Adventures don't Sell? Do you agree? Redman Article

[Turjan]

Am I crazy, or did it just take a long time for people to actually play all the modules they bought back when d20 got started? I mean, I talk to people who have been playing Rappan Athuk, Banewarrens, or RtToEE, for years! (Not to mention WLD, you guys must all have 28 Constitutions!)

That's why I get very picky with new adventures. I noticed that I have lots of modules that I never played, plus a Dungeon abonnement. I'll probably never catch up with the stuff I already have .

 

[grodog]

Help! It's grodog the Thread Necromancer!

This particular one seemed worth reanimating, Merric

 

[Umbra]

are designed for the wrong types of PCs.

And I would think that the plethora of Prestige Classes and other class variations and new spells and new feats would increase the chance of this.

 

[MerricB]

This particular one seemed worth reanimating, Merric

I quite agree - it's one of the best ENworld has had.

Cheers!

 

[Calico_Jack73]

I agree that adventures in general need to be more generic. I've bought several 1E AD&D modules on Ebay for conversion for that very reason (well, nostalgia figured in too).

I'd also buy more new "modules" if we got more bang for our buck. If I could buy an adventure book and have perhaps 3 or 4 adventures between the covers then it would be worth the cost. But then again, just get a subscription to Dungeon magazine and you get several adventures delivered to your home with every issue.

 

[Bagpuss]

I'm not for generic adventure. The folks that do homebrew normally have the time to write their own adventures and know how to make them suit their setting.

As a DM that doesn't have time I find generic adventures dull and a series of them disjointed, with no story arc to the campaign. It's also a pain to link them together if one adventure is in a tropical forest and the next one you have of a suitable level happens to be set in a desert.

I think the adventures that are selling now, and stir the imagination are the 1st to 20th level campaign adventures. I've seen way more threads about World Largest Dungeon, Shackled City and Age of Worms than most adventures previously and before these 20 level adventure it was the bigger adventures that tended to attract more interest.

For the DM that has little time for planning a campaign handed to him in one go, saves him the trouble of routing around for generic adventures that seem to link together in some logical fashion.

I really think the campaign "saga" style adventure is going to be the future. It saves the DM loads of planning, saves him searching for the next suitable adventure. Yet it doesn't need to be generic or bland enough to link into any setting. It can have story archs that run the whole campaign. Everything under one roof.

 

[The_Gneech]

If you're looking for good, short, generic, adventures, Dungeon Crawl Classics from Goodman Games are probably what you're looking for, and Necromancer is having some similar deals distributed by Kenzer coming up very shortly that look like they'll be fun too.

I love the Dungeon Crawl Classics series. Madly and passionately. They should probably put a restraining order on me.

-The Gneech

 

[arwink]

I'm going to have to have a talk with my players then and tell them to all stop buying books. Crap, I'm a player in a game as well, looks like I can't buy any more books either.

Players buy books. DMs buy books. And some DMs and Players don't buy books.

More importantly, I've played in games where some of the players were also GM's. If someone picked up a cool sourcebook, there was fairly good odds that everyone would have it within a couple of months. If someone picked up a cool adventure, everyone else avoided it because they didn't want to step on the other guys toes.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I quite agree - it's one of the best ENworld has had.

Oh most certainly!

Especially the part where I prognosticated the future of adventure development. I mean, I don't want to derail the thread by talking about how super-intelligent I am, but ... damn! I'm good!

 

[grodog]

I quite agree - it's one of the best ENworld has had.

I concur In particular, I'm interested in how folks think the industry has changed (if at all) from the 2002-2003 nadir, and why adventures seem to be making a comeback now. Had the pendulum simply swung too far in the sourcebooks/splatbooks direction, or is there something more fundamental about adventures that was missing from the marketplace for a few years?