D&D 5E (2014) Campaigns or adventure anthologies?

[Morrus]

I think that these days I find adventure anthologies more to my taste than long campaigns -- easy to pick up and drop in, even if you don't like them all you'll probably like some of them, and you get to mix things up a bit in terms of genre or tone.

 

[dragoner]

I think that these days I find adventure anthologies more to my taste than long campaigns -- easy to pick up and drop in, even if you don't like them all you'll probably like some of them, and you get to mix things up a bit in terms of genre or tone.

Indeed this is how I feel as well, and I think I have always felt sort of this way, plus it can be insurance from players that have read everything for a game, spoilering the campaign.

 

[el-remmen]

I like the Ghosts of Saltmarsh approach. A bunch of thematically and potentially narratively linked adventures that can be played through like a campaign but capacious enough to allow for the inclusion of other material and skipping the adventures you don't like without having to change much, if anything.

 

[Parmandur]

I honestly think there should be a third option, since really either can serve both functions just as well. Add a story to a compilation, or take pieces out of a campaign...neither is hard, particularly ularly with the 5E Campaign books that are actually designed for each Chapter to be a modular piece that can be taken on it's own without yhe plot (except for Tyranny of Dragons and Netherdeep...bit it's still doable even with those railroads).

 

[Guest 7030100]

Anthologies, especially when they offer a variety of types, genres, structures, etc.
Even if I don't use an adventure as written, it's nice having them around to serve as templates for approaches I'm not as confident/familiar with.

 

[briggart]

I like and use both. I'd prefer WotC hardcovers to focus on campaigns simply because there's plenty of ready to use good quality 3rd party short adventures on DM's guild and elsewhere.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

I don’t get much use out of adventure anthologies, or adventure books in general really.

 

[overgeeked]

I'm way more in favor of anthologies because they're easier to part out, drop into homebrew settings, or use to populate hexcrawls or West Marches games. They can be as big or small as you need them and take as much time as you need them to. Need a one-shot, there you go. Players really want to continue to explore the ramifications of this part of the anthology, build it out. Whereas campaigns are multi-year investments with fairly fixed and linear storylines that are hard to maintain from without frequent railroading. To me, anthologies are simply more directly useful. I can and have parted out bits of campaigns, but it's easier to do when they're purpose built for the task.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I like the Ghosts of Saltmarsh approach. A bunch of thematically and potentially narratively linked adventures that can be played through like a campaign but capacious enough to allow for the inclusion of other material and skipping the adventures you don't like without having to change much, if anything.

Yeah, I definitely think that shorter stories that can add up to a campaign, but have actual individual endings to each story would be ideal. A place for the player characters to call home and get to know NPCs is nice. Downtime between campaigns is a good thing.

What I am growing tired of, is campaigns that span the entire career of the PCs with only one story. In particular when that story is time sensitive, and the PCs go from level one to level fourteen in the span of a month or two.

 

[Jer]

Adventure anthologies will always get more use with my groups than full campaigns. Full campaigns will end up getting broken apart and used as pieces anyway and it's easier to do that with individual adventures in general.