Interesting problem re adventures

[DNH]

There is a comment in the latest Legends and Lore article that people are "happy at how much of an adventure they could play through in a short time" and I will attest to that also. This throws up an interesting problem: if players are able to play more over a given period of time, does that not mean that more published adventures will have to be made available? Or at least that there will be more demand for them. Sure, a lot of DMs will be writing their own stuff but I imagine that Wizards will either have to up their game on publishing adventures (and quality ones too) and/or make it easier for 3PPs to do so.

Oh and we should also see some solid guidelines on converting old adventures to D&D Next (or whatever it will be called). From what I have seen, no D&D system so far has been as flexible when it comes to this.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Based upon the "I cannot talk about that at this time." comments that Mike Mearls has made about older material possibly getting released by PDF... and the stated aim for 5E to be reminiscent/adaptable to all previous games... my uneducated opinion is that in a perfect world WotC is taking all those old modules written and released for all the previous editions and make them available for purchase again... and be able to be played fairly easily as-is with the new ruleset (with perhaps slight modification by the DM depending on numbers and the like.)

That would take care of any "module shortage" they might have.

 

[Li Shenron]

Well, if the Dungeon magazine was still around...

 

[the Jester]

There is a comment in the latest Legends and Lore article that people are "happy at how much of an adventure they could play through in a short time" and I will attest to that also. This throws up an interesting problem: if players are able to play more over a given period of time, does that not mean that more published adventures will have to be made available? Or at least that there will be more demand for them. Sure, a lot of DMs will be writing their own stuff but I imagine that Wizards will either have to up their game on publishing adventures (and quality ones too) and/or make it easier for 3PPs to do so.

Why is this a problem? It's an opportunity.

Oh and we should also see some solid guidelines on converting old adventures to D&D Next (or whatever it will be called). From what I have seen, no D&D system so far has been as flexible when it comes to this.

I'll second this- a good "conversion guide" for all editions would be a boon, prolly in the DMG.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Here's a nice article about making up monsters for the playtest rules.

I got your D&D Next Monster Manual right here, and so do you | Greywulf's Lair

For comparison purposes, here are the stats of monsters in the original KotB module (B/X D&D, if I'm not mistaken). I have converted AC and Attack Bonus to ascending numbers (OGL retroclone yadda yadda). Compare to your playtest bestiary:

[sblock]Orc
AC 13
HD 1 (5 hp)
Attack: Spear +1 (1d6 damage)
Save: F1
Morale: 8
Treasure: Area 7: 1d8 ep; Area 10: 2d6 sp

Kobold
AC 13
HD 1/2 (3 hp)
Attack: Spear +1 (1d4 damage)
Save: NM
Morale: 6
Treasure: Area 1: 1d6 sp; Area 6: 1d6 sp

Owl Bear
AC 15
HD 5 (30 hp)
Attack: Claw/claw/bite +5/+5/+5 (1d8/1d8/1d8)
Special traits: None
Save: F3
Morale: 9
Treasure: None

1st-level Fighter (as of Labyrinth Lord)
AC 17
HD 1+2 (6 hp)
Abilities (not converted)
Str 15 (+1), Dex 14 (+1), Con 16 (+2)
Int 8 (partial literacy), Wis 11 (+0), Cha 6 (rxn +1, retainers 3, retainer morale 6)
Melee Attack: Longsword +2 (1d8+1)
Equipment: shield, splint mail, longsword

1st-level Human Fighter (as of OSRIC)
AC 17
HD 1+2 (7 hp)
Abilities (not converted)
Str 15 (+0), Dex 14 (+0), Con 16 (+2)
Int 8 (+1 language), Wis 11 (+0), Cha 6 (rxn +0, henchmen 2, loyalty -5%)
Melee Attack: Longsword +0 (1d8)
Equipment: small shield, splint mail, longsword[/sblock]

Also note that in the current rules, ability scores are capped at 20 for humanoids, and 30 for creatures and gods. This seems to imply that every point of strength above 18 (or so) represents an exponential increase, to the point where 31 is a theoretical, unattainable, literally infinite amount of strength. Like the warp speed scale in Star Trek: TNG, where Warp 10 meant infinite speed. And, like Star Trek, that barrier should never EVER be broken, under penalty of turning into a lizard and mating with the captain.

