D&D 5E Radiant Citadel is a new kind of Adventure Path.

[DND_Reborn]

I'm sorry but I am not really seeing anything new here. Isn't this just how a normal campaign is run?

 

[Scribe]

I'm sorry but I am not really seeing anything new here. Isn't this just how a normal campaign is run?

Not really the same, to me.

Normal campaign is intended to fully and completely be Point A, to B, to C, with maybe some optional paths in there.

This is however many distinct adventures, that also have some potential themes, or easter eggs, to link between them.

Fine idea, and makes total sense to me for an anthology.

Is this collaboration the 'never before done' thing ?

 

[Staffan]

I'm sorry but I am not really seeing anything new here. Isn't this just how a normal campaign is run?

It's kind of rare to see with pre-made campaigns, which tend to have a pretty strong focus from day one (even if that focus might not be apparent to the PCs). Tyranny of Dragons is all about fighting the Cult of the Dragon, Princes of the Apocalypse is all about fighting the Cults of Elemental Evil, and Curse of Strahd is all about, well, Strahd. Some may have side quests, but they are diversions from the main path.

This seems more like stand-alone adventures with common themes and things that show up in multiple adventures, without being a strict progression.

 

[Hussar]

There was an old 2e module "A Hero's Tale" which kinda worked like this. It was 10 modules, meant to be dropped in as, more or less, side quests throughout an ongoing campaign, culminating in a final module where everything is revealed. The ten modules were not terribly closely linked except through a consistent bell ringing sound that is heard in each module. It's explained why in the module.

Expanding that concept out to a full campaign would work pretty well. It's a much looser concept than the "Adventure Path" but much tighter than, say, something like Candlekeep Mysteries where the adventures are all more or less self contained and do not reference each other at all, or Tales of the Yawning Portal where there is nothing connecting any of the adventures really.

 

[DND_Reborn]

It's kind of rare to see with pre-made campaigns

Good point. I don't use the pre-made stuff and haven't spent much time reading through the ones I own. For someone who uses them a lot, this would be a different approach.

Thanks!

 

[AnotherGuy]

For me this was a far better way to describe the book and what it may entail than the previous write-up.

Additionally, at every stage, the writers got to see each other’s work on a shared platform: they saw each other’s pitches, locations, adventures, monsters, Pinterest boards for art that inspired them, etc. There were coworking video sessions and plenty of conversations.
We also had a dedicated peer-review period, where the writers were not only reading each other’s work but commenting and advising each other. All of this provided an opportunity to pull elements from one another, and riff off of each other.

The above part was cool - the semi-collaboration as well as reviewing each others work providing an effort for I'm assuming improvement is the real + of the article.

EDIT: The creative challenge perhaps for DMs who like to put in work, would be to tie these adventures together. I loved doing it with ToD, SKT, MiBG, LotFS, DH and DotMM and the relevant adventure league material.

 

[DEFCON 1]

They've done these kinds of things in the past. The main set of nine modules for 4E all had a throughline and connective tissue, although no one would claim them to be one long storyline. They were nine separate adventures, but all had bits and bobs that premised the idea of an Orcus big bad, leading to eventually taking him on.

And I want to say Paizo did things similarly for 3E back when they were publishing Dragon Magazine and came up with their original ideas for "adventure paths". Things like the town of Cauldron and the modules that all centered around that... they were all individual stories but did "connect" together in minor ways.

I mean heck... you could also say the original Slave Lords and Giants series' of adventures for AD&D were the same kind of thing-- separate adventures that were meant to link into a longer campaign.

If you can accomplish a linking storyline between disparate adventures to give an idea of campaign flow, I think many DMs appreciate it. If it is there to use if you want but can easily ignored if you don't... it just makes a product (or series of products) have more tools in the box to be used.

 

[TwiceBorn2]

I’m not sure this book really involves that much extraplanar travel. From what I understood, the citadel has portals to the material planes of various worlds, not to the different planes of a single world.

Fair. But I'm no more a fan of world-hopping than I am of extra-planar travel, generally speaking (some exceptions apply). Anyway, I'm not knocking the product, I'm just not sold on it yet. I'm not the target audience for every D&D product, and that's fine. I can still appreciate good design and groundbreaking ideas/collaborative processes, whether I end up buying the book or not.

 

[Undrave]

Fair. But I'm no more a fan of world-hopping than I am of extra-planar travel, generally speaking (some exceptions apply). Anyway, I'm not knocking the product, I'm just not sold on it yet. I'm not the target audience for every D&D product, and that's fine. I can still appreciate good design and groundbreaking ideas/collaborative processes, whether I end up buying the book or not.

I bet you can just take the destination of the adventure and just plop it down into your world and it won't affect the adventure. the Radiant Citadel is a way to get there.

 

[TwiceBorn2]

I bet you can just take the destination of the adventure and just plop it down into your world and it won't affect the adventure. the Radiant Citadel is a way to get there.

Possibly. In which case I'll judge the final product based on how well the individual adventures fit into my campaigns. So I'll keep an open mind.