Red Hand of Doom included typical questions that the PCs might ask important NPCs, and prepared dialogue responses. In a tidy, bulleted format. I think many new DMs would welcome that guidance.
D&D 5E How Wotc can improve the adventure books.
- Thread starter jasper
- Start date
jasper
Rotten DM
What do you say to Wotc in the night?
Nothing's all black, but then nothing's all white
How do you say Sales will all be all right
When you know that it might not be true?
What do you do?
Careful the things you say
Wotc will listen
Careful the things you do
Wotc will see and learn
Wotc may not obey, but Wotc will listen
Wotc will look to you for which way to turn
To learn what to be
Careful before you say "Listen to me"
Wotc will listen
Careful the Sales you make
Sales are Wotc
Careful the path they take
Sales come true, not free
Careful the spell you cast
Not just on Wotc
Sometimes an adventure may last
Past what you can see
And turn against you
Careful the tale you tell
That is the spell
Wotc will listen
How do you say to a Wotc who's in flight
"Don't slip away and I won't hold a gripe"
What can you say that no matter how slight
Won't be misunderstood.
What do you leave to your Wotc when you're dead?
Only whatever you put in it's bank
Things that your mother and father had said
Which were left to them too
Careful what you say
Wotc will listen
Careful you do them too
Wotc will see
And learn
Guide them, but step away
Wotc will glisten
Tamper with what is true
And Wotc will turn
If just to be free
Careful before you say
"Listen to me"
Wotc will listen
Wotc will listen
Wotc will listen
SuperTD
Explorer
Something I've realised I miss that was present in Tomb of Annihilation is comprehensive and detailed travel encounter tables. I don't mean the usual ones that have 10-20 results. Tomb had 90 different encounters for the main jungle section in a well organised table. Here's half of it to give an example.
Each entry included the creatures attitude/intentions, some flavour text and any relevant DCs that were likely to come up. A good number of them weren't automatic combat, which was also nice.
Both Descent into Avernus and Rime of the Frostmaiden expect the players to spend a lot of time in the wilderness, be it hell or Icewind Dale, but give either give no encounters in Avernus's case, or a 20 encounter table for Rime. I understand it takes up page count and Rime is already stuffed, but if you expect the players to spend a long time exploring you need to give them an encounter table that won't run out.
Each entry included the creatures attitude/intentions, some flavour text and any relevant DCs that were likely to come up. A good number of them weren't automatic combat, which was also nice.
Both Descent into Avernus and Rime of the Frostmaiden expect the players to spend a lot of time in the wilderness, be it hell or Icewind Dale, but give either give no encounters in Avernus's case, or a 20 encounter table for Rime. I understand it takes up page count and Rime is already stuffed, but if you expect the players to spend a long time exploring you need to give them an encounter table that won't run out.
fearsomepirate
Hero
OK, I've just always seen it used to reference an alternate path to success. Like you fail to pick the lock to the tower, but don't worry, there's a cave nearby that will take you to the basement. It's just got more monsters. You'll still ultimately succeed at your quest, unless, you know, you TPK in the basement.
This needs to be more broadly considered in terms of any sub-quest. Any chapter of these book campaigns has some overarching goal, and needs to consider what happens upon failure, up to and including TPK. Otherwise, I'm just putting a couple branches on a path that all lead to you getting the maguffin. (As a side note, writing campaigns this way would greatly reduce the frequency of fetch-quests.)
Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
It could be that as well, but it's not limited to that. The thing to fail forward is that you fail (hence the fail part) but that doesn't stop everything. How that doesn't stop everything is a very broad possibility set that could range from the "you have to take the more dangerous path, now" to "you've failed to stop the ritual, and now the world's infested with demons and you have to figure out how to get rid of them because stopping them is moot." It's a very flexible concept that really just boils down to "don't paint yourself into corners" and "describe failures in a way that allows the game to go forward -- not necessarily to the player's current goal."
Helldritch
Hero
I think that WotC does a good job. Not great, but good.
Strangely, most of the AP of 5ed are really but really good story wise. But...
