Adventure Survey

[d20fool]

Foolish Ventures Adventures wants to hear what you have to say about the adventures you buy (and those you don't.) Feel free to respond to any or all of the questions below.

What do you look for in adventures?

What sort of adventures are you looking for in terms of:
 Setting?
 Theme?
 Type (dungeon-crawl, city adventures, role-playing, etc.)?
 Level?

Why do or don't you buy adventures?

What sort of things have you enjoyed in adventures past?

 

[Teflon Billy]

I don't buy adventures as a rule (too hard to fit into my homebrew), but when I have bought them, I generally look for level and theme.

 

[Aeolius]

I don't buy adventures either, though I will take a gander if it includes undersea content.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

Chiming in from not-quite-so-rural Missouri...

I actually do buy adventures, just not all that many. I'd say the biggest thing I look for are original or well-thought ideas. If it's yet another dungeon crawl or magic item hunt, then I'm going to ignore it. I can fill a cave with orcs on my own; I want the adventure to have enough creative material to inspire me beyond what's just in the book itself.

Price is also an issue. Adventures only get used once or twice in their lifetime, while sourcebooks which cost the same amount have a lot more reusability. So I'm not as willing to pay big bucks for adventures- probably $15 at most, and it'd have to be exceptionally good.

Additional rules content is nice but not something I look for actively. Again, ther's plenty of sourcebooks to choose from. I'd much rather the adventure had good plot, ideas, and NPCs.

The level of the adventure would depend on the level of the game I'm running. However, if the adventure looks like it's something I'd like, then I'll buy it either to read or to convert to my current game. This is sort of another part of "plot before stats"- I can easily swap in new monsters to meet my party's CR requirements. Scability to different levels would be nice, but is still one of the last things I look for.

 

[pogre]

I buy a ton of adventures.

I look for level compatability and is it general enough to fit into my campaign. Enough background to make it interesting, but do not force your major continent on me. Frankly, I still like dungeon crawls and they sell best - despite the preferences of folks around here

 

[Capellan]

I look for an interesting and internally-consistent story, with multiple plot hooks for PC involvement. I'll probably only use one, but offering a variety makes it easy to adapt to my group.

Both the story and the setting should be suitably generic that they can fit into a typical D&D game with a minimum of fuss. Adding campaign-specific details is easy enough, and I don't want to have to spend time weeding out too many things that are incompatible with my campaign.

I like all kinds of themes, from humour to horror, and I'm willing to look at an adventure regardless of the intended level (since I almost always start a campaign with the intention of going to reasonably high levels). Useful information on scaling the adventure, however, is always appreciated.

I quite enjoy dungeon crawl adventures, but I also like a lot of the other types of game. One thing I would really like to see more of is genuine city adventures: I've lost count of the number of 'city' adventures that immediately lead to an underground complex, or the sewers.

I do buy adventures: I can mine them for ideas, if nothing else, and there are lots of times when I don't have the time to write up an entire original adventure of my own (the one down side of the amount of gaming I do is the lack of time to prepare ).

 

[Psion]

Generally, adventures are too hard to fit in my world.

For me, an adventure has to have both good idea content and be portable. Adventures that don't fit this mold I tend to find less than useful.

One company had just such adventures. But in the last year, their delivery schedule has been very sparse. Why, oh why have you abandoned us, Fiery Dragon?

 

[smetzger]

I would like to see a mega adventure for OA.

I would also like to see more mega adventures in general, stuff that covers 10 or more levels of play.

 

[Deamoclese]

As a DM, I spend absurd amounts on adventures (close to $1,000 this year already.. I have more than I can use for the next few years). The reason is I do not have sufficient time quite often to devise my own whole campaign/storylines in fine detail. All my games are in Forgotten Realms

What I have is a general concept/storyline that is highly open-ended.... what I do then is go scouring through all my adventures and fine one's that would fit relatively decently... then I go through it, make changes and then run it. By the time I am done with an adventure, only 50% of the material is as it was published.

What I need in modules are good plots.. setting usually makes no difference since, frankly, I find it very easy to modify with little effort.

I need good maps... I hate modules with inadequate maps as my players (and myself) like to be able to see the areas they are exploring. Even outdoor maps are fine (non-FRC) because I simply change them around a bit and find I can make them fit somewhere appropriate on Faerun.

So basically... it's plot, NPC's and good maps I need... as I don't have time to make all these myself.. However, I have time to tweak/edit pre-existing adventures (it is much faster .. for me anyway.... to do than make from scratch).

Also.. with the above poster.. I desire mega-adventures as well... I usually pick these up before any other kind. Problem is ,there aren't all that many around.

 

[Hunter]

I use adventures. They are helpful and convenient when you don’t have a lot of time to generate a dungeon/locale/city scenario yourself.
Ad libbing is fun and challenging but if your players are ravenous for more plot/adventure/dungeon locales you can find yourself very exhausted very quickly.

Then there are other times when your just stuck with writer’s block. So then an adventure can be very useful and needed.
I think being too generic loses the customers interest to buy and too specialized/unique an adventure may not fit into a given campaign setting.

Although unique adventures definitely have their place, and if a DM doesn’t need one at the moment, if he’s playing a long running game, sooner or later his players will venture into unkown realms.
It’s a difficult decision to make because everyone’s fantasy game is different. It’s also what makes the game in general awesome!

I would buy an adventure setting that works like a microcosm campaign world that can be used for future adventures as well as a place that players enjoy to role play in rest/heal/train.

Maybe like the Village of Thumble where the players have the option to play evil characters.

Players working from within the dungeon (as evil NPCs)
with the surrounding kingdoms, fiefdoms as their monsters/treasure/magic items to garner.

Their objective would be to build the power structure of the dungeon while subjugating the surronding countryside.

With an option like this in a module a DM could theoretically create two player groups. One evil, one good.

The good party would have to first investigate/explore the strange goings ons/raids of the evil party (who is based in the dungeon secretly).

As raids or whatever continues, the good party eventually finds the ruins/dungeon of the evil players. Then you have the possibility and challenge of a group of players facing another group of players in a tactical/strategy game but in a dungeon locale. As the plot thickens, some players die (roll up new characters) change sides. It would be a different outlook/angle on the traditional dungeon crawl.

Hunter