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

[Hussar]

Very good article.

Do you think that BG3 features the three elements I think makes a published campaign great?

• Great villains
• Open world
• Meaningful NPC roleplay

Because I certainly do.

Well, let's be fair to poor DM's out there though. Most of us don't have a team of professional writers who can spend a couple of thousand man hours developing a game world before the first player even sits down. It's a lot easier to build this massive sandbox with all sorts of freedom and stuff to explore when you have those kinds of resources to devote to a game.

Most of us cannot do that. Most of us cannot even come close to a tiny percentage of that. I mean, people often talk about how anything longer than a 30(ish) page module is overwhelming. Imagine expecting a DM to have hundreds, if not thousands, of pages of notes before the first character is even written.

While there are certainly elements that can be borrowed from video games, trying to compare any paltry effort I can make to a professional studio's multi-million dollar effort is not really going to help me too much.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Very good article.

Do you think that BG3 features the three elements I think makes a published campaign great?

• Great villains
• Open world
• Meaningful NPC roleplay

Because I certainly do.

They are not the features the article-writer chooses to pick out though. Perhaps, as @Hussar points out, because they aren't realistic goals for people who are not professional script writers.

 

[TheSword]

Well, let's be fair to poor DM's out there though. Most of us don't have a team of professional writers who can spend a couple of thousand man hours developing a game world before the first player even sits down. It's a lot easier to build this massive sandbox with all sorts of freedom and stuff to explore when you have those kinds of resources to devote to a game.

Most of us cannot do that. Most of us cannot even come close to a tiny percentage of that. I mean, people often talk about how anything longer than a 30(ish) page module is overwhelming. Imagine expecting a DM to have hundreds, if not thousands, of pages of notes before the first character is even written.

While there are certainly elements that can be borrowed from video games, trying to compare any paltry effort I can make to a professional studio's multi-million dollar effort is not really going to help me too much.

Don’t forget I’m talking about (and always have been talking about) published campaigns.

BG is pointed out as excellent, yet it features these big three points.

Homebrew is totally different.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Don’t forget I’m talking about (and always have been talking about) published campaigns.

BG is pointed out as excellent, yet it features these big three points.

Homebrew is totally different.

No AP comes with prewritten NPC scripts and professional voice acting.

It's easy to have a great villain when you have an A list actor to play them.

 

[TheSword]

They are not the features the article-writer chooses to pick out though. Perhaps, as @Hussar points out, because they aren't realistic goals for people who are not professional script writers.

The article isn’t about what makes published adventures great, it’s about advice for running a game. In what way is any of those 10 pieces of advice incompatible with the original thesis?

 

[TheSword]

No AP comes with prewritten NPC scripts and professional voice acting.

Where has that been required, by anybody? Do you need a script to run a compelling and interesting NPC?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The article isn’t about what makes published adventures great, it’s about advice for running a game. In what way is any of those 10 pieces of advice incompatible with the original thesis?

Because it's how you run the game that makes it great, or not.

 

[TheSword]

Because it's how you run the game that makes it great, or not.

Yet again you are failing to grasp the basic concept of the thread. We’re not comparing ‘games’. We’re comparing pre-published adventures. At no point in the thread - particulary the title and opening post have I ever referred to someone’s game.

Yet you specifically keep trying to make this a discussion about how good a DM you are. I’m not disputing that at all, but if I see a particularly good performance of Loves Labours Lost I don’t turn around and say it’s a much better play than Macbeth just because someone exceptional made a version of it I really liked.

In this thread we’re looking at the play (published adventure) on its own merits. Where we can see them on paper and compare them directly. Once we start discussing table differences and whether someone performs 1st person NPCs we cease to be able to compare like for like. It ceases to be a thread about comparison and it just becomes a set of general opinions. (Which you have already shared several times)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

We’re comparing pre-published adventures.

And you might as well try and compare oranges in a bowl, because the adventure doesn't matter. It's what you do with it that counts.

Take memorable NPCs and villains. Sure, they make adventures great, but you cannot write "this villain is great" into an adventure path. What makes them great is their dialogue and performance, and that is simply not included in an adventure path. A skilled DM can make Tavern Guard #2 a memorable NPC, and every villain is dull with a lacklustre performance.

 

[TheSword]

And you might as well try and compare oranges in a bowl, because the adventure doesn't matter. It's what you do with it that counts.

Well I think the adventure does matter, a great deal and I think they can be compared meaningfully.

I don’t dispute that the delivery is exceptionally important but once you’ve decided to run a pre-published campaign some run better than others. That absolutely impacts on the delivery.

The experience of DMing Curse of Strahd was completely different to the experience of running Rime of the Frost Maiden. Even though they had many similarities.

I say the same for Tomb of Annihilaton and Princes of the Apocalypse. Both lots of exploration and dungeon delving but fundamentally different levels of enjoyment to run.

Same players, same DM, same game space.