D&D 5E Why (and when) did "Adventure Paths" replace modules?

[S'mon]

Yep. In my crazier moments, I sometimes wonder if a Dungeon-like e-mag would be feasible - say three short adventures per month, PDF only, $10.

PDF magazine? $5 is pushing it. I'd think free & supported by advertising (inc publisher's own
advertising) would work best. Good adventures don't sell much, but they can help sell a lot of PHBs.
A whole lot of people bought 5e PHBs to play my Shattered Star campaign - a Paizo AP.

 

[S'mon]

Yes, and I probably did pay $20 for it taking into account inflation. (£5 in the mid 1980s)

And if I knew the quality was there, ie I trusted the author (Graeme Morris was one of THE best) then I'd be happy to keep paying that amount for good adventures.

Yeah, I remember paying £4.99 for Against the Cult of the Reptile God (32pp) when a
128 page saddle-stitch hardback was £10.99.

 

[Mark CMG]

I think there are a few misconceptions being glossed over in this thread that might have folks thinking they are disagreeing or agreeing with one another when they may not be. Not that it is all that important. Anyway, much of what was originally called a "module" was literally a modular mini-setting without any hard-and-fast narrative beyond the hooks and thus no particular expected "adventure" in the story sense of the word. As TSR expanded beyond the early core of employees, some came in and wrote modules more along the lines of what was expected to be a particular adventure.

As pointed out above, the DL series is a good example of an early adventure path though I wouldn't be so sure about the earlier part of the GDQ series. In the Giant series, for example, there was something happening in a location in each and the idea was for the PCs to do something about it, but you weren't going from point A to point H and hitting all the letters in between as a matter of plotting. Sure, there was also the idea that if they were tackled in order the PCs would be roughly equipped and experienced enough to handle what was in subsequent endeavors but they were as close to modular as something like that could be expected to be. This has not often been true for quite some time.

While the early 3.XE Sunless Citadel series was modular in that you could substitute your own for this one or that one fairly easily, each given adventure was not a mini-setting in the way that early modules were, and had much more plotting and expected linear behavior to be followed. Again, calling back to the DL series, I think we'd all agree that those were as linear as almost anything that has been written under the brand.

So, if the question is "When did the terminology changed?" that's easy to pinpoint with not too much digging and has been done up-thread. But if the implied question is when did stuff become primarily-linear *within* the adventures as well as primarily-linear for each series, that jumps back and forth a bit.

 

[Gadget]

Funny how the OSR people are able to produce tons of often good-quality modules, no
problem.

I'm not familiar with these OSR products, what format do they take? Are they actually printed and bound, sent out through a distribution chain of suppliers and retail stores? Or are they some type of print-on-demand/ pdf download product? Are they more of a Labor of love, or do they actually make some profit for the authors?

I wouldn't wonder that a smaller, 'out of the garage' type operation would be able to produce something through non-traditional channels to a smaller market segment and have it be worth their while. But I would be surprised if it was something WOTC would see as worth their while, though I could be wrong.

 

[rooneg]

Funny how the OSR people are able to produce tons of often good-quality modules, no
problem.

They do so because they're willing to produce them at razor thin profit margins. Few of those companies are actually anybody's day job. Heck, the BFRPG stuff you reference is literally free. Nobody's saying it's impossible to produce short adventures, just that it's not typically cost effective for companies that aren't effectively being subsidized by their owners.

 

[Libramarian]

I am not a big fan of adventure paths either, but with the limited attentions spans of much of today's youth they are necessary, as many groups like to finish a "campaign" in a few months and then move onto the next campaign with new characters. Another example of the video gamification of RPGs.

On the face of it this is a peculiar assertion. RPG adventures have become larger and more complex because today's youth have limited attention spans?

I don't like long, complex adventures because the prep is punishing. Prep to play time approaches 1 : 1, whereas when I run a module-based campaign for D&D it's more like 1 : 10.

