D&D 5E (2014) Am I the only one that dislikes Adventure Paths?

[Shasarak]

The funniest part was when the OP shot himself in the head with his crossbow!

Classic!

 

[Nebulous]

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.
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Well, I don't think adventure paths are particularly to blame for that. I'm running LMoP and the characters reached 5th level in seven days. It's more about just being tough enough to meet scripted sequences. You'd have to almost 100% homebrew and build in realistic "downtime" to achieve anything else, but for us, this is just a game, it's not life simulation, so I can forgive the wonky parts. Like completely healing after a nap.

 

[Gnarl45]

I'm not sure what the complaint is all about? I personally don't use adventure paths because I like a bit more variety in what happens to my character. Spending 200 hours of gameplay to kill the evil dragon queen is just not my kind of fun.

But it's not like you have to play adventure paths. You have dozens of 3rd party adventures out there that last from one hour to a few sessions. You can also adapt the old TSR magazine adventures that you can find for free on the Internet. If you want 5e content, you can subscribe to EN5IDER and get a monthly adventure. Many of these adventures are much better than the ones published by WoTC.

 

[DaveMage]

Before running any plot-based adventure, it's important to get buy-in from the players that they will endeavor to stick to the plot and will come up with solid justification as to why their characters care to see it to the end. What you don't want to do is tell them it's a sandbox game and all roads lead to the storyline. That's railroading. But if you're upfront with the players and get their buy-in, then concerns about railroading go away because they have agreed to stick to the plot. If that's not your bag, don't run or play in plot-driven adventures.

Exactly.

I think one plays an AP knowing that a little (or more) railroading is going to happen. You play for the challenge of dealing with whatever's thrown at you while realizing that it's not a free-form campaign. The GM I think has to be alert to how players are responding, and if the railroad becomes unfun, it's time to stop and play a different adventure.

 

[Herr der Qual]

I despise AP's but that's just a taste issue, the first DM I ever played with was horrible for railroading us without them, so I played with a new DM and he decided to use an AP; it was the first campaign he ever ran, after the first railroad my character became a nuisance, I found every reason not to follow the railroad eventually I died and didn't roll up a new character. I get why they exist but I sandbox homebrew all my games, I let the characters decide who they talk to and from that I have little mini-adventures for them to go on from interacting with an NPC, and over time I build up a large adventure that they either discover was related to a bunch of the mini adventures or a large event happens and they can rise to the challenge. I don't have a difficult time coming up with interesting NPC's most NPC's I create are just character's that I would love to interact with and have thought of, aside from that I have a copy of each of my characters I've ever played at each of their level's and I photocopy the player sheets from my players when they level up, I have eight years of campaigns (my group was running four campaigns at one point, we had a lot of free time and played every night and all day weekends), so I just recycle old hero's who are either still adventuring or have retired and taken up a new trade, sometimes I will reskin them with different abilities or races and almost always use a different name. BAM! Instant awesome NPC.

The only books I care about when they publish are things like The Advanced Players Guide from Pathfinder, the core books, monster manuals, I have a bunch of stuff from older D&D that I convert, like Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue from FR, the more of that stuff they publish the happier I am.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I agree with the OP, even though adventure paths has some strengths like preparation time. I really prefer shorter adventures or sandboxy adventures like Red Hand of Doom.

Currently I am running a 4e campaign that has used some homebrew (level 1-2), Reavers of Harkenworld (level 2-4), planning for some homebrew (level 4-5), Madness at Gardmoore Abbey (level 5-8) and Halls of the Mountain King (level 8-12). The homebrew sections will mostly be used to develop the characters and their place in the game world society. It takes quite a bit more effort creating the homebrew stuff, but with inspiration from the premade adventures it gets a bit easier.

Basically what I want is a bunch of unrelated adventures I can put together to make a 5e campaign in the same way I am planning on for my 4e game.

