D&D 5E Rejecting the Premise in a Module

[Scott Christian]

his is a false representation of what I'm saying. I've played this sport. I've read books by this author. So you've gone too far in this argument. I had tons of the 3.XE and 4E modules, and they were pretty consistent in that an awful lot of them (like 30%+ - hell, more like 100% with the 4E ones) were really a pain to run and badly written, and with massive logic-holes.

Badly written? Really. How?

This is false. Not logical, not reasonable. You can absolutely know something is bad by reading it. You do not have to run it. You present no argument or rationale for why you would have to run it. You just handwave a bit.

I didn't hand-wave. I was going off what you said. Most of the adventures written are "crap." I concede, I do not know how many you read. But, reading and playing/running an AP can be different, no?

You've produced no evidence to support this, and it's a very extreme claim - a laughable one actually. There's no argument you're presenting here. Just a baseless and extreme claim. Ok, you've made that claim. Congrats? But it has no substance as you've presented it.

What evidence do you need? The fact that D&D is growing in popularity. The fact that it is crushing all other RPG's. The fact that sell millions of the AP's. I mean, if you want numbers, I will try to find them. But then I get the feeling you'll say: "That doesn't support your argument, it only supports the fact that they sell a lot of books."
You are correct, I do not have hard evidence. I have no hundred thousand person poll. I have no direct link to WotC specific statement that says; "Buyers love our AP's." What I do have is D&D producing them for over 25 years. My guess is, if something is so awful, they would have stopped.

Yeah, and that's what you have there - a "vibe". Not an argument. Not a rationale. Not logic. Not reason. A vibe. This is why I don't want to argue with you. You can't argue rationally with someone who treats a "vibe" as the same as logic. I've bloody tried, believe me (my FIL believes telekinesis built the pyramids, for example). Nothing you're saying is an actual logical argument, it's just like a bunch of claims with no evidence or rationale to support them.

I thought it obvious that these are our opinions. The exact opposite could be said for your claim. You have offered no logic. No evidence. No rationale. No reason. All you presented was a vibe that said AP's are "crap." That the ones you had fun with were so laughable that you made a joke out of them. So they were only good ironically. I offered you to get a 5e AP and deconstruct its terribleness for me. You didn't. Instead you said you would have to charge an hourly wage - and called me ridiculous. Um, that would have been the time for you to offer evidence.

Why does it take you so long? For me, it takes like, 30 seconds to print something. An properly-written professional AP should not require any time for me to "make the maps". That's one of the major things I was looking for in APs - maps. Because they do take a while to make. An AP with missing or bad maps is a rip-off, frankly.

This makes me think you haven't used an AP in forever. If you use maps for combat (I do 75% of the time), do you think all combat maps are in the book? The random encounters? The side quests that might help tell an character's individual story and how it ties into the AP? Heck, half the combat areas aren't even in the books. I take time to make these.
As for printing, not sure about you, but I don't have access to a 20"x30" printer. I sometimes find flip mats that will work. (That takes time too.) But if I make my map, then I choose to print it out correctly. That means, making it. It can take quite awhile. Printing it at Kinkos or something similar. Picking it up. Etc. All that is time prepping.

We don't play with minis, but back when we did, it took, seconds for me to empty out the counters and draw the map as the players could see it onto the battlemap.

Finding minis also means sometimes painting them. But we won't count that time as I rarely do it. But know many DM's that do. And drawing a map in seconds is great for theater-of-the-mind. But not as good for people that like tactical combat. Particularly, when an AP sets up a tactical combat that includes both, environmental hazards, height, and creatures. It takes time, not seconds.

Why does it take you hours to do actions which an normal person could do in single-digit minutes?

