D&D General Matt Colville on adventure length

[Staffan]

That's a lot of ifs and maybes. The number of people who've been disappointed by starting an epic AP only to not finish it likely far exceeds the total number of people who've ever played in an episodic module format. That's partially the point of Matt's video. Newer players are completely unaware that episodic module play is even an option because the epic AP is the default they came into the hobby with.

Not really. You can have very detailed and very specific modules just like you have very specific and very detailed epic APs. The only difference between them is the length. It's the difference between a short story and a novel. An episode of a show vs a several seasons-long arc.

Right. But the bigger adventure has a commercial advantage, because it only requires buy-in once, and then you're in it for the ride.

For example, Strength of Thousands is a Pathfinder AP where you start playing students at the Magaambiya, the pre-eminent magic school of Golarion. I don't think I would have any problem selling my players on a "magic school" campaign, and the school has some very specific traditions that play important parts in the adventure.

But try creating a 5th level adventure where PCs are doing magic school student stuff? Yeah, that's not gonna fly. At least not off the FLGS shelves.

Towns, castles, forests, etc can all be self-contained. It's not only dungeons.

They can be. But dungeons are naturally self-contained. That's part of their selling point, that they focus play on a smallish well-defined area where there are limited options. Do I go right or left? Are there any clues about where these paths lead that can help me make a decision? And things like that. But a town or an overland area is open-ended. Players have much greater options for doing things, which means that as an adventure writer I must either spend a lot more time and effort on things that might not show up, or leave more for the DM to do themselves.

And yes, generic is a benefit. Because it increases your potential customers. If you make a generic town, castle, forest, dungeon, etc can be dropped anywhere in any setting. But that doesn't prevent specificity. Almost every setting will have logging towns. Almost every setting will have mining towns. Etc.

But making something more specific usually makes it more interesting. And it's usually made more so by tying it closer to the game world. For example, "fishing town" sounds pretty dull to me. But "fishing town on the shores of Lake Galifar, where you have agents of the neighboring nations the Eldeen Reaches and Aundair infiltrating things, and where there's a lot of bad blood between the followers of the Sovereign Host and those of the Silver Flame" sounds a lot more interesting. But the latter only really fits in a particular place in a particular setting, and is therefore less commercially viable despite likely being more artistically interesting.

Yes, capitalism is always the problem. But I think you're overstating just how difficult, no good, and terrible modules are.

I'm not saying modules are bad. I'm saying that it's really, really hard to make money off them. To the point where most publishers had sworn them off entirely because there's no money in modules, until Paizo showed how adventure paths could work. And that in turn lead us to the current situation where the adventure market, such as it is, is completely dominated by Epics.

 

[werecorpse]

Go to DM’s guild or drivethru. Plenty of short adventures there.

 

[Rabbitbait]

I'm going to go against the consensus here. I much prefer the long campaigns. As a time poor DM it is much easier for me to know what is coming up and how it fits into what has come before than to try and jimmy together a series of unrelated modules and try and make a story out of it.

Tomb of Horrors in 4e had a good compromise. It had the epic campaign, but it had gaps between events where the heroes would have time to do other modules. It was expected that they would go up a couple of levels in each gap. It meant an ongoing campaign with room in it to change the tone as you felt appropriate.

 

[Parmandur]

I can get a used Expedition to Barrier Peaks on Amazon for $70, what does inflation say it should cost?

So, in the day (per my research a while back), they cost about $7-9, which today would be $25-$30 MSRP. That's just inflation, but my understanding is that printing prices have actually gone up well aheadd of inflation since the 80's...but for the sake of discussion , let's go with $25-$30 as a realistic-ish modern module price point in your FLGS.

Tales from the Yawning Portal is currently $24.99 on Amazon.

So, buying all 7 5E versions of the Yawning Portal Modules as independent booklets (totally doable, obviously) would cost somewhere between $175-$$210.

As opposed to $24.99

looks sidelong at threads where folks are rending their garments and donning sackcloth and ashes over a $10 price increase in hardcovers

 

[Parmandur]

Right. But the bigger adventure has a commercial advantage, because it only requires buy-in once, and then you're in it for the ride.

For example, Strength of Thousands is a Pathfinder AP where you start playing students at the Magaambiya, the pre-eminent magic school of Golarion. I don't think I would have any problem selling my players on a "magic school" campaign, and the school has some very specific traditions that play important parts in the adventure.

