official modules only in rpga - why?

[MerricB]

Also note that in the Eberron "Mark of Heroes" campaign, every month (in theory) there's a slot where the DM gets to create and run his own adventure.

Why doesn't the rpga trust dm's to run their own games correctly?

Because a lot of DMs suck. Because the characters are portable from one DM to another.

If you came to me with a 1st level Living Greyhawk character with a +5 vorpal sword because that's what your last DM gave you, what would you expect me to do?

The other problem is one of campaign consequences. If, in your session, your DM decides that Mordenkainen dies, it's a bit of a problem when Mordy turns up in the next RPGA adventure you play...

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I started running RPGA games (after a hearing a lot of bad press about them) just over a year ago. Here's the list of RPGA D&D scenarios I've run. (I've run some Living Force games, but I don't have enough players interested to continue with them).

Living Greyhawk
COR3-04 By Cunning and Forced Cause
COR3-05 Circle of Sin
COR3-13 The Traitor's Road
COR3-15 Nine Lives
COR3-17 When Orcs Attack
COR4-01 Shedding Scales
COR4-03 Tropical Intrigue
COR4-04 Red Tide
COR4-05 Crystal Caverns of the Cairn Hills
COR4-06 Duke of the Dust
COR4-08 The Letter
COR4-09 A Tiger? In Ahlissa?!
COR4-10 Riddle In the Dust
COR4-11 Crimson Thorns
COR4-12 Key to the Grave
COR4-14 Sympathy for the Baatezu
COR4-15 War of the Dust
COR4-18 It Never Rains in Nyrond
COR4-19 That Which Was Not Meant to be Known
PER4-01 Moradin’s Forge
PER4-02 Mind Games
PER4-03 Brother Mine
PER4-04 Battles In The Yatils
PER4-05 Regicide
PER4-07 A Nation Mocked
PER4-08 A Furgotten Business
COR5-02 Voice of Reason
COR5-03 Atonement
COR5-04 Desecrators of the Lord's Tomb
COR5-05 A Marked Man
COR5-06 Blood on Bright Sands
COR5-09 Gateway to Bright Sands

Mark of Heroes
EMH-1 Reflections of the Multiverse
EMH-2 Pirate's Bounty and the Isle of Fire
EMH-3 No Ticket
EMH-4 Finding the Way

Legacy of the Green Regent
LGR-13 Book Knowledge
LGR-16 In Cold Blood
LGR-17 Tour of Duty
LGR-18 Feast of the Moon
LGR-19 A Difference of Opinion

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Worst Scenario?
COR 3-13 The Traitor's Road by a long way. Everything about it felt rail-roaded and "NPCs are more important than PCs".

Best Scenario?
PER4-05 Regicide. Oh boy, did my players and I love this adventure. Role-playing, intrigue, action, and a great resolution. Oh, and the actions of my players weren't railroaded.

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Why is it that I run RPGA adventures? Well, the initial reason was to meet more players of D&D. That worked really well. I currently have *three* D&D groups, comprised of about 16 players, and I have quite a few more contacts around here in Ballarat due to that.

Only one of the groups plays RPGA adventures, I'll point out. One group I've had since 3e first came out. Another group I met through running a RPGA game day, and they disliked the adventure, but they *loved* my DMing. So, we play other adventures.

The other group is partly for those people who otherwise wouldn't have a DM. I can't write three campaigns. (I have trouble enough writing for one, so I steal a lot). However, running RPGA adventures is much easier. So I do that.

And here's the thing: even in Living Greyhawk, if you've got a good DM and some good players, you get some great games. And, for many of the adventures, there's no "even" about Living Greyhawk.

The adventures range from pitiful to wonderful. They are restricted by the format. Sure, there are ongoing consequences, but the games are designed to be run in one or two 4-5 hour slots, so there's not quite the expansiveness of home games. Mind you, "Regicide" was the culmination of a 10-part series... and has led onto greater things. My players really want to continue the "A Nation Mocked" series as some things have happened that they want to see the resolution of.

Cheers!

 

[mhensley]

Because a lot of DMs suck. Because the characters are portable from one DM to another.

If you came to me with a 1st level Living Greyhawk character with a +5 vorpal sword because that's what your last DM gave you, what would you expect me to do?

Couldn't this be easily fixed by making players tally up the gp value of all their equipment and restrict it to the guidelines for character wealth by level?

 

[MerricB]

That's what happens a bit more in Mark of Heroes.

