D&D 5E How Wotc can improve the adventure books.

[DEFCON 1]

I think just putting “Hey DMs, we hope you enjoy reading this adventure because it’s going to be a real pain when you try to run it! ” would do the job.

I dunno... I think having a book say "Roleplaying game adventure" already says that by definition.

Because for every adventure where one person thinks "This was the easiest and most useful adventure I've ever run!" there is another person who thinks "What the hell piece of crap was that?" Heck... if we have people right now decrying the Starter Set as not being a worthwhile adventure for new DMs, then there's nothing to be made that is going to satisfy everybody.

 

[Shardstone]

I dunno... I think having a book say "Roleplaying game adventure" already says that by definition.

Because for every adventure where one person thinks "This was the easiest and most useful adventure I've ever run!" there is another person who thinks "What the hell piece of crap was that?" Heck... if we have people right now decrying the Starter Set as not being a worthwhile adventure for new DMs, then there's nothing to be made that is going to satisfy everybody.

You're right. All discussion on this is pointless. Lets just never talk about RPGs again since there are differing opinions. Close down Enworld, don't need it because not everybody can be satisfied!

 

[robus]

I dunno... I think having a book say "Roleplaying game adventure" already says that by definition.

Because for every adventure where one person thinks "This was the easiest and most useful adventure I've ever run!" there is another person who thinks "What the hell piece of crap was that?" Heck... if we have people right now decrying the Starter Set as not being a worthwhile adventure for new DMs, then there's nothing to be made that is going to satisfy everybody.

Ha, I resemble that remark and I actually think it would be quite easy to enhance LMoP for new DMs. A few sidebars explaining how a DM might handle the various novel situations that come up. How you might go about foreshadowing (because that is sorely lacking in LMoP) etc. Really it’s no hard to imagine a very helpful set of changes to this otherwise solid (well except for the weak ending) adventure.

I think D&D has conditioned people to expect little. Sure we might be crying into the wind, but there‘s a reasonable chance that an Enworld regular might be hired by WotC and take these cries in. But more likely it will be one of the apologists and nothing will change because no one will think outside of the box.

I mean, come on, could the DMG be more ass-backwards if it tried? Running adventures is the last section of that hefty book? Why on earth?!

 

[M_Natas]

It would help I think if WotC printed on their opening page:

"The cost of an adventure book is not inversely proportional to the amount of work you will need to do to run the adventure for your group. Paying more does not mean you get to do less. That is not how adventure pricing works."

On the one hand, yes, on the other hand - the adventure design they are using now is like the worst possible way to do it in terms of making it easy to use for a dungeon master. And than they are not even consistent with the design choices they make within one and the same book ... like with NPC Stat blocks in Rime of the Frostmaiden: In the Black Swords Quest on page 40, you have the NPC Avarice. The stats for Avarice you can find in appendix c. Then you have the quest Cold-Hearted Killer, which has the NPC Stat Block of Sephek Kaltro directly on page 23.

Some design choices of WotC just give the DM more work to do. Busy work that could be reduced by changing the design and representation of the adventures, without changing the content.

Like in the quest The Unseen on p46 on rime of the forstmaiden. Just put tiny marks on the map where all the Duergar, the Zombie Ogre and the Spore Servants are - it would just make it so much easier. A small design change that would make it for an DM way easier. And put in a statblock for the spore servants. Yes, a DM can make it's own stat block for the spore servants tribal warriors, but that is not creative work. It is just busy work for a DM and the changes to the tribal warrior statblock are substantial enough that WotC could just have put a stat block for them in the book.

 

[DEFCON 1]

You're right. All discussion on this is pointless. Lets just never talk about RPGs again since there are differing opinions. Close down Enworld, don't need it because not everybody can be satisfied!

It's not pointless. It's giving us all something to do with our time. That's why we do it.

But we also can't take any of this seriously. And if you do take it seriously, then you might need to recalibrate your ideas on what the purpose of these message boards are here for. Because expecting a company to make actual changes to their products based on what gets written here certainly shouldn't be.

 

[Shardstone]

It's not pointless. It's giving us all something to do with our time. That's why we do it.

But we also can't take any of this seriously. And if you do take it seriously, then you might need to recalibrate your ideas on what the purpose of these message boards are here for. Because expecting a company to make actual changes to their products based on what gets written here certainly shouldn't be.

You read a lot into very little, and make many assumptions that aren't based in fact in order to position yourself into a place of faux-superiority and it is very off-putting. I'm a long time lurker and usually like your posts, but this is very garish of you.

The only people making this conversation "serious" are people like you who keep telling us that we can't have our opinions if they aren't positive.

 

[M_Natas]

I dunno... I think having a book say "Roleplaying game adventure" already says that by definition.

Because for every adventure where one person thinks "This was the easiest and most useful adventure I've ever run!" there is another person who thinks "What the hell piece of crap was that?" Heck... if we have people right now decrying the Starter Set as not being a worthwhile adventure for new DMs, then there's nothing to be made that is going to satisfy everybody.

I'm just saying that lost mines is not ideal for Newbie DMs. I think most people reviewing it are already experiened dungeon masters who can fill in the gaps in that adventures - put somebody who plays D&D for the very first time? A 12 year old kid who gets it as birthday present? They will have a hard time running lost mines. Like, even the last part with Dungeon (the mines) in Lost Mines - how in the world will a Newbie DM describe this dungeons so that the characters will have any chance to navigate trough it? Thats super hard. And there is no help in that module. I would now how to fix it, how to prepare it, but when I started playing D&D such a map would have killed totally the game flow.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think D&D has conditioned people to expect little. Sure we might be crying into the wind, but there‘s a reasonable chance that an Enworld regular might be hired by WotC and take these cries in.

I suspect your definition of "reasonable chance" and mine are quite a bit different.

 

[robus]

I'm just saying that lost mines is not ideal for Newbie DMs. I think most people reviewing it are already experiened dungeon masters who can fill in the gaps in that adventures

I think of it as a 5e Starter Set not a D&D Starter Set. In other words, it's a great introductory adventure for on-ramping existing D&D players and DMs to the 5e ruleset, but it's not a great introduction to the actual game of D&D, because there is little to no handholding for new DMs and players.

And I think that applies to the core rulebook set too, (see the PHB and DMG, the MM is what it is... ).

It's all written by D&D players for D&D players.

 

[DEFCON 1]

You read a lot into very little, and make many assumptions that aren't based in fact in order to position yourself into a place of faux-superiority and it is very off-putting. I'm a long time lurker and usually like your posts, but this is very garish of you.

The only people making this conversation "serious" are people like you who keep telling us that we can't have our opinions if they aren't positive.

Heh heh... if you haven't noticed how garish I can often be here on the boards you haven't been reading enough of my posts.

And as far as how serious we're taking this... I'll remind you that you are the one who said on the previous page...

"It will never cease to baffle me how asking for adventures to be better prompts some people to tell you how worthless your opinion and desires are, and how you should feel bad for having them."

Now perhaps feeling like your opinions are worthless and that you feel bad for having them is just all in great fun and you didn't actually mean it and aren't taking it seriously... but that particular phrasing doesn't get that across. But hey! If you aren't taking any of this serious and I'm not taking any of this seriously, then we're all good!