April's D&D Feedback Survey Results

WotC has revealed the results of its latest monthly feedback survey. Last month's survey dealt with game scheduling habits, character races, and Adventurer's League content. Additionally, a new survey has been posted covering problem spells, the DRAGON+ mobile app, and the Waterborne Adventures UA column.

The new survey is here. April's survey results are here, but below is a quick list of the take-home points.

• It turns out that that 1st-6th level games are still the most common a year after D&D 5E's launch.
• The most likely end point of a campaign is 10th-12th level.
• There is a preference for more open, sandboxy adventures.
• Smaller races are seen as weaker options.
• Adventurer's League content is reasonably well received, with specifically designed adventures more popular than Tyranny of Dragons adaptions for AL.

 

[Celtavian]

I think the desire for more sandboxy adventures is a way for the customer base to indicate they want setting-specific info to be more front and center, instead of the storyline. If all they're going to get is adventure/storyline modules and very little to any setting-specific or core game expanding published product, sandboxy is the way to ask for it.

The two published storyline books...well, for me, the storylines suck. I don't care about WotC's storylines. At all. I want material I can use for my own storylines/adventures. The two storyline products' don't cut it (the content they do offer that is or can be mostly generic just isn't enough to justify the cost of buying them). Sandboxy adventures offer the ability to provide far more setting content than currently, which I would guess their audience is actually wanting.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. You're making your adventures up. You'll never be happy with an adventure. You want monster and setting books, not a complete adventure.

I want a complete adventure to run. I want it to be interesting to read. I want interesting, well-developed AP style adventures that I don't have to modify a great deal.

 

[Celtavian]

D&D back in the day did not ask players what type of adventures they liked. They made great adventures and let the players decide.

This sandbox versus linear stuff seems like a bad way to determine what type of adventures they should make. The people that like to make their own stuff up aren't going to buy adventures consistently. The people that do buy adventures are more concerned with other aspects of the adventure like story content, maps, type of monster, ease of use in various settings, and other aspects. Whether or not it is a sandbox is pretty low on the list. I can't help but think that the sandbox talk is a red herring.

Adventure design should be focused on creating the strongest possible adventure with a high level of differentiation from the previous release while maintaining consistent production quality. Sandbox versus linear shouldn't even be a factor. The primary factor should be interesting to read and run with quality bits a DM can use in any adventure including additional monsters, magic items, and rule details for DMs.

I wonder how well these general surveys are targeting DMs that buy adventures and run them like myself. I hear many DMs on here proclaiming how much they like to create and run their own adventures. If they're doing these surveys while continuing to avoid buying adventures because they make theirs up, that skews the results from people like myself that will purchase a well-designed adventure. Even worse is players that will never run the game or purchase an adventure taking these surveys. That will further skew the results because they think they like a sandbox adventure, but they really just like to play while someone else DMs.

I have never purchased an adventure based on whether it was a sandbox versus a linear adventure. I always look first at the general description of the adventure. That is much more important. I especially like to check if it is different enough from the previous adventure I ran that I think my players won't be burnt out on the material. If it is highly redundant such as cultists in the previous adventure versus cultists in the new adventure, then I likely won't buy it. I want differentiation on just about every level between adventures.

Adventures are more like fiction books. There's no way to tell exactly what people will like. Each adventure is a fictional story the players are going to be involved in. You have to consider the influences that may have driven them to play a game like D&D and create adventures based on as many of those inspirations as possible. That's why I hope at the very least they have an OGL for adventure creation. 3rd parties will take more risks designing adventures than the current WotC company. WotC seems to be on a corporate leash at the moment that doesn't allow them to take many risks. Failure does not seem like an option at WotC at the moment.

 

[Celtavian]

The difference is this: I can use a sandbox setting more than once, and often more than once with the same group. When I design sandbox content those areas that are overlooked or ignored in one session may become relevant or interesting later on, either by the same group or a different one.

With the adventure paths, once I've run it for my group it's done, finished....I can't use it again until I have an entirely different group. In my area, I do have two regular groups, but a couple players are in both my Wednesday and Saturday groups. This makes it hard to run adventure paths more than once.

Sandbox content, by virtue of the fact that it has more content than you will need, makes it more versatile and reusable.

This is an encounter book. Not an adventure. I wouldn't want something like this. I can pull out the Monster Manual and create encounters that fit into the game world. Why would I need an "adventure" to do this for me?

You even call it sandbox content. Which clearly shows you're not interested in an adventure, but content you can use to fashion your own adventures. I wouldn't buy that. I don't need that type of material. It holds zero interest. Yet I bought a ton of Pathfinder Adventure Paths. Rise of the Runelords, Kingmaker, Carron Crown, and Wrath of the Righteous. All amazing adventures with great story lines I could modify to fit my players and game world, while using nearly the entire adventure.

I'm wondering which one of us would spend more on adventures. You who is looking for sandbox content or me who is willing to purchase 24 individual books in four adventure paths to have complete, interesting adventures to run. As far as D&D goes, I also bought Night Below (amazing adventure), Temple of Elemental Evil, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, The Sword of the Morning Series, City of the Spider Queen, Fate of Istus, Red Hand of Doom. The list of complete, prepared D&D adventures I or my group has purchased is endless. We have never been concerned with sandbox versus linear. Our concern is fun, interesting, and how many levels.

I hope these surveys are targeting people that actually spend money on adventures. When I read sandbox, it doesn't even register. I'm one of the main DMs of my group. I purchase premade adventures. I find most of the stuff people make up on their own fairly boring and lacking in depth. If I have a fully constructed adventure, I can spend more time on developing NPC relationships and role-play than constructing plot and monsters. I prefer to spend my time on the other stuff because it makes the world seem real to my players.

