D&D 5E D&DNext WotC Adventures

[GX.Sigma]

Yikes. I wouldn't buy a module written in pidgin English. It at least needs full sentences to get my money.

Well, something has to go to get it down to a reasonable page/word count.

3 questions:

1. As a GM, do you find that longer descriptions (oand therefore higher page counts) are easier to quickly digest during gameplay?
2. As a publisher, who do you think is the audience of an adventure?
3. As a publisher, do you pay adventure authors per word (or per page)?

 

[Morrus]

Well, something has to go to get it down to a reasonable page/word count.

Has it? It's at a reasonable page/word count already for me. I don't want a pamphlet with some brief notes on it.

1. As a GM, do you find that longer descriptions (oand therefore higher page counts) are easier to quickly digest during gameplay?

Leading question. I find them preferable in a wide variety of ways, digestibility during gameplay being just one. I find your pidgin English example to be very indigestible, and would also make me question whether I'd actually bought anything.

Tastes vary. News at 10!

2. As a publisher, who do you think is the audience of an adventure?

Leprechauns? Scottish poledancers? I don't understand the question.

3. As a publisher, do you pay adventure authors per word (or per page)?

Varies per contract.

 

[Argyle King]

As a DM of Scourge, it is essentially Keep on the Borderlands. It's just that each monster lair isn't 80 feet from the next.

.

That provides some interesting insight for me. I wasn't a huge fan of Keep on The Borderlands as my intro to 4E either. Later, I did find value in the information provided; I used the keep and a few other ideas from the 4E product in a game I ran, but I don't believe I ever ran it as-is. As a player at the time when I was first exposed to it, it seemed rather dry as well.


For what it's worth; if this gives any insight into my tastes, my favorite D&D adventures are Ghost Tower of Inverness, Red Hand of Doom, and one of the early 4E ones involving a pyramid and a wizard who had been broken into several pieces/personalities (can't remember the name.)

 

[keterys]

That provides some interesting insight for me. I wasn't a huge fan of Keep on The Borderlands as my intro to 4E either.

You're thinking of Keep on the Shadowfell, I think, which is not the same.

Keep on the Borderlands is is the Caves of Chaos from an earlier D&D Next playtest if you saw that.

I'll agree with you that KotS was an awful intro adventure for 4e. I'm curious to see what we get for an official intro adventure for Next, or if that boat has sailed with one of the already existing ones that came out during the playtest period.

 

[Argyle King]

You're thinking of Keep on the Shadowfell, I think, which is not the same.

Keep on the Borderlands is is the Caves of Chaos from an earlier D&D Next playtest if you saw that.

I'll agree with you that KotS was an awful intro adventure for 4e. I'm curious to see what we get for an official intro adventure for Next, or if that boat has sailed with one of the already existing ones that came out during the playtest period.

Thanks for correcting me. I was confusing the two (similarly named) adventures.

I do have some passing familiarity with Keep On The Borderlands, but not enough to have a solid opinion.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Keep on the Borderlands: Season of Serpents was Season 3 of Encounters and a likely intro to 4e for some players.

H3 Pyramid of Shadows was the Pyramid adventure with the 3 shattered pieces of a Tiefling villain.

 

[heptat]

http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/dungeonfantasyadventure1/[/URL]

So, to sum up...

Ghosts... no opinion
Murder... I think I threw up in my mouth a little
Legacy... woohoo
Scourge... zzzzzzzz... huh, it's my turn?

If the pattern remains the same, the next adventure should be pretty good, but the one after that will be terrible.

Hey thanks for the detailed reply! I'm going to be reading through the last two on the list regardless...but looks like Legacy might be the way to go.

Good work with all the GURPS and DF mentions...I'm a big fan and glad to see there's still some love out there for it

 

[Argyle King]

Hey thanks for the detailed reply! I'm going to be reading through the last two on the list regardless...but looks like Legacy might be the way to go.

