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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Grydan" data-source="post: 5828056" data-attributes="member: 79401">More important than system? No. I don't care if it's the best story or sandbox ever created, if the system doesn't work it doesn't work.If the system works well, but the published adventures are sub-par, I can come up with my own adventures.If the adventures are great, but the system is sub-par, I don't want to invent my own system or convert everything over to some existing system.Can they do better than what they have in the past? I should certainly hope so.I have played through Thunderspire Labyrinth. I have DMed Keep on the Shadowfell, Thunderspire Labyrinth, and most of Pyramid of Shadows. I consider them valuable lessons in adventure design that will influence any adventure I create going forward.By that I mean, they mostly taught me how not to do things.Like Keep on the Shadowfell taught me not to insert things into the plot that seem important but are actually never again referenced. (See the mirror at the dig site...)Thunderspire Labyrinth taught me to hate Duergar, and tiny rooms, and that it's nice if communities make some sort of sense, because the Seven Pillared Hall just didn't. Oh, and that no one location really needs more than a handful of encounters, before you really just would rather be somewhere else.Which of course makes Pyramid of Shadows such a wonderful follow-up to Thunderspire. Teaching me that it can always be worse, and you could trap the party in a place for three or four levels, with no chance of communicating with the outside world. Which works especially well for characters approaching the Paragon Tier, where they're supposed to be becoming very well known. Well known for not having been heard from in months, I guess.To be fair, there were things in each that worked. They just don't necessarily stand out in my memory quite as much as the things that made no sense.</blockquote>

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