 

[Lanefan]

There is a comment in the latest Legends and Lore article that people are "happy at how much of an adventure they could play through in a short time" and I will attest to that also. This throws up an interesting problem: if players are able to play more over a given period of time, does that not mean that more published adventures will have to be made available?

It raises a few rather serious corollary questions as well:

What does each adventure represent in terms of level advancement? One level per adventure? More? Less? Highly relevant as the core design only goes to level 20...if you're going through an adventure every 2 sessions and each adventure represents a level, you've run out of game in a year or less.

How long a campaign can this system support? If someone is looking to run a long game (5-10+ years) can 5e even touch it, or will it implode at level 20 after a year and a half? Or will the advancement rate be tweakable?

Lanefan

 

[DNH]

Well, if the Dungeon magazine was still around...

Oh boy. Think of all those old adventures in so many back-issues of Dungeon magazine. eBay is going to be on fire!

Why is this a problem? It's an opportunity.

Oh, an opportunity, for sure.

What does each adventure represent in terms of level advancement? One level per adventure? More? Less? Highly relevant as the core design only goes to level 20...if you're going through an adventure every 2 sessions and each adventure represents a level, you've run out of game in a year or less.

How long a campaign can this system support? If someone is looking to run a long game (5-10+ years) can 5e even touch it, or will it implode at level 20 after a year and a half? Or will the advancement rate be tweakable?

Indeed. I imagine there will be an optional rule like the Pathfinder one, where you can have slow/regular/fast character progression by awarding different levels of XP

 

[delericho]

This throws up an interesting problem: if players are able to play more over a given period of time, does that not mean that more published adventures will have to be made available? Or at least that there will be more demand for them.

Indeed. And the modularity of the system makes doing published adventures for it that much harder - the adventure needs to target the widest possible base to be worth doing, but writing an adventure to take into account different possible combinations of modules is much more involved than writing one for a single baseline.

Sure, a lot of DMs will be writing their own stuff but I imagine that Wizards will either have to up their game on publishing adventures (and quality ones too) and/or make it easier for 3PPs to do so.

I would be surprised to see WotC doing many more adventures than they already do, or to see any significant increase in quality (though that would be nice). Likewise, I'm not expecting any sort of meaningful 3rd party support for 5e - the boat is still out on the OGL, but I'd bet against it, and I'd bet against any more publishers signing up for a GSL-like license than did last time.

Oh and we should also see some solid guidelines on converting old adventures to D&D Next (or whatever it will be called). From what I have seen, no D&D system so far has been as flexible when it comes to this.

They need to make it very easy for DMs to write their own adventures (and, by extension, to convert them from other editions and even other games). Even just being able to do easy conversions of old-edition adventures really isn't enough - many people either don't have access to those old adventures, or they've played them already.

This is an interesting topic. It certainly will be interesting to see how WotC plan to resolve it.

 

[Ahnehnois]

What's the problem? If the game plays faster, it hopefully also preps faster, which reduces whatever demand there was for published adventures in the first place. The "problem" is thus that people have to come up with more of their own stories and play and run their own games, which is actually a good thing.

 

[Raith5]

Based upon the "I cannot talk about that at this time." comments that Mike Mearls has made about older material possibly getting released by PDF... and the stated aim for 5E to be reminiscent/adaptable to all previous games... my uneducated opinion is that in a perfect world WotC is taking all those old modules written and released for all the previous editions and make them available for purchase again... and be able to be played fairly easily as-is with the new ruleset (with perhaps slight modification by the DM depending on numbers and the like.)

That would take care of any "module shortage" they might have.

While I agree and certainly have continued to re-purpose previous edition adventure for later editions, there is also the deeper question - what is 5th ed's contribution going to be to game with respect to adventures? Rather than just copying previous editions' adventures.