"Are the Authors of the Dungeon & Dragons Hardcover Adventures Blind to the Plight of DMs?"

TheSword said:

Princes of the apocalypse is a set of wildly disparate locations that link together by having a theme to the enemies but they are all very different, as are the towns and villages in the Sumber Hills. It isn’t one story there are lots of enemies and the PCs pierce layers to reach the bigger villains further on in the campaign.

Click to expand...

I was a player in PotA and I found it very confusing. (It didn’t help that our sessions were a bit randomly spaced due to scheduling conflicts). But once we pierced the main dungeon we just tried to keep on going and in the end it became exhausting.

If there’s any adventure that needs a great DM to keep it interesting (and comprehensible!) for the players I’d say it’s PotA.

TheSword said:

I don’t think you’re being fair to the published Campaign Books. All a campaign really is, are a series of linked adventures. Connected by theme, location or overarching plot. Most campaigns that I have seen run around a set home base or a set rising threat.

Princes of the apocalypse is a set of wildly disparate locations that link together by having a theme to the enemies but they are all very different, as are the towns and villages in the Sumber Hills. It isn’t one story there are lots of enemies and the PCs pierce layers to reach the bigger villains further on in the campaign.

Out of the Abyss is a series of individual encounters/adventures set in the underdark and the theme that demon lords walk amongst us. The locations are all very different and are really a set of separate adventures.

Similarly curse of strahd could easily be viewed as 14 separate adventures linked by Strahd himself and the setting.

In all three, players can interact with the story however they like, the DM can chose which hooks to feed to the players and which section can fill which gap, cut things out, alter things etc. I really don’t see how it is any different to a DM stringing 3 adventures out of dungeon magazine together in a home brew setting.

Click to expand...

I'm not saying that they are bad. And I, for one, have enjoyed the fact that each one of the APs has been written with a different design approach.

Although OotA has a lot of different adventures, they are all ultimately leading toward one final conclusion. The AP doesn't have a lot of potential alternate story lines should they decide to go a different direction, nor is it designed in a way where different groups of characters could easily play out different parts of the story.

***Possible Spoiler Alerts for Out of the Abyss***

For example, let's say I as a DM decide we'll run OotA. The players make their escape and are into the Underdark. From the book "The adventurers must find a way out of the Underdark and back to the surface world." First off, why? Why aren't there other options? Why aren't they able to determine who enslaved them, and possibly take revenge? Regardless, the book goes on to say that their fellow former slaves know how to get to other places in the Underdark, but can't help them get to the surface. And if left to their own devices, they wander until they find somebody that can point them in the right direction for the AP. That is, there is no consideration for an alternate story line. There are subplots, and lots of variety, and they are for the most part really well written adventures. But I wouldn't consider them campaigns.

End spoilers

To me, a campaign is more than just stringing adventures together. It's more about providing the setting for the adventures to take place in, an ongoing setting with the stories of lots of games and lots of adventures. The players through their PCs have more of a say as to what they do, and what adventures they choose. The original campaigns were things like the Gygax home campaign, where lots of players had lots of characters dropping in and out, developing the setting and some of its stories as they went. The Greenwood Forgotten Realms campaign is similar.

Really it comes down to the players/characters being able to explore the setting, to "write" alternate stories, rather than the one provided by the AP. While you can rearrange the parts of the APs in any way you want, the overall plot remains the same.

It's really more a matter of tools. A DM with an established campaign can react more easily to players "going off-script" while a new DM that doesn't have anything like a campaign, or experience in dealing with it can run into trouble. Especially if the players decide they don't want to pursue the main plot at all. The APs generally give advice on how to get the PCs back on track, that is, to follow the plot. The article linked in the OP was commenting that the APs are too sandboxy without providing the right tools for the DM to handle that. I think that's partially correct. I think they need to provide better tools, but that they aren't too sandboxy. The tools that are lacking in this edition are those that help flesh out a campaign.

Even the DMG isn't really a help here. It talks about designing adventures, and has pushed the stuff between adventures largely into downtime. But it's the between adventures stuff that is needed when the PCs go off-script. New DMs aren't typically prepared to improvise, and especially not when the PCs decide that they don't want to follow the overarching plot at all.

Ilbranteloth said:

A campaign doesn't have to be homemade. Mine has been set in the Realms since '87 and has incorporated almost all of the published materials including novels. And it's not that the APs can't be used as part of a campaign. They just aren't designed that way inherently.

I guess if I were to define it a bit differently, a sandbox is open exploration of the setting, and a campaign is open exploration of the story? That is, instead of having a set story, the story is really more that of the setting and the characters, rather than a predetermined plot with an end.

