a mega-module like the one discribed above?

Not for print, but my last high-level game involved about 75% of the points you mentioned. In it the players:

Faced a recurring villain, eventually finding out that she was actually a mirror-version of a good woman, and who they eventually travelled across the planes with and who was judged in the courts of thunder (which was an adventure the players immensely enjoyed.)
In their plane travelling, they got caught up in a time-loop-demiplane which required them to save a priest from the distant past.
They got caught up in attempts to assassinate and capture members of royalty of multiple nations, and managed to rescue their own prince, and then travelled to an exotic distant land to find the trail of the immortal princess who, in turn, led the party to help rescue the true heir and place her on the throne.

Things like that.

The thing is, I am merely touching on the scope of the huge sweeping campaign I just ran. My players enjoyed it immensely. I really would be at a loss of how to write a mega-adventure like this without including the whole setting with it. If I was writing for a major setting, the scope of these changes would be tantamount to massive metaplotting, which (understandably) doesn't sit well with people who don't want to see their favorite published world morphed beyond recognition.

To this end, I have been rather pleased with Malhavoc's event books. There are three out so far -- requiem for a god, cry havoc, and when the sky falls. All involve major events, and the mechanics and ideas to support them, but don't spell out in stone what happens. This gives the DM the latitude to do what needs done to involve the players in the epic events. All are well done so far that I have read (I still have to read cry havoc) and have some intriguing ideas.

 

[diaglo]

there is nothing wrong with the megamodules besides a few typos and rules errors if used in an ongoing campaign by a competent referee.

as a stand alone i agree they aren't for everyone.

you need to break them up more. none of the current megamodules you mention starts out at 1st lvl. so i must assume the characters you are constructing for play are a) to be played in this adventure only and therefore see comment above. or b) they were an existing group and don't mess well enough to survive the adventures due to gaping holes in party mechanics again see the first comment above.

 

[Beastman]

i think, it's not only the mega-modules lacking in fun and ideas. whenever i think about wotc-modules, hack'n slay comes to mind (which isn't bad in it self). enter romm a, deal with monster group a. enter room and deal with monster group b, enter romms c and...uh, wait...it's empty.enter room d, encounter monster group c, find treasure and perhaps the secret door leading to room e with monster group d....all the time,a ll the same. it seems to be a wotc (former tsr) problem...

take for example the warhammer enemy within campaign. this is a GREAT thing, never played anything better than that and even played it two times. innovative, funny, scary, riddles, dungeon crawl, intrigue, all is in there...

i stopped buying wotc modules, but hope that one day, they will make more interessting ones.

but that's only my 3 cents worth of opinion

cheers

 

[Anubis the Doomseer]

(from my response on RPG.net to the same post)

I think it has to do with the sheer variety of potential player characters.

Like the DMG says a dungeon is often the best tool for the job because by its very nature it puts real limits on what a character can and cannot do in (or with) the environment, and allows the DM to run the game with a bit of predictability.

High-level campaigns are a pain to write. Murder mystery? One good diviner or cleric and it's all over. Invasion? One of the PCs might control vast numbers of forces, if not simply able to wade through the hordes of mooks with impunity (and if the invasion's mooks are CR 15 creatures then you have to seriously stretch credibility so that the PCs can reliably win). Planar campaigns? Well, someone is going to possibly have the magic item/feat/prestige class to unravel the whole thing.

That's why I think the writers of such things are going in the wrong direction. Instead of giving us the treasure or DC of every minor trap in the "mega-dungeon" the 'module' itself shoudl read like a mini setting/campaign book. Stat out the big stuff, let the (presumably experienced) DM do the rest. Chances are the DM already has an idea of what they want to do, they just need a context to put it in. Less "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil" and more "Children of Lilith" from Tribe 8, only with high-level characters. Focus on the core moments of the adventure, and let the rest play out as customized according to the group's preferences.

- Ma'at

 

[evildm]

Less "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil" and more "Children of Lilith" from Tribe 8, only with high-level characters.

I don't know really. While I liked Children of Lilith quite a bit, I didn't see it as an adventure at all, so much as a campaign plot, which is fine. But when I buy a mega adventure for D&D, I'm looking ot have all the nitty gritty and the groundwork laid out for me. If I need to match the characters at any point, I just need to make adjustments, rather than writing something entirely new. The whole purpose of buying a pre-written adventure is just that, I don't have to write it. If I had to fill in the blanks, so to speak, I wouldn't bother with it, I'd just make my own adventure from scratch as it'd take roughly the same amount of time.

 

[Henry]

Hi, Ragnar!

The list you offered is a great one. It's those kinds of things I enjoy working into my own campaigns. The Mega-modules, however, are really more for any DM's to drop into their campaigns, than for more niche consumption.

In fact, I dare say that now that WotC has left the module making business (according to them), that we will see a shift in this trend. Arcana Unearthed's Seige on Ebonring Keep I have been told is not in a "dungeoncrawl" mode, though I haven't seen it myself. Time will obviously tell, but there are very few mega-modules, because the idea just doesn't sell well.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Am I the only one who thinks the whole "back to the dungeon" philosophy was a complete step in the wrong direction? That "third edition rules, first edition feel" was a complete misunderstand of what I wanted out of an RPG?

It wasn't a misunderstanding of what a lot of D&D players, if not most of them, wanted from a roleplaying game. It may not be what you wanted, but there are plenty of companies that produce other types of games and adventures. By the way, Necropolis is more than just a dungeoncrawl, by far. City of the Spider Queen is also not really just a dungeoncrawl either (but I just noticed Psion addressed this earlier). Have you actually read either of these books?

 

[Anubis the Doomseer]

Originally posted by evildm
I don't know really. While I liked Children of Lilith quite a bit, I didn't see it as an adventure at all, so much as a campaign plot, which is fine.

That's what I am talking about - that's the ideal high-level module. Anything more and you get into situations that a potential group of players will find offensive (for example), or will simply cakewalk through because of feat/race/template/class/spell/item XYZ.

This way, for a non-Tribe 8 example look at Monte Cook's stuff like "When the Sky Falls" or "Death of a God" sourcebooks, you can tailor the details to fit the exact details of your party - be they all single-classed humans at level 20 or half-fiendish Dragon liches with 8 different prestige classes, and zero core-rules Feats/Spells/Items.

Such modules/minicampaigns also neatly avoid big things like house rules. If a published dungeon uses the DMG guidelines to the letter, and the whole thing hinges on one particular thing - like Dodge only working against one opponent, or Spell Focus/Spell Power being nerfed, and in your game they aren't, then you have a problem. Another example - I have yet to see a high-level module deal successfully with a party that includes high-level diviners, fighters with cohorts or psionics - at least not without needing to railroad to take away such things (the diviners spells just don't work, the cohorts are killed, the whole thing takes place in a psionic dead-zone, etc).

- Ma'at