D&D 5E Are DMs getting lazy?

[pickin_grinnin]

In the end, I would rather put my effort into building something unique from scratch, rather than spending that time making someone else's creation playable. I can usually come up with better, more unusual, less predictable, and less stereotypical content than most adventure path and module writers, anyway.

 

[Reynard]

I disagree, or at least I disagree that it should be the goal. Because restricting yourself to adventures that you can run as you read necessarily limits the complexity of what can be presented - it becomes much harder to set things up to payoff later, for example.

So I don't think it's unreasonable for companies to provide more complex adventures that do require the DM do some additional work up-front. It would be good, though, if they could give an indication of how much work the DM needs to do before use (the equivalent of "some assembly required").

You're right, of course. There should never be just one style of adventure. Variety is good. But I do think that there should be more "quick play" adventures, where the DM can crack the thing open and run it out of the box or with minimal prep (including reading ahead). I don't think such a thing would have to be completely without complexity or even be geared necessarily toward just new DMs. Plot webs and NPC influence diagrams can convey a lot of information in a very short amount of time.

Part of the problem is that we pay designed and writers by the word (I know because I do it). So there is a tendency to use walls of prose to convey information you could better and more easily convey with simply, short bullet points and visual aids.

 

[Queer Venger]

It seems that in a number of threads, a certain subset of folks are very upset at the lack of adventures and such for 5E, to the point of suggesting they will "run out" of things to do with 5E in a year or so. While I would certainly like to see a more robust release schedule with both standalone modules and setting books (not to mention Dungeon and a Dragon back in publication) the idea that you would "run out" of stuff to do with D&D is just plain weird. It's D&D. One of the core conceits is that you, the DM, will be creating most of the game content (usually in conjunction with your players). Need a new and interesting magic item? Create it. Need a monster that the PCs have not faced before? Create it. Need to know what it costs and how long it takes to create a magic item? Decide. These aren't the burden of the DM, they are the joys!

For fear of of sounding like an in-my-day curmudgeon, are DMs these days just too lazy to make the game their own?

Great post, and good topic of discussion. Im mostly a DM and I remember the time when I had to come up with adventures from scratch. Im a big fan of modules, but when you run for the same group you have to get creative. I think this is one of the elegant strategies of D&D5, its given us the tools we need to create adventures, to let old and new DM's flex their DMing muscles, to let us take the 3 core books and turn them inside out before loading us with modules and options that may intimidate. D&D is one of those games that has a library of 40 years, many of them modules, many of these modules that new players have not played. For this reason Im anxiously awaiting the 5e conversion rules to introduce new players to these great adventures.

 

[Neonchameleon]

For fear of of sounding like an in-my-day curmudgeon, are DMs these days just too lazy to make the game their own?

You're coming off as Old Economy Steven here.

In the 1970s, most games of D&D were focussed round the dungeon as somewhere to explore, loot, and conquer. Writing a dungeon is almost certainly the easiest form of adventure writing - it's a self-contained environment that has to have ideas in it, but doesn't need to make much sense. And there should be plots but they can be cooked rare as the PCs are going to go through them with all the subtlety of a chainsaw through balsa. There wasn't much in the way of mechanics because a statblock normally took up a single line, and by your second adventure you could fake it easily. And still prefab dungeons were pretty popular. (Hexcrawls are possibly even easier to write than dungeons).

In 2015 dungeons are considered a charming diversion rather than the unit of gameplay. I'm not expecting My First Dungeon to keep the party busy for a dozen sessions.

To make my point about statblocks, I'm comparing the Owlbear from the 1E MM with the Owlbear in the basic rules below. And how many numbers each of them has that relate directly to game mechanics. Yes, leaving off the stats is fine - but a newbie DM doesn't know that. (And even a newbie DM can quickly realise that they need Hit Dice, Move, AC, Attacks, Damage, and size - with the rest being about the environment other than the hug and size)

Owlbear
Large monstrosity, unaligned
Armor Class 13 (natural armor)
Hit Points 59 (7d10 + 21)
Speed 40 ft.
STR 20 (+5)
DEX 12 (+1)
CON 17 (+3)
INT 3 (−4)
WIS 12 (+1)
CHA 7 (−2)

Skills
Perception +3
Senses
darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 13
Languages —
Challenge
3 (700 XP)

Keen Sight and Smell.
The owlbear has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight or smell.
Actions
Multiattack.
The owlbear makes two attacks: one with its beak and one with its claws.

Beak.
Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature.
Hit: 10 (1d10 + 5) piercing damage.
Claws.
Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.
Hit: 14 (2d8 + 5) slashing damage.

