DarkCrisis
Let her cook.
Big book takes 12 people say. So 3 smaller projects could maybe use 4 people? Same quality over smaller projects.
D&D General (SPOILERS for Vecna: Eve of Ruin) Are My Standards Too High for Adventures?
- Thread starter the Jester
- Start date
Big book takes 12 people say. So 3 smaller projects could maybe use 4 people? Same quality over smaller projects.
Remathilis
Legend
WotC figured out the ROI on small/cheap products was poor in early 3e. In the original 3.0 run, we had all sorts of small/cheap products like Sword & Fist, Book of Challenges, and the Sunless Citadel. IIRC, they were about $10-20, softcover with black and white interiors and color covers (with a lot or recycled stock art). By the time 3.5 came around WotC had switched to full color hardbacks and never looked back. (I think there was still some softcover modules at this point, but they were still much larger and full color endeavors). I will profess no inside knowledge of the publishing industry, but WotC hasn't felt short/cheap products were worth production for close to two decades.
Interestingly, I took a look at Paizo's offerings and while they still produce some smaller/cheaper modules (primarily one shots and organized play) the bulk of their output is also hardback rules and adventure paths. I know Paizo was great about softcover books and non-AP modules for a good while, but it seems they too got out of the 32-page softcover business. I might be off on that (correct me if I am) but it looks like they discovered what WotC learned a decade earlier.
The 64-ish page adventure never went away. It just moved to Adventurer's League.
Parmandur
Book-Friend, he/him
They also hide them in the bigger books, in plain sight.
Nope. Doesn't work that way.
There is a LOT of overhead for projects. A project's cost doesn't scale linearly with page count.
It actually has a fairly awesome short adventure arc in it. I ran the Neverwinter jailbreak/heist episode as a stand-alone a year or two ago.
I have a feeling that plenty of tables are going to play Vecna out of the box without running into significant problems. What renders an adventure "unuseable," in your opinion?
I think spoilers are fine on this thread. Maybe give a warning at the start of the post, just for courtesy. (PS: I know someone who is involved with playtesting, and that person has said that the playtesters' feedback doesn't always lead to changes in the adventures.)
And we used to get free adventures in Dragon+. I actually miss that magazine. I know it wasn't Dragon and Dungeon, but I still looked forward to it.
I think the day and age for cheap physical booklets to turn any kind of profit at all has passed. PDFs are where it's at now. Even the hardbacks are being pushed as "cherished collectibles" in D&D 2024.
Is there a thread somewhere compiling a list of these "hidden" adventures? If not, someone should start one.
wicked cool
Hero
The emphasis in some of these prepackaged 89-90’s adventures as they are just better
Ravenloft is for me the best
The classic bundled together for me are better
Currently right now I’ve purchased products on d&d beyond and I find them lacking as a dm
Van Richten- this was a digital purchase for me. It’s a lot of information but it’s thin as a bad combover. For one of the dread lords and most likely all I had to go to multiple off sites to get a real picture of why the lord was doing what they were doing and I had to research old materials for what adventure they appeared in. It’s 2024 digital and the maps for the adventure kind of stink
Purchased phandelver years ago and now getting to the main plot with my group (why you were sent)There's a whole section missing of the outside of the mainplot so I had to add it in
There’s countless adventures where you get this open world but to piece it all together you literally have to rewrite it for them add etc
Didn’t have to do this back in my day. Back in my day I opened the adventure and could run it 1 day. Now the adventures back in my day are repackaged as a staircase
We should find people like those who wrote those. Hey maybe hire a Larian writer for a plot and npcs etc
Ravenloft is for me the best
The classic bundled together for me are better
Currently right now I’ve purchased products on d&d beyond and I find them lacking as a dm
Van Richten- this was a digital purchase for me. It’s a lot of information but it’s thin as a bad combover. For one of the dread lords and most likely all I had to go to multiple off sites to get a real picture of why the lord was doing what they were doing and I had to research old materials for what adventure they appeared in. It’s 2024 digital and the maps for the adventure kind of stink
Purchased phandelver years ago and now getting to the main plot with my group (why you were sent)There's a whole section missing of the outside of the mainplot so I had to add it in
There’s countless adventures where you get this open world but to piece it all together you literally have to rewrite it for them add etc
Didn’t have to do this back in my day. Back in my day I opened the adventure and could run it 1 day. Now the adventures back in my day are repackaged as a staircase
We should find people like those who wrote those. Hey maybe hire a Larian writer for a plot and npcs etc
wicked cool
Hero
I miss dragon magazine 2
Parmandur
Book-Friend, he/him
IMO, no 5E Adventure product has been unusable: even the ones that are probably the messiness objectively I have seen people say is their individual favorites in play. But Dragon Heist and Descent into Avernusno doubt require more legwork by the DM Curse of Strahd or Tpmb of Annhilation.
Not that difficult, the table of contents in each book usually does the trick (for example, each of the 6 major Giant types gets a small Adventure that is a chaoter in Storm King's Thunder).
Oh, I'm sure the information can be found with some research. I was just thinking that a thread would be a nice reference resource, especially if people are on the fence about whether to buy a particular book.
