D&D 5E Am I the only one that dislikes Adventure Paths?

GameOgre · Feb 24, 2015

One of the worst things to happen to Pathfinder was Adventure Paths. I do get it and understand why some love them. As a DM everything is done for you and it all follows a story that works well together ect..

I just hate them though. Even the good ones are just too massive and too huge and allow for almost no character freedom. When I'm playing role playing games I like to be a proactive player interact with the game world how I want to. Not follow some railroad story to it's conclusion. When I DM my players feel the same way. It's like to start playing one everyone has to agree that they will not really play in character unless that in character role playing follows the adventure paths!

Those arshat nobles that badmouthed us and stole/taxed away all our gold need our help? Break out the picnic basket this should be fun to watch! Oh wait....the DM's hinting that in order to follow the story we need to help them....give me a minute while I shot myself in the head with my crossbow!

The worst thing is that as the adventure paths took off the regular adventure modules got put on the back burner or came out at a slower pace.

Now I just see 5E going down that same road.

Instead of short adventures there are two AP's and talk of many more.

Sigh, What is it with these things? I mean I know they are cool in some ways but in so many more they just suck!

Is everyone just fine following the ball as it bounces through the story line? It just seemed that rpg's used to be so much more.

Morrus · Feb 24, 2015

I'm not sure where you're getting "everyone" and "I'm the only one" from. Different people like different styles of game. But no, you're not the only one, and not everyone is fine "following the ball as it bounces through the story line" (which is a rather derogatory way of describing a play style!)

I like APs myself. I know people who don't. The beauty of RPGs is there's room for everyone!

Eejit · Feb 24, 2015

I guess DMs can run an adventure path yet tailor it enough to allow player freedom, but it requires a lot more work and doesn't seem to be common.

iserith · Feb 24, 2015

GameOgre said:
One of the worst things to happen to Pathfinder was Adventure Paths. I do get it and understand why some love them. As a DM everything is done for you and it all follows a story that works well together ect..

I just hate them though. Even the good ones are just too massive and too huge and allow for almost no character freedom. When I'm playing role playing games I like to be a proactive player interact with the game world how I want to. Not follow some railroad story to it's conclusion. When I DM my players feel the same way. It's like to start playing one everyone has to agree that they will not really play in character unless that in character role playing follows the adventure paths!

Those arshat nobles that badmouthed us and stole/taxed away all our gold need our help? Break out the picnic basket this should be fun to watch! Oh wait....the DM's hinting that in order to follow the story we need to help them....give me a minute while I shot myself in the head with my crossbow!

The worst thing is that as the adventure paths took off the regular adventure modules got put on the back burner or came out at a slower pace.

Now I just see 5E going down that same road.

Instead of short adventures there are two AP's and talk of many more.

Sigh, What is it with these things? I mean I know they are cool in some ways but in so many more they just suck!

Is everyone just fine following the ball as it bounces through the story line? It just seemed that rpg's used to be so much more.

Before running any plot-based adventure, it's important to get buy-in from the players that they will endeavor to stick to the plot and will come up with solid justification as to why their characters care to see it to the end. What you don't want to do is tell them it's a sandbox game and all roads lead to the storyline. That's railroading. But if you're upfront with the players and get their buy-in, then concerns about railroading go away because they have agreed to stick to the plot. If that's not your bag, don't run or play in plot-driven adventures.

I'm not sure how popular adventure paths are, but I'm sure if Wizards is going down that path, they have at least some notion that it will make them more money than, say, location-based adventures that aren't part of a a continuous storyline. I've only run two adventure paths myself - Shackled City and Age of Worms. They worked just fine - because I had buy-in from the players.

Zardnaar · Feb 24, 2015

The bad ones can be a bit linear. I do not mind them but I also like ye olde stand alones.

Gecko85 · Feb 24, 2015

The funny thing is, many of the old classic modules from 1e were actually adventure paths...just broken into smaller chunks. They were even eventually re-released as bundled APs.

Flexor the Mighty! · Feb 24, 2015

Really hate them. But I'm an idiot since I tired to give another one a chance only to hit all the same issues and find myself doing more work than if I had just written up something myself. True 1st world problem there.

Prism · Feb 24, 2015

You are not alone and its generally not how we play. Our campaigns are generally adventure driven up to about 5th - 6th and then character driven from that points.

We are playing HotDQ at the moments and are about to start the last episode. After that we will take both a out of game break from that campaign and some in game down time (by this point someone else will have either stopped Tiamat or not). Then we will come back and follow up on character threads and plots that may have occurred during the first adventure. For example each of us still have the trinket gained at 1st level to investigate.

Adventure paths rarely offer enough downtime for my liking nor character development. When do you get chance to build your castle and recruit and train your staff when you are supposed to be saving the realm

Prism · Feb 24, 2015

Gecko85 said:
The funny thing is, many of the old classic modules from 1e were actually adventure paths...just broken into smaller chunks. They were even eventually re-released as bundled APs.

The difference was though they were much shorter in general. So if you took the Saltmarsh adventures for example and played them as a series you would probably make it to 4th or 5th level. They were all so small that they are more like a big adventure before the next big adventure than a modern day adventure path which defines your campaign

T1-4 was just a big dungeon sandbox

A1-4 was again a sequence or small adventures that you might do mid career and gain a couple of levels

Mark CMG · Feb 24, 2015

GameOgre said:
Am I the only one that dislikes Adventure Paths?

I don't mind if they are presented as mini-settings and do not overly steer players in any particular direction, allowing for clues to NPC machinations to be found and letting the PCs discover and exploit those if they wish to do so.

D&D 5E Am I the only one that dislikes Adventure Paths?

GameOgre

Adventurer

Morrus

Well, that was fun

Eejit

First Post

iserith

Magic Wordsmith

Zardnaar

Legend

Gecko85

Explorer

Flexor the Mighty!

18/100 Strength!

Prism

Explorer

Prism

Explorer

Mark CMG

Creative Mountain Games

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