D&D 5E Am I the only one that dislikes Adventure Paths?

[TreChriron]

I run a Sandbox with some events and plot hooks style. I don't like adventure paths or adventures in general. HOWEVER, there is some wonderful tid-bits in Paizo APs. The NPCs are flavorful, the maps and illustrations are gorgeous, and of course you have yourself more place and people names than you could shake a stick at (unless you were on a motorized merry go round, but then who would be shaking a stick at that point? I digress...).

Generally, I will pick up something to borrow from. I really liked the "lost on the island" Skullport something or other first installment of one of their APs. It was a sandbox, had some fun ideas in it (Malaria! and camping rules!), and the NPCs were splendid.

So - don't hate them! Just use them for parts. :-D

 

[Staffan]

One of the worst things to happen to Pathfinder was Adventure Paths.

I think you've got your cause and effect jumbled there. The Adventure Paths were not created to support Pathfinder the RPG. Pathfinder was created because Paizo wanted to make adventure paths, and wanted a game in print for those APs to use.

 

[JeffB]

I avoid them at all costs.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

I'd like something akin to the 3.0 adventure path: standalone adventurers that can be played in order for a greater plot that player's don't need to care about if they don't want to. Also, some of them are among the finest adventure material to come from WotC, in my opinion. We need more modules like those.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I'm not a fan of them but they seem to be what sells so it is what it is. Quite a few people seem to enjoy them and they don't affect what goes on at my table so meh. The lack of tons of good standalone adventures has been good for the old wallet, so that is something good coming from them.

 

[jamesmanhattan]

I Hate em. What happens is the adventure path has a cool idea, and maybe an awesome part, but winds up mostly filler!

I say publish all sorts of range of adventures, and if a DM wants to find a way to link them, great! I've seen a million posts on this website, asking something similar to: "Hey I am thinking of running 'Night Below' and then maybe 'Tomb of Horrors', but what should I run between them.

Adventures are much better when they are episodic. You want a villain to defeat in one episode (2-6 weeks), not a long string of minor villains, that take a year to get through.

Players will ask "When the heck are we going to get to Tiamat already? She's on the damn cover."

 

[GameOgre]

Wait! do Adventure Paths equal a play style now? When did this happen?

I'm not trying to say they can't be cool. I played/Dmed six of them so I know they can be cool but even then I would admit that they required the players to follow a narrow path in order to play them. It's not like in the middle of Rise of the Rune Lords you can just up and decide that your characters life time goal of hunting down pirates is more important and off you go to hunt pirates.

It's just a byproduct of the AP that you agree to follow the story. Follow the bouncing ball was actually something said to me at the game table during a AP.

As far as there is room for everyone I agree. That doesn't mean that there will be products for everyone's tastes though.

 

[Nebulous]

I've never run an adventure path actually. I've glanced through them, they look kinda cool. I have nothing against them I suppose. Well, I don't like WAR's art style, as silly as that sounds, that IS kinda a turn off from the official PF paths.

To be honest I'd like to see more stuff like what they did with Lost Mine of Phandelver. I would kill for a 5th edition boxed set with some set piece battle maps included, handouts and maybe some other perks.

 

[Wolfskin]

I have nothing against the AP format itself, personally. What I dislike about many PF's APs is the excessive focus on NPC background and setting minutiae, which IME rarely (if ever) comes up during play. While 5e's Tyranny of Dragons AP was far from perfect, what I did like about it was the bare bones approach- you get NPC names, a few background details and the plot itself. It's enough for me to fill in any necessary details, without having excess word count.

 

[Zaran]

To me, the adventure path is only bad when there are no chances for the characters to grow. If a character can go from 1st to 15th level in less than a year then there is a disconnect for me. The 4th edition adventure path was not itself bad just because it went from 1st to 30th level since it was broken up into 9 or 10 adventures that had their own plots with little tying them into to the plot at the end. Now, most of the adventures were bad for other reasons but that's a different subject.

Now the decision for WotC to only put out Adventure Paths? I think that's a terrible idea and goes against their idea of bringing back what made D&D awesome. The most awesome adventures are those that only take up a smaller portion of the PCs lives where they can tell the story before they go off to another.