Concluding "Expedition to Castle Ravenloft" (Spoilers)

[Crothian]

Well, with your avowed statement that "the adventure IS incomplete", I could thow that right back at you. But I think this has gotten as heated as I'm comfortable with.

This isn't even heated....

The adventure clearly references something that is not there. That is what incomplete means, it is not all there.

 

[Nikosandros]

The adventure clearly references something that is not there. That is what incomplete means, it is not all there.

Exactly. There seem to be a confusion between incomplete and unplayable or awful.

Not only it is extremely logical to expect a conclusion in an adventure, but such a conclusion is even directly referenced at least once in the adventure itself...

 

[ShinHakkaider]

I'll only close with this thought. The ad says 224 page adventure. That's what I got. There's no pages missing, so obviously this "conclusion" didn't make the cut.

You come to Barovia, you do what you're supposed to do, face down Strahd and hopefully win the day. End of adventure.

I'll also agree with what you said earlier (I think it was you anyway) I think that this was an editing snafu of some sort. Now that I'm actually sitting looking at my copy of the book I notice that there's no mention of the Conclusion in the table of contents and as you mentioned here the page count is correct.

I'm thinking that they were running over the page count and had to cut something (and to be honest if they should have cut anything it should have been the 3 pages of ads at the end of the book), but didnt go back and cut the references to what they had cut out (which is what they are really guilty of). So as I'll say for the third and final time I can see how people can be upset about this, but this isnt a deal breaker for me and it shouldnt be a deal breaker for any capable DM. I get that some of you feel like you were robbed (promised a complete product and that wasnt delivered on) and if youre able to get a web enhancement out of this then I commend you all on your tenacity. However all of the time that you put into complaining about this one aspect of an otherwise fine product, could have been spent coming up with your own conclusion for your game and players. Then again I know you feel that that should have been the authors job to begin with...

 

[Crothian]

I'll also agree with what you said earlier (I think it was you anyway) I think that this was an editing snafu of some sort. Now that I'm actually sitting looking at my copy of the book I notice that there's no mention of the Conclusion in the table of contents and as you mentioned here the page count is correct.

I'm pretty sure though that gage count and table of contents are done after layout. So, if they forgot to put it in the during layout page count and table of contents would not reflect it being missing.

 

[Nikosandros]

Well, I guess that both sides have amply (somebody might say excessively ) stated their opinions...

How about a change of pace for the thread? What about some suggestions for the conclusion of the adventure?

For instance, what about Madam Eva? What's her angle? Is she under some kind of compulsion to do the fortune reading or does she have some kind of ambitious plan to strike out on her own once Strahd is removed from the scene? If so, perhaps she is prevented from aiding the party more openly because of some oath...

 

[Al'Kelhar]

I've read the mopdule back-to-front as I will be using it in my currnet campaign, and the lack of a conclusion did not even occur to me. I found that Strahd's proposed motivations were a bit shallow, but given the relative complexities of plots and varieties of resolutions which might occur in the adventure, it seems to me that it would take many pages to provide for a list of reasonable conclusions.

In any case, I'm adapting the adventure for my own Age of Worms Campaign, and have solved questions about Strahd's motivations, as well as those of Madame Eva, in the context of the broader campaign; the conclusion will therefore be one of my own making (dependent, of course, on what the PCs do).

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[Le Noir Faineant]

This isn't even heated....

The adventure clearly references something that is not there. That is what incomplete means, it is not all there.

Crothian is absolutely right here. When they were trying to sell us Temple of the Elemental Evil, well, without a description of the Temple, would you still say "...But the description of Hommlet was A+." The point is that especially from WotC is lately see a tendency to be less caring about their customers, and none of the newer books meets the standards of quality they themselves had set. I think it should remain the customer's right to complain. I give my money not out of loyalty, but because something is worth buying.

 

[Le Noir Faineant]

Oh, hadn't seen Niko's announcement. Well, then...

 

[Herobizkit]

Man, I can't believe the amount of stress this is causing.

As DMs, one of our greatest talents is our ability to think extemporaneously. In short, this means to think ahead into possibilities that haven't happened yet. I assume that, after X amount of years of DMing, one should have honed this talent to some kind of edge.

What is the motivation of Madame Eva? To tell the PCs things to aid them in concluding the adventure. Why? To help the PCs conclude the adventure. She's an NPC in a module; back in the 1e days, this meant that she was either there to help you or try and kill you. Is is that hard to call a spade a spade and accept the NPC at face value? And if not... do you NEED WotC to hand-feed you every possible scenario for every little- to no-consequence NPC in their supplements?

What happens at the end? You tell me... it's YOUR campaign world. If you're running this module as a stand-alone play-'til-its-over adventure, you kill the bad guy and it's over. Yay. If you're adding this into your campaign world, how does the killing the bad guy affect your world, or does it at all? Again, all up to you, as the DM.

I just don't understand all the confusion... plug-n-play modules must be a foreign concept to today's d20 gamers...

 

[billd91]

Man, I can't believe the amount of stress this is causing.

As DMs, one of our greatest talents is our ability to think extemporaneously. In short, this means to think ahead into possibilities that haven't happened yet. I assume that, after X amount of years of DMing, one should have honed this talent to some kind of edge.

What is the motivation of Madame Eva? To tell the PCs things to aid them in concluding the adventure. Why? To help the PCs conclude the adventure. She's an NPC in a module; back in the 1e days, this meant that she was either there to help you or try and kill you. Is is that hard to call a spade a spade and accept the NPC at face value? And if not... do you NEED WotC to hand-feed you every possible scenario for every little- to no-consequence NPC in their supplements?

What happens at the end? You tell me... it's YOUR campaign world. If you're running this module as a stand-alone play-'til-its-over adventure, you kill the bad guy and it's over. Yay. If you're adding this into your campaign world, how does the killing the bad guy affect your world, or does it at all? Again, all up to you, as the DM.

I just don't understand all the confusion... plug-n-play modules must be a foreign concept to today's d20 gamers...

You might want to get off your high horse on this one. The main beef is that WotC's book refers to a conclusion in the text and, somehow or other, there isn't one there. Yes, we can make up whatever we want. We've been over that. Further admonishments are unnecessary.