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

[Sacrosanct]

Could you name them then?
Honestly, I can only think of <20 published adventures for the entire duration of 4e, let alone just the first two years. Unless we're including Dungeon.

I told you exactly where I got them from. And yet you still act like I'm making it up or something. Not exactly the most honest way of addressing my arguments. I can only wait to see how it goes from here...

So you'd be happy with a 256-page adventure with five levels of adventure?

Did I say that? Apparently "where we go from here" is you making assumptions about arguments I never made. I'll repeat what I said, "I couldn't care less about a page count." If it's 20 pages or 200 pages, I don't care as long as it's good and I have fun running it.

The listed adventures all feature a narrow level range because the products are small. The two go hand-in-hand.

No they don't. Correlation does not equal causation. The A1-4 series is what? 150 pages roughly and you only go up 1 or maybe 2 levels in it? Conversely, there are 1 page adventures where you go up a level after doing it. Nature's Fury, (written by Mearls for 3e) is 44 pages and is only for 6th level PCs. And when you got into 3e and 4e, you have a lot more pages just to maps because they were a bigger scale than TSR scale maps, which meant more page count. Sorry, but you're simply wrong here.

But you're giving a list of adventures published over a span of eight years including small encounters published on the website (likely content cut for space) and small experimental products quickly abandoned (Fantastic Locations series).

Seriously, if someone tells where they got their information, before continuing to argue how it's not true, you actually go look up. Even if you get rid of the online products, there is still a huge list of official narrow ranged adventures for 3e. Ergo, the claim made is not true. Objectively. I literally gave you the list. Even if you remove all of the other online only adventures, that's still 30. And even if that is over an 8 year period, that's still 3.75 a year. 5e has been officially out for more than 2 years. How many narrow range adventures have been officially published? One. Well, two if you count the LIvestream promo adventure. That's it.

If WotC felt they could make more money making small adventure they would.

Where is your citation that this is the reason they don't put out more narrow level range adventures?

Larger mega-adventures are desirable for a couple reasons.
One, they're a full campaign. If you're busy or don't know how to write adventures, it's months of gameplay.

Two, they're a story. You can enjoy them just by reading. You "play" the adventure twice that way: once in your head as you guess what the party will do, and again at the table when they invariably do something else.
Even if you can play, you can engage in the hobby by buying the same adventures.

Third, you can pillage them for content: dungeons, locations, NPCs, monster stats, or simply ideas. It's not any harder to mentally cut away text in a module; it's arguably just as easy as adding the story necessary to connect a story-less module to a campaign. If I can add a slavers module or the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief to my game I can add the hunting lodge from Hoard of the Dragon Queen or the hill giant lodge from SKT.

Fourth, from a brand standpoint, larger stories are easier to coordinate events across multiple types of media: the video games, miniatures, comics, board games, novels, etc. So a fan of one is incentivized to look for other products.
This also creates a sustained shared dialogue. Everyone in the community is talking about the same thing at the same time, and can share stories of their experience with the adventure.

.

I never argued that long range campaigns didn't have an appeal. Not sure why you would say the above because no one has argued otherwise. However, when you do make an argument like this as a way to refute why there are no smaller adventures, it implies there aren't as many positive things about those by comparison. And that's simply not true. Not to mention how most of what you listed is entirely subjective and is different from person to person, along with some claims that I doubt you can substantiate but are just making guesses.

 

[auburn2]

I would tend to agree with the OP. I transitioned straight from 1e to 5e in 2015. I dabbled in 2e back in the 90s and played 3e on the computer but my p&p experience is mostly 1e and & 5e. My current gaming group started our first 1e campaign back around 2010 and transitioned to 5e after we had literally played every 1e module available (mostly from ebay) a couple 2e modules converted, and about 6 homeade modules.

We played 8 different adventuring groups, three low level groups for single modules, the entire dragon lance saga, one group level 1-15 (TPK) and two groups to about level 1-10 (one TPK). With the exception of dragonlance we set them all in the forgotten realms, but none of them in the same area. One of the level 10 groups traveled to every quarter of the realms before getting wiped out while the group that made it to level 15 never left the north coast of the Moonsea.

