Possible different types of adventures.

[Ariosto]

Well, AH were doing terribly before that.

Indeed, and SPI had succumbed already -- which is why I called the field back then an endangered species.

AH went under while I was occupied with matters other than the hobby. When I looked around afterward, what I saw was the aftermath of a massive "extinction event".

 

[Ariosto]

I think there's plenty of room for both Richard Berg and Richard Borg, and that catering both to the old hard core and to the new or casual is probably best for business.

Likewise in RPG scenarios, the more variety the merrier. Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, Rogue Mistress and The Enemy Within all have their splendors, but not everyone (possibly not anyone always) prefers an "adventure path".

 

[MerricB]

I think there's plenty of room for both Richard Berg and Richard Borg, and that catering both to the old hard core and to the new or casual is probably best for business.

I play both Berg and Borg.

Likewise in RPG scenarios, the more variety the merrier. Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, Rogue Mistress and The Enemy Within all have their splendors, but not everyone (possibly not anyone always) prefers an "adventure path".

Indeed. By virtue of having two campaigns, I can run both an Adventure Path in one, and a homebrew which "drops in" adventures from time to time in the other. (And that's been the case for the past three or four years).

From a DM's perspective, Adventure Paths can have the lovely aspect of not needing work to drop them in: they contain everything, or at least they should. It should be noted that the very first official TSR modules form an adventure path - for what else is the GDQ series?

However, it's not an adventure path that you'd see from Paizo or Wizards! To some degree that is due to the tighter scripting of the later efforts.

The level of scripting of adventures is one of the chief elements that informs later adventure design. In the aforementioned Assassin's Knot, the DM has a very small list of scripted events (the plans of the opponents moving apace, if not prevented by the heroes), otherwise the DM and players must take action themselves. Consider Dragons of Despair, which give the PCs free reign in the early part of the adventure (although with a lot of pointers saying "Go to Xak Tsaroth!") until as the Dragon Armies come through, they are forced to the ruined city and the next part of the adventure.

Unusually, although Pharaoh (my favourite AD&D adventure) has a scripted beginning, it doesn't script the release of the Efreeti that is the chief enemy in the later adventures. That such occurred when I ran it a few years back is pure serendipity.

Meanwhile, a Paizo AP scripts pretty tightly for the most part; likewise with many of the Wizards adventures. (H3 and P2 give a lot of free rein, although unfortunately the factions in H3 aren't interesting enough to give much material for the DM to work with).

Short official "sidetrek" adventures have mostly been the preserve of Dungeon magazine; and there is good reason for that: four or five pages of adventure wouldn't sell very well! The Dungeon Delve book gives a version of these side-treks: 30 short adventures in the book with guidelines for expansion isn't a bad deal. Alas for sidetrek lovers, e-Dungeon has had a few too many mega-adventures of late, although that is changing.

Cheers!

 

[curingo]

I like keeping it short as well...

 

[Wik]

Well, I think one of the reasons adventures get more and more scripted is that it's become harder and harder to "wing it" in D&D. It's possible, for sure, but not to the degree it is in games like, say, Savage Worlds.

If PCs stray off the beaten path in my 4e adventure, and I need to throw a pirate encounter at them... how do I do that? Quick. You have 5 level 5 heroes. What do you throw at the PCs that has a pirate theme, because my players decided they want to hunt pirates instead of investigate that zombie hook?

You can do it, sure. But it's going to be a helluva lot harder than it is in SW, where I can grab a few dice, and put together pirate stats on the fly.

So, using that as a starting point (and 3e had this, just as bad), you can start to see why adventures get more railroady. If you buy an adventure, and the PCs stray from its path, it leaves the GM having to scramble to fill a gap, and the adventure is ruined. Or, more to the point, if you buy an adventure because making stat blocks and whatnot is hard, and you want something easy to run for a few weeks/months, wouldn't you be a bit ticked if the adventure said "hey, fill this part in with your own stuff if the PCs get here?". Isn't that why you bought the adventure?

 

[wedgeski]

There are generally short railroaded bits in the DL modules, but mostly they're some outstanding examples of adventure design. What makes them less palatable is the railroaded connections between them, but, honestly, there are some adventures there that no other AD&D adventure comes close to. Some require really experienced DMs and players to get the most out of them - try DL3, where you're guiding a group of refugees to Thorbardin, and you have to not only deal with the threats but deal with a balky refugee council!

I couldn't agree more Merric. They have their share of warts but I've yet to come across anything which fused character, drama, and adventuring so wonderfully.

Yes, they're a turning point in D&D adventure design, but IMO for completely opposite reasons than implied by ggroy.

 

[Garthanos]

They have, and are likely to do so again..

arguably all crpg's like the most popular mmorpgs are exuberantly mechanically complex and hide some of it... making them simpler as well.

