D&D 5E Published Adventures: Yea or Nay?

[sgtscott658]

This....

I pretty much do the same thing, I like running published adventures but most of the time I tweak them to be a better fit for my campaign.

Question, I saw on ebay an adventure called Ghosts of Dragonspear, is this adventure still compatible with 5E?

Scott

I'm a sucker for adventures, too, though it's a rare occasion that one will be run as written. The level of adaption varies by a wide margin.

When developing my own stuff, I usually find the technical part, like statting monsters and introducing all the details tireing. It's much easier for me to modify the given thing even on the spur of the moment.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I also use published adventures all the time, either run as-is, or morphed into something more appropriate for the particular section of the campaign it falls into.

However, I also freely admit that I much prefer the plots of published modules, rather than just the encounters within them. I pull the modules with the interesting stories connected to them and which have the stories intertwined with the interactions within. Which is why I actually find lots of the really old modules kind of useless. I don't need help putting a bunch of monsters and a couple traps within a dungeon... I want help in creating an interesting plot as to why they are there, what they are doing, who else has interest in it, and what are the potential long-term results should this plotline work or not work.

So the Caves of Chaos? To me, that's a big 'meh'. A castle with a list of NPCs to talk to (but no throughline as to why talking to them is wanted or necessary), and a series of caves that have a random list of monsters in them. That kind of thing I can come up with on my own.

It's a compelling storyline/plot/mystery like in Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh or The Last Breaths of Ashenport that I really find to be the most useful and interesting.

 

[Umbran]

Traditionally, I have not made much use of published adventures, except for Shadowrun, where laying out some really twisted details ahead of time makes sense - and the authors had more time to do it properly than I did.

I recently returned to Shadowrun (also in 5e, coincidentally), and I am lamenting the lack of adventure support. While I'm more sopphisticated, and can do a better job of twisty plots now, my game runs once a month, and having a solid, documented adventure still makes sense.

So, I can certainly see some use for published adventures, in general.

Moreover, when a Deadlands game I'm running wraps up, I'm considering moving to 5e. And it occurs to me that I wouldn't mind having some adventure support there...

 

[delericho]

One of the best campaigns I have ever run was "Shackled City". So, it's a 'yes' from me.

That said, most of the games I run use homebrew adventures. Amongst other things, I tend to run bi-weekly sessions of 3 hours each, and most published campaigns seem to work better with both longer and more frequent sessions.

It's perhaps also worth noting that I don't rate most published adventures terribly highly. Even many of the 'good' published adventures often turn out to be significantly flawed in some way - making them better for idea mining than for running in their own right. But it does also make those adventures that are very good all the more worthwhile by comparison.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I like them, more solo adventures than adventure paths though so I hope WOTC doesn't think the Paizo method is the only way. With as fast as 5e levels up I'm going to run the Tyranny of Dragons as we get a grip on the system and all that. Then I'm going to switch to my own stuff, and hopefully killer stand alone adventures that WoTC or some 3rd party puts out.

 

[Joe Liker]

I'm better at running material I make up myself (with a lot of help from the participating players).

So traditionally, "no," but that's not to say it could never happen. However, with my recent experiences in HotDQ, you can bet I'll be waiting and reading a lot of reviews before I purchase anything WotC farms out to other studios.

 

[dmccoy1693]

If they go back to 1E style adventures, yes.

I like them, more solo adventures than adventure paths

When you say "Solo" adventures or "1e" style adventures, do you mean, "stand alone, able to fit into any campaign setting with little to no adjustment," kinda like Goodman Games did back in the 3e days?

 

[dmccoy1693]

I love published adventures. I do my own homebrew adventures, but I tend to liberally sprinkle published adventures through them - and use published adventures to allow me to run more than one campaign a week.

I've been reviewing the third-party 5E-compatible adventures as I find them, but I'm still waiting for one to really impress me.

Good adventure writing is *hard*.

Cheers!

I'll be sure to send you review copies if/when there is a 5e compatible license and I sign up.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

When you say "Solo" adventures or "1e" style adventures, do you mean, "stand alone, able to fit into any campaign setting with little to no adjustment," kinda like Goodman Games did back in the 3e days?

Yeah, like classic AD&D type modules where it wasn't overly tied to any one setting, or part of a massive chain that the players will have to use for an entire campaign. You could tie the Against the Giants with the Vault of the Drow stuff, but didn't have to. It had Greyhawk names but wasn't totally tied to that setting. But mostly stand alone stuff so I can easily fit it in with my own stuff, or other adventures.

 

[Nebulous]

I start with published adventures all the time. If they don't exist, I won't play. This is the biggest fail in 5e launch, imo.

?? They do have published adventures for 5e.