A monstrous cross between giant owl and bear, an owlbear’s reputation for ferocity and aggression makes it one of the most feared predators of the wild.

So first we have the fact that it's far far simpler to make "My first dungeoncrawl adventure" that mirrors the default style of play than it is to make something that resembles Tyranny of Dragons - and a dungeon crawl is less likely to go off the rails. Second, if running by the book it's far easier to make an old school monster. Third, the AD&D owlbear, despite hit points in the 20s, will last longer than the AC13 5e one so there's more play time for the prep time that way. Fourth, oD&D relied a lot on wandering monsters - which provided content for almost no prep.

Overall I'd estimate that it would take a newbie DM starting from the Red Box somewhere around a fifth of the time to come up with a four session adventure than it would a newbie DM starting from either the basic set or the PHB/DMG/MM - the environment's simpler, the monsters are simpler, they take longer to deal with, and you don't need to fret about the players doing weirdness to upend the plot as much. The gap narrows a lot for experienced DMs - but we aren't talking about experienced DMs here.

 

[Emirikol]

Im not lazy. Im just not a sixteen year old with no life,job,kids,wife,etc with all the freetime in the world anymore. Regarding on the fly made up garbage, its just that and leads directly to player and gm burnout.

 

[Sacrosanct]

In 2015 dungeons are considered a charming diversion rather than the unit of gameplay..

Maybe for you, but this is hardly a universal truth of gamers in 2015. I was running a straight dungeon crawl at my FLGS for encounters for 3 weeks (right before Adventure league kicked off) and it was by far the most popular 5e game being played there with the most interest from players.

It also strikes me as an odd thing to say since in 4e, most players spent the vast majority of real life time in combat in a dungeon/castle.

Speaking of which, that makes me think of another reason to the OP. Back in the 70s/80s, anyone could create their own maps with ease. All you needed was a graph paper and pencil and you could do a map pretty much exactly like one of the published ones. In recent years, it's much harder for Joe Schmo to replicate a battlemap like they would see in a published adventure. A lot more tools are needed since modern gaming seems to be more dependent on minis and battlemaps than what were used back in the day (mostly for general marching order and location--not needing a battlemap).

 

[BryonD]

Maybe for you, but this is hardly a universal truth of gamers in 2015. I was running a straight dungeon crawl at my FLGS for encounters for 3 weeks (right before Adventure league kicked off) and it was by far the most popular 5e game being played there with the most interest from players.

This is a fair point. But I think he still has a point because "back in the day" they were vastly more common. The expectation of a more rich experience is common now, even if pure dungeon crawls are still perfection to some.

 

[Reynard]

Regarding on the fly made up garbage, its just that and leads directly to player and gm burnout.

That seems to be quite a broad assessment and hardly universal.

 

[DM_Jeff]

>>>For fear of sounding like an in-my-day curmudgeon, are DMs these days just too lazy to make the game their own?<<<

Yeppers.

 

[Rygar]

It seems that in a number of threads, a certain subset of folks are very upset at the lack of adventures and such for 5E, to the point of suggesting they will "run out" of things to do with 5E in a year or so. While I would certainly like to see a more robust release schedule with both standalone modules and setting books (not to mention Dungeon and a Dragon back in publication) the idea that you would "run out" of stuff to do with D&D is just plain weird. It's D&D. One of the core conceits is that you, the DM, will be creating most of the game content (usually in conjunction with your players). Need a new and interesting magic item? Create it. Need a monster that the PCs have not faced before? Create it. Need to know what it costs and how long it takes to create a magic item? Decide. These aren't the burden of the DM, they are the joys!

For fear of of sounding like an in-my-day curmudgeon, are DMs these days just too lazy to make the game their own?

Nothing has changed between 1st edition and 5th edition in terms of DMs. You didn't hear any of this before because in 1st through 3rd edition Dungeon and Dragon existed to give time-limited and imagination-limited players regular content to play. You're hearing it now because Dungeon and Dragon do not exist, and the Ebook penetration is reportedly at about 20% at the end of 2014, so it's likely 80% of WOTC's market counts digital Dungeon and Dragon as no Dungeon and Dragon.

As I said previously, doing digital only Dungeon and Dragon was the worst possible decision WOTC could make and stood a very real chance of handing Paizo the market permanently. This is why.

(As far as 4th edition content goes, given what I've read about 4th edition adventures, it's likely they'd long since driven out people who wanted pre-written adventures very early on with the quality that I understand was really bad from 4th edition player's posts here)