Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Is it right for WoTC to moralize us in an adventure module?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Emoshin" data-source="post: 8931781" data-attributes="member: 7040377"><p>[USER=6801845]@Oofta[/USER] firstly thank you for the tone of your post. I highly appreciate it!</p><p></p><p>This I can actually sympathize with! I've noticed this myself.</p><p></p><p>I did have an academic idea, and I haven't stress-tested it, and it may not be right for <em>your</em> table and not intended to be prescriptive for you, it's just an idea, so please treat it accordingly.</p><p></p><p>The idea is that in an attempt to appeal to both sides, the optimal 5E WoTC adventure might have settings fluff/crunch with the plot elements side-barred as a suggested story line.</p><p></p><p>The first counter-argument might be that <em>everything</em> in an adventure module is optional, so there's no legit reason to have the story in a sidebar. I would suggest that this is for presentation purposes and also because humans are not as rational as we claim and it might psychologically be appeasing.</p><p></p><p>The second counter-argument is that, for a sandbox DM, those suggested story plot sidebars are just taking up valuable page count. Vice versa for the story-oriented DM concerned about too many room descriptions taking up valuable page count.</p><p></p><p>Another possible compromise is to publish two categories of adventures. Sandbox adventures, like PoA, and story (or rail-roady or whatever is the correct term) adventures, like Light of Xarysis. Just be transparent what adventures are in what category. When folks inevitable complain, at least they know before they buy it what kind of adventure it is.</p><p></p><p>Again, I've never tried to write an adventure this way, so I don't know how feasible it is. But I feel like that some compromise has to be had. The status quo seems to be that a lot of people just don't like a lot of 5E adventures as is. Some of complaining voices online are quite loud on this, but I don't have actual representative statistics of the wider community, so I cannot defend this point.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Again, very true. I would hazard to suggest this: that if WoTC was trying to come up with the winning formula for a broadly appealing D&D adventure, their target audience is NOT DMs who have tons of time to tweak the adventure, because they're probably going to do it anyway. Instead, their optimal target audience could be DMs who don't have a lot of time and want an adventure they can play out of the box. Again, I don't have data to support this, I only recall something that came out of a WoTC survey about gaming groups wanting to be more efficient with their time, but I don't know if that applies to DMs prep time or just to length of player gaming sessions.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Emoshin, post: 8931781, member: 7040377"] [USER=6801845]@Oofta[/USER] firstly thank you for the tone of your post. I highly appreciate it! This I can actually sympathize with! I've noticed this myself. I did have an academic idea, and I haven't stress-tested it, and it may not be right for [I]your[/I] table and not intended to be prescriptive for you, it's just an idea, so please treat it accordingly. The idea is that in an attempt to appeal to both sides, the optimal 5E WoTC adventure might have settings fluff/crunch with the plot elements side-barred as a suggested story line. The first counter-argument might be that [I]everything[/I] in an adventure module is optional, so there's no legit reason to have the story in a sidebar. I would suggest that this is for presentation purposes and also because humans are not as rational as we claim and it might psychologically be appeasing. The second counter-argument is that, for a sandbox DM, those suggested story plot sidebars are just taking up valuable page count. Vice versa for the story-oriented DM concerned about too many room descriptions taking up valuable page count. Another possible compromise is to publish two categories of adventures. Sandbox adventures, like PoA, and story (or rail-roady or whatever is the correct term) adventures, like Light of Xarysis. Just be transparent what adventures are in what category. When folks inevitable complain, at least they know before they buy it what kind of adventure it is. Again, I've never tried to write an adventure this way, so I don't know how feasible it is. But I feel like that some compromise has to be had. The status quo seems to be that a lot of people just don't like a lot of 5E adventures as is. Some of complaining voices online are quite loud on this, but I don't have actual representative statistics of the wider community, so I cannot defend this point. Again, very true. I would hazard to suggest this: that if WoTC was trying to come up with the winning formula for a broadly appealing D&D adventure, their target audience is NOT DMs who have tons of time to tweak the adventure, because they're probably going to do it anyway. Instead, their optimal target audience could be DMs who don't have a lot of time and want an adventure they can play out of the box. Again, I don't have data to support this, I only recall something that came out of a WoTC survey about gaming groups wanting to be more efficient with their time, but I don't know if that applies to DMs prep time or just to length of player gaming sessions. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Is it right for WoTC to moralize us in an adventure module?
Top