Are ready made adventures like The Shackled City worth buying?

[Crothian]

Ya, they pretty much are.

 

[tetsujin28]

Yep. The ones that exist right now are high-quality stuff.

 

[Monte At Home]

I say yes, whether you're going to run the adventures as is, or not.

A big adventure like Shackled City has all different kinds of encounters, encounter areas, and NPCs. Even if you don't want to run the adventures, you can use it simply as a resource. For example, if you need a wizard NPC quickly for tonight's game, you can find one there. If you need an encounter in a city on the fly, you can find one in there. Or, you can page through the book in your free time and find a single encounter or a group of encounters here or there that you want to use in an adventure of your own creation. I do this kind of looting all the time. It helps keep your game fresh.

Or, simply reading through adventures someone else has created can inspire your own. Chances are, one of the writers might have come up with something that you would have never thought to do.

That said, if you're going to run a massive published adventure, you can't do better than Shackled City. It's a great book.

 

[Odhanan]

A big adventure like Shackled City has all different kinds of encounters, encounter areas, and NPCs. Even if you don't want to run the adventures, you can use it simply as a resource.

(...) That said, if you're going to run a massive published adventure, you can't do better than Shackled City. It's a great book.

I agree on both counts.

All the tabletop games I run are homemade but use loads of bits and pieces taken here and there from various modules, campaign settings and so on. I'd say that in the end about 50% of the adventure's contents are homemade, 40% altered contents from published materials and about 10% (maybe) taken from other sources and run as written or almost.

Basically the "big pieces" of a campaign (the setting, history etc) will use some other settings, novels etc as inspiration, while the precise things such as adventure encounters and NPCs will be inspired either on adventure materials here and there or monster/character sourcebooks (which include MM, Complete series and so on).

And aside of these inspirations, Shackled City is awesome in and by itself.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

My best recent D&D experiences have been with large adventures and mega-modules. I'm a very big fan.

And I don't see as it hurts my homebrew efforts ... helps, really, as it frees up some time AND gives me moments of inspiration for my other (usually non-D&D) games. Anything that speeds up the down-time in D&D is something that works great for me. This is the same reason I love software for RPGs.

I bought the Shackled City book, and have a sub to Dungeon and all the current issues of Age of Worms.

--fje

 

[Nightfall]

That said, if you're going to run a massive published adventure, you can't do better than Shackled City. It's a great book.

It is indeed Monte and my hope is its fellow Path, Age of Worms, gets a similiar treatment come 2006-2007. But the HC is a GREAT investment for any DM looking to a) not worry to much about creating their own path while still maintaining their own world's intergrity, and b) It's got everything you need.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Almost sounds like you're doing a review of this puppy on the old website there Monte. Be sure to post a link to it when you're finished!

I say yes, whether you're going to run the adventures as is, or not.

A big adventure like Shackled City has all different kinds of encounters, encounter areas, and NPCs. Even if you don't want to run the adventures, you can use it simply as a resource. For example, if you need a wizard NPC quickly for tonight's game, you can find one there. If you need an encounter in a city on the fly, you can find one in there. Or, you can page through the book in your free time and find a single encounter or a group of encounters here or there that you want to use in an adventure of your own creation. I do this kind of looting all the time. It helps keep your game fresh.

Or, simply reading through adventures someone else has created can inspire your own. Chances are, one of the writers might have come up with something that you would have never thought to do.

That said, if you're going to run a massive published adventure, you can't do better than Shackled City. It's a great book.

 

[Nightfall]

Joe,

You going to review it then? Or should I?

 

[Turjan]

The answer is a qualified yes.

However, it is worth noting that published adventures (and particularly the campaign books) are only worthwhile if you're actually going to get some use out of them. I can't justify spending $100 (or equivalent) on World's Largest Dungeon if I'm not going to use it, or buying the Drow War series for it to sit on a shelf.

I agree. A book like WLD didn't appeal to me because I cannot really imagine that my group wants to spend one year of their life in one huge dungeon. This won't happen. The Drow War series just doesn't appeal to me (I haven't had a close look at it yet, though).

On the other hand, Shackled City and Age of Worms are varied enough to fulfill all our adventure needs. My group understands that my time is somewhat limited and accepts that the path of the next year will be a bit railroady, although I try my very best to steer them by motivation, so it seems natural to follow the path. It helps a lot that most of the adventures are very interesting.

I just cannot decide which one to start with . But there's still about three weeks time .

 

[Nightfall]

Turj,

Go with the SC hardcover. It's quick, it's easy AND they have fold out maps man!