The great thing is with the exception of dragonlance we were never stuck in one story. We played Strahd, we played slavers, we played descent but these were 3-module campaigns that would conclude and then we would rest up and then save the town/world/universe from something else.

At times the mega adventures just seem too long. The players seem to be stuck one story.To a degree this limits the ability of the DM to develop the setting since he has to keep the characters in the storyline. The characters identities are tied to the story line. Playing shorter modules lets the DM create the environment stringing modules together. In this respect the character identities are really separate from the current "job".

 

[Jester David]

I told you exactly where I got them from. And yet you still act like I'm making it up or something. Not exactly the most honest way of addressing my arguments. I can only wait to see how it goes from here...

You mentioned a wiki. I was uncertain if you were referencing one of the myriad D&D related pages on en.wikipedia.com or another wiki. It's not always easy to find specific D&D pages on wikipedia: there's a lot of false positives for searches.

Did I say that?

No. That's why I was asking the clarifying question.

Apparently "where we go from here" is you making assumptions about arguments I never made. I'll repeat what I said, "I couldn't care less about a page count." If it's 20 pages or 200 pages, I don't care as long as it's good and I have fun running it.

But… if all you care about is that " it's good and I have fun running it" why does it matter if it covers ten levels or three?

No they don't. Correlation does not equal causation. The A1-4 series is what? 150 pages roughly and you only go up 1 or maybe 2 levels in it? Conversely, there are 1 page adventures where you go up a level after doing it. Nature's Fury, (written by Mearls for 3e) is 44 pages and is only for 6th level PCs. And when you got into 3e and 4e, you have a lot more pages just to maps because they were a bigger scale than TSR scale maps, which meant more page count. Sorry, but you're simply wrong here.

The speed of levelling and reliance solely on experience based levelling is also a factor. You levelled much, much slower in 1st Edition. Plus, there wasn't experience for traps (which took up space) or quests.

You can replicate this pretty easily: just start the published adventures at a higher level. Pair this with an increase in the amount of experience needed to gain levels and longer adventuring days, then run the adventure. Instead of Storm King's Thunder being a level 1-10 adventure, play it as a level 7-10 adventure.

What's gained by doing so? It doesn't take any longer to play through the adventure. You don't have any more combats or roleplaying opportunities. The story doesn't change.
The only change is that you level up fewer times over the course of the experience.

But… leveling up is fun. It's one of the big reasons you play. It's the tangible reward for your actions. What's the gain from reducing this?

Seriously, if someone tells where they got their information, before continuing to argue how it's not true, you actually go look up.

You're making the claim. The onus of providing the proof is on you (and citation), not the person making the refutation.

Even if you get rid of the online products, there is still a huge list of official narrow ranged adventures for 3e. Ergo, the claim made is not true. Objectively. I literally gave you the list. Even if you remove all of the other online only adventures, that's still 30. And even if that is over an 8 year period, that's still 3.75 a year. 5e has been officially out for more than 2 years. How many narrow range adventures have been officially published? One. Well, two if you count the LIvestream promo adventure. That's it.

Yes, you are correct. WotC is publishing fewer adventures in terms of absolute numbers. Unlike 3e or 4e where they published three or four or five adventures each year.

However, again, when looking at page count, WotC is publishing far more actual adventure content. Somewhat comparable to early 4e, where they released adventures that covered the entire Heroic Tier in three adventures with 96-pages.
By this time next year, we've has as much adventure for 5e as we ever had for 4e, and likely more than was released for 3.5e.

Where is your citation that this is the reason they don't put out more narrow level range adventures?

Logic.
They're a business. They do what they can to make money. As a publisher, if a book will generate enough profits and makes business sense, they publish it.

They're not publishing small modules. Therefore they either do not generate enough money or do not fit their business model. Well… or they're terrible at their job.
But given Paizo has also moved away from small modules, and the small modules on the DMsGuild are not doing gangbusters I feel safe saying small adventures don't have the same market as superadventures.

