For those of you demanding adventures . . .
- Thread starter philreed
- Start date
I let my dollars do the demanding. That's why I continue to subscribe to Dungeon and why I generally refuse to buy a new supplement or game that is not supported by adventures.
Yes, I have more gaming stuff now than I'll ever use. That's not the point. I've discovered that I like reading gaming books, even if I never play that game. For instance, I recently bought a GURPS WWII book on Finland. I don't play GURPS, but I am interested in that period of history. I probably won't keep the book now that I have read it. I would love to run it as a Savage Worlds (another recent acquisition) mini-campaign, but where's the time and interest, really? It has to get in a very long line of games I would like to run but for which I have no players interested. On the other hand, reading a new (or old but new-to-me) game book is great fun without all that extra work of running a game.
I've never used all the adventures in Dungeon, and I probably never will. I recently sold my AD&D stuff, including about 40 issues of Dungeon. It was hard to part with the collection, but I ran the best adventures (the ones that appealed most to me). My Shackled City campaign fizzled after the first 2 dungeon crawls. I may never get around to running the next 9 crawls in that adventure path, but I am interested in trying again with the new adventure path.
For me, a product's "newness" is a big selling point. I can't really explain it, but there it is. Games, including adventures, by and large have a short but brilliant shelf life for me. Luckily there is no shortage of recently-published material to keep me reading, DMing and playing!
Now, if I could just do something about my group size and the complexity of d20...
Yes, I have more gaming stuff now than I'll ever use. That's not the point. I've discovered that I like reading gaming books, even if I never play that game. For instance, I recently bought a GURPS WWII book on Finland. I don't play GURPS, but I am interested in that period of history. I probably won't keep the book now that I have read it. I would love to run it as a Savage Worlds (another recent acquisition) mini-campaign, but where's the time and interest, really? It has to get in a very long line of games I would like to run but for which I have no players interested. On the other hand, reading a new (or old but new-to-me) game book is great fun without all that extra work of running a game.
I've never used all the adventures in Dungeon, and I probably never will. I recently sold my AD&D stuff, including about 40 issues of Dungeon. It was hard to part with the collection, but I ran the best adventures (the ones that appealed most to me). My Shackled City campaign fizzled after the first 2 dungeon crawls. I may never get around to running the next 9 crawls in that adventure path, but I am interested in trying again with the new adventure path.
For me, a product's "newness" is a big selling point. I can't really explain it, but there it is. Games, including adventures, by and large have a short but brilliant shelf life for me. Luckily there is no shortage of recently-published material to keep me reading, DMing and playing!
Now, if I could just do something about my group size and the complexity of d20...
Mark said:
Which is unfortunate. This "buy to read not to play" trend seriously hurts a lot of my own work. After all, PDFs like A Dozen Effects of Lingering Spell Energy and A Dozen Unusual Articles of Clothing aren't exactly great choices for reading material. Both were written to be used in a game -- if they're bought as reading material the reader is going to be very disappointed.
Pramas
Explorer
pogre
Legend
The trouble I have is there are three DMs who play in my game. Two have subscriptions to Dragon. The other buys darn near anything Necromancer prints. Two of them run very regular campaigns - in fact one runs three regular campaigns. The leaves me with pdf purchases. My PCs are at 13th level - I'll tell ya', there's just not a lot of quality pdf stuff out for those levels right now.
I guess when people are comnplaining about a lack of adventures, what they're actually complaining about is a lack of adventures from WotC. It's just a simple fact that everyone else plays second fiddle to them - despite the fact that there are quality d20 adventures out there by other companies. Some people won't buy anything but WotC, so for them, they'll likely feel a little a little deprived.
Personally, I think Dungeon offers a good variety of adventures, though I don't always buy it. I love the Goodman Games adventures, which I have most of. I also use the WotC 3ed modules, which I update for 3.5. Mostly, however, I just write my own.
Personally, I think Dungeon offers a good variety of adventures, though I don't always buy it. I love the Goodman Games adventures, which I have most of. I also use the WotC 3ed modules, which I update for 3.5. Mostly, however, I just write my own.
I have the same problem several others mentioned: the other DM in the group gets Dungeon (actually, the agreement is he gets Dungeon and I can have whatever else I can scrounge... 
). I also run into the problem that I don't like most published adventures...they tend to be far too simple for my somewhat Machiavellian tastes (put in a villain...now add his boss, her blackmailer, his guild, their enemies, and the occasional unsuspecting NPC). I prefer to take an encounter and fit it into my own adventures. Unfortunately there are far fewer decently written encounters or mini adventures to pop into a game than full blown save-the-world-from-epic-level-beasties adventures.
That said, I have made excellent use of the ones available, and don't have any real complaints about the availability of gaming material to supplement my creativity, with the possible exception of NPC stat block builders. Some day Jamis Buck may be canonized for that....
). I also run into the problem that I don't like most published adventures...they tend to be far too simple for my somewhat Machiavellian tastes (put in a villain...now add his boss, her blackmailer, his guild, their enemies, and the occasional unsuspecting NPC). I prefer to take an encounter and fit it into my own adventures. Unfortunately there are far fewer decently written encounters or mini adventures to pop into a game than full blown save-the-world-from-epic-level-beasties adventures.That said, I have made excellent use of the ones available, and don't have any real complaints about the availability of gaming material to supplement my creativity, with the possible exception of NPC stat block builders. Some day Jamis Buck may be canonized for that....
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