D&D 5E L&L 8/19/13: The Final Countdown

[Salamandyr]

KoTS was designed as a combat intensive adventure to get players used to the new rules of 4e, and was designed by Mearls and Cordell.

Now, that was an absolutely terrible marketing decision as it became the facto "4e is a tactical miniatures game," just look at the first adventure. If it was ever played by the team with anyone not immersed in the new rules it would have be absolutely clear they had a major issue on hire hands.

My concern, adventure design derails Next in the same way

Now to be fair, I know a whole bunch of people who came to the exact same conclusion and never even saw KotS.

 

[the Jester]

Every adventure module is a story...perhaps it would be better to refer to it as a "backstory", and often, though not always, an expected path the adventurers are expected to take, that will often differ in some particulars, but in the broad strokes will be similar. In some particular cases, the adventurers will do their own thing to the point that the adventurer at the table will in no way resemble anything expected by the writers of the module, which is one of the really fun things about tabletop roleplaying.

But even though that can happen, it's perfectly fair to talk about the intended "story" of an adventure module.

I agree that some modules have a story, but I think you're being overly broad here.

Looking at something like The Secret of Bone Hill or The Village of Hommlet, and there are a billion ways it could out. Maybe the pcs never even make it Bone Hill. Maybe they spend all their time in town trying to marry the baronette instead of slaying the bandits. Maybe they burn all their time in the Gambler's Temple. I'd have to dispute the notion that there is a "story" before the pcs' actions make one.

OTOH something like Red Hand of Doom, with a timeline and BBEGs with an agenda? That, I can see an argument for.

 

[N'raac]

It presents the option, but ultimately it is the PC's choice (as it should be) what approach they take, the module IMO shouldn't "try hard" to encourage the players to do anything. And I disagree that the goblins were "good" guys. The goblins robbed travelers along the Old Road until it fell out of use, the goblins are also working directly for Belak the Outcast so, regardless of reasons, they are furthering his plan and thus are not "good".

Ultimately, it is the players' choice. If, in your game, Goblins and Kobolds are evil, twisted creatures who can be slain with impunity by PC's, then why should they expect it to be different this time? In fact, if we bludgeon them with "well, these ones are different", then why are they different? But if, in your game, goblins and kobolds are like any other group - some good, some bad - and the expectation is not that the PC's first solution to every issue should be "kill them, loot the bodies and burn their village", then that is the approach I would expect the PC's to take here.

IOW, I agree that it's not the scenario's job to set your group's play style expectations.

First let's get this straight... they aren't sent by or hired by the villagers, read the hook again. Secondly the possibility of diplomacy is presented in the adventure itself so their mission is not to slay the goblins but to find out how/if the goblins are stealing the trees and where the fruit comes from... to heal their friend or ally. you keep presenting slaying the goblins as THE mission when it's not.

Again, play style. The mere presence of goblins means "kill the goblins" is the mission to some groups and some players. Others will see diplomacy as the first approach. That the scenario allows for both approaches seems, to me, a strength that was lacking in many of its predecessor adventures for 1e/2e.

What story, it's an adventure location... what the story is... is up to the actions taken by the party exploring it. The fact that numerous play groups ended up leaving the dungeon with a kobold friend named Meepo shows that there was a possible "sometimes monsters aren't really monsters" theme that could be explored through play but it was not the theme of The Sunless Citadel. Are you still harping on the apple thing... again the mission was not to...nevermind. Last but not least, no you do not need to hold the players hands a bit because you shouldn't be forcing a story on the players.

Play style. If the group is happy with "monsters are monsters - kobolds and goblins are evil, and kept so, irredeemably and irrevocably, by Goblin and Kobold deities - they exist only to be killed" as a justification for humanoid monsters as XP farms, then that's a valid playstyle. "Gob-lin-oids are just the same as you and I - all bi-peds're brothers 'til the day we die" can also be a wonderful world excuse me, another valid playstyle. Now, if the group is divided on valid playstyle, that's a concern, but the scenario allows for both possibilities and many in between. It's not up to the scenario to start with "In this very specific case, attacking the monsters may not be your best approach and you should consider diplomacy just this once".

 

[Salamandyr]

I agree that some modules have a story, but I think you're being overly broad here.

Looking at something like The Secret of Bone Hill or The Village of Hommlet, and there are a billion ways it could out. Maybe the pcs never even make it Bone Hill. Maybe they spend all their time in town trying to marry the baronette instead of slaying the bandits. Maybe they burn all their time in the Gambler's Temple. I'd have to dispute the notion that there is a "story" before the pcs' actions make one.

OTOH something like Red Hand of Doom, with a timeline and BBEGs with an agenda? That, I can see an argument for.

I'm not saying there aren't exceptions...but Sunless Citadel isn't one. I'm not even sure The Village of Hommlet is one. I know of groups that decided to slaughter everybody in Hommlet, because they were both easier to kill and richer than the cultists in the Moathouse, but I don't think that's necessarily how EGG (the master of placemat adventure locales) intended it to go down.

