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

[Micah Sweet]

I like Beyond for the convenience - making and tracking characters, cross-links to items in other areas, encounter making, combining books into one section (such as under the "Spells" and "Monsters" section) and the like. But I treat it as a supplement to the printed books, as I know I'll have the books long past the end of any edition. I do remember when the electronic subscription for 4E went away and the electronic books for it did too, for example (yes, they're on DriveThru now, but for a while, they weren't, and you'd have to rebuy them). I do wish that WotC would do the "buy the book, get the PDF/Beyond version for free. Or at an extremely discounted rate.

In the case of those free adventures, I've used copy & paste to put them into documents for my own use in the knowledge that I'll still have them the day they vanish along with Beyond. Back in the 3E days, Wotc used to do dozens of web supplements, and I've saved off all those too.

See, I play mostly 3pp, so there's nothing convenient about DDB for me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But the point still stands: you don't like the game, stop playing it. It doesn't matter if you changed (and the game didn't change with you), or the game changed (and you didn't change with it).

Sure. I'm just saying it feels different when you're not the one who changed.

 

[TiQuinn]

Right but this new approach hasn’t been working

It’s the same approach they’ve had the past ten years. Are you saying their adventures haven’t done well over that time?

Ravenloft was basically a reprint of a classic adventure

In part, but that’s way underselling the work that went into Curse of Strahd.

Railroading I agree in todays age might not be a good thing but wotc has recognized these tsr adventures worked and have basically grouped them into books

Rime etc are just not as good as Ravenloft. The villians are not as engaging and the books are even for me somewhat intimidating

Even the original Ravenloft module was an advanced module that a DM couldn’t just pick up and run without prep.

I play with an experienced group. Rime has 6-10 towns with somewhat silly subplots but yet it’s not fleshed out like Ravenloft
Ravenloft
Starting detailed town and like say candy land you can easily prep for the unexpected
Rime-hey I’d like to go town b while visiting a. Me as dm crap there wasn’t much so let me make up stuff etc

Okay, so don’t play Rime. Play Tomb of Annhilation or Dungeon of the Mad Mage or Out of the Abyss. Try some of the third party adventures like Odyssey of the Dragonlords or Empire of the Ghouls, etc.

Me personally and I would argue for many dms less is more
Instead of 6 plus towns in time give me 2 that are ready to go

Phandelver-you do all these side quests tied to rescuing a something and finding a cave. I’m at the part where the party finds the cave. Guess what the description of outside the cave stinks compared to much earlier stuff. The section stinks to be honest. The bad person is located within this section with allies and a setttung that is reminiscent of 1st edition

1st edition
Room 1 kobolds
Room 2 undead
Room 3 a griphon
Room 4 a red dragon

This happens in this part of the adventure and I had to laugh on how did the main bad thing navigate through all this with their allies

Not sure what you mean by the description but if you’re talking about box text, that’s a style preference that most adventures have moved away from.

Bg3 the video game does a better job in their dungeons than wotc does and that’s a shame. The dungeons make sense
The villians getting to the dungeon makes sense and often leave a trail
The outside encounters are also better

Take out the voice actors etc it’s just better as a blueprint for a good adventure

It’s a video game that had more development and resources and writers and funding provided for it than years worth of D&D adventures ever would. It’s an apples and oranges comparison.

 

[Faolyn]

Sure. I'm just saying it feels different when you're not the one who changed.

That's what you have to get over. It's changed to something you don't like. Oh well. Keep the stuff you like, find other things in a style you like, make your own, or learn to appreciate the new stuff for what it is. Complaining isn't going to change anything.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's what you have to get over. It's changed to something you don't like. Oh well. Keep the stuff you like, find other things in a style you like, make your own, or learn to appreciate the new stuff for what it is. Complaining isn't going to change anything.

To be fair, nothing we do here at all is going to change anything.

 

[Faolyn]

To be fair, nothing we do here at all is going to change anything.

So why complain about it? If you don't like what they're doing, just don't buy it. Vote with your dollars, as they say. Complaining doesn't help and makes it worse for those who have to hear/read it.

 

[KYRON45]

So why complain about it? If you don't like what they're doing, just don't buy it. Vote with your dollars, as they say. Complaining doesn't help and makes it worse for those who have to hear/read it.

Isn't the point of a discussion forum to....well....discuss these things?

 

[htap]

So I'm not sure if this has been discussed yet but the final part is pretty rough. Some issues:

The map for the cave, E1 and E2 sapphire cant be reached.
Vecna as written cant use vile teleport
Vecna can't see though the walls
If you kill vecna the party loses
If you use the chime on vecna, and he has a legendary resistance to use against it the party loses.

I think massive parts of this book were cut.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Here are some rough numbers from a prior thread:


So, based on this, WotC cut is going up from ~$12.50 to ~$15 per book when they upped the price.

Try selling me swampland while your at it, you expect me to believe 60% goes to retailers? And 30% goes to distrubutors, while WotC accepts a mere 15% per book? That's a huge profit margin for Retailers. No way am buying that.

 

[Faolyn]

Isn't the point of a discussion forum to....well....discuss these things?

Bit of a difference between discussion and complaining, though.