I never argued that long range campaigns didn't have an appeal. Not sure why you would say the above because no one has argued otherwise. However, when you do make an argument like this as a way to refute why there are no smaller adventures, it implies there aren't as many positive things about those by comparison. And that's simply not true.

Lots of things have appeal. That doesn't mean they're viable products or desirable by a majority of the fanbase.

Not to mention how most of what you listed is entirely subjective and is different from person to person, along with some claims that I doubt you can substantiate but are just making guesses.

True. But couldn't the exact same be said about small adventures or ones with limited levels?

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Along similar lines to the OP, it is an irritant that the game is pretty much only designed for a certain type of campaign and level advancement. I've always wanted to play one of those 1st-20th+ level campaigns that lasts for 30 years of real life (and perhaps more in-world). Sort of a second life with your character as your avatar. The kind of campaign where you take the same character and experience everything (or close) that D&D has to offer with them.

The fast leveling rate makes that completely infeasible without significant house ruling. You aren't making a D&D character you can play in several different adventure modules, plenty of wilderness exploration and pursuit of personal interests (found a kingdom, whatever). You are playing a Tyranny of Dragons characters, or an Elemental Evil character. (As an aside, this current marketing strategy really means people should choose their characters together and to fit the campaign, rather than just playing whatever they want to play most at that time, but it seems a lot of people ignore that and create characters as if they were playing a more open campaign). And then to add insult to injury, the campaigns only take about a year--and they don't even do the highest levels.

So the intended playstyle is to make a disposable character, run a campaign from 1st-3rd level to 10th-15th level in a year, and then do the same thing over again.

I hate that. When I want to just explore a particular concept or character, I run theme adventures that last 8-15 sessions, and then are done. Those aren't campaigns, they are just adventures.

The fast leveling at early levels makes it even worse, because early levels give some of the more interesting experiences! Characters are powerful in 5e. If you want to have a mystery where you have to find and then confront the werewolf hiding in the village--well that only works at 1st-level unless you arbitrarily inflate stuff (which I despise). I actually ran that adventure (at 1st-level). They were even trying to capture and cure the werewolf (especially since some of them couldn't damage it), so they ended up grappling and such, and still took it down with ease. Right afterwards the second werewolf they weren't expecting came out of the door, and they took it down too. Now, had I sent both at the same time it might have gone very badly for the party, but one right after another? No problem. If the party had been even 2nd level it would have been painfully easy. I'd have to send a clan at them to make it a challenge.

We all know of ways to inflate it. Give the werewolf more hit points, or class levels, or give it 6 pet wolves, or have them hold the villagers hostage, or make heavy use of terrain, whatever. But the point is, those all require changing a scenario that is perfectly reasonable and shouldn't need to be changed. You find the werewolf, confront them, they go ballistic and you have a really tough challenge taking them out should be a standard thing you can do in D&D by the book. When you get to higher levels it gets even worse. You have to send unbelievable quantities of higher level critters (or like tribes of low-level ones, which is more believable in my book) to significantly threaten the characters. Which just feeds into the quick campaign thing, because it would be absurd to have a campaign go on for a long time with that many powerful threats. You'd have cleared your world of monsters, possibly a couple levels of the Abyss, and have to move on to new worlds just to keep a tiny sense of believability.

The personal fixes I use are to drastically increase the XP needed to level, and cut down the treasure handed out to avoid Monty Haul situations. But that wasn't nearly as simple as it sounds. Because of the wonky way the XP chart is, I couldn't just multiply everything by 5. No, I had to put together a spreadsheet and spend hours upon hours playing around with it until I came up with the numbers that got the job done. Now, the treasure was significantly easier--I just cut everything in half (and when using pre-5e adventures, I prune out all of the +1 items before even doing that), under the assumption that some of it will get used up, and it's okay to end up with a bit more treasure than expected.

