If WotC publishes more adventures....

[Doug McCrae]

I do not want to see a trek through Khyber take up 75% of the adventure. That would be bad.

Totally. They should just take a shortcut through the Khyber Pass.

 

[ssampier]

Never played them

I haven't played any of D&D modules so far. Glancing at them briefly, I thought, "Meh. I could design something better."

I do wax nostalgically for a Return to Undermountain, though. It could be, more or less, a World's Largest Dungeon--Lite.

 

[3catcircus]

Actually,

I think that (especially if the module is themed for a specific campaign world), there is no better example of how to do a series of modules the right way than Northern Journey.

 

[Eremite]

Thinking about this some more, I would like to see:

1. NO NOVEL TIE-IN!!!
2. A variety of adventure sites rather than just one large dungeon (RttToEE... yes, I'm looking at you).
3. Good use of support material (Frostburn, Libris Mortis etc...) with the material available by way of web enchancement for those who do not have the support books.
4. A sidebar or even a whole page explaining how it can be placed in a variety of worlds.

If set in FR I would also like to see:

1. The adventure should be closely tied to at least one of the regional sourcebooks and preferably more than one.
2. Lots of use of Magic of Faerun, Lords of Darkness, the crunchy bits from the Player's Guide and Underdark etc....
3. NO NOVELS. Really, I mean it. NO NOVELS.

In Eberron I would like to see lots and lots of travel, encounters with a wide variety of cultures and a plethora of smaller encounter sites. Oh, and no novels....

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

And, not surprisingly, the moon calf was a knock off from a short story. I can't recall the story off the top of my head, but I believe it was either by Lovecraft (or one of his imitators) or Dunsany. I'm sure someone on EnWorld knows the source better than I!

Well, the name was from H.G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon. The moon-calves were large beasts the Selenites ate...

And this has been your Victorian sci-fi literature moment of the day.

 

[Morpheus]

Well, the name was from H.G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon. The moon-calves were large beasts the Selenites ate...

And this has been your Victorian sci-fi literature moment of the day.

He was probably thinking of 'moon-beasts' which were found in a couple of stories (Dreamquest of the Unknown Kadath and The Silver Key, I believe).

 

[DragonLancer]

Just an FYI: Troll Lord Games is coming out with an epic adventure path campaign called "The Cult of Yex". It should be out in a few months. It is a hardcover full campaign that contains:

- a regiona drop-in setting (desert) suitable for insertion in any campaign world. The setting includes two fully detailed drop-in city settings.
- 8 full sized modules designed to be played in an epic series taking PCs from 1st to 20th level. Each module stands completely on it's own, and can be used as a stand-alone module.
- Dozens of new monsters, magic items, spells, villians, NPCs, etc...

Most modules have an extra-planar component. Two feature a demi-plane, two take place mostly on the astral plane. The final module in the campaign takes place almost entirely in the Abyss, with the party having to choose the lesser of two evils in demon war. There are plenty of dragons in there, as well as political intrigue, puzzles, and about 40-50% dungeon crawl.

If this is all sounding like a shameless plug.... well. It is! I am one of the co-authors, and I hope you'll check it out. We have been plotting, writing, editing, storyboarding and playtesting for 4 years now. I promise, we have gone slow, and done it right. And with 8 modules and three detailed drop in settings, it is a better value than even dungeon mag. I am at your service if anyone has questions.

Certainly does sound interesting. I'll keep an eye out for it.

 

[Ed Cha]

I'm fine with WoTC publishing adventures or whatever else they want, but I think their decision to make available free adventures for download on their Web site hurts the published adventure business. In my opinion, it devalues adventures as something you can get free online instead of paying for and the free adventures are usually not very good turning people off on adventures. WoTC should really stop doing this.

 

[philreed]

I'm fine with WoTC publishing adventures or whatever else they want, but I think their decision to make available free adventures for download on their Web site hurts the published adventure business. In my opinion, it devalues adventures as something you can get free online instead of paying for and the free adventures are usually not very good turning people off on adventures. WoTC should really stop doing this.

Actually, I think their free adventures do a lot to sell their books and are an excellent marketing tool. I've often considered releasing my own free adventures to support my other products.

Also, they're an awesome resource for DMs -- both beginners and experienced masters. If there's one thing I feel WotC did wrong, it was to not include a full-page ad in the DMG pointing DMs to the free adventures.

 

[Eremite]

I'm fine with WoTC publishing adventures or whatever else they want, but I think their decision to make available free adventures for download on their Web site hurts the published adventure business. In my opinion, it devalues adventures as something you can get free online instead of paying for and the free adventures are usually not very good turning people off on adventures. WoTC should really stop doing this.

I can definitely see how that would harm a (non-WotC) d20 publisher.

Frankly, though, I am surprised that there are so many d20 publishers still around when things like this make it difficult to carve out a profitable niche.

Also, it's not just the free adventures. The other free source material on the WotC site is often of a pretty high quality (better than Dragon magazine perhaps?).

Anyway, back on topic, Cult of Yex from TLG sounds like an almost perfect model of the sort of adventure that I would like to buy.