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

[htap]

If you see someone come up to another person with a knife and stab them it's pretty easy to deduce intent.

You don't need to be able to see inside someone's head to deduce what their intent was, you just need to observe the outcome.

I don't think that's an accurate analogy at all

 

[Demetrios1453]

Overall, that is the pattern for this adventure. The arc story is quite poorly written (although fine in concept), the individual episodes are good to excellent. This is an issue with current adventure writing - WotC divide it up between different authors, so the finished product doesn't hang together well. I think the concept of the "adventure path" is fundamentally flawed, the adventure compilation books are all much better.

I have to think that editing down to the required page count has something to do with this as well, as the bare bones are fine, but i seems that there's a lot of meat that appears to have been cut. It's not terrible, but the book could definitely have used a few more pages to flesh out things like this.

(I'm planning on fleshing out things a bit more by having the portals appear further away from the pieces, which will allow for some more setting flavor before getting to the main dungeon for each chapter. So the party will have to travel a bit through the Underdark, will need to travel a bit on an actual functioning Spelljammer ship, etc. I'm having to research a bit on Rel Astra since it's the nearest city to the Greyhawk dungeon. They would obviously have not been able to fit such preludes in the product for space reasons.)

 

[htap]

I have to think that editing down to the required page count has something to do with this as well, as the bare bones are fine, but i seems that there's a lot of meat that appears to have been cut. It's not terrible, but the book could definitely have used a few more pages to flesh out things like this.

(I'm planning on fleshing out things a bit more by having the portals appear further away from the pices, which will allow for some more setting flavor before getting to the main dungeon for each chapter. So the party will have to travel a bit through the Underdark, will need to travel a bit on an actual functioning Spelljammer ship, etc. I'm having to research a bit on Rel Astra since it's the nearest city to the Greyhawk dungeon. They would obviously have not been able to fit such preludes in the product for space reasons.)

I think page count was the issue as well.

 

[occam]

(I'm planning on fleshing out things a bit more by having the portals appear further away from the pieces, which will allow for some more setting flavor before getting to the main dungeon for each chapter. So the party will have to travel a bit through the Underdark, will need to travel a bit on an actual functioning Spelljammer ship, etc. I'm having to research a bit on Rel Astra since it's the nearest city to the Greyhawk dungeon. They would obviously have not been able to fit such preludes in the product for space reasons.)

Same.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I think page count was the issue as well.

Would people pay 100 dollars for this if it was doubled in size so there would be room for more context and info???

 

[occam]

Clearly some way otherwise it would have been mentioned in the book. The book states the only way to win is the chime. Therefore if he dies the ritual continues. I don't know how but if you drop him to zero it happens.

There isn't any vagueness, it clearly says you MUST use the chime, and the only things after that statement as a text block reading what happens when the chime goes off or that the party has lost.

I'm not saying I like it, but that's how it is.

is that how you would run it, as DM? The PCs waste Vecna, he turns into a puff of smoke, which dissipates, and then you'd say, "Somehow the ritual finishes anyway; you all lose, and the multiverse is screwed. Thanks for playing!"

While the encounter text doesn't describe what happens if the PCs kill Vecna (even though his stat block does!), it also doesn't describe any way in which the ritual could continue without him. If you, as DM, make that happen, that would be you adding something to the adventure that isn't there.

 

[Reynard]

It's interesting. A number of folks in this thread are expressing concern or frustration with different elements of the adventure not lining up with other elements of the adventure, and largely blaming creative teams who aren't communicating.

The answer to this is a person in charge, a creative director, a person whose vision drives the whole production.

If WotC doesn't have that, what are they even doing?

 

[Reynard]

Would people pay 100 dollars for this if it was doubled in size so there would be room for more context and info???

That's the wrong way to think about it. Cut the words by 50% and double the content. Give people something they are willing to pay for.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's interesting. A number of folks in this thread are expressing concern or frustration with different elements of the adventure not lining up with other elements of the adventure, and largely blaming creative teams who aren't communicating.

The answer to this is a person in charge, a creative director, a person whose vision drives the whole production.

If WotC doesn't have that, what are they even doing?

Star Wars Sequel Syndrome

 

[Demetrios1453]

It's interesting. A number of folks in this thread are expressing concern or frustration with different elements of the adventure not lining up with other elements of the adventure, and largely blaming creative teams who aren't communicating.

The answer to this is a person in charge, a creative director, a person whose vision drives the whole production.

If WotC doesn't have that, what are they even doing?

What we're discussing right now is that it appears everything lines up just fine, but that there simply was not enough room to flesh out things like those connections in the allowed page count. That's a financial decision from the bean-counters, not any failing from the creative groups or directors. The adventure is completely fine to run as is; it could just use a bit more room to breathe.