1) Hooks are not the best I have seen. As usual, it all rests on the DM. With that said, any AP needs to be tailored to the specific group you're running. ToA was a mockery hook wise. Why on earth would high level would send low levels to find out why resurected people were slowly dying... I did not start the adventure itself before the players were 5th. But I managed to TPK them earlier (round level 4) and got them raised by an other party. The players were happy, but when I introduced them to the AP, they now had a real, but a really good reason to go there. 5th level characters are believable and I made sure the patron was not too high level. If I could do it, so could have WotC.
2) A Sand Box is fine. But for many, it is not enough. Look at their most successful AP: "CoS, ToYP, GoS (and DotMM, but that's my opinion on that one)". Tons of map, and Good map keys. More content does not mean better. It just means more work for the DM to fill up or to complete. When I buy an AP, I should expect a minimum of work, not a maximum. My notes/additions for HotDQ/RoT, SKT and OOtA are almost as big as the book themselves! Don't get me wrong, the books are good read and the lore is interesting, but the work required to be done is almost as big, if not bigger, than homebrewing. The Sandbox aspect should not be bigger than the actual encounters required to play it. ToEE 1ed was a master piece of both dungeon crawling and if played right, would give insight to the players as to what was going on and how to put factions against one an other. Yes, 1ed adventures tended to be heavy on the rail road, but they were very clear and well defined most of the time.
3) A flow chart would be nice, but at the same time, you need a wee bit more than that. The more sandboxy an AP is, the more complex the flow chart will be (or at least it should). The best AP reach a good compromise between sandbox content, rail road and actual dungeons/encounters/maps. Too much sandbox content only leads to confusion if said content isn't properly organized and so far, organized content is not the strength of the 5ed AP save a few exceptions. It is almost as if we are required to buy the "how to run X" from the DM guild...
4) More random encounter tables for the adventures. This is self explanatory but I know that random encounters in many younger gamers are seen as a bane. Yet, many great adventures in my games came from random encounters.
What I feel, is that the books should come into two parts. One should be the Sandbox and the other one should be the maps/encounters (random or not). Yes this would up the cost of AP, but it would be easier (I hope) to create such campaigns. An other solution would be to print adventure from level 1-5 as the sandbox explaining the premises and setting of the AP with a relatively small adventure to get the characters up to level 5. The second book would go from level 5-15+. A bit like Dragon Heist and DotMM did. A wee bit more connection between the two books would have been nice but so far, these two adventures linked together required the least work from me to correctly prepare (and I have two groups, so the main enemy in each group was different). It did required work, but the amount of "required adaptation" from one group to the other was minimal to what other APs required.
The final word, however, would be that the AP should be more organized and the adventures' hook should be more fleshed out. Many hooks in AP are lacking and assume too much or way too little... It maybe the downside of having more than one person writting the actual adventure...
Strangely, most of the AP of 5ed are really but really good story wise. But...
1) Hooks are not the best I have seen. As usual, it all rests on the DM. With that said, any AP needs to be tailored to the specific group you're running. ToA was a mockery hook wise. Why on earth would high level would send low levels to find out why resurected people were slowly dying... I did not start the adventure itself before the players were 5th. But I managed to TPK them earlier (round level 4) and got them raised by an other party. The players were happy, but when I introduced them to the AP, they now had a real, but a really good reason to go there. 5th level characters are believable and I made sure the patron was not too high level. If I could do it, so could have WotC.
2) A Sand Box is fine. But for many, it is not enough. Look at their most successful AP: "CoS, ToYP, GoS (and DotMM, but that's my opinion on that one)". Tons of map, and Good map keys. More content does not mean better. It just means more work for the DM to fill up or to complete. When I buy an AP, I should expect a minimum of work, not a maximum. My notes/additions for HotDQ/RoT, SKT and OOtA are almost as big as the book themselves! Don't get me wrong, the books are good read and the lore is interesting, but the work required to be done is almost as big, if not bigger, than homebrewing. The Sandbox aspect should not be bigger than the actual encounters required to play it. ToEE 1ed was a master piece of both dungeon crawling and if played right, would give insight to the players as to what was going on and how to put factions against one an other. Yes, 1ed adventures tended to be heavy on the rail road, but they were very clear and well defined most of the time.
