D&D 5E Where's the Villain? and other musings. Why some published campaigns are great and some aren't (Spoiler alerts)

[Starfox]

Candlekeep is discussed a lot earlier in the thread, and since I am currently playing it, I want to chime in.

My campaign is a combination of Kobold Press' Old Margreve (a series of unconnected adventures in the forest of Old Margreve) and Candlekeep Mysteries. And both me and my player have come to prefer the Old Margreve parts. Candlekeep is basically a series of package tour vacation trips, you end up in an attractive site, have a fun adventure, and then go home. Not bad, but not great either. Old Margreve is like a classic Big Dumb Object from SF, its an environment that is alive and enforces its own rules without being intelligent. In effect, the forest of the Old Margreve is the supervillain, and the PCs have to survive it, learn about it, and finally decide what (if anything) they want to do about it.

Seems I am coming down on the "archvillains make stories great" side of the argument - I didn't expect I would.

I have plans to spice up the Candlekeep part with ideas from Legendary Games' Adventure in Candlekeep, we'll see how that goes. I ought to stop procrastinating here and go prep for that.

 

[Shardstone]

But, on the other hand, some groups are perfectly happy with a campaign in rails. I’ve certainly seen players who are perfectly content to let the dm roll up the plot wagon and hop on board and will actively resist any effort to entice them to come up with anything on their own.

There very much is a place for linear, heavily railroaded campaigns.

They dont have to be mutually exclusive.

 

[billd91]

I see a lot of this, its the style most popular around here. I personally often GM bought adventures. But adventure paths often does not support their own story, or at least does not advertise themselves enough, making it hard to make suitable characters. My main experience is with Paizo adventure paths prior to PF2.

As an example I actually GMed, Savage Tide sold itself as a city adventure in the City of Sasserine, then turned into a swashbuckling sea voyage/lost island exploration, and finally planar war in the Abyss. Each of these parts were great, but it was hard to build and manage player expectations. We actually had a spin-off campaign that Stayed in Sasserine.

Jade Regent is perhaps the worst bait-and-switch, it begins as a polar expedition from a land of vikings and ends as a horror anime in a Japanese court environment. Not exactly easy to make a character suitable for this, especially if the GM is stingy with information beforehand. I never tried to actually play this one.

Paizo got better at this, the later adventure paths stayed closer to their original theme.

Jade Regent a bait and switch? The player's guide makes it pretty clear where you're ultimately going and offers a lot of advice. It may be true that the adventuring environments are varied enough that it's tough to feel like you're building a character well suited to all of it, but that AP is well after they got burned by criticism of an AP that really did feel like a bait and switch - Second Darkness. That particular AP's players' guide gave you a lot of information about how to make a Riddleport-oriented character but gives little hint of what's to come later - unlike the Jade Regent PG.

 

[Ancalagon]

But, on the other hand, some groups are perfectly happy with a campaign in rails. I’ve certainly seen players who are perfectly content to let the dm roll up the plot wagon and hop on board and will actively resist any effort to entice them to come up with anything on their own.

There very much is a place for linear, heavily railroaded campaigns.

My group ... is not quite like this, but they do like a bit of guidance.

After finishing a long "silk road" campaign which was ... well not on a railroad, but definitely on a road haha - I ran my Yoon-Suin campaign. My goal with it was to be "anti" railroad. After a quick introduction adventure (2-3 sessions, level up form 2 to 3 kinda thing), I started putting rumors, plot hooks etc so that the players could control their destiny (Yoon Suin is a campaign setting/campaign builder, a 2nd ed is in the work, and it really does encourage this type of campaigning).

But.... my players didn't like this, they felt unsure as to "what they were supposed to do". So I returned to a more directed "quest giver" type of play. I still made sure that the players were free to turn down the quest and free to "solve" the "quest" as they saw fit. I also had no "desired" outcome as a GM - whatever the result of their most recent adventure was, I would have the world react to it.

So I suppose that - like many things - it's a bit of a spectrum. As a GM, you have to adapt to your group. (... up to a degree - us DMs do have preferences too!)

 

[Hussar]

Wait… what? At no point was Savage Tide advertised as an urban campaign. The fact you were going to the isle of dread was absolutely clear at the outset.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I haven't played Savage Tide, but to me the title suggests a nautical pirate campaign.

 

[Hussar]

I haven't played Savage Tide, but to me the title suggests a nautical pirate campaign.

I ran it at the time. There were multiple articles in both Dungeon and Dragon detailing the Isle of Dread, even before the campaign came out. IIRC, the campaign conversion guide came out with the first or second module, ish, and detailed that only the first two modules take place in Sasserine. There was an article in the issue of Dungeon before Savage Tides came out that previewed the campaign and told you up front that you would only spend a short time in Sasserine and the bulk of the AP was on the Isle of Dread.

I'm not entirely sure how anyone could look at the AP and think that this was going to be an urban campaign in Sasserine.

 

[Starfox]

Except for Jade Regent, that I didn't play, all these examples are how it worked out in actual play.

 

[TheSword]

I really liked Tales of the Old Margreve. Never ran it but really like the idea of mashing it up with Kingmaker.

I totally get what people say about Paizo APs. Part of the challenge (also with anthologies) is that they are all written by different people so can sometimes feel very disjointed. NPCs can definitely sometimes only feature in one book then are never seen again.

I actually think the intention is that characters carry across but because the writers don’t know who will survive or even that previous installments will have been played they have to create new. I think a side bar saying ‘if X survives then use them instead of Y and Z’ would be a really good thing.

 

[payn]

I really liked Tales of the Old Margreve. Never ran it but really like the idea of mashing it up with Kingmaker.

I totally get what people say about Paizo APs. Part of the challenge (also with anthologies) is that they are all written by different people so can sometimes feel very disjointed. NPCs can definitely sometimes only feature in one book then are never seen again.

I actually think the intention is that characters carry across but because the writers don’t know who will survive or even that previous installments will have been played they have to create new. I think a side bar saying ‘if X survives then use them instead of Y and Z’ would be a really good thing.

One of the things folks often miss is the APs do have advice for such ideas. Though, when you ask about it they often shrug and say, "oh thats the readin not the playin part of APs".