Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Composer99" data-source="post: 8981763" data-attributes="member: 7030042">[USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] I would say [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER] is pretty on point as regards published adventures for 5e. They run pretty trad, in the sense that who the characters are isn't very important for the scenario. For instance, I'm running Rise of Tiamat and unless I add content that's curated to pertain to the PC backgrounds, goals, and connections/relationships, there isn't really any there by default (barring anything developed in Hoard of the Dragon Queen, that is.) And it's fair to say that the rules for 5e enable neo-trad play without doing a very good job of supporting it.Where I think there's a culture change between AD&D 2e and 5e, such that the latter tends to be played neo-trad, is how, especially in home games, who the player characters are and what they want is much more central to play.A well-known example would be Critical Role campaign 2. The various plot threads, apart from the overall war arc, specifically revolve around the backstories and goals of the player characters (and in one case, covering for two players being away for several weeks on account of having a baby).As a personal example, I started a game during the height of the covid pandemic wherein several player characters had mysteries in their backstories. This was a learning game for my son and a few other players new to D&D.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">my son's character was chasing a thief who had stolen a magical gemstone of great power</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">another character, a halfling foundling, was seeking her missing father/older brother figure</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">yet another character, an elf of somewhat unusual magical provenance, was out for revenge against attempted kidnappers</li> </ul>I decided to have an initial antagonist who brought these three lines of backstory together, a venal and corrupt noble who was collecting the gemstone (and other rare and magical curiosities - including people!). The missing father figure had gone off to protect another magical gemstone from suffering the same fate. (This was going to give the party a potential hook for future adventuring once they had stopped the noble; assuming they bit the hook, that is!)Sadly, this particular game came to a screeching halt in the summer of 2021.Now, "stop the bad guy from catching them all!" isn't the most individualised experience; on the other hand. if the character's backstories and goals had been different, I would have done something different. It was the specifics invented by the players that determined the initial shape of the campaign. That is, who the characters are and what they want was far more vital to this campaign than to, say, Rise of Tiamat - essential, even!</blockquote>

Verification