There are different campaigns to suit different needs. Living Greyhawk is *big*. Just in my region, there are about 36 adventures each year. Over all regions, there's about 100 adventures per year.

Part of the fun of it are the restrictions, in fact.

 

[billd91]

I just started playing in a living greyhawk game a couple of weeks ago. The dm is good and the players are fun, but the modules that we are forced to play are average at best and frequently quite lame. Why does the rpga require that dm's use the official mods? I can understand their use in a convention setting, but for regular play? The official mods all are set up for tournament style play with very little room for players to roleplay or to play through any long term stories.

Why doesn't the rpga trust dm's to run their own games correctly? As long as gm's agree to stick to the RAW and to strictly use the encounter and treasure tables, I don't see where there would be a problem. It certainly can't be much worse. I would rather put my trust in the dm that I know, not one that I don't.

It's not a question of trust, it's a question of the trade offs you make for playing in a campaign where the characters are totally transportable world-wide. Living Greyhawk may be the most strictly controlled campaign the RPGA runs, but it also started on the heels of the Living City campaign where things got WAY out of control. Think of it this way, the home LG games are franchises of the campaign and like McDonalds, they get all their materials sent to them from a central source to maintain a certain uniformity of quality. Other local inputs have an effect, but the base material is the same.

I've run some Living Greyhawk adventures and they were a bit mediocre but the players had a reasonable amount of fun. There's nothing in them that precludes good role-playing and extra sub-plots, especially if you don't really adhere to the approximately 4 hour run time (and much of the time you can still do some of that within the time expectation). For a home game, the RPGA can't really control it and as long as nothing affects the adventure records (other than a little lost money), then no harm-no foul.

What I would ask you is why are you playing in Living Greyhawk? If there is no expectation of being able to transport the character to other tables and conventions, then why play in it at all? That's the main attraction. You can play at home and BYOC to conventions and fit in reasonably seemlessly. If you aren't taking advantage of that (or at least nobody at the table is), then don't participate.

The one major drawback to the official modules and Living Greyhawk that I see is the way they distribute the modules. I would like to have access to the modules as supplemental events for my home campaign since some of them, particularly some multi-parters that I've heard of (so, yes, extended plots are possible), are well regarded. But if they have been retired or I'm not running a specific home game, I can't get them. As it is, I'm running an occasional LG game for some players, none of whom actually intend to play the PCs at conventions or for other DMs. Ideally, I'd like a little more flexibility here. But that's my main beef.

 

[kenobi65]

It's not a question of trust, it's a question of the trade offs you make for playing in a campaign where the characters are totally transportable world-wide. Living Greyhawk may be the most strictly controlled campaign the RPGA runs, but it also started on the heels of the Living City campaign where things got WAY out of control.

And, LG has gone through several different methods of awarding gold / treasure / magic items, each of which lent itself to its own form of abuse by players, before settling on the AR / access method. It is restrictive, but it seems to work.

Ultimately, the reason that RPGA has these restrictive rules is that "trusting people to do the right thing" just doesn't work. It's sad, and I'm sure 99% of the players wouldn't cheat even if given the opportunity...but that 1% have proven, time and again, to be more than willing to abuse the system.

Think of it this way, the home LG games are franchises of the campaign and like McDonalds, they get all their materials sent to them from a central source to maintain a certain uniformity of quality. Other local inputs have an effect, but the base material is the same.

Good analogy. Conversely, home campaigns are like mom-and-pop restaurants, where the owner can do whatever he wants to the product and menu. While McDonald's may not be as good as some mom-and-pops, at least it's consistent and reliable. OTOH, there are good mom-and-pops, and bad ones...

What I would ask you is why are you playing in Living Greyhawk? If there is no expectation of being able to transport the character to other tables and conventions, then why play in it at all? That's the main attraction. You can play at home and BYOC to conventions and fit in reasonably seemlessly. If you aren't taking advantage of that (or at least nobody at the table is), then don't participate.

My guess would be that they're doing it because it's a source of pre-written modules, but only the OP could answer that for certain.

The one major drawback to the official modules and Living Greyhawk that I see is the way they distribute the modules.

It's all about distribution rights, as set out in the contracts RPGA has their authors sign. The contract gives RPGA the right to distribute the modules for official RPGA play, and nothing more. So, the RPGA can't redistribute retired modules, put together collections to sell, etc.