3) A flow chart would be nice, but at the same time, you need a wee bit more than that. The more sandboxy an AP is, the more complex the flow chart will be (or at least it should). The best AP reach a good compromise between sandbox content, rail road and actual dungeons/encounters/maps. Too much sandbox content only leads to confusion if said content isn't properly organized and so far, organized content is not the strength of the 5ed AP save a few exceptions. It is almost as if we are required to buy the "how to run X" from the DM guild...
4) More random encounter tables for the adventures. This is self explanatory but I know that random encounters in many younger gamers are seen as a bane. Yet, many great adventures in my games came from random encounters.
What I feel, is that the books should come into two parts. One should be the Sandbox and the other one should be the maps/encounters (random or not). Yes this would up the cost of AP, but it would be easier (I hope) to create such campaigns. An other solution would be to print adventure from level 1-5 as the sandbox explaining the premises and setting of the AP with a relatively small adventure to get the characters up to level 5. The second book would go from level 5-15+. A bit like Dragon Heist and DotMM did. A wee bit more connection between the two books would have been nice but so far, these two adventures linked together required the least work from me to correctly prepare (and I have two groups, so the main enemy in each group was different). It did required work, but the amount of "required adaptation" from one group to the other was minimal to what other APs required.
The final word, however, would be that the AP should be more organized and the adventures' hook should be more fleshed out. Many hooks in AP are lacking and assume too much or way too little... It maybe the downside of having more than one person writting the actual adventure...
JiffyPopTart
Bree-Yark
I humbly submit that WotC go back to using the format that all the Dark Sun modules used.
1. Spiral bound GM booklet divvied up into bite sized chunks for all the crunchy scenes.
2. Spiral bound player handout book.
3. Some sort of area map for the players to reference.
4. An extra book of overview, plots, NPC stats, Monsters, Fiction, or other Miscellaneous info
5. A binder to hold everything in and put it on your bookshelf.
I never ran or played in them but LOVED the format. i also enjoyed the 4e modules that had battlemaps included for key encounter areas.
1. Spiral bound GM booklet divvied up into bite sized chunks for all the crunchy scenes.
2. Spiral bound player handout book.
3. Some sort of area map for the players to reference.
4. An extra book of overview, plots, NPC stats, Monsters, Fiction, or other Miscellaneous info
5. A binder to hold everything in and put it on your bookshelf.
I never ran or played in them but LOVED the format. i also enjoyed the 4e modules that had battlemaps included for key encounter areas.
I’ve noted elsewhere that I think the sandbox-railroad spectrum marks the extremes of the exploration pillar.
A setting book seems like perfect format for presenting a sandbox. Give information on all the locations, monsters, major npcs and villains that populate the setting and let the DM and players develop a story from all those goodies.
A railroad is not for anyone of course (except for perhaps choose your own adventure games
).But the happy medium path is the linear adventure, here the DM is provided way points through the adventure but the players actions are able to determine the actual route. In my mind, those way points are the villain imposing themselves on the world (regardless of where the PCs are, or who they’re talking to). Basically each way point is the hook to the next stage of the adventure. And don’t make it so fragile that the PCs have to connect with a certain NPC for the next stage to be “unlocked”. The adventure should keep raising the stakes as the PCs draw near to the final showdown.
So, I have been following this thread and Rime of the Frost maiden one and wondering about what all of the fuss was about. I have just run Princes.. then I realised that I have run using FantasyGrounds where all the story elements are hyperlinked and the same with the maps. So, as a matter of interest, for those people that bought these or other Adventure Paths on DnD Beyond, are the books there hyperlinked?
Eltab
Lord of the Hidden Layer
What are 'the best adventure modules' (and why)? Go get a copy of them and read through them.
EnWorld, GiantsInThePlayground, RPG.net, DMsGuild, &c have some sort of "Enhancing XYZ" thread, written by people playing the adventure; what do they have to say?
Do the people making the final decisions about adventures like to play RPGs?
Getting the information so adventures generally improve over time is not some high-resource expensive proposition. It can be found and applied.
Those last two words are usually the problem.
EnWorld, GiantsInThePlayground, RPG.net, DMsGuild, &c have some sort of "Enhancing XYZ" thread, written by people playing the adventure; what do they have to say?
Do the people making the final decisions about adventures like to play RPGs?
Getting the information so adventures generally improve over time is not some high-resource expensive proposition. It can be found and applied.
Those last two words are usually the problem.
AD6_gamerati_skyscraper
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