Now, WotC aren't releasing any standalone adventures, and there is no OGL/GSL, but some people are trying to help us out:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2376-QUESTS-OF-DOOM-For-D-D-5E-Is-Here!

Quests of Doom (volume 1)

Bugs & Blobs
The Noble Rot by J Collura - 5th-8th level

Hidden Oasis - Temple of Rot by Matt Finch and Bill Webb - 7th-9th level

Demons & Devils
Ra's Evil Grin - by Bill Webb and Clark Peterson - 11th level

Sorcerer's Citadel by Bill Webb and Clark Peterson - 9th level

Giants & Dragons
The Dead from Above by Michael Curtis - 6th-8th level

Emeralds of Highfang by Ed Greenwood - no levels given except "high level"

Lycanthropes & Elementals
Bad Moon Rising by Steve Winter - 4th-6th level

Death in Dyrgalas by Skip Williams - 6th-8th level

Men & Monstrosities
Deep in the Vale by James M. Ward - 1st level

Irtep's Dish by Casey W. Christofferson (with additional material by Scott Greene) - 6th-8th level

Vampires & Liches
The Pyramid of Amra by Casey W. Christofferson and Bill Webb - 12th level

Sewers of the Underguild by Casey W. Christofferson and Bill Webb - 11th-15th level

I have no idea how good these adventures are. As it looks now, I will just have to buy it and check them out myself.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

A better adventure path for me would be a 4-5 modules that you can place in an campaign that is not rush from one to another. Say a low level dungeon bash and L1, then something from that ties into a module you can drop in around L5, then that ties into maybe something at L10, then L20 for example. You can have some tied together stuff but also a lot of other adventures if the group wants to do something different for a while. Reoccurring villains are cool and stuff that will later tie into other adventures, I don't like the tightly connected 1-20 deal.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I'm not a fan of Adventure Paths, especially ones where stupidity is the only way to succeed.

I think my least favorite part is the lack of down-time, though. When you gain multiple levels during the course of one quest, it really highlights how ridiculous and artificial the Level system is. Even if you only have one big quest in your entire adventuring career, nobody should go from Burning Hands to Meteor Swarm over the course of six months.

 

[Agamon]

But it's not like you have to play adventure paths. You have dozens of 3rd party adventures out there that last from one hour to a few sessions. You can also adapt the old TSR magazine adventures that you can find for free on the Internet. If you want 5e content, you can subscribe to EN5IDER and get a monthly adventure. Many of these adventures are much better than the ones published by WoTC.

Sounds like the OP is a player, so he does have to play what the DM runs.

Peronsally, I don't like running APs because I find them boring. Being the go-between for words on a page and the players isn't my idea of a good time.

A much better approach is the plot point design of campaigns published for Savage Worlds. It combines the minimal effort required from published material that those with limited prep time with a structure that allows for more player agency. When the players are open to do whatever they want, that's what makes it fun for me to GM.

 

[ninjayeti]

I understand where you are coming from and I agree with your concerns. However, the point that I think you may be missing is that (with a couple of exceptions) the APs are a bunch of short adventures that are tied together with a common storyline. It is not that hard to strip out the connective tissue and turn them into a dozen or so independent short adventures if that is what you want. Nor does anything prevent you from mixing or matching adventures from different paths, homebrew adventures, old modules, or anything else.

Want to run a haunted house? The Skinsaw Murders has a cool one that works regardless of whether or not you run the full path - or even the full module. Is your Skull & Shackles group getting tired of piracy? Maybe they see a castle flying over the water one day, and if they investigate you run the last chapter of HotDQ. If they don't investigate maybe they hear rumors that ogres have overrun a garrison where an old friend was stationed, and when they rush to help you run Hook Mountain Massacre. Lets say the ogre leader has some advanced technology, and if the players follow up on this thread you run an adventure or two from the Iron Gods AP.

Being a DM is one of the few areas in life where plagiarism is totally acceptable. No gaming product is cannon at your table, so steal what you like, change it to fit your campaign, and ignore the rest.