Why the lack of 3rd party adventures

[Mark CMG]

I too would love to see the SRD given some loving.

More cowbell?


CMG's efforts have included publishing one adventure for sale and four Cooperative Dungeon adventures for free. That's five third party adventures at levels 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 14th. The link on the left gets you to the four freebies and the original one is now part of the CMG Favorites Bundle.

 

[Hussar]

I count two out of the five being "OGL", unless there's something funky about the monk/paladin or rogue, but that's a nit.



True, though I'm not sure that I understand why that's an issue. So you don't see another warmage...does that lessen the game experience?

Sorry, the monk/paladin has a feat which allows him to advance as both and still count his paly levels towards his hand to hand damage. Mostly OGL.

If you never see another warmage, then how did your warmage come into existence? Warmage is a good example since they are intended to be a sort of guild mage concept where nation states sponsor warmage training. Wouldn't it be nice if your warmage could encounter another warmage and compare notes?

Just as an example.

Not sure on the Cowbell reference though. But, admittedly, that's my own personal axe to grind with the SRD.

 

[Shroomy]

I know I've been spoiled by Dungeon. I want and expect the adventures I buy to utilize some of the content that WoTC publishes in their non-Core sourcebooks. I buy those sourcebooks (principally because of their relative quality, availability, and the level of support provided by WoTC/Paizo for the D&D product line) and I want to see them used by more than just the PCs (besides, if I was writing an adventure, I would feel free to use the same information). Just look at issue 137, it uses content from the Eberron Campaign Setting , Complete Divine , Fiend Folio , Monster Manual II , Libris Mortis , Draconomicon , Tome of Magic, and the Forgotten Realms Campaign Seting .

This even extends to WoTC adventures. I bought The Red Hand of Doom and The Voyage of the Golden Dragon in the same week, and I was somewhat disappointed by the latter because it only utilized the core books and the ECS. I hope that at least some of the forthcoming WoTC adventures follow the RHoD/Dungeon philosophy.

 

[The Thayan Menace]

Mycology Major?

I know I've been spoiled by Dungeon.

Yes, but would you like to see a myconid-related adventure in Dungeon?

Nice handle, by the way.

-Samir

 

[James Heard]

I'd love to see more mushrooms in Dungeon. Of course I'd like to see a lot more of Ted Zuvich (Old Man Katan and the Mushroom Band) in Dungeon, or Willie Walsh just about anywhere. Myconids are fun, but they have to be done right.

 

[Lord Rasputin]

Well, the Dungeon explanation does account for some of it, though Dungeon only publishes more traditional fantasy adventures. It is not the place for, say, Scarred Lands adventures, or adventures in a steampunk world.

The real problem is that adventures are sales that only appeal to one small part of the gaming market -- Game Masters. The ratio of GMs to players is lower than we think around here, since most die-hard gamers straddle the fence. Add to this that GMs write their own adventures, and that a pre-published adventure has to be very close to ideal for a GM's world for the rewriting process to not be longer than the writing-from-scratch process, and we're talking about a small segment of GMs.

Single-adventure products are a losing business proposition. I'd like to think that a book of multiple adventures, geared to a published world (or at least a set of assumptions -- low magic, high tech, or post-apocalpytic) and of varying lengths and levels, would do better, but I have no idea if that would be enough. As for big adventures like Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil or The Red Hand of Doom, those are probably WotC-only since the sheer amount of testing that needs to go into such products is not worth it for the print run for a smaller publisher, and too expensive to do besides.

 

[Hussar]

I dunno, Rappan Athuk seemed to do pretty good.

And, I loves me my World's Largest Dungeon.

But, I agree, the traditional module - 30-50 pages, soft back with removable map - is probably not a good idea. The newer forms that seem to be coming out might be the way to go - tying adventures to minis, including some sort of game with the adventure outside of DnD, collectable adventures? I dunno, something like that.

 

[Lord Rasputin]

I dunno, Rappan Athuk seemed to do pretty good.

And, I loves me my World's Largest Dungeon.

But, I agree, the traditional module - 30-50 pages, soft back with removable map - is probably not a good idea. The newer forms that seem to be coming out might be the way to go - tying adventures to minis, including some sort of game with the adventure outside of DnD, collectable adventures? I dunno, something like that.

Stock responses to the WLD, since I knew someone would bring it up:

* How many copies did it actually sell? My FLGS (across the street from the Dreamhaven Books that Ken Hite mentioned, which is doing so well that it has pared itself down from three to one location in the last few years) has never sold its one copy.

* It's kind of a novelty product anyways.

* And it fits more into a book of adventures than a single adventure book anyways. Most folks who use it probably only play in parts of it.

 

[carpedavid]

I think there are two reasons why adventures aren't strong sellers:

1. Every adventure is written to a specific power level; you might write it for a small range of levels, or you might include scaling information, but you're still targeting a very narrow window. In order for people to be interested, their group has to be at the right level.