That is insulting. But, I won't take it that way. Instead, I will explain what can take so long. When a DM preps for an AP, and wants the AP to be played as intended, here are some of the things that they might do:

• Read the entire AP (a couple hours)
• Take notes on the things that stand out (an hour)
• Find problem areas especially for those DM's that know their players and find logical or alternative solutions; create those solutions which may involve adding another NPC, a separate section of dungeon, a side quest so things make sense, etc. (2-6 hours depending on how many one has to do)
• Make maps that might be needed, particularly if you know your players are prone to always wander (2-20 hours depending how detailed you get. Heck I know people on Inkarnate that have over 5,000 hours.)
• Flesh out the settings of the adventure. This is really true for adventures that travel long distances. Maybe two cities or from the desert to the mountains to the sea. Each place they go should feel unique. I often find phrases or words that I will jot down then craft those into part of the setting. I might have a list of ten to twenty for each setting.
• Increase the depth of the player hooks. I like to ask players if they want something incorporated into their background. This will play out as a character arc alongside the story arc. I try to create multiple paths for them. Once you have the paths (or vice-a-versa) you need to see where those can fit seamlessly into the plotline. A very simple example, if they are doing a questline for a wealthy merchant. They might be local. Their family might have a business that could prosper from the merchant dealings. So they can take it or throw it away, bringing praise or scorn from their family. (2-6 hours depending on how many players want to do this.)
• Finding significant NPC (and sometimes others) and writing down phrases they may say. Also adding key descriptors that stand out each time the PC's see them. Then practicing those NPC's. In the car. In the shower. etc. Practice. When I ran Skull & Shackles, I didn't want every pirate saying "Arrr." I wanted them to stand out as individuals. Mannerisms and speech phrases (not always voice) is the way to do this.
• Re-read the section prior to playing and tailor it to what the PC's have done so far. Sometimes the best laid plans... So things change. That NPC you had all dressed up and ready to throw a soiree, nope. They hate the PC's now. So instead they challenge them to a bunch of drunken bar contests to show that the PC's are worthless. That takes time.
• Creating magic items that are tailored to the players. I get it, giving the cleric +1 Plate is an easy out. But, it's always better if one or two players have something that peaks interest - especially if you can tie it into the storyline. Those take time to craft and often have mini-stories. I like to write mine out. Like when the wizard is taking a bath and he hears singing from his clothes on the floor only to discover it is his new dagger with a mermaid handle. He holds it and voila - he can breathe underwater. Things like this, I feel, help the character attach themselves to the world. I could just say, "You find a +1 dagger of water breathing and cold resistance." But I feel like my players enjoy the surprises a little more when they are tailored to their character's actions, not just stated. It's the show-don't-tell rule. For smaller caches, rolling random tables is fine.
• None of this translates to online material and learning a program for online games. Roll20, for many, has taken a while to learn, especially from the DM side.
• I rarely do, but if I use music, then I want to find the perfect piece. Most of the time it is an ambiance piece that directly relates to the story. For example, hearing a local nomadic desert tribe sing across an oasis. I take my time finding the right piece for them to hear. Same is true for pictures, if I show them an image, such as a city. This isn't an always, but it does happen a couple of times during an AP.
• Foreshadowing pieces. These, I feel, are soooo important. Players need them. A lot of them. It sometimes helps guide them. Other times it offers clues on how to prepare. And other times they are just cool for the setting. I'll figure them out for each session, and hopefully where I want to pop them in doesn't vanish due to player's actions. If they do, then back to rewrite.

Add all that up and you might find it takes a few hours for each session. Not minutes. And as I stated before, if I want to improv or just glance at the characters and play the stubborn dwarf who isn't trying to convey information related to an entire book's worth of material, then no problem. My prep time is zero seconds. But, again, to run it as intended, takes time.
You are right though. If I want to read it, scribble some notes, improv each character, read the text box the AP provides, and force the player's down the railroad. You got it. 15-20 prep time per session, max. And I am also saying, there is nothing wrong with that. I've done it. I imagine every experienced DM has done it. It can be fun. But, for the long haul, as a player and DM, I prefer my DM to have things thought out.

(You capitalize "Dwarven Forge" - is this a reference to the brand-name physical dungeon-building stuff? If you're claiming you need to use that stuff to be a good DM, that's outright an unacceptable opinion. That's just gatekeeping of the worst kind.)

