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

[Olaf the Stout]

Funny how the OSR people are able to produce tons of often good-quality modules, no
problem. Aside from LotFP the production values rarely match Paizo, but y'know, I *like*
non-glossy pages I can easily annotate a lot better than Paizo pages that resist my pencil.

I find the material I currently use for adventures breaks down into:

1. 30-40 year old TSR stuff - just started Against the Giants!
2. Current OSR stuff like Dyson's Delves, and the BFRPG adventures.
3. Paizo Adventure Paths.

The problem for WotC is that their profit margin for their products needs to meet a certain level (which would be set by those higher up the chain at Hasbro).

OSR people may be happy to make a much smaller profit on their product.

 

[S'mon]

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.

All the stuff I use is printed, eg Dyson's Delves I & II are printed on-demand at Lulu and
sold at a profit. Basic Fantasy RPG adventures are printed & sold on amazon.com at the
printing cost, which means 64 page adventures for ca £2.50! Other OSR stuff like Labyrinth Lord & LaotFP is sold through normal distribution channels and can be bought in your FLGS.

It makes me think that maybe WoTC's business model for 5e is only viable because of
the existing support base for D&D and D&D-type games. If the only useable adventures
were the WoTC hardbacks I don't think it would do too well.

 

[S'mon]

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.

I think that's a great point. My sandbox 5e Wilderlands game and my TSR-module-based
Classic D&D game both take vastly less prep time than running a Paizo Adventure Path. I think a lot of this is quality of presentation though - I noticed that high quality early modules by Gygax & Moldvay (Keep on the Borderlands, Against the Giants, Isle of Dread, Castle Amber) take much
less prep to play than later '80s TSR stuff (War Rafts of Kron), because they are presented much more effectively. There is a consistent decline in quality of presentation such that I found Lost Mine of Phandelver really painful - indeed I gave up on it - and my experience with WoTC 4e
modules and Paizo material is similar. Paizo do seem to have made a bit of an effort in their more recent APs to improve things, to make the presentation more playable - Curse of the Crimson Throne was horrible, so far Shattered Star has been quite a lot better. From what I hear that is not
the case with the WoTC adventures.

 

[delericho]

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

In addition to the point others have raised about profit margins, it's also worth noting that the OSR guys tend to be content with making only relatively few sales - how many of the OSR modules will have sold even 2,000 copies? Neither Paizo nor WotC would bother with a product that only sold 2k copies - indeed, WotC have indicated that their aim is 100k per product.

PDF magazine? $5 is pushing it.

Yep, you're almost certainly right about this. And I can't see it being feasible to put it together at anything like that cost, meaning such a thing would have to be a loss-leader - WotC could consider a Dungeon+ offering for that reason, but nobody else should even try.

 

[delericho]

The irony of all of this being that during 4E you could subscribe to DDI for like $6 a month and get on average 3 individual adventures in the online Dungeon Magazine for that month (let alone the online Builders, the Compendium, Dragon Magazine, and whatnot)... and there were oodles of people who REFUSED to do it because they thought it was a bad deal. Oh how times have changed.

Given that the peak subscriber numbers for DDI seem to be about 80k, roughly double what Dragon* was getting at the end, I'm not sure how many of the people actually didn't subscribe because they felt it was a bad deal, rather than because they would never have subscribed anyway (because they didn't like 4e, or they didn't subscribe to electronic things, or they refused to "rent" material, or whatever else).

 

[Sword of Spirit]

(WotC, despite focusing their marketing on paths, still produce standalone adventures for the AL. They just don't get the same attention.)

I only read the first page, but this inspires a question and comment.

Aren't most of the AL adventures designed to be played in a single sitting? Because if that's the case, it is just not the same thing at all.

What some of us would really like is an adventure that will take multiple sessions, but can be dropped into any campaign--without taking it over.

Quite frankly, I want Dungeon magazine again. They gave you multiple adventures of various lengths in each issue. Heck, if they just scanned in all the old TSR-era issues and sold them in some pdf collections I'd be satisfied.

 

[delericho]

Aren't most of the AL adventures designed to be played in a single sitting? Because if that's the case, it is just not the same thing at all.

I've never played one, but I believe this is the case, yes.

What some of us would really like is an adventure that will take multiple sessions, but can be dropped into any campaign--without taking it over.

Understandable. I assume you've checked out "Lost Mine of Phandelver" and Goodman's Fifth Edition Fantasy adventures?

(I'm afraid that if you wait for WotC to do those adventures, you'll be waiting a fairly long time. But, fortunately, the OGL and/or DMguild allow other people to do them.)

Quite frankly, I want Dungeon magazine again.

Absolutely. Me too!

Heck, if they just scanned in all the old TSR-era issues and sold them in some pdf collections I'd be satisfied.

It's not entirely impossible that those might become available on the DM's Guild at some point. Or at least some of them - I suspect the early issues have the same legal entanglements as did the early Dragons, which could prevent them going up.

(If it helps, some of the 3e era ones are available in PDF on the Paizo website.)

 

[BMaC]

What some of us would really like is an adventure that will take multiple sessions, but can be dropped into any campaign--without taking it over.

Boom, this. Let me dungeon crawl for a few sessions then have some downtime where I can build a keep, go to Silverymoon to look for some blacksmiths and artisans to help with construction, and roll on the carousing table.

The Goodman Games stuff looks good actually.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Frog God/Necromancer has its Quests of Doom series and the upcoming Adventures in the Borderland Provinces books you might wanna look at.

(Disclaimer: I both oversaw and contributed to the Borderlands adventure book, so this is not entirely an unbiased suggestion. )

http://talesofthefroggod.com/5th-edition

 

[Psikerlord#]

I played 1st edition AD&D from 1979 until 1989. I dabbled in 2nd edition for a year or two and then gave up on it when I went off to college/wife/job/kids. Fifth edition and a cohort of sound players brought me back. Fifth edition is outstanding--I'm a big fan. However, one thing I don't understand is the decision to eliminate stand alone modules. Maybe this was done in 3rd or 4th edition--I'm not sure. Our group did the Tiamat arc in 12 months, and now we're doing Out of the Abyss. To be honest, I want downtime. I want to build a keep and roll on a followers table.

I believe adventure paths came about because 3rd/4th got too complex to easily adlib/improvise, and so adventures became much more planned, to make things easier on the DM.

Personally I dislike AP's and have never bought one. I much prefer episodic, short adventures, and a sandbox style. Treasure hunting adventurers, not world saving heroes (or at least, not on purpose!)