Are adventures becoming less setting flexible?

[Psion]

Just a bit of curiosity.

While it seems many adventures are getting better quality, more robust plotlines, better statistics support, better maps, and improved in a variety of ways, it seems to me like there is a trend away from writing adventures flexibly. The villains seem more immutable, and more conditions about the setting are assumed. In particular, large campaign arc or adventure path type adventures seem to bank on this formula.

Has anyone else noticed this/find this a problem? What adventures have you seen lately that confirm this trend, buck this trend, or show that it just isn't so?

Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[Gilladian]

I think it is a factor of the "quality" you mention. A fully-fleshed out villain is robust and easy to play, but he's also tailored to the plot. There's not a lot of room to flesh out what won't likely be used in the scenario. And while they fit the adventure splendidly, if you take them out of it, they may not have much use elsewhere, without more work.

Maps that are colorful and detailed give a lot of options within what is present (that table is a great place to jump on for some height in combat!) but also limit possible actions (there's no barrel of water in the corner to knock over); people are less likely to "imagine" what isn't there if a lot is already provided.

So while the wonderfully detailed and colorful adventures are great, they come with built-in drawbacks. It takes more work to alter a hundred word description to fit your world than to alter ten words...

 

[Shadowslayer]

Not sure exactly what you mean, but I'll take a stab. I think these larger adventures, of course are going to cover a little more geographical ground than a standard dungeon crawl. The larger modules are going to detail a town base somewhat, and a surrounding area. So you have to work a little to place it, But its still do able.

Fortunately for me, I use the Wilderlands as a setting, and my players don't know much about it...so I can add pretty much whatever I want without un-doing what they know. Admittedly, using a Red hand of Doom or a Exp to Ravenloft to a well known setting like FR might take a bit more weaving.

Also, as has been noted, they are going towards writing adventures that are ready to go out of the box. They assume, and I think correctly so, that the average player isn't going to be twisting and tweaking to major villains etc. Personally, I'll use Strahd as-is. After all, the uber-creative players (the ones with all this free time on their hands) always have the option of making up their own from scratch if they don't like ours. If you add customizable components, that means more work for the players, and flies into the face of the play-right-out-of-the-box ideal.

 

[Psion]

Not sure exactly what you mean, but I'll take a stab. I think these larger adventures, of course are going to cover a little more geographical ground than a standard dungeon crawl. The larger modules are going to detail a town base somewhat, and a surrounding area. So you have to work a little to place it, But its still do able.

I can see that, but I don't agree it's necessary.

Big adventures do seem to take more liberties when defining what the area is like (even go so far as to say "this adventure is written for world X, but with some work you can adapt it...) But Shades of Gray explicitly spells out that the first location can be any village on a trade route, another location could be any isolated forest, etc. Would that more adventure chains would take the same philosophy.

I think that sometimes there's an attitude that making adventures setting portable just isn't a priority.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I think that sometimes there's an attitude that making adventures setting portable just isn't a priority.

Depending on who's publishing the adventure, that may be the point. They're some incentive to use the adventure to pimp the setting, or, more charitably, to see the adventure as adding value to the setting.

 

[Shadowslayer]

Would that more adventure chains would take the same philosophy.

I think that sometimes there's an attitude that making adventures setting portable just isn't a priority.

Well, you might be right. And admittedly, I don't buy enough adventures to recognize this as a trend. (I've only bought Ravenloft and Scourge of the Howling Horde lately.) It seems to me that regular adventures are still pretty much portable, but the ones being touted as mini-campaigns are, while still pretty portable, require a lot more space in your setting.

Guess it comes down to Dming style I guess. Never been a problem here, but I can see your point.

 

[Faraer]

But Shades of Gray explicitly spells out that the first location can be any village on a trade route, another location could be any isolated forest, etc. Would that more adventure chains would take the same philosophy.

All the great RPG scenarios are set in particular worlds. I'd feel shortchanged if an adventure didn't tell me about the places where it's set, I can't see how you'd achieve depth without that detail, and I'd rather have the choice to change it than be obliged to make it up.

Admittedly, using a Red hand of Doom or a Exp to Ravenloft to a well known setting like FR might take a bit more weaving.

Red Hand of Doom was written to fit into a specific part of the Realms, the Channath Vale.

 

[Numion]

The villains seem more immutable, and more conditions about the setting are assumed. In particular, large campaign arc or adventure path type adventures seem to bank on this formula.

Has anyone else noticed this/find this a problem? What adventures have you seen lately that confirm this trend, buck this trend, or show that it just isn't so?

The big adventures I've run, RttToEE and Shackled City don't really portray these things. Both are ported pretty well into other settings, like Forgotten Realms in my case. Maybe if my players were really obtuse they could claim that "there's no mountain that size here!", but that's not a problem.

Also the main baddies can also be ported to another setting, or changed in these two adventures. It would be more difficult to change the baddie in RttToEE, but who's to say big T is not in FR, since the setting has many gods anyway? Shackled City is easier in this respect, since the baddie isn't well known, and could be changed easily, as long as the conditions to his release are kept.

 

[Desdichado]

I think to a certain extent, having adventures that are tightly knit and consistent and fully fleshed out is mutuall exclusive with it being flexible enough to fit anywhere. To a certain extent.

I don't think the big Paizo adventure paths lack that flexibility, though, at least if you consider the main settings that lack a lot of tweaks to the D&D assumptions as a whole. Age of Worms seems (about 3/4 of the way through it) like it would fit equally well in Greyhawk, Eberron or Forgotten Realms, for instance. Or any homebrew that used the default D&D assumptions pretty strictly. I don't know how well it'd fit in, say, Iron kingdoms or Midnight, for example, but those settings do monkey a bit with the standard D&D assumptions.

 

[Harm]

The more tightly written something is, the easier it is on the GM. The more accessible it is for a GM, the more likely it is that it will be bought and the more enjoyment players will likely get out of it.