D&D 5E One of the biggest problems with WoTC's vision of published adventures

[CapnZapp]

Also, the DMs Guild is a good place to sell and gift shorter adventure modules by independent designers.

Sure.

Doesn't help those of us who used WotC publication process as a vetting process, though.

The DM's Guild is a salesfront. It will never be interested in hosting a serious honest discussion about the quality and possible shortcomings of its wares.

What you end up with is, the people that bother writing reviews and the like will inevitably be the most enthusiastic ones. Most people will simply not even know the thing is there.

All of this leads to a situation where it is next to impossible to tell the wheat from the chaff.

So some of us don't even bother, instead frequenting a forum to lament the lack of official 1PP content in the shelves of our FLGS... *sigh*

 

[Miladoon]

I wonder if the ‘Christmas tree’ is a solution too. If there could be a reliable table that shows the ‘level adjustment’ that magic items cause, then the DM could just pile magic items onto lower level characters to help them survive an official high-level adventure arc as written.

Seems reasonable but I suspect there would be a carry-over movement. Retire the character and not the items.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Boy, I sure am glad I have you around to tell me what I find problematic or not. And to be belittling about it as well. Also, what do you know is their financial model? Do you work for Hasbro and never told anyone?

They discussed this when people asked why they werent pumping out a lot of product for 5E. Basically they have said before that they want to sell a TON of copies of a FEW books, not a FEW copies of a TON of books. Its one of the reasons why we dont have the splat train anymore, thank god. When they worked on lots of small products, it split their market and they competed against themselves. Them not wanting to chase smaller returns doesnt mean their vision is a bad one - its pretty much the definition of "work smarter, not harder".

They have a small staff, certainly not enough to emulate TSR's (failed) adventure glut model. And the small adventure market IS being met, just not to your particular requirement that any adventure you run be "official".

 

[CapnZapp]

I wonder if the ‘Christmas tree’ is a solution too. If there could be a reliable table that shows the ‘level adjustment’ that magic items cause, then the DM could just pile magic items onto lower level characters to help them survive an official high-level adventure arc as written.

Compare the hit points and the proficiency bonus and you're almost there.

(That is, if the module expects 15th level characters, you figure out the HP and proficiency bonus of said 15th level characters, and then provide the magical gear that gets the adventurers there)

And yes, I know I was being partly facetious - hit points is a function of level, and can't (easily) be replaced by level. You'd probably end up with an experience not unlike how it was to play a d20 race with Level Adjustment (where you were level 1 while the rest were level 3, say).

Your best bet: be liberal with Amulets of Health (19 Con). Have someone in the party take Inspiring Leader, or give it out as a free bonus feat. And provide lots of strong Healing Potions.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'm wondering now that at this point whether you could run four of the campaign concurrently? Can you intersplice Lost Mines, Tyranny of Dragons, Princes of the Apocalypse, and Storm King's Thunder so that you can do certain chapters of one before following a thread to an early chapter in another? They all take place in and around the Sword Coast (and even for the parts further away like Greenest in Tyranny you could substitute a closer town, say in the Silver Marches or something.) If you don't run them as "Plot train is running, jump on and never jump off or everyone dies!"... and instead let PCs hit several of the introductory chapters as they go based upon where their interests take them... you pretty much can run several different stories back and forth. Which is great if you choose not to award Milestone XP, but rather actual earned XP-- you can hit the opening chapters of two or more of those books and gain the actual monster XP necessary to level up, rather than just get it awarded to you.

Yeah, there's still DM work involved-- mainly timing of events, relocation of events so plot hooks can get grabbed and followed-- but at least you no longer have a single plot, you have several. And you can take out those chapters from the books you don't like and instead advance each AP's story by adding in hooks off of the chapters you use from the other books.

At the end of the day... I don't think you're ever going to get what you want because I suspect they just make more money bundling 7 "adventures" together into a single book (calling them "Chapters") and having DMs buy all of them at once... then they would by spending the same time, resources, and money on 7 completely different modules and selling them individually (where any DM might only pick up 1 to 3 of them.) Which means your only choice is to buy the full-sized books and treat those "Chapters" as individual stories with the serial numbers filed off, and then mixing and matching different chapters from all the books together depending on where the PCs want to go. So you might re-route off and away from the Caravan chapter in Hoard, and instead find yourselves advancing on Wave Echo Caves instead.

 

[Yaarel]

Seems reasonable but I suspect there would be a carry-over movement. Retire the character and not the items.

A DM might be able to use level requirements for attunement to magic items. So, new low-level characters who inherit magic items from a previous generation of characters, still cant use them until sufficiently high level, and themselves in need of a ‘Christmas tree’ to survive even higher level adventures.

As far as I can tell, the DM only needs to start being cautious after level 10.

 

[Yaarel]

Sure.

Doesn't help those of us who used WotC publication process as a vetting process, though.

The DM's Guild is a salesfront. It will never be interested in hosting a serious honest discussion about the quality and possible shortcomings of its wares.

What you end up with is, the people that bother writing reviews and the like will inevitably be the most enthusiastic ones. Most people will simply not even know the thing is there.

All of this leads to a situation where it is next to impossible to tell the wheat from the chaff.

So some of us don't even bother, instead frequenting a forum to lament the lack of official 1PP content in the shelves of our FLGS... *sigh*

If the ENWorld forum had a thread tag called ‘DMs Guild’, would that help people create threads to discuss whats there?

 

[Miladoon]

They discussed this when people asked why they werent pumping out a lot of product for 5E. Basically they have said before that they want to sell a TON of copies of a FEW books, not a FEW copies of a TON of books. Its one of the reasons why we dont have the splat train anymore, thank god. When they worked on lots of small products, it split their market and they competed against themselves. Them not wanting to chase smaller returns doesnt mean their vision is a bad one - its pretty much the definition of "work smarter, not harder".

They have a small staff, certainly not enough to emulate TSR's (failed) adventure glut model. And the small adventure market IS being met, just not to your particular requirement that any adventure you run be "official".

I agree. But on the other hand, how cool would it be for us old guys to see WoTC come out with a new Starter Box that had an adventure for just the Basic game, unrelated to a campaign arc. (Wink, Keep on the Borderlands). Sell a different starter box every year. TSR and their glorious ruinous vision.

 

[ccs]

5th edition basically has no solid support for play above level 10-12 or so.

?
Pen, paper, dice, people to play with, place & time to play, snacks, PHB, DMG, MM, imagination.
Yep, I've got all of them. I'm set.

 

[Miladoon]

A DM might be able to use level requirements for attunement to magic items. So, new low-level characters who inherit magic items from a previous generation of characters, still cant use them until sufficiently high level, and themselves in need of a ‘Christmas tree’ to survive even higher level adventures.

As far as I can tell, the DM only needs to start being cautious after level 10.

That sounds doable. And much like opportunity to open up side quests. Ye olde, Retrieving a Heirloom quests.

?
Pen, paper, dice, people to play with, place & time to play, snacks, PHB, DMG, MM, imagination.
Yep, I've got all of them. I'm set.

No chicken sacrifices? Amateurs