I capitalized Dwarven Forge because it is a company. A company's name is capitalized. It is a proper noun. There is no gate keeping. It's a fun dungeon building set, but takes me awhile to build. That's all. The Lego kid in me enjoys it.

Oooookay and I'm out lol. You do you! Because now you're away with the faeries from my perspective.

I mentioned that because it was hyperbole. Someone called me out for it, and I said it was hyperbole. But, it was meant to show a point. Compare a 5e AP to another company (maybe not Paizo or The old Masquerade books) and they are way above them in writing quality, design, logic, graphic design, artwork, encounter builds, etc. I am trying (through hyperbole) to say they are great compared to the other products out there.

In the end, I feel like we just run our games differently. To insult me for taking so long to prep, especially after I explained it the first time. To say it is a frantic DM that does this. It's is insulting. Maybe you didn't mean it that way. In fact, I believe you didn't. You were just coming from the: It's a game. Lighten up. Just play and have fun mantra. And that's cool. I'm glad you are having fun. I am too. Both, with your playstyle, just showing up and going with the flow, and with the kind that analyzes (maybe too much so for some people's taste) the AP.
But for AP's, we'll just leave it as a disagreement. I think the professionally written ones from D&D can be fun provided you have a prepped DM, players, and a chemistry between all three. You say many of them are crap and laughable. I do not agree, but maybe one day I will. Just not today.

 

[Scott Christian]

Except that's half of a problem that shouldn't exist.

Why?

Because the usual reason behind running a canned module instead of a homebrew is the canned module in theory does 95% of that work for you! Thus, the DM shouldn't really have to prep anything to just run the module as written. (IME almost all the prep I ever have to do when running a canned module revolves around fitting it into my homebrew campaign and-or story line; i.e. work I've brought upon myself that isn't the module's fault)

If I'm expected to prep for a canned module just like I do a homebrew why would I waste my money buying it?

I agree with you. But, I do not know any other way to convey explicit actions, plots and characters other than to write it in a 25,000 to 100,000 word document. And even then... But maybe there is a better way, we just haven't thought of it yet.

 

[Stormdale]

The upper level had been partly done earlier by a different party (including one of her PCs, who has come back to finish). She got about 1/3 of the way through the lower level then ran aground on room 9 down there; and is only just now getting back to town to revive some dead and more or less start over

There is something about the classics that I really enjoy even now, maybe its the deadliness and player ingenuity/skill is supposed to matter not just character stats. I'm thoroughly enjoying running it and the players are enjoying it and getting more and more cautious as they go and are learning to respect it and play smart. They saw the lake last week but yet to try the water tunnels but they are running out of options so will need to so soon.

 

[Haffrung]

Yeah, and this is why I question why run them at all, a question no-one has answered yet. Or even like, hinted at an answer. Why do something that's both harder work and, it seems less rewarding?

As someone who has long experience with both published and homebrew adventures, one reason I still use the latter is because my imagination isn't infinite. I've been creating my own adventure content for 40 years, and at this point I've come to recognize that I often plow the same furrows. A published adventure or AP can offer settings, NPCs, and storylines that I would never have dreamed up myself.

Sometimes the most efficient use of the content is to steal it for my homebrew campaigns. Sometimes it's more efficient to substantially modify and rewrite a published adventure than make one up from whole cloth.

For me it's also disappointing to pay money for something that is lacking in this way. And what's sad is, not all modules/APs are lacking like that. Very often single-adventure modules are pretty complete. It's really the APs and multi-adventure modules and stuff where I see a lot of this framework-instead-of-actual-writing.

I agree - most APs I've read are terribly organized, badly overwriten, and contain far too much content I'll never use, like historical and NPCs backgrounds the PCs will never discover, and far too little content that I need to run a game at the table, like lists, summaries, timelines, flowcharts, plot webs, etc. The root cause is that published adventures serve two masters - people will use them to run a game at the table, and people who use them as reading material.

