Lots more adventures from Wizards?

[MavrickWeirdo]

It's not just a contest,
it's a customer survey.

"The Setting Contest" did more than just give us Ebberon, it told them what worlds people wanted.

So, not only will WotC have great publicity for their new Adventure Arc, they will have 10% of the entries using "monster X" as the BBEG, so they know there is a market for more adventures about "monster X".

 

[Sholari]

original or memorable

That is the key. A lot of what has been lacking in WOTC adventures is stuff that is particularly memorable. The adventures seemed to be an afterthought. Yet whether homebrew or prepared adventure _memorable_ roleplaying experiences are what create gamers for life. If you give them an experience that is better than any computer game or any movie, they will come back for more. Personally, I can remember some very definitive scenes that came out of great adventures... battling the undead colossus in Castle Amber, wandering the mist maze in Pharoah, or the pandemonium at the docks near the end of the Dungeon of the Slavelords. These adventures were very unique and very memorable.

Granted adventures are also one of the toughest things to do well. It is difficult to make every other scene memorable when your module must also appeal to gamers at large. It is difficult to orchestrate game balance in a module. It is difficult to make it modular enough to integrate into the average DMs campaign. And due to individual tastes, the ratio of players to DMs, setting differences it is difficult at the end of the day to make as much money on modules.

Fortunately, it looks like WOTC is putting some good thought into this design test. For instance, in their Things to Explore section it seems that one of the things they are looking for is to give every class the opportunity to shine at what they do the best. Second, it seems they are looking for cream of the crop designers by using this contest mechanism.

All in all, I'm excited to see what they come up with eventually.

 

[JoeGKushner]

We need more books like the Book of Encounters, the Book of Lairs, and AEG's Adventure I and Adventure II. Heck, I even enjoyed some of the Fantasy Flight Games books and wished that they updated theirs to 3.5 and collected them. I recall several other books like this. Tales of the Outer Planes, the old FR book of encounters centered around the undead, the old D&D book centered around giants and dragons, the FFE book with a spiral binding that was fantastic to flip around, but terrible in terms of actual game design.

I tend to like my adventurers short and sweet so I can place them into the campaign as opposed to larger chunks.

On the other hand, larger adventurers like the Red Hand of Doom, are also cool because they can be padded out, are longer than the standard 32 page adventurers, and generally offer longer campaign enjoyment.

 

[DragonLancer]

It's not just a contest, it's a customer survey.

"The Setting Contest" did more than just give us Ebberon, it told them what worlds people wanted.

Not to go off on a tangent, but I'm not so sure that people wanted Eberron. For every voice that loves it, I hear two or three who don't like it. Of course some of that may just be internet ranting.

 

[DaveMage]

Not to go off on a tangent, but I'm not so sure that people wanted Eberron. For every voice that loves it, I hear two or three who don't like it. Of course some of that may just be internet ranting.

If only we had access to the sales figures...

 

[DragonLancer]

If only we had access to the sales figures...

Agreed. I think having some access to those would put an end to a lot of speculation on these boards.

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

Not to go off on a tangent, but I'm not so sure that people wanted Eberron. For every voice that loves it, I hear two or three who don't like it. Of course some of that may just be internet ranting.

Actually I believe that Eberron was an attempt to fit in everything that everyone liked. Most of the complaints I've read are that people would like Eberron, if only they didn't include "X".

(Personally I am a big fan of Eberron)

 

[Henry]

The fact that they're going on a year now, multiple sourcebooks in, with more on the way, implies that it's selling pretty well. Maybe not "Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms at their height" well, but well enough to turn a serious profit.

 

[DaveMage]

The fact that they're going on a year now, multiple sourcebooks in, with more on the way, implies that it's selling pretty well. Maybe not "Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms at their height" well, but well enough to turn a serious profit.

It will also be interesting to see if Eberron sales pick up after D&D online gets up and going.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I'd love to see more adventures produced but I have my limits. TSR had so many great classics that were so much fun but then they just dumped all kinds of lame ones on us.

What would be really great is if the adventures they produced were somewhat multipurprosed in the sense that the stuff could be customized well enough or open ended enough to be able to run it multiple times or to make sure that the maps that came with it were good enough to get multiple uses. After all, the one failing with an adventure is that only one person in the group needs it (the DM).