D&D General The Biggest Problem with Modern Adventures...

[Ruin Explorer]

I'd agree .... and so seemingly does WotC. It's one of the many changes in direction post-Tasha's that I consider a huge improvement. (I only disagree about big APs disappearing - people enjoy them so why end them?)

I think there's actually a reasonable consumer-side argument for reducing APs even though people enjoy them, which is that I believe an awful lot of the people enjoying them are not actually running them, and thus WotC is dumping significant time and effort into APs which are not actually being used as APs, but rather story-books or exercises in wishful thinking.

I'm not quite sure what to do about that, and it may be a fantasy on my part but I feel like the way they're discussed and some of the people I know are buying them IRL (including a number of never-DMs I know) suggests there's a strong degree of truth to it. Thus I'd rather see more effort put into shorter adventures that were more about being good adventures than "fun to read through" (even the presentation of a lot of WotC's APs seems like the focus is on "fun to read through" rather than "easy to run well", like they don't have a proper detailed synopsis because that would be "spoilers!" for the DM...).

From WotC's perspective though it's probably fine, though I honestly feel WotC's consistently mediocre APs are damaging D&D in a way WotC doesn't fully understand (and that is I admit hard to explain). If they go hard on VTTs and only allow official material or homebrew stuff (i.e. no 3PP), this is going to really highlight this issue.

 

[dave2008]

Candlekeep mysteries was underwhelming enough I did not bother with Radiant Citadel. I am curious about the Keys anthology, mostly whether they will actually be "heists" in any useful meaning of the term.

People say stuff like this all the time and all I can say is that there is no way to know whether anything there is good or not. There's too much material and too few reviewers. Plus, honestly, have you EVER seen someone mention a DMsGuild adventure in discussions here? It doesn't matter if they are gold if they are impossible to find.

Dragon+ used to have a series "Best of DMs Guild" articles, but alas Dragon+ is no more.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I think there's actually a reasonable argument for reducing APs even though people enjoy them, which is that I believe an awful lot of the people enjoying them are not actually running them, and thus WotC is dumping significant time and effort into APs which are not actually being used as APs, but rather story-books or exercises in wishful thinking.

I'm not quite sure what to do about that, and it may be a fantasy on my part but I feel like the way they're discussed and some of the people I know are buying them IRL (including a number of never-DMs I know) suggests there's a strong degree of truth to it. Thus I'd rather see more effort put into shorter adventures that were more about being good adventures than "fun to read through" (even the presentation of a lot of WotC's APs seems like the focus is on "fun to read through" rather than "easy to run well", like they don't have a proper detailed synopsis because that would be "spoilers!" for the DM...).

This is, I'm sure, how Paizo APs make their money.

 

[Reynard]

Dragon+ used to have a series "Best of DMs Guild" articles, but alas Dragon+ is no more.

I found one youtube channel (splinterverse) that does some diving in, and I think Nerd Immersion does some "best of the month" videos. I really wish there was a curated "magazine" of the best of DMsGuild every month.

 

[dave2008]

I think there's actually a reasonable consumer-side argument for reducing APs even though people enjoy them, which is that I believe an awful lot of the people enjoying them are not actually running them, and thus WotC is dumping significant time and effort into APs which are not actually being used as APs, but rather story-books or exercises in wishful thinking.

I'm not quite sure what to do about that, and it may be a fantasy on my part but I feel like the way they're discussed and some of the people I know are buying them IRL (including a number of never-DMs I know) suggests there's a strong degree of truth to it. Thus I'd rather see more effort put into shorter adventures that were more about being good adventures than "fun to read through" (even the presentation of a lot of WotC's APs seems like the focus is on "fun to read through" rather than "easy to run well", like they don't have a proper detailed synopsis because that would be "spoilers!" for the DM...).

From WotC's perspective though it's probably fine, though I honestly feel WotC's consistently mediocre APs are damaging D&D in a way WotC doesn't fully understand (and that is I admit hard to explain). If they go hard on VTTs and only allow official material or homebrew stuff (i.e. no 3PP), this is going to really highlight this issue.

Perkins stressed in the videos that he is working on reorganizing the DMG to make it more user friendly for new DMs. I wonder if that thought will translate to adventure design?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This is, I'm sure, how Paizo APs make their money.

I mean, I definitely think there's some of that with Paizo APs, for sure, but I will also say based on my (limited) experience of Paizo APs, more of them are "written to run", and fewer of them are weirdly incomplete than WotC's ones, and just in general they're better written, so I guess I care less about that? It's like, if WotC was making great APs that happened to be fun to read, despite being "written-to-run", I wouldn't care. But it feels like WotC's primary audience is never-DMs/collectors/lifestylers with its APs, rather than y'know, DMs.

 

[dave2008]

I found one youtube channel (splinterverse) that does some diving in, and I think Nerd Immersion does some "best of the month" videos. I really wish there was a curated "magazine" of the best of DMsGuild every month.

Yes, this discussing got me think about starting a blog just for that purpose. If only I had the time!

 

[OB1]

Spelljammer really fits well. A 5-9 level adventure meant to take 30-40 hours to complete. Wouldn't mind seeing more APs designed for a single tier like this.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Perkins stressed in the videos that he is working on reorganizing the DMG to make it more user friendly for new DMs. I wonder if that thought will translate to adventure design?

Never has before in three editions.

3/4/5E had totally different approaches to and qualities of DMG. 4E had by far the best-quality DM advice and was definitely the easiest for a "noob DM" to run a fun (for everyone involved) game in (esp. with noob players).

Yet 4E had by far the worst WotC adventures at launch. I mean they were super-trash. Every single fault you can point to in an adventure, those three either all had it, or one of them had it in spades. They were so bad I was finally convinced to go back to writing my own adventures (which turned out to be easy because 4E was so good for that).

 

[Li Shenron]

...is that they are too long. We don't need "campaigns" that take us from level 2 to 11 or 13 or 20. Diversity of experience is important. I hope that in the not-6E era, shorter, more focused adventures come back into vogue and big adventure campaigns/APs disappear.

I agree, although sometimes I have troubles figuring out if I should say they are too long or too short...

I mean, they are too long for me in terms of level range, but they are too short in terms of in-character time span. You go from begging an equipment upgrade for accepting the job as a 1st level adventurer, to saving the world/universe/multiverse somewhere between 10th and 20th level... in a few weeks or months.