D&D General Matt Colville on adventure length

[Remathilis]

DIdn't WotC, in their infinite Wisdom, try to fix this TWICE, once with the OGL/CC and once with the DM's Guild? WotC puts out a big module 1-2 times per year, and the 3pp and adjuncts fill in the gaps? That's what I was told the plan was.

I wager there is something more going on, and that sounds like opportunity cost. Selling one 300-page book for $60.00 is less cost intensive to create than selling ten 30-page books for $15 each.

 

[overgeeked]

You can, but if you package that as a giant hardcover adventure path, you set players up to end up leaving that arc plot incomplete. If you just sell those adventures as separate modules, DMs can pick and choose which ones to run when, and string them together with an arc plot of their own devising, or not, as suits their own groups’ needs and interests.

You could do related MacGuffins, like the Rod of Seven Parts (the magic item, not the module) where each section is a standalone adventure that can be completed in any order with any number of other modules slapped in between. Have some kind of end cap finale and you’re set. But that brings us right back to the fixed monster stats vs PC levels problem.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

And, you're conflating enthusiasm to continue playing (at all) with enthusiasm to continue playing (the character just deceased).

No, he isn't. Not even slightly.

You're making a huge and bizarre assumption that the group in general will be excited about having essentially wasted several hours creating PCs who are all now dead, and doing an adventure that they definitely aren't going to finish. Doesn't make sense.

Hot take: players who give up like that just because they lose a character or three probably aren't worth keeping.

That's not just a "hot take", that's judgmental in quite a knee-jerk way, flatly insulting to a lot of people here reading it, and shows an apparent serious lack of broad experience of different players/groups/games on your part.

Why's that? Because if that's how they think, it's a huge red flag that if-when things go sour for their characters in the future, it's going to be a headache. I've had players like that; the key word there being the past-tense "had".

You're showing what looks very much like a lack of real/broad experience here, presumably because you're quickly pushing people out of your group if they don't respond super-positively having their PCs killed. You pretty much directly say that with "had". You're selecting hard for players who love to die, which is preventing you from seeing players who don't, but are also good players - instead you're only left with people who hate dying, but who think "bad RPG sessions are better than no RPG sessions", which is not great, and who generally aren't a lot of fun to play with.

You're also conflating setbacks, and your losing your PC and all the emotional investment, actual effort involved in creating them and so on, and that's flatly nonsensical. It's just not the same thing. In reality, many players who love their PCs, love setbacks. To the point where entire games basically use this as a major mechanic - Chronicles of Darkness (i.e. the nWoD) is essentially designed around this - the chances of losing your character without something wild happening are close to nil (not like Russian Roulette like some OSRs or early D&D). The chances of setbacks? Basically 100%, and some of them are going to be absolute whoppers.

If players operated like you say, neither the oWoD, nor the nWoD would have been at all successful, nor would many other RPGs. But they were successful, which frankly, immediately disproves your theory.

Even on a more straightforward level, a lot of players who care about their characters will to huge lengths to keep going - they won't get upset by "setbacks" - on the contrary, those motivate them to find ways around them so they can keep playing their character and keep their character alive.

There are players who give up at setbacks or get excessively upset by them - they're usually just people aren't having any fun generally - usually due to a DM/player, game/player or player/group mismatch*. If you see players giving up, and you immediately paint "BAD PEOPLE" or "BAD PLAYERS" on them, as you're claiming you do, without thinking more carefully about the causes, well, that's your choice, but it doesn't mean you're right. My experience is that if people are giving up at just setbacks, you probably need to change something up.

That can mean that the player is just not going to be a good fit, sure. It does not mean they are a bad person (all the worst people I've ever played with weren't giver-uppers, they were game-wreckers). But it can also mean that maybe that adventure is really boring. Maybe this game system isn't really working out. Maybe this person is generally unhappy with their character.

I mean the latter is surprisingly common in my experience - I had one of my players is the main group who was really having problems with setbacks the party was facing, and just seemed frustrated, and we talked - and figured out he should play a different character for a while, and then he had a great time (and even eventually went back to the first character!).

* = There is another group which is "literally children" (including teenagers) who it's very much down to a personality/emotional development/home life/hormones and so on. Kids who couldn't handle a PC dying on a Tuesday might well be able to on Tuesday next week because they're in a different mood etc. but I'm largely excluding them because that's whole other discussion.

 

[Bagpuss]

I miss Dungeon Magazine. I know the business model of putting out a magazine sucks these days, but it sure did offer up a lot of content over the course of a year.

Also gave lots of new adventure writers their break, and something to publish short adventures without the backing of some hardback book.

 

[Staffan]

That us less a problem of the Encounters, and more people not following a full Adventure Day. It's a game of attrition and resource management.

Well, that's because attrition-based games where you have 9 encounters per day are boring. 5-room dungeon or bust.

