Most ridiculous thing about Epic Rules

[Nightfall]

There isn't much work involved in grabbing several smaller modules and interjecting threads of cohesiveness into them. Tjhat's what I've had to do with my campaign. I toowould love a super campaign, but its too hard to create in a general enough manner that will sell without restricting it greatly.

That I agree with James. Finding the rare "Multi-use campaign type modules" are a thing of the past I'm afraid. Though I do understand the need for more event based modules. I'd like to have a few more even though I can probably chain a couple site based one together without TOO much trouble.

 

[rounser]

There isn't much work involved in grabbing several smaller modules and interjecting threads of cohesiveness into them.

I've done this before a couple of times with Dungeon magazine adventures, and yes, it's the only real option available if you want to save time creating your campaign from whole cloth.

My question is, why is this still the case? You'd think that gamers would wise up to the fact that they could save a lot of work occasionally if there were other options available apart from "glue adventures together or make it up from whole cloth if you don't want to run a megadungeon". But the publishers seem intent on not providing such resources in favour of more splat and crunch, which strikes me as weird.

 

[Nightfall]

Just proves that you need to go into d20 publishing rouncer!

I'm sure you could come up with some hum dingers.

 

[Corinth]

That's simple. There are far more players than GMs, and that means that player-oriented products are better uses of WOTC's resources than GM-oriented products most of the time.

 

[rounser]

Finding the rare "Multi-use campaign type modules" are a thing of the past I'm afraid.

Oh really? I put to you that, almost without exception, non-railroad non-megadungeon campaign modules for D&D have never even really existed!

Night Below, Undermountain, Giants/Drow series, Scourge of the Slavers, Dragon Mountain, (Rtt) Temple of Elemental Evil etc. etc. all are either almost complete railroads, or megadungeons, or both. Releases such as RttToEE and the Adventure Path series show that the state-of-the-art in D&D campaign module has not changed much at all. Problem is, railroads and megadungeons aren't the kind of campaign that have the depth I think the game is capable of, and truly make it fun.

I'm sure you can think up an exception or two to this rule, but for the most part I think I'm correct. I'd like to see WotC live up to the rhetoric in the DMG, and provide us with a campaign-in-a-book that shows us what they're talking about.

 

[Corinth]

I'd settle for the same thing as a web enhancement series.

 

[Nightfall]

Well I can understand that, rouncer, I do think it might not be up to WotC but more up to other d20 companies to DO what you ask. After all if nothing else I think you'll agree d20 can often excel where the "masters" have failed and/or neglected.

 

[rounser]

I do think it might not be up to WotC but more up to other d20 companies to DO what you ask. After all if nothing else I think you'll agree d20 can often excel where the "masters" have failed and/or neglected.

Exactly. However, making non-linear campaigns with depth in book form is tough - I suspect that most game designers prefer to make either create short adventures, or long railroads and megadungeons (because the logistics are a lot easier and the page count and redundancy of material lower) or do setting material and make up crunchy stuff (because it's more fun to design, from what I gather - just look at what DMs prefer to do - as I observe, worldbuilding, mapping, metaplotting/story arcs and house rules are favourite activities of your typical DM).

However, given the recent success of RttToEE, I do think that WotC would find that a non-railroad, non-megadungeon campaign module would sell well enough to make it worth their while if they actually produced one...TSR never really did, so their sales data doesn't help much...but then again, I don't have their expertise in such matters.

 

[Nightfall]

Well I definately agree with three of your criteria, when it comes to some of what you mentioned.

Perhaps you should suggest that to Monte. After all he was the designer of that module and certainly he could do it.

 

[rounser]

Perhaps you should suggest that to Monte. After all he was the designer of that module and certainly he could do it.

I suspect that given that Monte was doing a "Return to", his scope was limited in terms of expectations and product direction. Doing it as not-a-megadungeon wouldn't make it a Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, because a megadungeon is what the original Temple of Elemental Evil is.

What Malhavoc Press is doing now seems more interesting. The Banewarrens, from what I've heard of it, sounds rather cutting edge for a D&D campaign module, and a big step towards what I'm referring to (the plotting factions in the city above and their manipulations with the party, and Monte's description of the integration of event-based adventuring with site-based adventuring that make it more than just a dungeon crawl) - but it does seem to revolve around a big old dungeon as well, so perhaps it's not a complete departure from old models. But that's just what I've heard about the Banewarrens - others who have read it would know better...

Note that I'm not suggesting doing away with dungeons - lots of little or medium sized ones over the course of a campaign are great! Just the model of one big one has (for me) been a bit of a campaign killer in the past, and from what I've heard, for others, too. The Night Below becomes more endurance test than fun by the middle of the second book, but the first book is great. What went wrong with that campaign between book 1 and 2? It turned into a megadungeon! Too much of a good thing...