Who Actually Has Time for Bloated Adventures?

[Jd Smith1]

A key for me in terms of organizational structure, is a clear and concise summary of the scenario at the start.

 

[Lanefan]

I use PDFs for quick search and reading. Again., I see them as a kit I need to read and prep before running. I suppose using the physical copies would be a nightmare so maybe that is where the complaint is coming from?

When the computer is in a different room from the game table, as mine is, physical copies are all that matters....

The GMs I have seen get flustered are the ones that are just not prepared.

In fairness, there's a subset of GMs who only get flustered if-when the players go off course as they simply don't know how - or aren't confident enough - to wing anything. And there's no real way to prep absolutely everything; even when a published AP gives you loads of material, published adventures in general are very poor at answering "what if they do this" points even when fairly obvious (e.g. in an adventure designed for 7th-9th level characters, what if they fly in).

 

[payn]

When the computer is in a different room from the game table, as mine is, physical copies are all that matters....

Sucks to be you.

In fairness, there's a subset of GMs who only get flustered if-when the players go off course as they simply don't know how - or aren't confident enough - to wing anything. And there's no real way to prep absolutely everything; even when a published AP gives you loads of material, published adventures in general are very poor at answering "what if they do this" points even when fairly obvious (e.g. in an adventure designed for 7th-9th level characters, what if they fly in).

I find the APs cover it very well. However, folks dont want to do that much readin before playin.

 

[Jd Smith1]

In fairness, there's a subset of GMs who only get flustered if-when the players go off course as they simply don't know how - or aren't confident enough - to wing anything. And there's no real way to prep absolutely everything; even when a published AP gives you loads of material, published adventures in general are very poor at answering "what if they do this" points even when fairly obvious (e.g. in an adventure designed for 7th-9th level characters, what if they fly in).

While I don't plan D&D-style games with their insane power bloat, it is not new GM's fault when caught off guard. Most publishers clinging to the coat-tails of D&D stick with the idealized concept of medieval castles and similar structures, for want of attention, time, or creativity I can't say for sure.

But in a world where enemies can fly, the locals who pump massive resources into fortifications would prepare for such options, such as roofed catwalks, chain netting overhead, Ballista on AA swivels, deadly hunting ferrets to winkle out Druids in mouse forms, lead foil sheathing rooms to block clairaudience, ward chambers fitted with runes that block teleportation within the fortress walls, and similar counter-suites.

Instead, NPCs are frequently treated as if they had never heard of magic.

 

[edosan]

While I don't plan D&D-style games with their insane power bloat, it is not new GM's fault when caught off guard.

Completely agree. 5e adventures in particular are both tightly scripted and assume that players won't deviate from the plan which makes it very difficult for a DM (especially a new DM) to improvise to make up for players thinking of approaches that the writer didn't anticipate.

For a version that touts how accessible it is to new players and new DMs this feels like a misstep.

 

[Retreater]

For a version that touts how accessible it is to new players and new DMs this feels like a misstep.

IMO, those claims are vastly overstated. 5e is probably the least accessible to new DMs of any edition I've played since I began in 1989.
I'll count the ways.
1. Largely terrible prewritten adventures.
2. No meaningful guidance for treasure awards.
3. Awful encounter building guidance.
4. Meaningless tactical options.
5. Befuddling action economy.
6. No way to address PC power creep.
7. Black holes in rules content.

And yes, some of the older editions had no guidance at all for some of these issues, but I'd argue that no tool at all is preferable than a broken tool.

 

[Lanefan]

IMO, those claims are vastly overstated. 5e is probably the least accessible to new DMs of any edition I've played since I began in 1989.
I'll count the ways.
1. Largely terrible prewritten adventures.
2. No meaningful guidance for treasure awards.
3. Awful encounter building guidance.
4. Meaningless tactical options.
5. Befuddling action economy.
6. No way to address PC power creep.
7. Black holes in rules content.

By itself, point 2 isn't a real issue. The bigger problem is that 5e doesn't really give the PCs anything to spend that treasure on - no stronghold rules, no magic item pricing, no training costs, etc.

Points 6 and 7 have been an issue in every edition thus far, 5e is no different and 6e won't be either.

 

[Retreater]

Points 6 and 7 have been an issue in every edition thus far, 5e is no different and 6e won't be either.

I feel that 4e handled point 7 better than 5e. It handled what it was meant to handle.
5e doesn't even make an attempt.

 

[Darth Solo]

So I'm running a PF2e Adventure Path - but this rant holds true even outside the specific system and adventure.
The current chapter of the book has 51 adventure sites. My group investigated 3 this week. At that rate, we're looking at 17 sessions of play to complete one chapter (1/9th) of the Adventure Path. Expanded, that's 153 sessions (or 38 months - just over 3 years) to complete a 1-10th level adventure.
Most of the locations have no bearing on the greater story of the campaign, but it's so hard to parse what is important because there's close to 300 pages and nothing to guide the GM about which of the 8 factions in this chapter alone are worth focusing upon and which have a consistent thread throughout the rest of the Adventure Path.
My wife suggests cutting some of the encounters - but how do I know which ones? Should I just dump all the loot they'd have missed onto their character sheets? How do I know if I'm cutting some vital relationship for the climactic encounter set to take place 3 years from now?
How do you successfully run something like this? Trying to stick to one of these heavily scripted adventures is more stress-inducing than an enjoyable hobby experience.

Most modules recommend reading the entire adventure/campaign first to get a good grasp of events. If there's pieces that you feel "have no bearing to the greater story", don't use them. If you've read the module thoroughly, it should be fairly easy to edit out scenes and NPCs. It seems you are unhappy about the large size of the module so why are you running it? GMs only run what we want to (it's one of the perks).

 

[kigmatzomat]

How long does the average campaign last? These days especially, I don't expect a campaign to run more than 6 months at most and I've got a regular group of people I meet with once a week. I hear about campaigns lasting years, but I've never particpated in one of those before.

Average is a hard thing to pin down. We might have 2 or 3 people run a half dozen sessions before either the GM or group decide the game isn't clicking. Then GM #4 runs a game for 4 years/100 sessions. So is the average 24.5 sessions (118/4)? That seems wrong.

I have run four campaigns lasting 2-5 years each with 50-300 sessions of play (usually 6hrs). I have played in 4 similar campaigns. That means over a 35yr gaming career, most of it (2/3) is in multi-year campaigns. However I have played or run in dozens of games that only lasted a half dozen sessions, so my "average" is probably 10 sessions.