Do official adventures follow DMG advice?

[bfchooch]

Heya-

I'm very new to D&D in general, not just 4th edition. So far my group consisting entirely of new players has finished Keep on the Shadowfell. I, as the DM, have read through half of Thunderspire Labyrinth and we plan to begin this adventure soon.

After we finished KotS, in an effort to adhere to DMG advice, I asked the group what they liked and didn't like about our first foray into D&D. I think the consensus was that we all had a good time, but much of the adventure felt very samey.

A good adventure provides varied challenges that test the PCs and stimulate the players. Create different encounters to emphasize attack, defense, skill use, problem-solving, investigation, and role playing.

When you're building an adventure, try to vary the encounters you include, including combat and noncombat encounters, a variety of settings and monsters, and situations that appeal to your players' different personalities and motivations. [...] Adventures that lack this sort of variety can become a tiresome grind.

I read through half of Thunderspire and while it seems to do a little better in the variety department, I'm a little nervous the players will have the same reaction.

My question is... do you all feel the official WotC adventures adhere to the DMG advice listed above?

Not having played any edition prior to 4e, we don't have anything to compare our experience to.

Take care.

 

[LostSoul]

No.

There's a problem with published adventures - they need to work for as many groups as possible. They can't have any personal PC ties, they can't assume specific PC tactics, they can't assume that some players like fighting trolls while others might like to fight giants.

What you should do is try to follow the DMG advice and change the adventure to fit your own group's goals.

 

[maddman75]

There's a problem with prewritten adventures. They suck.

Write your own games, do things that your players are interested in. I almost never run a published adventure, and when I do my player complain that it isn't as good.

Also, be willing to change things around midplay. Is everyone feeling grindy getting to the Magic McGuffin, but there's three more fights in the way? Wave your DM wand. Are they having a blast mowing through the opposition, but the adventure says that its almost over? Throw a couple more encounters at them.

You can't pay too much attention to pacing. If your pacing is good, everything else tends to take care of itself.

 

[Wik]

LostSoul has it right. I'm running Sceptre Tower of Spellgard right now, though you would never know it by a play session. I've taken the notes on the surface of the area, and totally expanded on the factions, which has resulted in numerous spin-off adventures, sometimes in response to a PCs' whims (someone won't show up, so the group will do some "light exploration" and I'll make up an encounter or two on the fly).

I've taken the dungeon of that adventure (the second of the three parts), and completely erased it, putting in my own. Which is where the group is currently at. And, for the last third, I've rewritten the enemies, and made huge adjustments to things to make the story's plot more obvious to the PCs.

Thunderspire is a decent adventure, but it is combat heavy. Try putting in some more skill challenges, and look for areas you can insert some RP encounters or "think outside the box" encounters. While it's not very 4e, it seems, throw in some traps outside of combat. In other words, do whatever you can to lower the number of actual combats in the game, and increase the number of non-combat encounters. Or, up the number of non-combat encounters, so that the ratio of combat to noncombat changes. For some reason, wotc adventures are very combat heavy, and some of them leave little room for GM expansion in the other fun areas of play.

 

[S'mon]

Most published adventures didn't used to suck, IMO (although I just got Lost Caverns of Tsojacanth off ebay and was disappointed it seemed little more than an interminable hackfest). The sheer amount of effort that went into most TSR modules in the late 70s and early-mid 80s was impressive; with carefully hand drawn dungeon maps, well crafted text, and a huge amount of gameplay packed into 32pp.

Re not following DM advice, I run 3.5e and I've never seen an adventure's listed party levels correspond to the spread of Encounter Levels. The Party Level seems to be commonly treated as a 'floor' for EL, not the median, with typical encounters 2-3 over. This can easily make every battle a gruelling slog and require powergaming to survive.

 

[roguerouge]

Oh, they do not suck. There's nothing wrong with a DM integrating published material into their campaign. You're not doing it wrong or engaging in badwrongfun for using them and don't let them make you think you are. I can hardly think of less helpful advice to give someone new to DnD.

They are right that WotC has a long history of writing... not well-reviewed modules and the best company for providing modules stayed in third edition. The second best adventure-writing company, however, went fourth edition. So go check out Goodman Games.

Their other advice is solid: pay attention to pacing, modify to meet your table's desires, and keep RP and skills in mind.

But there's nothing wrong with devoting your limited creative time to world-building and character development encounters and letting someone else design the hack and slash or investigations.

 

[Burrito Al Pastor]

Well, they do suck, actually - as long as you're talking about low-level WOTC 4e modules.

 

[WalterKovacs]

One thing they (the WOTC printed campaigns) definitely ignore from the DMG is the rule on rewards, as they definitely give the PCs a lot less than they are expected to be given based on the treasure package talk in the DMG. On top of changing it to fit the PCs, you also need to make sure to fill in the gaps as they are very stingy, giving out little, and when they do, it's very low level.

 

[Mark]

Maybe it is exception-based advice?

 

[bfchooch]

Thanks for all the advice.

They are right that WotC has a long history of writing... not well-reviewed modules and the best company for providing modules stayed in third edition. The second best adventure-writing company, however, went fourth edition. So go check out Goodman Games.

Out of curisoity, what is the "best company for providing modules?"

Thanks.