My point though, is more along the lines that without something "beyond the book" it is difficult for a DM to handle when the PCs decide they don't want to follow the published story. The part that is missing beyond the book isn't necessarily the setting itself. They have SCAG, and most of the APs are mini setting guides as well. There isn't really a lack of geography and such, but of the plot hooks that aren't related specifically toward pulling the PCs into the AP's plot.

You can do this with a single AP, but it doesn't do it on its own. It needs the DM's input (whether planned or improvised) to allow something other than the published plot.

Click to expand...

I think your posts are very insightful on this matter.

I would like to note that the campaign doesn't have to be a sweeping epic in scope. It can start small... all you need are Three Hexes

I think this is something WoTC doesn't help with or support and they should. I've found the Adventure Paths to be tedious to prep for, to actually run. They have a lot of moving parts and there's a lot of narrative setup involved. They all seem to have to have some complicated social web or intrigue. You have to get all that in order and understand it.

I have been DM'ing for over 10 years and I find them difficult to prep for... imagine how a new DM would feel.

I think WoTC should think smaller with their published modules. Or, at least, consider a line of modules that are smaller in scope. A single straight forward dungeon or small region of adventure locations. Build up a campaign, holistically, from smaller building blocks in a way that better supports when PC's go beyond the published story.

I mean, if you and your friends want to get together to play D&D for an evening, you don't need any more complicated a hook than "You are standing at the entrance to the dungeon". I don't understand why every adventure needs some crazy hook or complicated setup... if you want to play D&D, you just play it.

Morrus said:

Dunno. What do you think?

Click to expand...

That article needs to take some of its own advice, it needs hooks. The article does a poor job of grabbing and holding my attention. I had to force myself to keep coming back to it, and I frequently found myself skimming it instead of forcing myself to digest every detail.

I do agree with you that room and area descriptions add more work in that you have to read them to see if anything in them is important. However, until recently I only ran my own homemade adventures. The work I have to do by reading a published adventure ahead of time and changing flavor text as appropriate is far less work than making my own adventure. And it certainly doesn't reach the level of a "ridiculous" amount, as the article quotes someone as saying and appears to agree with him.

I've never run any published adventures before LMoP and PotA (which I'm in the middle of running), and I only ran those because I was in school and lacked the time to invest in making my own adventures. Therefore, I can't really speak to the flaws or good points of any other adventures (WotC or otherwise).

One thing I took away from the article is that there are a lot of "Think of the New DMs™" going on in it and other web pages. Typically written by Not-New DMs.

I'd really like to get the opinions of actual New DMs on this topic, as well as the ease and accessibility of 5e in general. Has anyone actually bothered to ask New DMs, or is there just a lot of assumptions (as well-meaning as they may be)?

robus said:

Hmm - perhaps there’s niche in DMs Guild for “The New DMs Guide to XXX” where a simpler (more linear/optimal path) through an adventure is presented?

Click to expand...

There are several. For Curse of Strahd, I found Sean McGovern's A Guide to Curse of Strahd to be helpful. I converted his outline to an MS Word document and edited it to create a runbook that I printed and use to track the party's progress.

Also, I knew that I didn't want to do straight XP leveling but I found the milestone leveling guidance in the book only minimally helpful. I looked at a number of blog posts and forum discussions but ended up using R. Padron'st A Structured Milestone System for Curse of Strahd. He uses a fractional milestone system that gives rewards not only for meeting various plot goals and completing quests but also exploration and finding important items. I feel it gives direct rewards for player actions, like XP, and rewards all three pillars of play. It would be great if something like this was built into the book.

Actually, the lack of help with XP and leveling in the APs is another example of how unfriendly these books are towards new DMs. They don't need to have a complex fractional milestone system designed. Instead, just give a suggested XP value for each section. Trail of the Apprentice Adventure Path by Legendary Games is a good example of this.

I’m running Curse of Strahd with 2 groups now. Both entered Death a house, which so thought was going to bore them because of all of the rooms that basically had nothing of significance. I guess I was able to make the kids creepy enough and build suspense and they ended up loving it.

However, the read-aloud description boxes should have included a lot more of the texts. When they entered a room I would read the character text not in the read-aloud box so they would get s description of what was in the room, but then there would description mixed in that players shouldn’t know.

AaronOfBarbaria said:

Things I did claim:
Tales from the Yawning Portal is a "something for everyone" styled product. That claim was explicit.

Click to expand...

And ridiculous in the larger context.

Yawning Portal is a bunch of dungeon crawls, with no continuity between them, almost no setting or background, ~0 towns, ~0 NPCs, ~0 exploration, ~0 social interaction, etc. So "something for everyone" could only mean "...among those who are interested in old-school, stand-alone, decontextualized dungeon crawls."