 

[Celtavian]

It's not a binary choice. The question's premise (that citing Paizo's APs) is flawed. Gamers can purchase both, while preferring one.

My question is, "Are they targeting people that buy published adventures?"

I bought a lot of adventures from WotC as well prior to switching to Pathfinder in every edition of D&D. Sandbox was never my concern when making the purchase.

 

[Celtavian]

I imagine they are quite happy that people want sandbox adventures, just like the Princes of the Apocalypse AP they just released. At least that is the kind I was thinking of when I answered the survey.

This is another problem. Consistent definition of what a sandbox adventure is.

Seems it differs from person to person:
1. Some want content they can plug into their own adventures. An encounter book like the Book of Lairs?

2. Some want one off modules like WotC used to produce. Against the Giants, Ghost Tower of Inverness, or Keep on the Borderlands. There was a time when WotC made shorter modules where a DM could choose four or five different modules to run characters up. Each one was self-contained and did not require a complete story. I would be cool with this. I liked that model as well. This requires quite a few more modules than two per year. I loved going from Keep on the Borderlands to Ghost Tower of Inverness to Caverns of Tsojcanth[/] to Against the Giants to Tomb of Horrors.

3. Some want something like Princes of the Apocalypse where you have a bunch of loosely integrated encounter areas that you can attack at any point in the adventure.

What model should WotC use?

 

[Celtavian]

I can't see the results article yet...

I could be wrong, but I don't recall there being an option for 'sandbox' vs...what, railroad? Did they gather the opinion that sandboxy games are desired because of a multiple choice answer or because it was a write in response? I don't recall. Either way I'm happy they came away with that result, that more are desired. In every box that allowed me to write I kept beating the drum that more module type adventures like Lost Mine are highly desirable. Did they indicate that 'sandboxy' equals '32 or 64 page adventure'?

Also, I don't participate in AL but it seems (from the points above) that the smaller adventures did better than the AP? Unless they mean something different...What do they mean by "specifically designed adventures"?

Lost Mines of Phandelver was fun. I could be happy with a ton of self-contained modules.

 

[MerricB]

D&D back in the day did not ask players what type of adventures they liked. They made great adventures and let the players decide.

And they made a lot of very bad adventures as well, and then kept making bad adventures. Almost all of the adventures considered classic were written in the period 1978-83. After that, the quality of adventures goes downwards sharply - and I'm not so convinced at the merits of some of those in the first five years, either. There's a lot of nostalgia at play, rather than good criticism of those adventures.

Of the 30 greatest modules that Paizo's Dungeon #116 listed, only nine are legitimately post-1983. EN World's top 15 list has three post-1983 (possibly 4 if you include ToEE).

The fact is that really good adventures are pretty rare...

Cheers!

 

[Psikerlord#]

delete!

 

[Psikerlord#]

DnD should focus on sandbox because it's what it does best. The DM can handle anything. If you want an AP style game.... you are now competing with computer games, good luck with that.

As for small races. I personally dont really like them. I generally dont want to play a child size hero. On the other hand, the occasional "against type" small guy, like a halfling barb, could be good fun. But on the whole, my games have very rarely had small races in them, ever. You could take them out of PHB for us and we wouldnt miss them (esp since we allow racial stat bonuses to be put on any stat regardless of race).

 

[Zardnaar]

The level reports are trivial self fulfilling prophecies. Why even include it? Most games that are played are 1-6? Really I wonder why? Oh yeah, because the game starts at level 1. Games end around level 10? Really? I wonder why? Oh yeah because, almost unequivocally, the DMG and other sources talk about running games for lower levels. There isn't high level play because Wizards doesn't know how to explain high level play, and you know why they can't explain it? Because people don't play high level. It's circular logic and they have never made a real effort to change that.

I was SUPER excited for the DMG 3 in 4e because it looked as if they were on the right track. The DMG 2 covered levels 11-20 and I was getting hyped for DMG 3 covering epic levels and then... OH ... LOOK 5e! Screw that other edition that we never finished, look at this new edition! Then they had to start over with PHB, MM and DMG that primarily covered low level stuff.

So of course games are going to be played at lower level because, that's all anyone knows how to run. They have NEVER focused on high level play in any real sense, and when they have it horribly fails (looking at you epic level handbook 3.5). Then they see that it fails, and it's hard to write for so they don't do it effectively leaving these games finished from level 1-10 and then unfinished at higher level because "it's hard". My response is, then make the damn game from level 1-10 and stop half assing the upper levels. Either do it right or don't do it at all.

It's so damn frustrating after 15 years of this. So don't tell me its surprising that most people play at low levels and end before high levels kick in. Of course that's how it happens! First, that's where the game "starts", and second we don't KNOW how to play high levels because we have never had proper instruction on how to do that effectively, and for good reason! I don't even think wizards know how to do high level play correctly, and IF that is the case, then you should be highly suspect of "balance" of classes after level 10.

Please. Talking about majority of levels of played is like saying water is wet. I didn't have to know the outcome of a survey to know what levels most groups play at.

It is longer than 15 years the AD&D 2E High Level Campaign Options talked about the difficulties of running games at high level. Also sales data over consecutive editions of D&D reveals high level stuff doesn't sell that well.

If the desire was there to make high level D&D work (for whatever reason( one would assume TSR or WoTC in 40 years would have figured out how to do it.