 

[S'mon]

Likewise in RPG scenarios, the more variety the merrier. Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, Rogue Mistress and The Enemy Within all have their splendors, but not everyone (possibly not anyone always) prefers an "adventure path".

I have Rogue Mistress - would have been a perfectly good Moorcock-homage novel, but it's a terrible railroad of an adventure.

 

[S'mon]

If PCs stray off the beaten path in my 4e adventure, and I need to throw a pirate encounter at them... how do I do that? Quick. You have 5 level 5 heroes. What do you throw at the PCs that has a pirate theme, because my players decided they want to hunt pirates instead of investigate that zombie hook?

You can do it, sure. But it's going to be a helluva lot harder than it is in SW, where I can grab a few dice, and put together pirate stats on the fly.

Weird, that's the exact opposite of my experience with 4e. I find 4e is great for improvised encounters. In this case I'd probably take either the 9th level Pirate or the 10th level Pirate Chief from MM2, maybe halve his hit points (I do that with most 4e monsters), and give him some Human Lackey* 7th level Minions for crew. That takes maybe 30 seconds of page-flipping. I might also add in a wizard, using the 4th level human mage stats in the MM, or possibly the 7th level Hexer in MM2 if I was feeling mean. Or I could reskin the Hobgoblin Warcaster, who is very nasty for a supposedly 3rd level foe.

*I could reskin the 2nd level Human Bandit, but I usually prefer minions.

If I had longer I might create 5th level Pirates by de-levelling the 9th level MM2 pirate, that takes a few minutes though. I'd probably keep the Chief at 10th level since he's already roughly equivalent to a 6th level Elite, but if I really wanted to I could de-level him to 6th then Elite-ify him.

Edit: Looking at the Pirate & Pirate Chief stats just now, the Chief looks hard to take down by a 5th level group, so I'd probably stick with using the Pirate as leader of a bunch of Human Lackeys and/or Human Bandits. I'd reskin the bandits' maces as cutlasses. I'd keep the Pirate at full hit points so he'd stick around.

Edit 2: I don't normally bother with XP budgets, but if I wanted a 1000 XP/level 5 'balanced' encounter then:

Pirate (1) XP 400
Lackeys (6) XP 75 x 6 = 450
Mage (1) XP 175

Total: 1025

I'm thinking there that the Pirate is most likely a senior officer of the ship - a bosun, first mate, sub-chief sort of level; while the Lackeys are typical mook pirates, and the Mage probably mostly mends things and does weather magic, rune-casting and other noncombat things, hence his low combat level. His thunderclap and lightning strike abilities may just be side-effects of his mastery of esoteric weather-magic rituals.

An alternative would just be to use 3 Pirates (XP 1200). I would only do this if they were the crew of a notorious-to-legendary pirate captain like Bluebeard or Barbarrossa, and I wanted to impress the PCs with how tough they were. This would make it clear that the PCs couldn't just storm onto Bluebeard's ship and kill everyone, they'd need to be smart & careful.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Well, I think one of the reasons adventures get more and more scripted is that it's become harder and harder to "wing it" in D&D. It's possible, for sure, but not to the degree it is in games like, say, Savage Worlds.

If PCs stray off the beaten path in my 4e adventure, and I need to throw a pirate encounter at them... how do I do that? Quick. You have 5 level 5 heroes. What do you throw at the PCs that has a pirate theme, because my players decided they want to hunt pirates instead of investigate that zombie hook?

You can do it, sure. But it's going to be a helluva lot harder than it is in SW, where I can grab a few dice, and put together pirate stats on the fly.

I'd fire up my Monster Builder, type in Pirate as a keyword, then re-level whatever showed up. If nothing did (doubtful) I'd use some Human creatures (maybe throw in some Half Orcs or Elves) and give them cutlasses and light armour. You are the first person I've seen who feels 4E is hard to DM on the fly. Of course a rules light game like Savage Worlds may be easier I have no experience with SW so can't speak to that but 4E makes my job as DM a lot easier.

So, using that as a starting point (and 3e had this, just as bad), you can start to see why adventures get more railroady. If you buy an adventure, and the PCs stray from its path, it leaves the GM having to scramble to fill a gap, and the adventure is ruined. Or, more to the point, if you buy an adventure because making stat blocks and whatnot is hard, and you want something easy to run for a few weeks/months, wouldn't you be a bit ticked if the adventure said "hey, fill this part in with your own stuff if the PCs get here?". Isn't that why you bought the adventure?

Actually not really. I buy adventures for locations, encounters and NPCs. It is the rare adventure I run 'out of the box' without extensive additions and changes. Given the tools I have with 4E and D&DI these changes are easier than ever to do. Having to add in some campaign specific plot elements is a given with any module I buy,