By that measure a box with a variety of blacksmithing tongs has "something for everyone".

Someone being interested in one adventure, but not the others, is not necessarily an indication that books of an approach other than "something for everyone" would do well in the current market. That one was implied.
Curse of Strahd is in a similar position to Tales from the Yawning Portal, as it is the sole adventure some people are interested in out of those published by WotC for 5th edition.

And if I were personally asked to pick one adventure book of those currently published as being "not like the others", I'd tell the person asking me this: they are all different in some ways, and the same in others, so you're going to have to devise some scale upon which to weight the variety of differences (example: this one's linear, that one's not (though it's megaman style in that choosing your path through the content also adjusts the overall difficulty). this one's chapters are loosely related, that one's chapters flow directly into each other, and so on) if you want an answer any more accurate than "they are all different in some ways, and the same in others."

Click to expand...

Yeah, sure, all the adventures are special snowflakes.

This argument is getting ridiculous. If you can't even acknowledge that all the adventure books except Yawning Portal followed a pattern, and that YP is fundamentally a different kind of product, then there's really no point to this.

MNblockhead said:

Actually, the lack of help with XP and leveling in the APs is another example of how unfriendly these books are towards new DMs. They don't need to have a complex fractional milestone system designed. Instead, just give a suggested XP value for each section. Trail of the Apprentice Adventure Path by Legendary Games is a good example of this.

Click to expand...

I think the APs do a good job of supporting the Milestone Leveling system in favor of XP. Which I think is probably a smart move. [MENTION=6563]Azzy[/MENTION] makes a good point above that we're all guessing what is easy or difficult for a new DM, but I would think taking away XP and all the maintenance that goes with it would probably make things easier.

I mean, I've been DMing for a long time and I ditched XP a while back and it's helped quite a bit.

I think that's why the APs largely seem to assume Milestone XP....it's simply easier. "The characters should likely be at least 4th level before they go to this area" is a lot easier to understand and process for a DM, regardless of their experience behind the screen.

I know many long time DMs and players would hate the idea of having no XP, and that's fine, but to me it makes more sense for that to be the "advanced" method, and leave Milestone as the default. Especially since the published adventures cover such a large level range.

plisnithus8 said:

I’m running Curse of Strahd with 2 groups now. Both entered Death a house, which so thought was going to bore them because of all of the rooms that basically had nothing of significance. I guess I was able to make the kids creepy enough and build suspense and they ended up loving it.

However, the read-aloud description boxes should have included a lot more of the texts. When they entered a room I would read the character text not in the read-aloud box so they would get s description of what was in the room, but then there would description mixed in that players shouldn’t know.

Click to expand...

Then you would have many DMs complain that the adventure was filled with too much fluff. "Why," many experience DMs ask, "do you need to waste space on detailed descriptions on a room of no great import. A good DM should be able to--and would want to--make up the details." Instead, I've read many critics recommend that the adveture books use that space for more in-line stat blocks so DMs don't have to go to another book--or the back of the book--for them.

I can understand that sentiment, but I think this is another area where there is a balancing act that WotC has to play. I think in CoS they did a good job overall with area and room descriptions. Personally, I think they should err more on the side of wordier descriptions to help newer DMs or experienced DMs that just need a crutch now and then. A good DM can ignore the read-out boxes. That doesn't mean it is a waste.

This is where new media formats should help. For example, in products like DnD Beyond and RealmWorks (RW doesn't have official AP material from WotC yet, but the functionality is great for running homebrew or the adventures they have) the content is cross-linked, allowing you to jump to a monster (or right click and open in a new tab). When an NPC is mentioned, same thing. Maps are linked to descriptions. VTTs go a step further by letting you load and run the encounters. I'm not using a VTT but I've seen games run in Fantasy Grounds and the level of automation is impressive. If you don't have to enter the content in yourself, VTTs are great aid for DMs.

Some features I have not seen in a VTT or digital adventure yet, that would really help make adventures helpful for DMs of ALL levels:

* in addition to linking content, have hover-over text to give a very brief synopsis for those moments where you need to refresh your recollection and don't want to leave the focus on the current page.

* use a layers approach. For example, the DnD Beyond Character creator has multiple modes, one for new players where it is very verbose and hand-hold and a mode for advanced players that allows you to jump right into making your selections. Why not do something similar for APs? When you open the AP in a PDF or in DnD Beyond, or some other digital format, have the option to show/hide DM tips, show/hide call-out text, or even a verbose/concsise option for room descriptions.

Now that WotC is starting to make their material available in digital formats, and formats that *should* be able to provide a lot more value-added features than PDF, I would really like to see the third-party publishers with licenses to publish in digital format to add more value than "you can read it on your phone."