 

[Todd Roybark]

As for them not being very good. I think that might be even more of a ridiculous statement. They may not be your style or setting. But to say they are not good, that's just not true. That's the same as saying Shakespeare is not good

Scott, you acknowledged before this was hyperbole. I sort of hope you were trolling, because reading it makes me smile. I'd rather believe you intentionally meant for some to chuckle.

I find it dubious that any AP is so sucky, that it can't be fun.

Ok that statement reads a little sycophantic. There are official 5e adventures I can't even finish reading, they are so dreary, or so flawed.

This speaks to Ruin Explorer's point that a module should be saving a DM time not costing them time. An official module already requires a DM to modify the spell load out, and swap in monsters. Take Storm King's Thunder, for example, this module about giants, doesnt even use the cool giant variants from VGtM.

If the foundation of a house is flawed, sometimes it is better to tear it down, and build from scratch.

Funny, I'm also in the middle of running Tsojcanth, and also as part of a 'tour of the classics'.

I spent more hours than I should this week doing a 5e conversion of the Lesser Caverns of Tsojcanth, balanced for a 10th level party of 4-5.
It wound up being about One and a Third of an Adventuring Day in XP for a 10th level party of 5 PCs.

Which seems about right.
I've played the module several times, decades ago, and I recall almost always resting for one night in the alcoves that's dot the first level.

 

[Lanefan]

This makes me think you haven't used an AP in forever. If you use maps for combat (I do 75% of the time), do you think all combat maps are in the book? The random encounters? The side quests that might help tell an character's individual story and how it ties into the AP?

I use maps for combat almost 100% of the time; but I don't need much time and certainly not a printer to make them: I draw them on the fly as required, on the gridded chalkboard that is our gaming table.

Finding minis also means sometimes painting them. But we won't count that time as I rarely do it.

I don't count that as prep time in any case. That said, there's already enough minis here (painted or not) that if you can't find one that suits you're likely being far too fussy.

And drawing a map in seconds is great for theater-of-the-mind. But not as good for people that like tactical combat. Particularly, when an AP sets up a tactical combat that includes both, environmental hazards, height, and creatures. It takes time, not seconds.

Time as in maybe a minute or two for a complex map, plus another minute if I have to dig out the right minis for the foes (rather than just use generic pawns, which I do about half the time).

That is insulting. But, I won't take it that way. Instead, I will explain what can take so long. When a DM preps for an AP, and wants the AP to be played as intended, here are some of the things that they might do:

