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Dragon 397 - Table of Contents
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<blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 5485656" data-attributes="member: 22424"><p>It shouldn't, but the evidence to date indicates the contrary. The post-Delve adventures I have read and played (3.5e and 4e) have almost universally been badly put together railroads. ("King of the Trollhaunt Warrens" and "Sceptre Tower of Spellgard" were particularly bad in this regard.)</p><p></p><p>There's a certain logic to this. DMs will obviously want to get the most use from their purchase, and if each encounter is two pages instead of four paragraphs, then each skipped encounter will be a higher percentage of utility lost.</p><p></p><p>Of course, the best way to reduce this is to force PCs to deal with the encounters in a chain. IOW, put them on a railroad.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Each encounter in a Delve-format adventure has a sidebar giving the environmental conditions that apply. However, very often those conditions are common across the locale - a flooded dungeon will describe the 'flooded' effect with every encounter.</p><p></p><p><em>This is a good thing</em> - it prevents the DM having to flip pages or reference other books. But it's also a lot of copy-and-pasted text.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>But that's my point exactly! If the stat block is repeated at zero cost, and if the environmental conditions are repeated at zero cost, then the cost of putting together X pages of adventure material is much lower than it would seem.</p><p></p><p>Again, this repetition is the <em>strength</em> of the Delve format. But the copying and pasting means that the cost of producing X pages of adventure material in the Delve format is less than the cost of producing X pages in the 'traditional' format.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I find it interesting that I don't particularly like 4e, and yet I have a higher opinion of WotC's team than you do.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Pathfinder doesn't sell advertising, and certainly isn't being subsidised by WotC. In February, Paizo produced 52 pages of adventure material (for the equivalent of the Epic tier) in the 'traditional' format, for the Pathfinder product. How many did WotC produce again?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Sure, but every time WotC lower the bar, and every time they fail to meet their lowered bar, they lose a few more subscribers. Most likely, they will <em>never</em> get those people back. D&D could find itself dying by inches.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I happen to feel that concentrating on the DDI is a <em>massive</em> mistake, just as it would have been to concentrate on the minis a few years ago.</p><p></p><p>But WotC seem to feel differently. They've cancelled a number of books recently, and repurposed that material for the DDI. That suggests strongly that they <em>are</em> focussing on the DDI, and they <em>do</em> think it's the way forward for the game.</p><p></p><p>That's their call, but they can't have it both ways. If they're going to pull the print products to instead focus on the DDI, then the DDI needs to be match the raised expectations. And yet they seem to reducing their output there as well.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="delericho, post: 5485656, member: 22424"] It shouldn't, but the evidence to date indicates the contrary. The post-Delve adventures I have read and played (3.5e and 4e) have almost universally been badly put together railroads. ("King of the Trollhaunt Warrens" and "Sceptre Tower of Spellgard" were particularly bad in this regard.) There's a certain logic to this. DMs will obviously want to get the most use from their purchase, and if each encounter is two pages instead of four paragraphs, then each skipped encounter will be a higher percentage of utility lost. Of course, the best way to reduce this is to force PCs to deal with the encounters in a chain. IOW, put them on a railroad. Each encounter in a Delve-format adventure has a sidebar giving the environmental conditions that apply. However, very often those conditions are common across the locale - a flooded dungeon will describe the 'flooded' effect with every encounter. [i]This is a good thing[/i] - it prevents the DM having to flip pages or reference other books. But it's also a lot of copy-and-pasted text. But that's my point exactly! If the stat block is repeated at zero cost, and if the environmental conditions are repeated at zero cost, then the cost of putting together X pages of adventure material is much lower than it would seem. Again, this repetition is the [i]strength[/i] of the Delve format. But the copying and pasting means that the cost of producing X pages of adventure material in the Delve format is less than the cost of producing X pages in the 'traditional' format. I find it interesting that I don't particularly like 4e, and yet I have a higher opinion of WotC's team than you do. Pathfinder doesn't sell advertising, and certainly isn't being subsidised by WotC. In February, Paizo produced 52 pages of adventure material (for the equivalent of the Epic tier) in the 'traditional' format, for the Pathfinder product. How many did WotC produce again? Sure, but every time WotC lower the bar, and every time they fail to meet their lowered bar, they lose a few more subscribers. Most likely, they will [i]never[/i] get those people back. D&D could find itself dying by inches. I happen to feel that concentrating on the DDI is a [i]massive[/i] mistake, just as it would have been to concentrate on the minis a few years ago. But WotC seem to feel differently. They've cancelled a number of books recently, and repurposed that material for the DDI. That suggests strongly that they [i]are[/i] focussing on the DDI, and they [i]do[/i] think it's the way forward for the game. That's their call, but they can't have it both ways. If they're going to pull the print products to instead focus on the DDI, then the DDI needs to be match the raised expectations. And yet they seem to reducing their output there as well. [/QUOTE]
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