A Thing I Don't Like About Adventure Paths

So I was just out walking about in the snow with my dogs, and I realized one thing that I don't like about adventure paths (at least those that run for a full campaign): you only ever really defeat one BBEG. I thought this might make for some interesting discussion.

Shouldn't a given hero have more than one bad guy in him? Superheroes have more than one archnemesis. Granted, Luke only fought the Empire, but Kirk dealt with Klingons, Romulans and Khan.

Something like Red Hand of Doom is just about right for my tastes in long adventure lengths. I like lots of common threads in a campaign over time, but I prefer it when the good guys have multiple different major goals and enemies over their career.

I agree, especially after having run a campaign for the last 18 months. I want to move onto new stuff and the players shouldn't have to feel like they have to run the same character for 30 levels, especially with all the cool options nowadays.

Tier-length campaigns probably make a bit more sense. In my current one we're about to end the campaign, then a 2-3 level transition to the Epic level campaign.

I have to respectfully disagree - from my experience running the Age of Worms adventure path. There have been several enemies worthy of the title of BBEG. Some have escaped, others have been dealt with, and others will hopefully be dealt with. I suppose then you have the Super A+++ BBEG at the end of it, but that does not lessen the influence of the BBEG's leading up to the super cheese.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

I suppose it just depends on what fits your group's preferences. Some groups might like having the campaign build up to one BBEG, others maybe don't like the idea of one adversary that's ultimately behind all of their major conflicts. Maybe it's easier to pace a campaign ending climax against just one guy, I don't know.

Either way can work if it's done properly though, I think.

Part of the problem might lie in the whole idea of the "adventure path" itself, where one adventure by necessity leads to the next and the party knows there's always going to be more work to do in order to finish; and thus when they finally get there the players *expect* a climactic battle. Which is fine, but where do you go from there assuming you and the players want to keep going?

It's more work for you as DM, but my suggestion would be to run more modular adventures, each with their own BBEG or climactic moment; but behind the scenes have them somehow tie together into a series. At some point, hopefully right around the start of the last adventure you intend to run, the players will realize there's actually been connections between all of what they've been doing and now it all has led to this.

Even better, if you're running a long campaign, would be to have two or three "paths" going at once, interweaving somehow. That way, you can run a few adventures on one "path", switch to a different path and run one on that, and so on; your players will (or should) see only a series of modular adventures or two-adventure sets - until the payoff. You could plan, for example, to have path A intermittently rear its head for the first while (say, 5 adventures out of 9), while path B starts as the 4th adventure and shows up now and then say 8 times over the next 15, and path C starts fresh sometime after A is done. So, on a schematic it'd look something like:

1 A - start of path A
2 A
3 X - an adventure not intended as part of any path, for variety
4 B - start of path B
5 X
6 A
7 B
8 A
9 A* - end of path A - major event here
10 B
11 B
12 X - side effect here might be to tie results of path A into path B?
13 B
14 C - start of path C
15 B
16 C
17 X
18 B
19 B* - end of path B - major event here
20 C
21 etc., you can keep C going as long as you like, or revisit something from path A or B, or whatever.

The only problem arises when adventures in a path *do* logically lead one to the next like falling dominoes; I'm finding this in my current campaign, where I've been running a modified version of the old A-series (slavers) - I'd like to break it up with other adventures, but the back-story set-up doesn't really allow it - and I suspect my players have had their fill of slavers by now.

Lanefan

I think it all depends on the adventure path and when the next "BBEG" is revealed and what is the relation to the last. It's possible you fight multiple factions, for example, and only later discover that some of these factions had common allies and enemies.

If an AP states its BBEG in the first adventure and there are 8 more to get to him, it might really feel just like one BBEG. But that's not the model in most APs.

To me, any decent BBEG worthy of an entire adventure path will have a maze of friendly, neutral and unfriendly factions working toward his goal, knowingly or not. The T(ruly)BBEG will manipulate Good Guys into helping him reach his goal. He will lure other bad guys into his plans with promises of power. He will trick dangerous bad guys into being his patsy so that any Heroes in the area become busy dealing with that BBEG and the TBBEG flies under their radar.

In fact, getting the party to work for the TBBEG (unknowingly of course) is just the kind of thing that makes for fun final confrontations.

How? Well, you first need a goal that isn't too personal. Conquering warlords general aren't as subtle as the TBBEG I'm talking about but they make good distraction BBEGs that the TBBEG can camouflage his true goal with. Heck, the TBBEG could hire the party to defeat the patsy BBEG. (And once you start running these things through your head you eventually make the "patsy" the TTBBEG.)

Im playing through the Shackled City Adventure Path at the moment.

Only halfway but there have been several BBEG's so far and several that we know of or suspect might appear in the future chapters.

Aran Thule said:

Im playing through the Shackled City Adventure Path at the moment.

Only halfway but there have been several BBEG's so far and several that we know of or suspect might appear in the future chapters.

Click to expand...

Yup, I was going to mention SCAP as a counter-example.

It has about 13 BBEGs that are nicely distributed over the individual adventures, including several spectacular returns of BBEGs previously thought defeated/dead.

if you accept T1-4 as one of the first published adventure paths in the game then...

spoliers ahead.



you can see there are several factions all trying to achieve a goal. and the goal is a BBEGal unto herself.

who can free her or keep her locked up or banish her or reap the rewards from selling to other sides or...

plenty, plenty of opportunities.


still i hate T1-4. it is by far the worst module TSR put out for 1edADnD. not the worst product from the day. The Shady Dragon Inn still holds that honor.

edit: the problem with T1-4 is the options. too many open ended ones. which don't play a part in the goal. meaning for the PCs to complete they need to have a strong focus from start to finish.