1 Read the entire AP (a couple hours)
2 Take notes on the things that stand out (an hour)
3 Find problem areas especially for those DM's that know their players and find logical or alternative solutions; create those solutions which may involve adding another NPC, a separate section of dungeon, a side quest so things make sense, etc. (2-6 hours depending on how many one has to do)
4 Make maps that might be needed, particularly if you know your players are prone to always wander (2-20 hours depending how detailed you get. Heck I know people on Inkarnate that have over 5,000 hours.)
5 Flesh out the settings of the adventure. This is really true for adventures that travel long distances. Maybe two cities or from the desert to the mountains to the sea. Each place they go should feel unique. I often find phrases or words that I will jot down then craft those into part of the setting. I might have a list of ten to twenty for each setting.
6 Increase the depth of the player hooks. I like to ask players if they want something incorporated into their background. This will play out as a character arc alongside the story arc. I try to create multiple paths for them. Once you have the paths (or vice-a-versa) you need to see where those can fit seamlessly into the plotline. A very simple example, if they are doing a questline for a wealthy merchant. They might be local. Their family might have a business that could prosper from the merchant dealings. So they can take it or throw it away, bringing praise or scorn from their family. (2-6 hours depending on how many players want to do this.)
7 Finding significant NPC (and sometimes others) and writing down phrases they may say. Also adding key descriptors that stand out each time the PC's see them. Then practicing those NPC's. In the car. In the shower. etc. Practice. When I ran Skull & Shackles, I didn't want every pirate saying "Arrr." I wanted them to stand out as individuals. Mannerisms and speech phrases (not always voice) is the way to do this.
8 Re-read the section prior to playing and tailor it to what the PC's have done so far. Sometimes the best laid plans... So things change. That NPC you had all dressed up and ready to throw a soiree, nope. They hate the PC's now. So instead they challenge them to a bunch of drunken bar contests to show that the PC's are worthless. That takes time.
9 Creating magic items that are tailored to the players. I get it, giving the cleric +1 Plate is an easy out. But, it's always better if one or two players have something that peaks interest - especially if you can tie it into the storyline. Those take time to craft and often have mini-stories. I like to write mine out. Like when the wizard is taking a bath and he hears singing from his clothes on the floor only to discover it is his new dagger with a mermaid handle. He holds it and voila - he can breathe underwater. Things like this, I feel, help the character attach themselves to the world. I could just say, "You find a +1 dagger of water breathing and cold resistance." But I feel like my players enjoy the surprises a little more when they are tailored to their character's actions, not just stated. It's the show-don't-tell rule. For smaller caches, rolling random tables is fine.
10 None of this translates to online material and learning a program for online games. Roll20, for many, has taken a while to learn, especially from the DM side.
11 I rarely do, but if I use music, then I want to find the perfect piece. Most of the time it is an ambiance piece that directly relates to the story. For example, hearing a local nomadic desert tribe sing across an oasis. I take my time finding the right piece for them to hear. Same is true for pictures, if I show them an image, such as a city. This isn't an always, but it does happen a couple of times during an AP.
12 Foreshadowing pieces. These, I feel, are soooo important. Players need them. A lot of them. It sometimes helps guide them. Other times it offers clues on how to prepare. And other times they are just cool for the setting. I'll figure them out for each session, and hopefully where I want to pop them in doesn't vanish due to player's actions. If they do, then back to rewrite.

I replaced your list formatting with numbers so I could more easily reference each point.

Some of these are quite valid and I'd guess we all have to do them: 1 and 12 in particular, and lesser versions of 2 and 5.

But I for one almost never do most of the rest.

3 - If I'm running a hard-line AP this should never be a problem. If the players get stumped they get stumped. If they find an unforeseen solution then good for them. If they want to go off on side quests then I'm not running (or they're not playing) a hard-line AP any more, as a hard AP somewhat requires both the players and DM staying firmly on the rails in order to work (which is in part why I largely eschew them).
4 - I expect the module to provide me the required DM-side maps. I don't expect battlemaps nor do I prepare them ahead of time if for no other reason than I can't guarantee that the bit I map would be the place where the combat actually occurs. Battle maps are what the chalkboard is for.
6 - no matter what I'm running I'm going to run it neutrally, and quite intentionally not tailor it to specific players and-or characters. It's up to the players to factor in their characters' interactions with the module elements once they're introduced, not me.
7 - I admire this but most of the time I just make something up on the fly. Rarely, I'll rehearse something; but whenever I do it doesn't come off in play nearly as well as when I rehearse it, largely because in play I'm too busy trying to "remember my lines" instead of just improvising them like I should.
8 - see 6. If they do something off-script that has negative (or positive!) consequences, so be it.
9 - see 6. I expect the module to tell me what treasure they're going to find, and that's what they'll find. If the module doesn't give me specifics then I-as-DM have a right to be annoyed, as specifics are what I'm paying for.
10 - I do not (and if I have my way, will never) run online unless it's completely TotM; in part because of the amount of prep time it demands.
11 - again admirable, but IMO not necessary. If I have music going it's just background music; and while pictures are nice it's extremely rare that a picture exactly conveys the scene you're describing unless a) the picture is specifically of that scene e.g. it's included in the module, or b) the picture came first and you've built the scene around it (homebrew only; this can't happen in a hard AP as you're not building the scenes there, the module is).

My overarching question is this, however: given all the prep you're doing wouldn't it take you less time (and save you some money) to just design and write your own APs? And by 'write' I don't mean in nearly the same level of detail as the published modules; just maps (which you're doing anyway) and enough scratch notes on each encounter to get you by.

