D&D 5E Which Would You Rather Buy/Use?

[Bawylie]

A.) a campaign setting with enough adventure in it to cover a years' gaming (like what WOTC is currently offering)? 256 pages. $35-$50.

B.) a single adventure that covers ~2 months of gaming. 40 pages. $7-$10.

C.) a series of adventures (covering 1-2 months of gaming) that are loosely tied and set within a single setting? 1 product. 1 years worth of gaming like A but not a single overarching plot, more like episodes. 256 pages. $35-&50.

D.) some combination.

E.) none of that & you write your own stuff. Anyway what a weird questions. Plus it depends on the setting, doesn't it? Why are you even asking me this?

F.) I have a better idea.

(Just curious )

 

[sleypy]

Depends. I think I would go with B, but if I was really impressed with the quality of adventures and it is easy enough to strip out setting specific information I could possibly go for C.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I'm giving OotA a try but I'm more a smaller stand alone module kind of guy.

 

[77IM]

C. Assuming the adventures are up to my quality standards, I'd rather get the package discount. ;}

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I prefer a mix of them doing everything for me, like with their current full-campaign adventures, and them providing me nothing more than the tools to do everything for myself (the Dungeon Master's Guide + Monster Manual, and the occasional infusion of new ideas that maybe I hadn't thought of on my own).

So, basically, I like what WotC is currently doing.

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

I think I might fit E.
Our group only very rarly runs published adventures, think we did about 4 or 5 since we started playing in the ADnd 2nd edition times and usualy after a release of a new edition to get a feal for the new rules.

the curent products might incluse a lot of things one could borrow ideas from besides the asdventure, but as far as I know the books are mainly the adventure.
And if that s the case it does seem a waste of money to me to spend money on a adventure we will never run.

 

[DEFCON 1]

A.

I want plot and story. A larger book with one central storyline has more opportunities for interesting hooks, twists, and side paths, all of which feed into a long-term plan and goal. And they also then allow me to make my own side paths off of it if/when the party chooses to go off into another direction, with the knowledge of an overarching arc that I can feed the players hooks to get them back into it.

I already own hundreds of individual modules from the last forty years of gaming... and most of the time they are nothing but perfunctory story hooks with a half-dozen monsters lined up for the party to fight through. I can make those myself. A blank map and a monster manual and I can create the Caves of Chaos. But it's the why of the Caves of Chaos's existence, the why of the party going to the Caves of Chaos, the why of how the Caves of Chaos is a part of some bigger thematic whole that I like to have, and that usually only come out of a larger campaign-spanning adventure book.

 

[Cristian Andreu]

A.

Though I write my own adventures and settings most of the times, I also like to play in published settings; I prefer a hefty world book filled with hooks and inspiring ideas than a module focused on a specific adventure. Plus I love collecting campaign books in general.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

F.

Not a new idea... mostly just a reaffirmation of the old. I *love* the way the old 1e modules were done. One every month or so, 32'ish pages, unattached card-stock mono-chrome-map cover. Lots of maps, simple NPC descriptions with bare-minimum stats (re: no half-page or full-page+ "detailed write up"). Random encounter charts for various areas, levels, etc. Overall story baseline, with one or two 'plots' going on that can be taken and run with...or completely ignored...as the DM desires. Something I can pick up, skim over for an hour before game time, and just play some f'in D&D!

All these new "story first, substance second" adventures that WotC/Subsids are putting out are fine and dandy, but MUCH too expensive for the amount of replayability they are likely to get, as well as being just outright horrible for actual in-game use. When I have to have a half dozen book marks (at least!) in a big, clunky hardback just to run one "encounter"...something is wrong. That is not conducive to making the DM's life easier to run a game.

Give me a b/w, floppy, stapled-together 32 page adventure module that is written with the same mentality that 5e was written in (re: "fast and loose", or "here are the basics, you can flavour to taste"). A lot of old modules get poo-poo'ed for various reasons. However, I have played (mostly DM'ed) a LOT of my old modules over and over....with primarily the same group of players!... all through my DM'ing experience. I can't tell you how many times I've run "The Keep on the Borderlands", "Dwellers of the Forbidden City", or "The Secret of Bone Hill". But I can tell you that every single time I ran them, they had different stories, outcomes, surprises and experiences. For $10 each (roughly), I've gotten probably THOUSANDS of $$$ worth of adventure out of them.

The "Lost Mines of Phandelver" in the Starter Set was the right way to go (sans glossy pages...I can't stand glossy pages). Alas, WotC decided to nix that and go with $65 hardback "story books you can play" so that they can more easily do whatever the hell it is they are trying to do with "D&D, the Experience!" branding shenanigans.

So, yeah. Bring back the 1e style adventure modules style!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Barantor]

Hiya!

F.

Not a new idea... mostly just a reaffirmation of the old. I *love* the way the old 1e modules were done. One every month or so, 32'ish pages, unattached card-stock mono-chrome-map cover. Lots of maps, simple NPC descriptions with bare-minimum stats (re: no half-page or full-page+ "detailed write up"). Random encounter charts for various areas, levels, etc. Overall story baseline, with one or two 'plots' going on that can be taken and run with...or completely ignored...as the DM desires. Something I can pick up, skim over for an hour before game time, and just play some f'in D&D!

All these new "story first, substance second" adventures that WotC/Subsids are putting out are fine and dandy, but MUCH too expensive for the amount of replayability they are likely to get, as well as being just outright horrible for actual in-game use. When I have to have a half dozen book marks (at least!) in a big, clunky hardback just to run one "encounter"...something is wrong. That is not conducive to making the DM's life easier to run a game.

Give me a b/w, floppy, stapled-together 32 page adventure module that is written with the same mentality that 5e was written in (re: "fast and loose", or "here are the basics, you can flavour to taste"). A lot of old modules get poo-poo'ed for various reasons. However, I have played (mostly DM'ed) a LOT of my old modules over and over....with primarily the same group of players!... all through my DM'ing experience. I can't tell you how many times I've run "The Keep on the Borderlands", "Dwellers of the Forbidden City", or "The Secret of Bone Hill". But I can tell you that every single time I ran them, they had different stories, outcomes, surprises and experiences. For $10 each (roughly), I've gotten probably THOUSANDS of $$$ worth of adventure out of them.

The "Lost Mines of Phandelver" in the Starter Set was the right way to go (sand glossy pages...I can't stand glossy pages). Alas, WotC decided to nix that and go with $65 hardback "story books you can play" so that they can more easily do whatever the hell it is they are trying to do with "D&D, the Experience!" branding shenanigans.

So, yeah. Bring back the 1e style adventure modules style!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

This.

It's one of the reasons I bought the Goodman Games sets (Fey Sister's Fate, War-lock, etc) and the Quests of Doom from Frog God Games (series of small adventures).

I tend to use my own over arching plot and then put these in as either an offshoot of the main story, or redo one of the NPCs in the story to attach to my campaign story.

Most of them are able to be adapted to whatever setting I want with minimal effort unless it is something like Dark Sun.

Big books are a big investment and I find that I can adapt stories to the players characters better with short and concise adventures.