In most cases, you can usually tell that the writer approached the adventure from the perspective of "OK, first the adventurers will do this, and then they will do this, and then eventually they'll meet this big bad...voila climax!" I think one of the things about earlier adventurers is not that they didn't have these intended storylines, it's that they were really bad at signalling players to go in any particular direction to get to that story. Without being given a reason to go right, half of all parties are going to go left.

Then of course module designers went too far the other direction, and we got the classic "railroad" adventures of the 90's.

 

[Warbringer]

Now to be fair, I know a whole bunch of people who came to the exact same conclusion and never even saw KotS.

True, but it certainly didn't help set a "playtsyle" with the new mechanics.

 

[Warbringer]

In most cases, you can usually tell that the writer approached the adventure from the perspective of "OK, first the adventurers will do this, and then they will do this, and then eventually they'll meet this big bad...voila climax!" I think one of the things about earlier adventurers is not that they didn't have these intended storylines, it's that they were really bad at signalling players to go in any particular direction to get to that story. Without being given a reason to go right, half of all parties are going to go left.

Then of course module designers went too far the other direction, and we got the classic "railroad" adventures of the 90's.

The difference between "railroad" and "signal" is a very fine line indeed

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think this is a weak excuse mainly because KotS was specifically marketed as a beginning adventure, and thus unfamiliarity with the rules should have been a factor in the design process.

I think it *was* factored in. That's why the very first encounter was 5 minions and 3 kobolds... they couldn't get any simpler of a first encounter. But the game itself is a tactically complex game when it comes to combat and is in many ways is very different from any of the previous editions. So those first several encounters are set up directly to help bring players up to speed on what combat is, and what their PCs can do. The improv is the improv-- that part of the roleplaying game is no different than any previous RPG, so there's no need to get most of the players "up to speed" on that, as it were. Most of the people playing the module know what roleplaying is, so the module is more focused on teaching the new and different style of tactical combat, rather than putting the focus on the improv.

Now, did that not really help those players who were *completely* new to the RPG genre of games? I agree, not much at all. But then again, I'd submit that very few introductory modules have ever really taught new players how to do the improv part of roleplaying games either. So its not like KotS was an outlier on that in any way. They ALL just say "Interact with these NPCs!" but don't exactly go out of their way to show or tell you what they mean by that.

Now if you want to argue that 4E tactical combat is too complex in itself... then that's a different story. But that has nothing to do with the module... that's entirely based on the game rules. Which KotS had no impact on.

I also disagree that the first encounter could be finished in 7 or 8 minutes, even by a fairly experienced group unless everything was already set up, they were not interacting with each other at all (just moving and making choices on auto-pilot) and nova'ing with their dailies.... moving minis, selecting powers, assessing the grid, etc. would easily push it over that.

Simple disagreement here. Each PC has two at-wills, an encounter and a daily. Four things to look at (5 if they were human). You give an experienced group of players a Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Ranger, and Wizard with the basic powers from the first PHB for those classes that they have seen played for five years now... there's barely ANY time needed to "think about things". Wizard drops a Scorching Burst on as many minions as he can his first turn. Cleric fires Lance of Faith at a Kobold Dragonshield. Fighter runs up to that Dragonshield in melee... Cleaves if he's now adjacent to two enemies, Reaping Strike if he's adjacent to one. Ranger Twin Strikes two more minions that the Wizard missed with the Burst. Rogue flanks the Fighter and Sneak Attacks the Kobold Dragonshield between them. By the end of that first round, probably all the minions are dead, along with one real kobold (with a second one hurt). Rinse and repeat over the next round (or two, if the kobolds are lucky) and combat is over.

If it really takes you 45 minutes to run that first KotS combat now... I'd really question things.

 

[Salamandyr]

Let's remember something else about KotS as published and now. The pregens presented in the module for use all have really low attack bonuses compared to what eventually became expected for starting 4e characters.

For the most part the pregens are hitting standard AC's barely over half the time, and each non minion monster takes 3 or more hits to take down. That made things really slow. Once people were able to do a certain amount of optimization, and with the introduction of the Expertise feat, to hit bonuses crept up to where you could expect to hit 65 to 70% of the time, and combat became much less dragg-y.

 

[Imaro]

I'm not saying there aren't exceptions...but Sunless Citadel isn't one.

So what is the "story" of Sunless Citadel outside of the overly broad go explore?

 

[Salamandyr]

So what is the "story" of Sunless Citadel outside of the overly broad go explore?

It's pretty simple really. You've already provided the backstory in an earlier post. The PC's will gear up and fare forth to the Sunless Citadel intent on fulfilling the requirements of whatever hook the DM chose to emphasize (or all of them). Unless the DM has gone to the trouble of pointing up that the monsters in question have only engaged in marginally suspicious behavior, they'll probably assume, based on prior experience with either this game or cultural immersion, "monsters bad, kill em". They'll go in the dungeon, fight their way to the end, possibly allying with Meepo, and eventually fight their way to the bad guy, overcome him, get a magic sword, and go home.

Now the PC's may not do that. They might recruit the kobolds into an army to kill everyone in the village. Or they could contract out to the bad guy to spread his evil seeds all over the place. Or any of a hundred other things...but it's pretty clear none of those things were what the writer "intended" to happen.