Gygax was an insurance adjustor, so I'm not saying you are wrong here, but I think his professional background in funny math influenced him there. It's messy and complicated, but so ate actuary tables.

There's definitely some thought that has gone into the AD&D XP tables, notably how they doubleish at each of the early levels. You also have the druid table that goes into overdrive at around level 8, which I think is also where they have to start fighting for the right to level up.

Then of course you have latecomers who miss these things about the tables, and use the normal druid tables for Dark Sun (which doesn't have druidic societies) as well as specialty priests in FR ("Well, looking at these here early levels the druid needs more XP than a cleric, so we'll just copy that for the more powerful specialty priests.").

That said, there's a lot of voodoo in the 1e XP tables, but they are not completely random.

I don’t think Matt is arguing for shorter campaigns. He’s arguing for long campaigns to be made of many small independent adventurers, instead of one epic interconnected adventure.

If I'm reading the tea-leaves right: yes and no. He's arguing for campaigns with many smaller adventures because then it's OK whenever it ends. If I end Princes of the Apocalypse after dealing with all four Haunted Keeps as well as the Temple of Howling Hatred and the Temple of the Crushing Wave, I'll have only accomplished a small part of the overall campaign and I know there's more to be done. But if I've done six separate modules and finished those, that's six accomplishments to my name and I don't leave anything hanging.

And that's a very real psychological thing. People who have issues getting things done are often told to split tasks into multiple smaller tasks. Instead of "Clean the house", turn it into "Wash the dishes", "Clean the table", "Vacuum the kitchen floor", "Clean out the junk from your couch", "Vacuum the living room", "Dust the bookshelves", and "Vacuum the bedroom floor". That way, should you run out of spoons and stop after washing the dishes and cleaning the table, well, at least you did two tasks. That feels much better than being at 28% of the task "Clean the house".

 

[Charlaquin]

If I'm reading the tea-leaves right: yes and no. He's arguing for campaigns with many smaller adventures because then it's OK whenever it ends. If I end Princes of the Apocalypse after dealing with all four Haunted Keeps as well as the Temple of Howling Hatred and the Temple of the Crushing Wave, I'll have only accomplished a small part of the overall campaign and I know there's more to be done. But if I've done six separate modules and finished those, that's six accomplishments to my name and I don't leave anything hanging.

And that's a very real psychological thing. People who have issues getting things done are often told to split tasks into multiple smaller tasks. Instead of "Clean the house", turn it into "Wash the dishes", "Clean the table", "Vacuum the kitchen floor", "Clean out the junk from your couch", "Vacuum the living room", "Dust the bookshelves", and "Vacuum the bedroom floor". That way, should you run out of spoons and stop after washing the dishes and cleaning the table, well, at least you did two tasks. That feels much better than being at 28% of the task "Clean the house".

That’s part of why he’s suggesting campaigns be made of smaller, self-contained adventures, yes. Not only does that give you better stopping points, but it also makes you want to keep playing, because the satisfying feeling you get from completing an adventure makes you want to play another. Getting that feeling many times over the course of a campaign is going to lead to less burnout and more campaign longevity than you get from a single epic-length adventure.

 

[tetrasodium]

Which direction did you find the link to be, though?

Because I have seen a link here too, but the link I've seen is that players who don't care if their character dies at all, in a modern D&D game (rather than an OSR like DCC), are usually problem players, because they:

A) Tend not to roleplay, and tend to metagame very heavily.

B) Don't play well with players who do RP, or don't metagame, even pulling faces or the like.

C) They are by far the most likely players to engage "outright dumb[expletive]ery", like murdering NPCs, stealing for no good reason, backstabbing the party (usually also for no reason, playing "Chaotic Stupid" and "Lawful Stupid" characters.

D) They're also weirdly a lot more likely to be pulling their phone out and messing around on it - even watching videos and trying to show them to others - I think because they're kind of stimulation-seeking or something.

E) Absolutely the most likely to argue pointless rules with me as the DM. Maybe not ones about whether they die or not, but definitely ones that nobody needs to argue about.

If I'd only seen one guy like this, I'd put it down to "that guy" but I've seen multiple.

Also, hard against any suggestion that players who care are a problem, I've played with two players who burst into tears when their character got killed (as adults!), and both of them are actually really good players in pretty much all levels - reliable, cooperative with the party, thoughtful, good RPers, don't

This is very specific though - it's not the case, for example with CoC. With CoC, what I've seen is far less of a link, basically none - I've seen players who would pretty much be in tears if their PC died in D&D or a similar game, who are absolutely fine, even think it's a little funny if it's CoC, because with CoC, that's part of what you signed up for. With modern D&D, it isn't. You say "inevitable churn and character turnover", but that's simply not "a thing" in 5E RAW/RAI. It's not a game where that's inevitable or even particularly likely. Nor does 5E offer any particular support for that play-mode. On the contrary in fact, I'd say 5E was a little too rules-heavy really work well for that. You want something with fewer choices and less conceptual investment. I'd actually say all versions of D&D from 2E onwards are bad vehicles for "low-level churn". There's just too much effort and specificity in designing a character.