So I've kept the party at 1st level for over 6 months so they can get a reasonable feel for what it's like to be a 1st level character, and face a variety of different challenges, and now they are 2nd level, and starting to realize how huge a jump in power that is. As much as bounded accuracy does allow you to keep certain monsters viable for a lot longer in your campaign (and I really appreciate that), it still doesn't allow you to keep certain experiences viable beyond the first couple of levels.

 

[Sacrosanct]

But… if all you care about is that " it's good and I have fun running it" why does it matter if it covers ten levels or three?

Because I already qualified that I am looking for a tighter level range, so that is part of the baseline criteria. I'm assuming you read my posts in this thread where I have said that several times. Saying that I don't care about page count but care about fun does not suddenly nullify all the other posts I made where I said I want a tighter level range. You seem to keep thinking things are mutually exclusive when they are not.

It's like me saying, "I want a car, not a truck." and later saying "I don't care what the gas mileage is, I just want to have a fun driving experience." and you saying "then what does it matter if you have a car or truck?"

You can replicate this pretty easily: just start the published adventures at a higher level. Pair this with an increase in the amount of experience needed to gain levels and longer adventuring days, then run the adventure. Instead of Storm King's Thunder being a level 1-10 adventure, play it as a level 7-10 adventure.

What's gained by doing so? It doesn't take any longer to play through the adventure. You don't have any more combats or roleplaying opportunities. The story doesn't change.
The only change is that you level up fewer times over the course of the experience.

What does any of this have to do with your incorrect claim that page count is correlated to level range of an adventure?

But… leveling up is fun. It's one of the big reasons you play. It's the tangible reward for your actions. What's the gain from reducing this?

your fun =/= everyone's fun. I don't play to level up. It's just a side benefit that means other parts of the game are opened up. I play the game to have fun with friends. always have. Leveling is not a requirement of that. I've gone entire months of gaming without a single level gain and didn't lose any fun, and it certainly wasn't the reason we played.

You're making the claim. The onus of providing the proof is on you (and citation), not the person making the refutation.

I cut and pasted the list and told you where it came from. Any reasonable person would consider that providing the proof. It was obvious I pasted it (the formatting) and didn't make it up and type is all myself. When presented with the proof and you still argue against it? Then it is on you at that point to support your side.

Yes, you are correct. WotC is publishing fewer adventures in terms of absolute numbers. Unlike 3e or 4e where they published three or four or five adventures each year.

If you agree with me when I said that his claim of "this has been going on for 15 years" is not true, then why did you feel the need to argue against me?

However, again, when looking at page count, WotC is publishing far more actual adventure content.

Prove it. Because I don't think this is correct. What did you just say? If you make a claim, the onus is on your to prove it? For one, if you look at the 3.75 published hard copy adventures per year with 3e, it seems on the surface that that is still more page count of adventures than now. Secondly, I'd posit that a huge part of page count now is not actual adventure material, but campaign setting material that is there just to flesh out the particular setting location, and not actually part of the adventure itself. And therefore, if you consider campaign setting material part of an adventure, then that means even more page count in previous editions is added to the comparison.

Logic.
They're a business. They do what they can to make money. As a publisher, if a book will generate enough profits and makes business sense, they publish it.

fallacy. Just because a business does not do something, doesn't mean that that thing is not profitable. Nor is it true that if something is profitable, then a business will do it.

They're not publishing small modules. Therefore they either do not generate enough money or do not fit their business model. Well… or they're terrible at their job.

Again, assumptions. So I ask you to prove where their position is that the reason they don't do tighter level range adventures is because there is not enough money.

 

[AngryTiger]

Sword of Spirit described some of the issues i have better than i could. I want to have campaign that last for decades on game time, years of real time, and include everything (or atleast most) that D&D has to offer. I don't want half campaign of dragons, another half of giants etc. I want adventures that i can finish in few sessions that last at most 1 level (or maybe 2-3 if it starts at level 1). I can then make my campaign have mostly my own adventures and drop premade ones in between as fillers when i don't have anything else ready, without overleveling all the other stuff i have planned.

