D&D 5E Do You Tinker with Adventures to Make Them "Winnable"?

[Mort]

Yes,

Tinkering with an adventure to correct bad design is just fine with me.

 

[hopeless]

What if they taunt that creature so it charges at them and they dodge it so it hits that door?
Would it be hurt by that door or would it break through given its form of immunities?
Also can it be tripped then grappled so it can be tied up then carried to be used as a battering ram?

 

[kenada]

The constraints of the adventure make it very hard to telegraph information. Like all of the adventure locations are in the middle of nowhere, no one has been there before. For example, no one knew that an evil caster was behind the trouble in the village, let alone to know "you have to use a knock spell" to get into her safe room.
Sending visions or other psychic phenomena just seems too heavy-handed.

My answer is generally “no”, but it depends. An adventure that requires PCs to take certain actions but doesn’t make them discoverable is a crappy adventure. In this case, I would apply the three clue rule to make sure the PCs had a chance of finding out what they needed to know.

Another technique you can use is to show them the solution in a different context. Perhaps they meet a caster who makes a point of using a spell to secure their belongings or home, and they disclose during a night of drinking that the only thing that allows ingress is the knock spell.

What this does is tell them the answer without giving it away. They’ll still have to figure out when to apply that knowledge. Additionally, it gives them someone who can do it for them if they cannot, assuming they can make it worth the NPC’s while and protect them in the dungeon.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I do not find anything to be gained by constraining myself to what is written in any product. No product can account for every possibility, nor can it account for specific combinations of characters that may or may not adventure through it. So I have no problems whatsoever in changing anything and everything to make things more interesting.

If someone is behind a magically locked door... there are all manner of ways to get around it. Finding dispelling magic, breaking through walls, waiting for the person behind the door to come out for some reason, creating a reason for the person to come out, etc.

Adventures are written really, really well for one type of DM and player group. They are written less well for other types of DMs and player groups. The same adventure is written poorly for other other types of DMs and players, and the adventure sucks all sorts of rear end for a completely different set of DMs and players. If you happen to fall into the group where your playstyle does not jive with how the adventure is set up and expected to be run by the letter of the law... then you are well within your rights and should in fact rip it apart and put it back together in a way that works well for you and your players. No reason to keep banging your head against a wall over it. No one gets prizes for following an adventure word perfectly.

 

[Reynard]

Now I want to know what the adventure is to read it for myself and make sure these gross failures of design are actually in the adventure.

 

[billd91]

When it comes to tinkering with adventures, yes, I definitely tinker with adventures to make them more relevant to the PCs brought to the table. If there are challenges that need specific keys to overcome, and the PCs are unlikely to be able to inherently generate them, I'll insert them into the earlier parts of the adventure/campaign. It's a technique I learned from running some Paizo APs because they had a tendency, at least with early APs, to do that very thing.

But another thing to consider is your players. Are they the types of players who are fairly resilient and bounce back from being stymied by a challenge, determined to try again with a new approach? Or are they the type who feel that just bashing through a lot of hit points should work against any foe? Do they feel that an apparently 'unbeatable' situation is cause to analyze and plan or is it cause to whine and complain about unfairness?
If the former, then these situations are great - just telegraph a little bit about how their actions are having no effect, let them retreat, and let them plot and plan how to re-approach the situation. If the latter, and your own terms about being forced to leave the quest incomplete kind of suggests this, then you might as well adjust the situations to be winnable given their style of play. There are some gamers who like challenges that require them to reset and revise, and there are some who don't. Challenges written for the former won't work for the latter.

 

[Bawylie]

Overcoming the obstacle is part of the adventure. Figure out what key is necessary for the door then go get that key.

Pretty standard for d&d, I think.

If werewolves could (hypothetically) only be damaged by silver weapons, and the players did not have any silver weapons in a confrontation with werewolves, what would we reasonably expect them to do? Go get some.

Pretty standard for the fantasy genre, too. In the Hobbit, there’s writing that can only be read under the light of the moon (and sometimes only during a specific phase of the moon), doors whose key holes are only accessible at certain dates, and a dragon who has exactly ONE vulnerable spot. Figure it out and do the thing.

 

[Mort]

Overcoming the obstacle is part of the adventure. Figure out what key is necessary for the door then go get that key.

Pretty standard for d&d, I think.

If werewolves could (hypothetically) only be damaged by silver weapons, and the players did not have any silver weapons in a confrontation with werewolves, what would we reasonably expect them to do? Go get some.

Pretty standard for the fantasy genre, too. In the Hobbit, there’s writing that can only be read under the light of the moon (and sometimes only during a specific phase of the moon), doors whose key holes are only accessible at certain dates, and a dragon who has exactly ONE vulnerable spot. Figure it out and do the thing.

That's true, but there are clear degrees here.

For example, the PCs need a magic key for the sole door to the next level.

The key is at the bottom of a pool in a remote corner of the dungeon and is only accessible if 1) a PC decides to dive into and search the pool and then 2) rolls a 25 investigation check (why 25, because that's what the adventure designer thought was "appropriate").

The above is way too much gatekeeping for my tastes - but it's not unheard of in published (or homebrew) stuff.

 

[billd91]

That's true, but there are clear degrees here.

For example, the PCs need a magic key for the sole door to the next level.

The key is at the bottom of a pool in a remote corner of the dungeon and is only accessible if 1) a PC decides to dive into and search the pool and then 2) rolls a 25 investigation check (why 25, because that's what the adventure designer thought was "appropriate").

The above is way too much gatekeeping for my tastes - but it's not unheard of in published (or homebrew) stuff.

It's definitely the kind of thing you'd encounter in adventure/puzzle games ranging from the old text adventure games like the Zork series or Adventure to the graphical oriented ones like Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Encounter areas may be treated as puzzles that need a bit of thinking and, in many cases, further investigation and adventuring to find what is needed before they can be solved. Some players really dig that.
Others are more into the World of Warcraft/Diablo types of quests where the challenge may involve fighting or finding something but the solution is relatively straight-forward and not puzzle-like.
Neither is right or wrong. Either may require you to adjust because of the nature of your players and what they like to play.

 

[Mort]

It's definitely the kind of thing you'd encounter in adventure/puzzle games ranging from the old text adventure games like the Zork series or Adventure to the graphical oriented ones like Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Encounter areas may be treated as puzzles that need a bit of thinking and, in many cases, further investigation and adventuring to find what is needed before they can be solved. Some players really dig that.
Others are more into the World of Warcraft/Diablo types of quests where the challenge may involve fighting or finding something but the solution is relatively straight-forward and not puzzle-like.
Neither is right or wrong. Either may require you to adjust because of the nature of your players and what they like to play.

If it was just a question of do X,Y, to unlock Z then yeah - just a matter of taste.

BUT when you combine with randomness (say the party needs to roll a 15+ to get that 25, they fail and find nothing) where 1 random roll could mean success or failure of the adventure - that, for me, is too much.