I think you are confusing if a player cares about having their PC die and how they handle the death of their PC after it happens. Imo they are distinct things. Without getting into which parts of your list that I do or don't agree with and why I'll say that I mostly agree those kinds of things are often demonstrated by a player who doesn't care if their PC lives or dies & doesn't try to influence the odds there in play... It is however entirely possible for a player to care about their PC's survival & take steps to influence the odds there but then be capable of rolling with the punches in a way that is just win some lose some when catastrophic failure happens.

IME It's not so common to find notable problem players among players who roll with the punches & just shrug off the death as a chance to make something new or be pleasant for a bit while confident in knowledge that death in d&d is very much a revolving door that is easy to recover from. Players who refuse to accept that PC death can happen & react poorly when it does tend to slide towards a very different direction on the venn diagram of player types.

 

[amethal]

Which direction did you find the link to be, though?

Because I have seen a link here too, but the link I've seen is that players who don't care if their character dies at all, in a modern D&D game (rather than an OSR like DCC), are usually problem players, because they:

I actually had a player who insisted that his character died, which I found surprisingly impressive.

We were a player short (and the way we run it is that if the player isn't there, the PC isn't there either) but I decided not to tone down an encounter to compensate, on the basis that the key PC for this encounter was the party paladin, who was present.

The reason being that, whilst the monster had high Damage Resistance, the paladin could use his Smite Evil to bypass it (this being Pathfinder 1e). Turned out the (multi-classed) paladin had taken an archetype that swapped out the usual smite evil for something else, which I'd somehow failed to notice during the campaign to date.

The paladin bravely engaged the monster, did minimal damage to it but managed to keep it engaged for long enough that the party spell casters were able to kill it from a distance, but at the cost of the paladin's own life.

Since there was a player missing, I offered to fudge the outcome so that the brave paladin was unconscious but not dead.

The player refused the offer, preferring character death to a fudge.

 

[tetrasodium]

Well, that's because attrition-based games where you have 9 encounters per day are boring. 5-room dungeon or bust.

There's definitely some thought that has gone into the AD&D XP tables, notably how they doubleish at each of the early levels. You also have the druid table that goes into overdrive at around level 8, which I think is also where they have to start fighting for the right to level up.

Then of course you have latecomers who miss these things about the tables, and use the normal druid tables for Dark Sun (which doesn't have druidic societies) as well as specialty priests in FR ("Well, looking at these here early levels the druid needs more XP than a cleric, so we'll just copy that for the more powerful specialty priests.").

That said, there's a lot of voodoo in the 1e XP tables, but they are not completely random.

If I'm reading the tea-leaves right: yes and no. He's arguing for campaigns with many smaller adventures because then it's OK whenever it ends. If I end Princes of the Apocalypse after dealing with all four Haunted Keeps as well as the Temple of Howling Hatred and the Temple of the Crushing Wave, I'll have only accomplished a small part of the overall campaign and I know there's more to be done. But if I've done six separate modules and finished those, that's six accomplishments to my name and I don't leave anything hanging.

And that's a very real psychological thing. People who have issues getting things done are often told to split tasks into multiple smaller tasks. Instead of "Clean the house", turn it into "Wash the dishes", "Clean the table", "Vacuum the kitchen floor", "Clean out the junk from your couch", "Vacuum the living room", "Dust the bookshelves", and "Vacuum the bedroom floor". That way, should you run out of spoons and stop after washing the dishes and cleaning the table, well, at least you did two tasks. That feels much better than being at 28% of the task "Clean the house".

I think there was even more thought that went into those exp tables* than you note. Once you start looking close you start noticing that some classes get rolling & gain levels quickly at first while others gain them more slowly (and sometimes faster), the more likely a PC was to be on the front lines in a tank type roll the quicker their early levels went. Eventually PCs started getting towards & into high levels though & the speeds invert with the turtles making great strides & the now fairly crunchy & survivable jackrabbits dropping into a slow advancement rate.

*I might add spell slot progressions among similar flavors of casters to some degree as an additional weighting with significant thought (Ie bard & wizard most obvious)

 

[overgeeked]

That’s part of why he’s suggesting campaigns be made of smaller, self-contained adventures, yes. Not only does that give you better stopping points, but it also makes you want to keep playing, because the satisfying feeling you get from completing an adventure makes you want to play another. Getting that feeling many times over the course of a campaign is going to lead to less burnout and more campaign longevity than you get from a single epic-length adventure.

Exactly. I can’t think of anything more boring than a mega-dungeon. But a few delves here and there as we level, why not. I’m sure other people feel the same about wilderness exploration, city-based play, faction play, etc. Doing roughly the same thing from levels 1-10+ is excruciating not exciting.