That said, the newer RPGA contracts, at least for LG, allow the rights to the modules to revert to the authors after the modules retire. The authors are free to redistribute the modules as they want from that point on, though they have to take out any WotC / RPGA intellectual property (i.e., anything not Open Game Content, including names) before they do so.

 

[mhensley]

What I would ask you is why are you playing in Living Greyhawk? If there is no expectation of being able to transport the character to other tables and conventions, then why play in it at all? That's the main attraction. You can play at home and BYOC to conventions and fit in reasonably seemlessly. If you aren't taking advantage of that (or at least nobody at the table is), then don't participate'.

Honestly, I started playing in a LG game because I just moved to a new city and this was the first game that I could find to play in. Don't get me wrong- I enjoy playing in the game and think that the whole living thing is kinda neat in a mmoprg way. Its fun enough, but the restrictions on homeplay make the experience a bit shallow.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

The RPGA has one really big thing going for it.
When you earn levels and items, and you enter a game with different players and a different DM (Judge, in the case of the RPGA) nobody sits there and calls you a Munchkin, or tells you that you cannot use your items or have your items, or tells you that your powers are cheating and you cannot use/have them either.
You didn't get that in the RPGA when *I* was there. It was assumed you earned those items, powers, and levels, and everyone could live with that.

I still do not understand why the RPGA nuked the LC and LP campaigns, but that is a topic for another thread.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

"Home Games" is a relatively new thing in RPGA (as opposed to "home play" of the RPGA's modules). With the "Home Game" option, the DM orders an RPGA "module", but that module is just a blank placeholder in the RPGA event system. You then get RPGA Player Reward points for playing adventures that you write yourself (or, by playing pretty much any published adventure, *other* than official RPGA modules).

However, that doesn't solve the issue that some players and DMs have -- they want access to the RPGA modules, but want the ability to adapt and rewrite the modules to fit their own campaign...and that's not an option.

And they also want a decent module to play. Not the dreck they have to choose from. I played in a game of Living Force at a con and the module, according to the JUDGE running it, was crap. It wasn't a bad one, IMO, with my limited (re: nonexistant) experience with the RPGA. But if the JUDGE says it's crap..... Then there's something seriously wrong here.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

The RPGA has one really big thing going for it.
When you earn levels and items, and you enter a game with different players and a different DM (Judge, in the case of the RPGA) nobody sits there and calls you a Munchkin, or tells you that you cannot use your items or have your items, or tells you that your powers are cheating and you cannot use/have them either.
You didn't get that in the RPGA when *I* was there. It was assumed you earned those items, powers, and levels, and everyone could live with that.

I still do not understand why the RPGA nuked the LC and LP campaigns, but that is a topic for another thread.

And Living Force.

But playing a game in the RPGA is not as even as your own campaign. I was in a LF game with a 4th level "beginning" pc and there were at least one or two 7th level pcs in the group. Including 2 Jedi. Both Jedi were fairly overpowering as they were amongst the higher level characters. They need to have a way for a more even party level. What's to stop someone from coming in with a 10th level Jedi into that same party and thusly overpowering the rest of the characters?

 

[kenobi65]

And Living Force.

Living Force was always going to end at the end of this year; it was always planned as a finite, five-year campaign.

The fact that RPGA isn't doing a "Living Force 2" has everything to do with WotC no longer actively supporting the SWRPG. RPGA specifically only supports campaigns that are being actively supported by their publisher (WotC or some other publisher, like Paradigm Concepts with Living Arcanis, or AEG with Living Spycraft).

But playing a game in the RPGA is not as even as your own campaign. I was in a LF game with a 4th level "beginning" pc and there were at least one or two 7th level pcs in the group. Including 2 Jedi. Both Jedi were fairly overpowering as they were amongst the higher level characters. They need to have a way for a more even party level. What's to stop someone from coming in with a 10th level Jedi into that same party and thusly overpowering the rest of the characters?

In theory, the person marshalling the tables at a convention should be trying to group the PCs into tables of similar levels. Unfortunately, that's not always 100% possible, especially if there's only one table of a module that's going to go off.

The modules *are* written at different difficulty levels for different average party levels. A party that averages 3rd level will face less-threatening foes than a party that averages 9th level. But, an average party level of 6 that's made up of six 6th-level PCs will be different than an average of 6th made up of three 3rds and three 9ths, obviously. That latter is *not* an ideal situation, and marshalls will always try to avoid it, but sometimes it can't be helped.