How Do You Feel About Published Adventures as a GM?

[el-remmen]

big campaign length adventures like Paizo APs and WotC 5E adventures.

I have never run one of those. The closest I’ve come is running one adventure from the Savage Tide AP (the second!) back in 3.xE days before events drew us off the path requiring me to readjust everything.

 

[Committed Hero]

When I started playing in the early 2000's I didn't know there was such a thing as published adventures. We bought all of our books from Borders, which is a now defunct chain bookstore, similar to a Barnes and Noble.

You punched my old card with this.

I could also rant about how the set up in one of them (cough*Tomb of Annihilation*cough) is explicitly set up with an actual time limit, i.e. Do The Thing or Everyone* DIES OR WORSE, yet the adventure is written like a sandbox.

I don't see why a sandbox can't have a timer, however. It can make the setting dynamic.

 

[payn]

I’m baffled at how much some GMs seem to hate reading.

 

[Reynard]

You punched my old card with this.


I don't see why a sandbox can't have a timer, however. It can make the setting dynamic.

It's not a hate of reading, it is a hate of having the excavate the necessary information from walls of prose in order to run the adventure. It is a hate for the complete lack of utility in both the writing and the layout of these sorts of adventures, and a hate for the way the writes want to waste our time.

 

[payn]

It's not a hate of reading, it is a hate of having the excavate the necessary information from walls of prose in order to run the adventure. It is a hate for the complete lack of utility in both the writing and the layout of these sorts of adventures, and a hate for the way the writes want to waste our time.

As a technical writer, I find the Paizo APs to have an excellent layout. Adventure summary right in the beginning, location details, maps, encounter specifics. You can even download the files in compartmental pieces.

 

[Reynard]

As a technical writer, I find the Paizo APs to have an excellent layout. Adventure summary right in the beginning, location details, maps, encounter specifics. You can even download the files in compartmental pieces.

And yet they still bury an important piece of information like a DC in the middle of a paragraph. Paizo adventures are terrible for utility, and they admit it, because they know most folks read their APs for enjoyment rather than run them (James Jacobs told me this directly on the Paizo forums).

 

[Meech17]

You punched my old card with this.

I was more clarifying for the sake of ENWorlds large international population.. But yeah.. Isn't it wild that that Borders closed over a decade ago?

Remember how back then Barnes and Noble was like the "Big Bad Guy" as far as bookstores went? And now they're like the last bastion of retail book sellers?

 

[payn]

And yet they still bury an important piece of information like a DC in the middle of a paragraph. Paizo adventures are terrible for utility, and they admit it, because they know most folks read their APs for enjoyment rather than run them (James Jacobs told me this directly on the Paizo forums).

Link? cause this sounds out of context.

 

[Zaukrie]

4e adventures were quite easy from a layout perspective, but IIRC, people hated the presentation of adventures. (I'm hoping this doesn't start another edition war).

 

[Parmandur]

They are like coobooks or boxes of lego bricks.