Good work with all the GURPS and DF mentions...I'm a big fan and glad to see there's still some love out there for it

In the context of D&D 5th Edition, I often reference GURPS DF because the two products cover similar territory... a modular game's approach to dungeon crawl style fantasy. For this topic in particular, I found (in my mind) similarities between Mirror of The Fire Demon's horde of monsters gathered together by a powerful force and Scourge of Sword Coast's horde of monsters gathered together by a powerful force. There are a few complaints I have about DF as well, but I generally like the product quite a bit (though that's also because I generally have a good opinion of GURPS 4E as well.)

 

[Libramarian]

It works, but I disagree that it works great. You can see my DnDClassics review for some of my criticisms. To give an example from last night's session, there was the following room:


Wouldn't it be a lot easier to run blind if it was written like this?:
[assuming that the map clearly shows that the door is blocked]

Again, I'm comparing it to what I consider the gold standard of adventure presentation, and most people probably don't have such high standards.

Good question. I am a big fan of the terse OSR writing style, but I actually prefer the D&DNext format here, because it's designed to follow the natural order of play, which is: how do I get into this room, then a basic description of what's in it, then "what do you do?", then here's what happens when the PCs interact with things, separated by a bullet point for each thing so you can deal with them in any order more easily. It could be a bit more concise but it's not bad. I don't like the in-line DCs for things though. I thought DMs were expected to make up DCs on the fly in Next? Who cares if it's DC 10 or DC 12 to break open the door. This is false precision. It's important to avoid false precision and nose-leading so that off-the-page play and improv play flow together naturally. Some DMs will read the part about the boarded up door and say "OK do you want to try breaking in or taking off the boards one by one?" which is bad.

I also think secret doors are a vestigial concept that doesn't work well anymore and should not be used in Next. They should generally be replaced with puzzle doors, or at least hidden in a way that they can be found just by poking around, like a door behind a tapestry.

 

[machineelf]

Good question. I am a big fan of the terse OSR writing style, but I actually prefer the D&DNext format here, because it's designed to follow the natural order of play, which is: how do I get into this room, then a basic description of what's in it, then "what do you do?", then here's what happens when the PCs interact with things, separated by a bullet point for each thing so you can deal with them in any order more easily. It could be a bit more concise but it's not bad. I don't like the in-line DCs for things though. I thought DMs were expected to make up DCs on the fly in Next? Who cares if it's DC 10 or DC 12 to break open the door. This is false precision. It's important to avoid false precision and nose-leading so that off-the-page play and improv play flow together naturally. Some DMs will read the part about the boarded up door and say "OK do you want to try breaking in or taking off the boards one by one?" which is bad.

I also think secret doors are a vestigial concept that doesn't work well anymore and should not be used in Next. They should generally be replaced with puzzle doors, or at least hidden in a way that they can be found just by poking around, like a door behind a tapestry.

I'm not sure I get your criticism about the pre-set DCs of the doors. To me this is like seeing that a room has stone walls and saying, "Why are they deciding the walls are stone? Why are they trying to make that decision for me? They should let the DM decide if the walls are stone, or wood, or whatever." Or seeing that a room is described as a kitchen and saying, "What if I want the room to be a closet? I thought the DMs were expected to design the campaign?"

To me, if I bought the pre-designed campaign, I expect and want it to be described fully, with what kinds of doors are there, be they sturdy doors or weaker doors. I know I can change things if I want. But it would mean unnecessary and perhaps unwanted work if all they said was "there is a door in the room" without saying if it's a standard door or a sturdy door or an iron door, or whatever.

I'm not sure how I feel about your criticism about secret doors. I think that there might be a better way to handle hidden doors in a room, but I'd need to give it some more thought or hear more opinions.

I do like plot line and architecture verisimilitude, so I don't like seeing a secret door or hallway that doesn't seem to have any actual purpose for the design of the dungeon/mansion/whatever. Also, I hate seeing architecture that doesn't make sense, like an estate home where you have to walk through the servant's quarters, or the supply room in order to go from the master bedroom to the dinning hall. That makes no sense. I wish some designers would pay more attention to things like that.