Campaign Versus Adventurer

[lotuseater]

as a player, i much prefer to have my character/party level up in a storybook fashion over the entire span of his/her career. i am not that into having one off adventures that are totally disconnected from each other. this is true whether playing published or homebrew campaigns. so i prefer adventure paths.

that's not to say i'm against side quests or being able to veer off in your own direction. i just like knowing that everything is building to something.

 

[Hussar]

In 3e, I ran a lot of adventure path campaigns.

I liked some more than others.

I like the idea of having over arching story lines which link the adventures together, rather than episodic games where each adventure is more or less self contained. That's a bit of a shift for me over the years since I started out episodic.

As a DM, it's awfully nice to be able to prep your next two years of gaming in advance and then just run.

 

[meomwt]

As a DM, I love the idea of AP's, and am trying to write my own as we go along right now. There will be links - some soft - between adventures, with opportunities for the players to do other things if they want at certain points in the arc.

I'd love to run The Age of Worms but don't know if my group would commit to the long haul of that set (they don't know that they're in an AP now, bless them).

In the past, I constructed a campaign from drag-and-drop adventures, but was able to forge links between them as required, so that it seemed that there was some planning/ cohesion between them. I've learned a few tricks over the years in that manner :evil:

 

[Derulbaskul]

(snip) I have an occasional need for stand-alone one-shot adventures to use for test games and similar. (Low-prep or even no-prep adventures would be best for this.) (snip)

Yeah, I like what WotC did with Dungeon Delve and would like to see more, as well as longer versions (five encounters seems about right). Interestingly, a lot of the LFR adventures are like this (but the maps suck... if I am going to pay for a product I want good maps).

 

[JoeGKushner]

I really enjoy adventure paths (real ones: not these two messes that WotC has produced for 4E) also because you can see how the pros put together a longer and larger story.

But that's only true AFTER the whole thing is published. I know some of the numerous comments about the Scales of War have been that it doesn't seem to have been a single long and large story and part of that is because they couldn't see the whole thing as it progressed.

 

[delericho]

But that's only true AFTER the whole thing is published. I know some of the numerous comments about the Scales of War have been that it doesn't seem to have been a single long and large story and part of that is because they couldn't see the whole thing as it progressed.

Ever since Age of Worms (I think - might have been Savage Tide), Paizo have published a campaign summary, giving all the adventures and their place in the over-arching plot. This goes a long way to showing how things hang together, even at the outset.

Of course, it's very obvious that Paizo learned a lot of lessons from one AP to the next, and so it's hardly surprising that their most recent efforts are rather more polished that WotC's first. I'm sure the next 4e AP will be better than the current ones, and the ones beyond that better still.

 

[Derulbaskul]

But that's only true AFTER the whole thing is published. I know some of the numerous comments about the Scales of War have been that it doesn't seem to have been a single long and large story and part of that is because they couldn't see the whole thing as it progressed.

Um... yeah... that's my point. Scales of War and the H1-E3 abomination both suffered because they DIDN'T have a "long and large story" apparent from the beginning... or the middle... or, presumably, the end.

Paizo, however, did publish their summaries first, at least from Age of Worms onwards.

That's one of the things I don't understand about WotC's decisions with their two faux-paths: the designers there can see what did and didn't work for Paizo but don't seem to have absorbed the lessons.

 

[delericho]

That's one of the things I don't understand about WotC's decisions with their two faux-paths: the designers there can see what did and didn't work for Paizo but don't seem to have absorbed the lessons.

I think the H1-E3 'path' is deliberately structured to have loose links, rather than a tight ongoing story. That was certainly the model they used with the very first 3.0e Adventure Path ("Sunless Citadel" - "Bastion of Broken Souls"). It may not be to everyone's taste, but it was a deliberate design choice, and worked reasonably well in that instance. (Not being familiar with the new path, I can't comment.)

As for the "Scales of War" path, and why WotC haven't learned all the lessons from Paizo... I think it's easier to criticise than to do - by which I mean they may well have looked at the Paizo paths (and also the various "lessons learned" threads here and at Paizo.com) and resolved not to make the same mistakes, but there is a gulf between saying you'll avoid the pitfalls, and actually avoiding the pitfalls.

Plus, of course, they were rather busy with a new edition of D&D, setting up the DDI, and relaunching eDungeon.

As I said, I'd expect them to do better with their next path.

 

[catsclaw227]

I think the H1-E3 'path' is deliberately structured to have loose links, rather than a tight ongoing story. That was certainly the model they used with the very first 3.0e Adventure Path ("Sunless Citadel" - "Bastion of Broken Souls"). It may not be to everyone's taste, but it was a deliberate design choice, and worked reasonably well in that instance. (Not being familiar with the new path, I can't comment.)

As for the "Scales of War" path, and why WotC haven't learned all the lessons from Paizo... I think it's easier to criticise than to do - by which I mean they may well have looked at the Paizo paths (and also the various "lessons learned" threads here and at Paizo.com) and resolved not to make the same mistakes, but there is a gulf between saying you'll avoid the pitfalls, and actually avoiding the pitfalls.

Plus, of course, they were rather busy with a new edition of D&D, setting up the DDI, and relaunching eDungeon.

As I said, I'd expect them to do better with their next path.

This is pretty much what I was going to say.

They would do well to learn from their Paizo contemporaries, though. The Scales of War could have been better planned, or even delayed with 2-3 smaller and lower level adventures made first in eDungeon. Then jump into an AP when they finally had their sea legs already.

 

[Chris Tavares]

It sounds like a lot of folks here would really appreciate the Savage Worlds "plot-point" campaign style. The basic idea is that you ship a campaign with a core set of connected adventures, or "plot-points". Each one has a triggering condition (players travel to X, characters reach Y level, 6 months have passed) and connections to the previous adventures. But it also includes a bunch of other tales which are either loosely or not connected to the main plot point at all.

The 50 Fathoms setting has done this the best so far. Basically, a sea-going campaign with a core plot, plus a ton of other adventures just waiting to run whereever the characters pull into port. Gives the best of both worlds; a core plot and continuity, plus a great deal of freedom for players to explore and choose their own path without losing the plot completely.

The down side is that these kinds of things are very hard to write.