D&D General How Important Is The "Shared Experience" To You?

[Oofta]

No value at all. Unless I'm running or playing a public game such as AL, I do homebrew stuff exclusively. Running published mods actually requires more prep time as a DM, and given the limitations you usually hit. I'd rather have a custom campaign.

Even when I do play mods, I rarely discuss the shared experience beyond whether or not we enjoyed it, and how difficult it was.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I did play in a 5E adventure and thought it sucked, but also the GM did a poor job bringing it to life.

Well, one of the major issues I'd point to with all of the WotC adventures I've read (which is not 100% of WotC adventures, I admit, though it might be) is that they contain very limited amounts of genuine support for running the adventure, very limited guidance for DMs in making the adventure work, and so on. This would be contrasted with say, a lot of classic '80s and '90s campaign boxed sets, which often had quite a lot of that. Paizo's stuff isn't perfect but even that has more than I've seen from WotC. I hope there are exceptions I haven't read.

So I think it's hard for a newer or less skilled DM to run WotC's stuff because of that factor - these aren't adventures that teach you how to run adventures. Which to me? That's really bad and dumb from WotC. Like, if I was in charge of WotC's adventures, my #1 priority would be that they taught DMs to run adventures well, supported them well, and made the experience more fun for everyone. Whereas WotC seems to put #1 priority on "Adventure is fun to read if you read it like it was a book".

 

[overgeeked]

Is this shared experience important to you?

Not really. It often leads to more arguments (online) than high fives (meat-space…but don’t do that, keep socially distanced).

Do you like comparing experiences with other players who have gone on the same adventures?

In meat-space, mostly yes. Online, mostly no.

Is it a selling point for you?

Not really, no. It used to be. Back when the shared experience was In Search of the Unknown, Keep on the Borderlands, and Isle of Dread.

 

[Burnside]

I'll do you one better and link to a free PDF one from Paizo. I see them as a trailer for a movie (a really good one tho!).

Got it - but these don't really exist for the official 5E adventures, right?

 

[payn]

Got it - but these don't really exist for the official 5E adventures, right?

It would appear they dont, which is a big bummer. They kinda, sorta, did it for a few Mongoose Traveller adventures. I wish everyone would do them!

 

[Lanefan]

Yes, shared experience is important.

 

[Shiroiken]

I used to care about it, back when there was much more of a shared experience. After 1E, there's so much out there that the likelihood of having played the same adventures was much, much lower. A few "classics" have been known to stand out, but since you don't know which adventures is going to become a classic, the DM is much more likely to buy some random crap instead. 5E helped with this, since the slow release schedule meant there were only a few adventures to share. However, given that an AP supposedly takes about a year to run completely, and they've released about 2-3 per year, the number of shared experiences diminishes again.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Less than zero. I'm actively opposed to the notion of the "shared experience." Chiefly because my opinion of modules — even the vaunted TSR "classics" — is nadir-low and dropping all the time.

I ascribe to the aphorism, "Running someone else's dungeon is like wearing someone else's pants."

 

[deganawida]

“Hey, gang, time to play!” — Super important

“Oh, you play [same TTRPG I play]?” — somewhat important

Anything beyond that? Not at all. The beauty of TTRPGs is that no table is the same. Heck, no campaign is the same. The moment every campaign and table are the same, I am done with the hobby.

In other words, shared experiences mean nothing to me, unless I am actively sharing the experience with you at the table.

 

[Jer]

As a DM I do find it interesting to compare notes with folks about older modules and how they ran them, but for the most part not so much. Especially the further we get from when D&D was "the only game in town" and "everyone" had a story about the Slave Pits of the Undercity or the Keep on the Borderlands.

And really it seems like the "shared experience" around all adventures these days is commenting about how they didn't work and what fixes you had to make to get them to work for your particular table. Which can be interesting from an adventure design learning experience but not really a selling point IMO.