D&D 5E Is every Official Adventure Going to be about Saving the World?

[GameDoc]

I'd like to see more 2-3 chapter paths that work more like the classic series and account for a phase of an adventure's career and not the entire thing.

I'd also like to see perhaps series that build from one another but don't happen back-to-back. Maybe an initial adventure that gets characters from 1st to 3rd level and leaves them a rival or villain that escapes in the end. Then a follow-up with the same foe that picks up at 8th level or so. The campaign has to go somewhere else for a while but then returns to that plot for a while. Then can go somewhere else again.

 

[MasterTrancer]

Well, back in BECMI there were the CMx adventures, which (starting with CM1 - Test of the Warlords) could be strung toghether toward something decidedly epic: founding a domain and nurturing it.

Of course it's less of a "path" in that it allows more sandbox play than railroad, but it can nonetheless be built as a series of challenges to the rightful ruling of the PCs: warring neighboring domains, lieges demands difficult to be met, rebelling pawns, monster (and planar) invasions, famines (natural or magical), quests to create domain-level spells (akin to that in Birthright IIRC) and then some more...

Of course the CMx series started more or less (you guessed it) at companion level (15th and upwards, but remember that BECMI was structured around human PCs going until 36th level), but the premises were 1) the PCs had to be fairly renown to be invited in the colonization of a new continent and 2) the PCs were quite powerful for a settled world, and they would have little to do otherwise.

That requirements could be removed by, for example, having the PCs be low level retainers of the actual domain founders, earning their worth in the NPCs service, which can thus become their lieges and...well, and then all is paved.

 

[txshusker]

I don't understand why you can't create adventures without the DMG. I've run several already and I haven't DMd for over ten years. True, if you were new to RPGs this would probably be the case (you would need the DMing advice), but really everything we need is in the PHB and MM. The DMG is really going to be the icing on the cake.

Certainly you can. And with the PHB and the online version of the DMG. I've already converted 3 4E modules and 1 2e, but it's mainly guesswork because the MM doesn't have all the monsters and creating stat blocks is sort of a winging process. My first 2 encounters I had to fudge a LOT of rolls because it ended up being too hard for the players because the conversion was just off. I messed up a tad, apparently. But the DMG usually has other info that help create balanced encounters, treasure hoard, magical equipment that fit the metrics; stuff that simplify the process and a lot of folks wait for that to work on their own stuff.

My point to the OP was simply that WotC introduced the adventure path to get folks involved immediately; as a way to introduce and understand the new metrics; and as a marketing ploy to sell hard bound - one time consumable - books.

 

[Zaran]

I don't mind the Hoard of the Dairy Queen. I just don't want every adventure to be a campaign.

 

[Teflon Billy]

I remember reading a Paul Kemp D&D novel (pretty much the only RPG novels I bother with) and he had the characters thwarting some Slaad plot and--while the stakes were certainly high--there was nothing earth shaking about their plot.

it was really kind of refreshing

 

[Aaron L]

This is one reason why I don't like adventure paths, at all. It gets really old when every D&D campaign is about saving the world from some new magical/godlike menace. What about saving the village or kingdom? What about founding a kingdom? What about being actual dungeon crawling, crypt-raiding, free-booting adventurers? What about just anything else?

The other reason is that it always has characters going from 1st to uber levels in a few months of adventuring. If that was the case, then why isn't the world FULL of OTHER high level characters who got there after just a few months of adventuring? It totally breaks the suspension of disbelief for me. In my view it should take YEARS to get to 20th level, not just several months spent on JUST ONE QUEST. A campaign should really encompass a whole lot more than completing one single goal in half a year.

The great grandaddy adventure path that started the whole thing, DragonLance, was bad enough itself (NEVER been a fan of DL, either the story or the setting) but the idea getting used over and over again has worn very thin. This is also the problem with the "Realms Shaking Events" style Forgotten Realms novels, where every third book that comes out is about a new menace that will break the Realms forever if not for the ragtag band of plucky rebels who are destined to thwart it. It really gets on my nerves.

 

[PnPgamer]

I'd like to see where the adventurers save the whole kitchen!

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

This is one reason why I don't like adventure paths, at all. It gets really old when every D&D campaign is about saving the world from some new magical/godlike menace. What about saving the village or kingdom? What about founding a kingdom? What about being actual dungeon crawling, crypt-raiding, free-booting adventurers? What about just anything else?

The other reason is that it always has characters going from 1st to uber levels in a few months of adventuring. If that was the case, then why isn't the world FULL of OTHER high level characters who got there after just a few months of adventuring? It totally breaks the suspension of disbelief for me. In my view it should take YEARS to get to 20th level, not just several months spent on JUST ONE QUEST. A campaign should really encompass a whole lot more than completing one single goal in half a year.

The great grandaddy adventure path that started the whole thing, DragonLance, was bad enough itself (NEVER been a fan of DL, either the story or the setting) but the idea getting used over and over again has worn very thin. This is also the problem with the "Realms Shaking Events" style Forgotten Realms novels, where every third book that comes out is about a new menace that will break the Realms forever if not for the ragtag band of plucky rebels who are destined to thwart it. It really gets on my nerves.

In 5e everyone hits 20th level by the time they are 21 and everyone heals like Wolverine.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Agreed totally. This afternoon, I ran a session where the PCs are planning to rescue - wait for it - one person who has been wrongfully imprisoned. I do run adventures with much greater threats (my other campaign recently had the PCs forsee an entire town - and possibly much more - be overrun by undead) - but there's a whole spectrum of adventure between running a bakery and saving the entire world.

But would you run a 1-15 campaign about trying to do a prison rescue? I'd be kind of bored if we learned to travel to other planes of existence and still hadn't sprung Louie the Rat from jail.

People talk about Conan and Fafhrd and Grey Mouser, but those the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories seem to be primarily 3rd to 7th level stock adventures. Get a mission from their wizard patrons, fight a thieves guild/cult/ghouls, get some treasure, rinse repeat. Conan has a bit more development, but lots of his stories are perpetually 5th level as well. There's not much increase in scope, which given the high level of magic/monsters/power in D&D, seems more fitting.

Sure, you can a campaign out of "White Plume Mountain 3: The Quest for More Money" and the "Even More Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth", but that type of thing can easily be published as a series of one off adventures. AP's fill a different role than adventures. Hopefully soon we get both.

 

[Beleriphon]

Sure, you can a campaign out of "White Plume Mountain 3: The Quest for More Money" and the "Even More Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth", but that type of thing can easily be published as a series of one off adventures. AP's fill a different role than adventures. Hopefully soon we get both.

I was going to add to that as well, we have one adventure that is clearly not about saving the world. Its about saving a dwarf and his mine.

The APs are exactly that, a series of adventures strung together. Each chapter, or part, should be able to be run as an adventure on its own and by all accounts they can. I'm personally hoping that Princes of the Apocalyse is series of site based adventures that naturally lead from one to the next.