A Thing I Don't Like About Adventure Paths

[diaglo]

another poorly executed adventure path from 1edADnD would be the DL series.

edit: but only b/c it does what many have since done. chugga, chugga, choo, choo. all aboard the railroad.

 

[renau1g]

Yeah I've heard really poor things about the Dragonlance ones for 1e and the ones that follow the Time of Troubles in FR (it is either late 1e or early 2e, not sure off the top of my head)

 

[diaglo]

if you want to say an adventure path should be shorter. try say D1, 2, 3 separate from G1, 2, 3 and just skip Q1

but you could say it was a complete path as G1-3, D1-2, D3, and Q1 or just Queen of the Spiders...

or another short one might be A1, 2, 3, 4. or megamodule A1-4

the poor B1-9 In Search of Adventure isn't an adventure path. it is just a collection of modules.

 

[the Jester]

Well, I'm speaking about the thing where, at the end of the long campaign, it turns out that pretty much everything that has happened ultimately had the BBEG behind it. Age of Worms is the best example I can come up with- it has all been about Kyuss, the whole time, even if the pcs don't know it.

Shackled City is one that I haven't read or played through, so I can't comment on it. Savage Tide seemed like an improvement on AoW, but the BBEG is ultimately Demogorgon from the start.

Rather than playing an entire 20 to 30 level path that is all about one overarching plot, I prefer a campaign structured with many different unconnected adventures, even as some connect to others. Lanefan's model is pretty good, but since I've started thinking about it, I realize that I prefer something with even more different plot lines dangling around in it.

Which brings up another thing- part of the reason that I think we see more APs these days is the speed of character advancement. Back in the day, you could complete a module or two without seeing a level gain. Nowadays it is pretty standard to gain 2-3 levels in a single adventure. That's good in some ways- it gets frustrating never gaining a level- but bad in others- there isn't enough time to really develop a bunch of threats of the same few levels. The tier system in 4e helps alleviate this by winking at the idea of monsters and saying, "This guy isn't just 3rd level monster, he's a heroic level monster with five different variants at levels 1 through 10." But this fuzzes out the difference between 1st level monsters and 10th level monsters to a degree.

Continuing to muse.

 

[diaglo]

Which brings up another thing- part of the reason that I think we see more APs these days is the speed of character advancement. Back in the day, you could complete a module or two without seeing a level gain. Nowadays it is pretty standard to gain 2-3 levels in a single adventure. That's good in some ways- it gets frustrating never gaining a level- but bad in others- there isn't enough time to really develop a bunch of threats of the same few levels. The tier system in 4e helps alleviate this by winking at the idea of monsters and saying, "This guy isn't just 3rd level monster, he's a heroic level monster with five different variants at levels 1 through 10." But this fuzzes out the difference between 1st level monsters and 10th level monsters to a degree.

Continuing to muse.

certainly character advancement is the presiding factor.

DL did this if you used the pregens. they advanced them thru the series to the lvls appropriate for each module.

remember what Gary said from the very beginning. every thing and everyone not a PC is a monster. even that Lawful NPC cleric who just healed you in town.

 

[billd91]

Shouldn't a given hero have more than one bad guy in him? Superheroes have more than one archnemesis. Granted, Luke only fought the Empire, but Kirk dealt with Klingons, Romulans and Khan.

I can see what you mean to a certain extent. Some APs, however, are more friendly to multiple instances of rising and falling action along their length than others which fit better into a continually rising crescendo to the central focus of the situation.
Shackled City actually does the multiple nemeses route reasonably well. There are a few than can fill the role at different parts of the adventure if the DM is deft enough to handle it. But the primary movers of the whole affair do get dealt with in 3 successive chapters (10-12). Having a couple major ones dealt with in chapter 8, however, does offer a nice mini-climax to the whole series.

 

[Glyfair]

edit: the problem with T1-4 is the options. too many open ended ones. which don't play a part in the goal. meaning for the PCs to complete they need to have a strong focus from start to finish.

While that is one of the things I dislike about Adventure Paths. In the end, the players find that every antagonist they dealt with, from beginning to end, was tied into the BBEG in some fashion. All wrapped up in a long involved, convoluted package, true, but still one package.

I have said elsewhere I would like to see a company put out a series of adventures that are designed to take place concurrently. From level 1-30 (in 4E) the players deal with say 3 different series of adventures, broken up in the level progression (start with series 1, got to 2, back to 1, on to 3 and that wraps up heroic tier, for example). You could then mix and match the series without the players getting the idea that "everything is tied together" because it isn't.

 

[Altalazar]

While that is one of the things I dislike about Adventure Paths. In the end, the players find that every antagonist they dealt with, from beginning to end, was tied into the BBEG in some fashion. All wrapped up in a long involved, convoluted package, true, but still one package.

I have said elsewhere I would like to see a company put out a series of adventures that are designed to take place concurrently. From level 1-30 (in 4E) the players deal with say 3 different series of adventures, broken up in the level progression (start with series 1, got to 2, back to 1, on to 3 and that wraps up heroic tier, for example). You could then mix and match the series without the players getting the idea that "everything is tied together" because it isn't.

You know, you really don't need a specific path from level 1 to X if you DON'T want them to be tied together - if there is no connection, then ANY set of adventures of succeeding levels works. So one path from 1-9 added to one of 10 to 15 added to one of 16 to 22 gets you 1 to 22, and they don't have to be part of a set - you can interchange any 10-15 in the middle, etc. Maybe what would be good is a set of interchangeable adventure paths. A short adventure path of 1-10, one of 11-20, and so on. Sort of like super modules.

 

[RangerWickett]

In designing War of the Burning Sky, we made three top-end villains. All of them were prominent powers in the war, but how the PCs interact with different factions, allies, and enemies will determine who they have the biggest bone to pick with at the end.

You can even run the final three adventures in different orders depending on if the heroes care more about defeating

Spoiler

the witch Empress who started the war so she could conquer all, the super-villain archmage who betrays them so he could devastate all nations (even his own), or the monstrous contingent who just want transform the world into a nightmare dreamscape

. Heck, the PCs can even negotiate with one of those villains, and have them on their side for the final fight.

It's a war, after all, so it's not a stretch at all to have a heirarchy of foes, and multiple competing factions so that things are complicated.

 

[Lanefan]

Rather than playing an entire 20 to 30 level path that is all about one overarching plot, I prefer a campaign structured with many different unconnected adventures, even as some connect to others.

Agreed. That said, it's always fun to realize late in a campaign that some ways have arisen to tie what were at the time legitimately disconnected things together; if done well, you can always say you had it planned that way all along.

Which brings up another thing- part of the reason that I think we see more APs these days is the speed of character advancement. Back in the day, you could complete a module or two without seeing a level gain. Nowadays it is pretty standard to gain 2-3 levels in a single adventure. That's good in some ways- it gets frustrating never gaining a level- but bad in others- there isn't enough time to really develop a bunch of threats of the same few levels.

One more thing to consider: how long overall is your campaign designed to last, both in terms of number of adventures and years of play?

If you're looking at a campaign that's only going to last 1-2 years, your options are really limited. If you're going open-ended, there's lots more room to play with how stories come and go and fit together etc.

Or another way to look at it: are you planning to run maybe 12 adventures over the course of the campaign? 20? 65? And with how many different parties? If you've got two or more parties running concurrently, you can squeeze much more out of a given level range before all the parties have advanced beyond it, and you've again got loads more room for stories to start and finish within the overall campaign.

Lanefan