But try creating a 5th level adventure where PCs are doing magic school student stuff? Yeah, that's not gonna fly. At least not off the FLGS shelves.

They can be. But dungeons are naturally self-contained. That's part of their selling point, that they focus play on a smallish well-defined area where there are limited options. Do I go right or left? Are there any clues about where these paths lead that can help me make a decision? And things like that. But a town or an overland area is open-ended. Players have much greater options for doing things, which means that as an adventure writer I must either spend a lot more time and effort on things that might not show up, or leave more for the DM to do themselves.

But making something more specific usually makes it more interesting. And it's usually made more so by tying it closer to the game world. For example, "fishing town" sounds pretty dull to me. But "fishing town on the shores of Lake Galifar, where you have agents of the neighboring nations the Eldeen Reaches and Aundair infiltrating things, and where there's a lot of bad blood between the followers of the Sovereign Host and those of the Silver Flame" sounds a lot more interesting. But the latter only really fits in a particular place in a particular setting, and is therefore less commercially viable despite likely being more artistically interesting.

I'm not saying modules are bad. I'm saying that it's really, really hard to make money off them. To the point where most publishers had sworn them off entirely because there's no money in modules, until Paizo showed how adventure paths could work. And that in turn lead us to the current situation where the adventure market, such as it is, is completely dominated by Epics.

WotC has, however, managed to have their cake and eat it too by making their long books just sequential modules that can be removed or remixed easily.

 

[Staffan]

Another thought: they could do both. Maybe if print cost is an issue, you could do the hardback APs in print and the shorter modules could be DnD Beyond and DMs Guild (print on demand) only.

I don't think printing cost is the major problem. It's definitely a problem, but not the biggest one. The problem is sales numbers.

I am not an expert in RPG development, but my understanding is that the costs associated with creating the actual physical book are a relatively small part of what the customer eventually pays. Most of the money spent on the publisher side is for things like writing, editing, art, layout, and things like that, and those costs are the same regardless of whether you sell 1000 copies, 10,000 copies, or 100,000 copies. So let's say that those costs add up to $X per page (yes, that's super-simplified). If you're doing a 200-page book, that's $200*X, and if that sells 20,000 copies that's $X*0.01 per copy. But if you're instead doing a 30-page book that sells 1,000 copies, that's 0.03*X per copy instead – so you're going to have to charge more for the smaller book to break even. That's not the kind of numbers a bean counter wants to hear.

 

[Shiroiken]

Personally prefer smaller modules that take about 5 sessions than APs that take a year or two. The time dedication required for an AP is something that most groups have a hard time with. The DM can suffer from burnout, the group can have internal strife, or real life can get in the way. Module based campaigns seldom die unsuccessfully, because it's usually possible to at least complete the current adventure, giving a sense of closure. I've successfully run 4 module based campaigns, with only 1 being a failure (I got tired of it), but I've only seen 2 out of 5 APs complete successfully, all with generally the same group.

 

[Staffan]

So, in the day (per my researxh), they cost about $7-9, which today would be $25-$30 MSRP. That's just inflation, but my understanding is that printing prices have actually gone up well hahrad of inflation since the 80's...but for the sake of fiacussio , let's go with $25-$30 as a realistic-ish modern module price point in your FLGS.

It should also be noted that production standards have gone up significantly since the 80s and 90s. Significantly, full-color art (and therefore color printing) is the default these days, and usually significantly more of it. That would also add to the price tag.

 

[LesserThan]

It should also be noted that production standards have gone up significantly since the 80s and 90s. Significantly, full-color art (and therefore color printing) is the default these days, and usually significantly more of it. That would also add to the price tag.

And they add gimmick stuff to raise the Vecna box set to $500 and you dont even get any Lego minifig characters to go with it.

Now you have me wondering how much the Basic box sets would MSRP for now. "Zines" seem to go for $5 - $10 and are larger pages count than older modules.

 

[Parmandur]

I am not an expert in RPG development, but my understanding is that the costs associated with creating the actual physical book are a relatively small part of what the customer eventually pays.

A tally, my understanding is that the printing is a fairly significant percentage: the moreso the fewer copies thst will be printed (the hug print runs for the loss leader Starter Set get it an MSRP of $20, no way a TSR style module would be that low if they made a bunch of then a year and weren't expecting to sell millions).

Pretty huge percentage is actually the retailer's cut: that's why Amazon and Target can get their pei es so low, they cut the retail step out of the chain (which is problematic for many reasons, but neither here nor there).