You are right though. If I want to read it, scribble some notes, improv each character, read the text box the AP provides, and force the player's down the railroad.

Thing is, forcing the players down a railroad is what running these APs is all about. Otherwise you'd not be running them: you'd be running sandbox or stand-alone adventures or hex-crawl or some other version of play where the players have far more choice in what their PCs do next than is given by a typical AP.

I capitalized Dwarven Forge because it is a company. A company's name is capitalized. It is a proper noun. There is no gate keeping. It's a fun dungeon building set, but takes me awhile to build. That's all. The Lego kid in me enjoys it.

The very few times I've ever tried using anything like this I found it bogged things down to a complete halt as I kept having to take down and rebuild the pieces every time the party moved - which can happen an awful lot if-when they're in explore mode.

Never again.

But for AP's, we'll just leave it as a disagreement. I think the professionally written ones from D&D can be fun provided you have a prepped DM, players, and a chemistry between all three. You say many of them are crap and laughable. I do not agree, but maybe one day I will. Just not today.

As a third opinion, I don't think they're crap and laughable, in and of what they are and what they are for. I see them as geared toward providing a certain experience for a more or less specific type of table and playstyle, and in this I can only assume they're meeting considerable success given that WotC keeps releasing more of them.

As written, however, the published APs don't suit what I do or the games I run; though I can mine them for individual adventures to drop in somewhere else (Princes of the Apocalypse is great for this!)

 

[Lanefan]

I agree with you. But, I do not know any other way to convey explicit actions, plots and characters other than to write it in a 25,000 to 100,000 word document. And even then... But maybe there is a better way, we just haven't thought of it yet.

Thing is, you only need to convey all those explicit actions, plots and characters if you're writing it for someone else to run.

If you're writing it for yourself a 25-word scratch note can remind you of the same things it'd take a 1000-word write-up to convey to someone else.

 

[Scott Christian]

Scott, you acknowledged before this was hyperbole. I sort of hope you were trolling, because reading it makes me smile. I'd rather believe you intentionally meant for some to chuckle.

Todd,
I promise it was meant for the chuckle, but also to state that I think they are well written compared to others in the market. No real comparison to Shakespeare. I mean, Saltmarsh is cool, but it is no Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind.

Ok that statement reads a little sycophantic. There are official 5e adventures I can't even finish reading, they are so dreary, or so flawed.

This speaks to Ruin Explorer's point that a module should be saving a DM time not costing them time. An official module already requires a DM to modify the spell load out, and swap in monsters. Take Storm King's Thunder, for example, this module about giants, doesnt even use the cool giant variants from VGtM.

If the foundation of a house is flawed, sometimes it is better to tear it down, and build from scratch.

I guess I like fixer-uppers. Sorry to hear there are some you can't even finish reading. But, as this thread proves, there are many different types of players and GM's out there. They can all work on the same land, but do things differently, yet still have the same outcome; be it building a house from scratch or fixing it up.
I enjoy both. But when I do start from scratch I have a tendency to want to build mansions. I mean the last AP I wrote came out to 70,000 words!

And dang, don't ruin Storm King's Thunder for me. I just started reading it and I am finding it really enjoyable. But, to each his own.

 

[Scott Christian]

Thing is, you only need to convey all those explicit actions, plots and characters if you're writing it for someone else to run.

If you're writing it for yourself a 25-word scratch note can remind you of the same things it'd take a 1000-word write-up to convey to someone else.

This is very true. When I create my own material, I try to write it as if someone else is GM'ing. I know, huge time sink, but it is enjoyable. I am curious if anyone else does the same?
But sometimes time doesn't allow for things. I just ran a quick four hour adventure for a group of five. I had one page worth of notes. That was it. It worked out just fine.

 

[Mort]

This is very true. When I create my own material, I try to write it as if someone else is GM'ing. I know, huge time sink, but it is enjoyable. I am curious if anyone else does the same?

Back when I had the time, yes, I used to write things out for fun. Now, quick scribbled notes and as many short cuts as I can take!