D&D General Adventure hype and meeting expectations

[payn]

I miss the 32-64 page modules of the olden days. The campaign adventures (and adventure paths) get too convoluted for my tastes, and I lose interest.

Many of the Paizo adventure path modules can be stripped out and run as stand alone adventures. Serpent Skull, for example is a path I wouldnt recommend due to it having many problems down the road. (There are some real world behind the scenes issues at Paizo that can account for why this happened). However, the first adventure (Souls for Smugglers Shiv) by one of the best in the biz James Jacobs is a great starter adventure sandbox that could be converted easily to other editions since early levels are the least work.

Im not sure if the WotC published adventures are as modular.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The good news is that there are a lot of other folks producing adventures out there -- more than any other time in the game's history, in fact. And a lot of them are great and there are many reviewers doing the hard work of reviewing vast quantities of them.

The challenge, of course, is to get over the mental hurdle that a WotC adventure (or supplement or rule book) is inherently better in some fashion. Once one unlocks that particular mental shackle, the quality of overall published D&D work shoots up.

 

[payn]

The good news is that there are a lot of other folks producing adventures out there -- more than any other time in the game's history, in fact. And a lot of them are great and there are many reviewers doing the hard work of reviewing vast quantities of them.

The challenge, of course, is to get over the mental hurdle that a WotC adventure (or supplement or rule book) is inherently better in some fashion. Once one unlocks that particular mental shackle, the quality of overall published D&D work shoots up.

Yeap. Another thing folks over look is organized play modules. Yes, the quality varies greatly, but there are some gems in there and they are usually very affordable. Also, no adventure path length commitments.

 

[Parmandur]

Im not sure if the WotC published adventures are as modular.

They are extremely modular: often you can simply look st the Chapters and see thst they are seperate old school modules.

 

[pukunui]

I miss the 32-64 page modules of the olden days. The campaign adventures (and adventure paths) get too convoluted for my tastes, and I lose interest.

That's what the adventure anthologies are for, and we've now got five of those to choose from: Candlekeep Mysteries, Tales from the Yawning Portal, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Journeys from the Radiant Citadel, and Keys from the Golden Vault.

Plus, you can easily rip apart any of the longer hardcover adventures and use those for parts. Dungeon of the Mad Mage has 23 separate dungeons and an underground town for you to repurpose. Need a giant lair? Storm King's Thunder has one for each of the main giant types plus a giant-sized temple and an ancient blue dragon's lair. Tomb of Annihilation has a kobold-infested mine complete with ridable rail carts, a jungle ruin inhabited by a medusa, an old dwarven forge in a volcano, a pirate base, and more!

I've had great success using bits and pieces of the hardcovers as standalone adventures in unrelated episodic campaigns.

 

[Zardnaar]

That's what the adventure anthologies are for, and we've now got five of those to choose from: Candlekeep Mysteries, Tales from the Yawning Portal, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Journeys from the Radiant Citadel, and Keys from the Golden Vault.

Plus, you can easily rip apart any of the longer hardcover adventures and use those for parts. Dungeon of the Mad Mage has 23 separate dungeons and an underground town for you to repurpose. Need a giant lair? Storm King's Thunder has one for each of the main giant types plus a giant-sized temple and an ancient blue dragon's lair. Tomb of Annihilation has a kobold-infested mine complete with ridable rail carts, a jungle ruin inhabited by a medusa, an old dwarven forge in a volcano, a pirate base, and more!

I've had great success using bits and pieces of the hardcovers as standalone adventures in unrelated episodic campaigns.

That's mire advanced users. I've done the sane the average casual player won't do that.

WotC adventures seem designed to be read.

Only 2 of the anthology books are well regarded. Radiant Citidel opinions vary split. Candlekeep very small adventures (more Dungeon magazine type) not sure about Golden Vault.

 

[pukunui]

That's mire advanced users. I've done the sane the average casual player won't do that.

Nah, it's not that hard to do.

WotC adventures seem designed to be read.

Yeah nah, they're not novels. They generally read like textbooks. I find they always put me to sleep if I try to read more than a few pages.

Only 2 of the anthology books are well regarded. Radiant Citidel opinions vary split. Candlekeep very small adventures (more Dungeon magazine type) not sure about Golden Vault.

They're all mixed bags honestly, but that's par for the course more or less. So far, I think Golden Vault is the more consistently good one than any of the others. Saltmarsh is pretty good too. Yawning Portal has some flaws that stem from being a bit too faithful with their translations from older editions, while Candlekeep Mysteries and Radiant Citadel have some adventures that really suffer from poor writing/editing/railroading/etc.

 

[MichaelSomething]

The good news is that there are a lot of other folks producing adventures out there -- more than any other time in the game's history, in fact. And a lot of them are great and there are many reviewers doing the hard work of reviewing vast quantities of them.

The challenge, of course, is to get over the mental hurdle that a WotC adventure (or supplement or rule book) is inherently better in some fashion. Once one unlocks that particular mental shackle, the quality of overall published D&D work shoots up.

For example, I bet many don't know about En5ider, the online magazine that regularly publishes stand alone adventures for 5E! Just click on that EnPublishing tab on this web page and look for yourself!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

For example, I bet many don't know about En5ider, the online magazine that regularly publishes stand alone adventures for 5E! Just click on that EnPublishing tab on this web page and look for yourself!

And, on a related note, if you're frustrated about 5E's game balance or the mixed quality of the Monster Manual, they've got books to plug those holes, too. It just takes that first step of saying "say, I wonder if anyone else is doing quality work out there ..."

 

[Parmandur]

They're all mixed bags honestly, but that's par for the course more or less

Yeah, not sure how they could be anything else: even a part thst imperfect may try something thwt could be useful I'm setting up a given game.