D&D General (SPOILERS for Vecna: Eve of Ruin) Are My Standards Too High for Adventures?

[Micah Sweet]

High level adventures aren't easy things to put together, I've seen way too many over the years (several being from TSR alumni even) that fail to account for the power and abilities the players have at hand (I've been guilty of it myself - those levels have serious learning curves, and its why I don't play them anymore).

I was very hesitant about this module from the start after listening to the interview, and even from the interview I could sense there were going to be some railroad problems (and rule/lore snags) with the adventure. It really sounded to me like they were falling back into the 2E days of "Epic Storylines" on rails where the characters were more observer than participant (and often would never learn half the story the DM had been fed - Ravenloft, Dark Sun and Planescape were especially notorious for this).

When you're trying to fit a campaign into an X page book there's not much wiggle room beyond the main adventure path, there's probably been several chunks that have been excised just to get it to fit into the page count in the first place. I imagine there's several spots where the characters are just assumed to roll with the plot to the next big scene and there's no space (or attempt) to extrapolate if they don't - they'll just flounder until the DM figures out a way to bridge the gap to the next section.

Also, they've been dinged before for making adventures "too complicated" to run via a convoluted story path or multiple branches - I think that might have been Storm King's Thunder, but I know that probably D&D's most complicated storyline was Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, and it got utterly slammed for how convoluted it was. They don't want to repeat that experience and scare away customers - high level is complicated enough without trying to decipher someone else's storyline and half-notes about how to juggle the storyline(s).

I think what we ended up with was a storyline that could be easily followed and easily run by inexperienced DMs as their first foray into high level as long as the players are onboard for following the primary trail. It's a casual tale, not a meatgrinder. I don't think it was made for the veteran DMs like a lot of us on here who have years under our belt - we're more likely experienced enough we'd prefer to make content that specifically fits our game thus far. They probably expected a lot of groups who attempt to run this have had some game time with lower level characters (maybe up to 8th level or so, if that much) and are going to skip right to this adventure with new PCs or power-leveling current ones.

More evidence that WotC simply does not care about experienced/veteran fans beyond throwing a few nostalgia bones at them to get their $$$ (more this time, obviously). It's all about getting new sources of sales through the door.

 

[Micah Sweet]

lets face it... if we as a community were not going to give huge pass after huge pass to WotC for things they did wrong, we wouldn't be here or playing D&D...

I don't think that's true for all of us. Some of us like D&D and even 5e just fine without WotC.

 

[MerricB]

Probably the weakest 5E Adventure books are Tyranny of Dragons and Dragonheist...but, well, those both worked in practice for me, still?

Oh, I'd put Descent into Avernus way, way, way below those.

Funnily enough, I've run both Tyranny and Dragon Heist three times each. The last time I ran Dragon Heist was really memorable - I was adding so much to all the faction stuff that we almost didn't get back to the main plot.

Cheers,
Merric

 

[Micah Sweet]

They bungle it just as much as they've bungled almost every single module and adventure they've ever produced. I mean there are very few adventures from the 4E, 3E, or 2E eras that have gotten consistent praise as being fantastic. And even the "nostalgia" AD&D/Basic adventures that get praise for being the "greatest of all time"... every single one can be considered crap by most of the player base who doesn't look at them through rose-colored glasses. Each time someone says The Keep On The Borderlands is the greatest module they've ever run, you'll find a bunch of other people who will say it's a P.O.S.

So in other words... the supposed mediocrity of 5E adventures is not anything that's been worse than most of the other adventures ever written previously over the last 50 years. Sure, there will be a handful of modules/adventures that would probably get S-Tier ranking from 99% of all players... but those are incredibly few and far between. All the rest? From WotC or TSR or third-party publishers? Kudos from some folks, trash-binned by the others.

In other words... yes, I think standards are too high and few modules or adventures reach them.

I think the standards aren't too high for the prices they're charging.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Nothing wrong with complaining about the product... but attributing your dislike of it to the people who made it just not caring enough or working long or hard enough cuts your legs out from under your argument.

As the mods always say here... criticize the post, not the poster.

Or you know... don't. Go ahead and join in with the myriad of people here over the years who have called the designers of D&D stupid or lazy. But then just don't expect to say that without other people showing up to rebut your claims.

It does leave the question unanswered though. If you feel that WotC isn't making good adventures, what can you point to as the reason? Not the people who made it, apparently. The publisher? Yourself?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm going to be completely honest, as someone who teaches creative writing, as an adventure writer myself, etc etc, WotC clearly has no idea how to actually put together a sensible and engaging narrative. It actually isn't hard to make a narrative for an adventure that is open-ended, engaging, and easy to run; they just clearly don't know what they're doing on this specific front. The adventures are not good stories

But they have tons of great ideas, great moments, great set pieces, and so on. I compare it to Season 8 of Game of Thrones. Everything BUT the story is great.

Unfortunately, the story is actually really important.

 

[MichaelSomething]

If you're looking for high-quality adventures, turn to EnPublishing! The same people who made this very forum are also making super good 5E stuff!

 

[Quickleaf]

I don’t think WotC’s D&D adventures have ever set a good standard. My view is that really good adventures from WotC are outliers.

If you want good D&D 5e adventures that don’t require a ton of editing/modifying, it’s just better to look to other other publishers.

 

[MockingBird]

(Tyranny may be in my top 5 adventures of all time, but I know that's not universal).

I never understood why Tyranny got so much hate. I read it and thought it was fun, I never got a chance to run it though. I had it prepped but that game never materialized. I was going to run it for my family game until Shattered Obelisk came out and they were already in Phandelin so I went with it instead.

 

[MerricB]

I never understood why Tyranny got so much hate. I read it and thought it was fun, I never got a chance to run it though. I had it prepped but that game never materialized. I was going to run it for my family game until Shattered Obelisk came out and they were already in Phandelin so I went with it instead.

It has a few issues. One problem is that it was developed with the playtest stats, and it runs FAR better with them than with the final monster manual. (Some CRs changed a LOT!)

And also, there are a lot of people who can't handle the thought of a linear adventure (even though each section has a lot of player agency).

I do think the flow of information (and why it's given out when it does) in the Hoard section is a little obscure and not as well explained as it can be. And the finale of Rise of Tiamat really needed a lot more development - the effect of what having alliances is not spelled out well at all.

But the scope of the adventure really appeals to me, as does the fact that you have the Powers of the Forgotten Realms actually paying attention and helping.

Cheers!