I wonder if APs have become popular simply because it's not immediately apparent how much work they are to run. They look much easier to use than they are. I was looking at Out of the Abyss, and it seems like to WotC sandbox means the DM needs to know the next 120 pages of content because the players can do it in any order. To me, sandbox means the content and game structure support emergent play--complex output from simple input. This should have the opposite effect: less prep is required than a linear adventure, not more.

 

[greyauthor]

I'm running my first adventure path and did so to get myself immersed in 5E. There are pros and cons. I like that it forces me to think in terms of a linear campaign, which I generally have issues with. It is also useful to have the encounters laid out for you. I do concede it takes time and study, but the games run quite smoothly and the focus on storytelling is infinitely easier.

 

[rooneg]

I wonder if APs have become popular simply because it's not immediately apparent how much work they are to run. They look much easier to use than they are. I was looking at Out of the Abyss, and it seems like to WotC sandbox means the DM needs to know the next 120 pages of content because the players can do it in any order. To me, sandbox means the content and game structure support emergent play--complex output from simple input. This should have the opposite effect: less prep is required than a linear adventure, not more.

OotA is a sandbox adventure with an overarching plot running through it. There are various events that are going to happen, and the players can jump from place to place in the sandbox with relative freedom until they pick up on what's happening (and then end up on their quest to solve the problem in the second half). That means that yes, you need to read chapter 2 to learn how to run the "we're walking through the Underdark from point A to point B" parts of the story, and you should probably have some vague idea of what can/will happen at the various places they might go. You don't need complete understanding of everything that happens at Gracklstugh until your players get there though, for example.

I admit, they probably could have done a better job of providing you with the "big picture" part first, as opposed to assuming you were just going to read the whole damn thing (well, more like "the whole damn half", since the first and second halves are pretty independent of each other), but all in all I think it works pretty well.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I suppose I could run a thread search for 'D&D Insider', and go through the myriad of threads where people said they weren't going to subscribe because they didn't like "renting" material... but in truth I just don't care enough to do so.

But if you managed to avoid the ridiculous attitudes many players had towards the 4E game... I'm not going to ruin it for you by suggesting you go back and wade through the morass. I'm not that cruel. LOL.

I guess it depends on if you were a player or a DM. DM's getting 3 adventures a month + electronic access to the entire 4E library of rules and the character generator + "Dragon" magazine articles were probably getting a good deal, especially since you could download PDF copies of the adventures (at least I heard you could).

Players, on the other hand, may not have got any value out of the adventures and may have seen $6/month for the rest of the stuff as not great value.

If you were a DM and weren't satisfied with the value, then I'm not sure what else WotC could have offered while still making it profitable for them.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

That's great for us, but not so good for the companies involved: now they either need to have the best-selling items in the line carry the duds (pushing the price up higher), or they have a situation where two duds in a row cause the line to fail. (Bear in mind that they can't know when a 'dud' is coming. If they could, they wouldn't bother publishing them at all - it's not like their tried to make "The Forest Oracle" suck!)



I've snipped lots of stuff. I agree with you about the utility of those smaller volumes. I even agree that these big hardbacks are a poor way to deliver the adventure material. Unfortunately, though, I remain convinced that we're stuck with them. Again, WotC must be aware that this format isn't ideal from an ease-of-use perspective, so if it was practical to change then I'm sure they would.



I'm afraid it doesn't work that way, for the same reason that my example $50 book was "Out of the Abyss" at 256 pages and not the "Monster Manual" at 350+. They produced many, many more copies of the Starter Set knowing that it would sell huge numbers. That vastly reduced the cost to produce each copy, and meant they could sell it at a knock-down price. Heck, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that one was a genuine loss-leader for the line.

A new standalone adventure, or even an "Expert Set" to expand on the "Starter Set" simply wouldn't sell those numbers, meaning a much smaller print run, and therefore a necessarily higher price.

Sometimes, economies of scale are a great thing. Sometimes, they work against you.

Yeah, the economies of scale on the Starter Set would have been pretty damn good and they would have sold a heap of copies of it, way more than any adventure would likely sell.

On top of that, it is likely that the Starter Set was a loss leader and therefore had minimal profit margin, which is not something they would want to do for all their adventures.