 

[Jester David]

Because I already qualified that I am looking for a tighter level range, so that is part of the baseline criteria. I'm assuming you read my posts in this thread where I have said that several times. Saying that I don't care about page count but care about fun does not suddenly nullify all the other posts I made where I said I want a tighter level range. You seem to keep thinking things are mutually exclusive when they are not.

...

your fun =/= everyone's fun. I don't play to level up. It's just a side benefit that means other parts of the game are opened up. I play the game to have fun with friends. always have. Leveling is not a requirement of that. I've gone entire months of gaming without a single level gain and didn't lose any fun, and it certainly wasn't the reason we played.

That's all well and good and it's not wrong per se... but it sounds like a pretty niche view. Leveling has become easier and easier and easier over the course of the last 30 years and most groups really want to level faster.

If you just want to play with static characters there are lots of other games out there that don't rely on level based advancement. Alternatively, as I mentioned earlier, you can just start at higher level and play the existing adventures. Or you can play any of the apparently hundreds of existing adventures that have already been printed that you referenced earlier - plus the myriad adventures for Dungeon and 1e/2e - and adapt them to 5th Edition.

It's all well and good that you don't like that and just want to play with static characters, but that seems to be a minority preference. Rate of level gain was covered several times during the surveys leading up to 5e, so the baseline rate of gaining levels was based on the feedback provided by the playtesters. Asking WotC to make adventures that cater to the tastes of a small subset of fans is unlikely to result in much. (I'm still waiting on my Boxed Set update of the Ravenloft campaign setting that incorporates both the 2e and 3e versions of the setting.)

D&D is a flexible game, but it can't be everything to everyone and WotC can't publish content that makes everyone happy. Eventually personal responsibility comes in and you just have to do it yourself, customizing the game to fit your personal tastes.

Prove it. Because I don't think this is correct. What did you just say? If you make a claim, the onus is on your to prove it? For one, if you look at the 3.75 published hard copy adventures per year with 3e, it seems on the surface that that is still more page count of adventures than now.

Okay then, let's do the Math.

WotC is releasing two 256-page adventures every year. They've done four plus Tyranny and Lost Mine for 1280 pages of adventure since August 2014. 24 months.
In that same time in the early 2000s, WotC published eight 32-page adventures plus the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil for 448 pages of adventure material. So there was more adventure this year alone. Even if you include the couple page free web enhancements and RPGA exclusives in the 3e total, 5e is well ahead.
(Interesting, this means during 3e, WotC published adventures that took a party from level 1 to 20 over 256 pages. A far faster progression than any of the current storyline adventures.)

For 4e during the same two year period they did the 9 adventure modules plus Dungeon Delve. Each of the nine was around 92-pages combined (the adventure being spread across two books), with Dungeon Delve being an additional 160 pages for 988 pages.
I think during that same period there was a Realms and Eberron adventure as well. So the final total should probably be closer to 1050-odd. Still well below 5e.

Secondly, I'd posit that a huge part of page count now is not actual adventure material, but campaign setting material that is there just to flesh out the particular setting location, and not actually part of the adventure itself. And therefore, if you consider campaign setting material part of an adventure, then that means even more page count in previous editions is added to the comparison.

True. But the 4e adventures had 1-3 pages for each encounter, repeating the maps and monster statblocks. So you have 32-pages of adventure supplemented by 64-pages of combat encounters expanding on those 32 pages. And it's hard to call "Dungeon Delves" and adventure when it's just a series of connected encounters.
Plus even if only half the 5e adventures count as actual adventure, it's still more adventure content than was released for 3e.
But it's a stretch to call half the adventure "setting material": other than SKT there's been a minimum of setting material in the adventures.

Now keep in mind that after it's initial adventures, 4e slowed down its adventure releases to a single small adventure and single super adventure roughly each year. By this time next year 5e will have released more adventure content in three years than was released for all of 4th Edition or 3.0. And by 2018 (four years of 5e) we'll have more adventures for 5e than was physically published for all of 3rd Edition's seven year lifespan.