2. An adventure has to fit into an existing campaign. Most adventures are written with a strong backstory or a specific flavor that makes them difficut to integrate into an existing campaign. If your characters are in the middle of the wilderness, an urban adventure doesn't do you much immediate good, and vice versa.

The intersection of these two problems is what keeps most people, I'd wager, from extensively using published adventures.

To use an adventure I recently published as an example: Diamond Gulch is an adventure that involves steam trains, dinosaurs, and a wild west feel, for a party of 5-6th level.

As you can see, I'm first targeting a small subset of possible gamers: GMs with a 5-6th level party.

Second, of that significant subset, I'm targeting people running a wild-west themed fantasy setting.

As you might expect, the intersection of those two audiences is pretty tiny.

I think the "Dungeon does it better" argument is really a minor factor in 3rd party adventure sales. I used to subscribe to Dungeon, but I found that I was having exactly the same problems with their adventures as I was with 3rd party ones - which are the problems I listed above.

The "GMs prefer to roll their own" argument carries more weight, I think - but I feel like there's a chicken and egg scenario here. I think that one of the reasons that GMs are used to "rolling their own" is that it's difficult to integrate already published adventures. If you're going to spend as much time adapting someone else's work, you might as well create your own.

I would certainly use published adventures if I thought they'd fit - they just often don't.

 

[Azalnubizar]

well, I'm one of those DMs that would love to purchase a good adventure, since, as other have said before me, I just don't have the time anymore to create my own campaign & adventures from the scratch...

I have purchased most of WotCs adventures (City of the Spider Queen, Hord of the Red Hand and a few of the short ones) but recently I was hard pressed to find an adventure fitting for my group.

It isn't much of a problem to come up with little adventures for groups until the 10th or 12th level, but from there on adventures seem to become ever more difficult & need much more time to develop.

I have to agree with those who say that there aren't many adventures out there.
If I have a look at f.e. RPGNow... they do list 30 entries for d20 fantasy adventures levels 14-20. If you start looking at the actual products this comes up:

1 adventure location level 8-16 (no plot, just the location)
1 adventure location level 12-20 (no plot, just location)
1 Bundle (adventure also listed seperately)
1 adventure level 8+
1 classic conversion level 14-16
1 adventure level 18-20
1 adventure level 7-9
1 adventure level 13-14
1 adventure in a adventure series without levels mentioned
1 adventure level 7-9
1 classic conversion level 14-15
1 adventure level 7-8
1 adventure level 9-10
1 classic conversion level 15
1 adventure level 10-12
1 adventure level 6-8
1 adventure level 9+
1 adventure level 10-12
1 adventure for mid-level
1 adventure for 7th level
1 setting

let's sum it up:
there are 2 adventure settings that might fit into the level range, but most problematic about this level is not only the location IMO, but also a reason why characters should not just skip everything around there and just teleport, air-walk or whatever into the center... I don't know about those...

there are 3 classic conversions that just barely skip the level range but if you are not so much into those classic conversions, skip them

this leaves 1 adventure that just barely makes it near the level range and 1 (just ONE) adventure that could fit (level range 18-20).

using googles caching system (I love it) I even found JoeGKushner's review of it on enworld, which wasn't all that bad...

so, besides finding a high-level adventure at all (most of the few I found are part of an adventure series) - remember, I found 1 on RPG-Now, you need to find a reliable review of it, since you can't just buy something on the net because of the cover... (at least I don't, having had some bad experiences in the past).

I even tried to find an epic adventure for the past week and found out that there is no one who has ever published one (besides WotC themselves inside their epic book, but this one is crap).

Therefore: there aren't that many adventures out there. There are maybe hundreds of low-level adventures but once you start looking above 8th level the list becomes very, very thin.

Next you have to find them - and (IMO) they should be finding you. Maybe get a WotC-page with new products about d20 publishers? Maybe even get WotC to rate them?
Most of the publishers or resellers don't even have a category-system for adventure-levels. Therefore, more often than not, you have to go through all of their products to find adventures and then every 10th adventure goes beyond 8th level... try and do this on two or three pages and you can watch the hours pass...

Once you found one, you need to find a review of it, since you don't want to flush your money down the toilet. This is getting pretty hard since ENWorld review library went crash.

Now, most of the adventures rely on a background, which more often than not, doesn't fit in your campaign at all. I do play FR and there just isn't much out there that would fit into FR (IMO).

I am aware about the problems publishers have on the net, but on the other hand, everyone is building low-level adventures, you have real trouble finding what you r looking for (even on ENWorld you can sort through the reviews by publisher but you can't by book-type, in case of adventures by level range etc etc). And there r very few reliable reviews out there...

yes, it would be nice to be able to use more of the WotC-Stuff in those adventures, but I do believe, that it wouldn't change much. The problem (and therefore the reason, why I rarely buy electronic products of 3rd party publishers) I am having is Information and Quality. As long as this doesn't change (and ENWorld is doing a better job about changing that with News and Reviews) significantly the market for adventures on the net will be too instable, unrelyable and too small for publishers to put much work into adventures... just my 2 cents