D&D 5E (2014) So, 5e OGL

[Parmandur]

Princes of the Apocalypse lists the following under Sasquatch Game Studio:

Lead Designer

Designers

Editors

Interior illustrators

Cartographers

Typesetter



And the following under Wizards of the Coast:

D&D Lead Designers

Story Lead

Managing Editor

Producer

Additional Design

Art Directors

Cover Illustrator

Graphic Designers

Proofreading

Project Management

Production Services

Brand and Marketing

Playtesters



I recognize many of the names on the Sasquatch side as being sub-freelancers - for example, I'm fairly certain that Ed Greenwood is not employed by Sasquatch, and neither is [MENTION=607]Klaus[/MENTION]. I'm also a bit uncertain as to why the Art Director is listed under Wizards and the illustrators under Sasquatch - my impression was that the AD is responsible for deciding what illustrations there should be, and the illustrators are responsible for actually drawing those pieces so in my mind, they should be on the same line of the divide.

By all appearances, the relationship seems complex.

 

[Klaus]

I recognize many of the names on the Sasquatch side as being sub-freelancers - for example, I'm fairly certain that Ed Greenwood is not employed by Sasquatch, and neither is [MENTION=607]Klaus[/MENTION]. I'm also a bit uncertain as to why the Art Director is listed under Wizards and the illustrators under Sasquatch - my impression was that the AD is responsible for deciding what illustrations there should be, and the illustrators are responsible for actually drawing those pieces so in my mind, they should be on the same line of the divide.

The WotC art directors keep an eye on composition, image quality, brand identity (does this dwarf look like a D&D dwarf?), etc. Sasquatch provided the art descriptions, chose the artists, and handled the back-and-forth between the artists and the art directors.

 

[Staffan]

Thank you for the clarification. Seems the production was handed somewhat more on the Sasquatch side than I previously thought.

 

[Jester David]

I thought Legacy of the Crystal Shard was good too, and so was Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle and Scourge of the Sword Coast. I never read or played Dead in Thay but I heard good things.

It's hit or miss, but I'd say more hits than misses lately for WOTC.

I haven't read or heard much about Legacy of the Crystal Shard one way or another so I can't say.

Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle was funky. It lacked the xp needed to advance far enough, but that can be attributed on changing advancement rules during the playtest. However, the final adventure of the series was largely unrelated and didn't resolve the main plotline of the story (the Thayans and the Keys). This storyline was meant to be resolved in the two Dreams of the Red Wizards adventures (albeit by a different group of adventurers) but Scourge of the Sword Coast was unrelated and didn't have an ending of its own and Dead In Thay just resolved everything from the prior two in the prologue and dumped everyone into a mega-dungeon. So that was unsatisfying from a design perspective. Dead in That was also designed for Encounters play with multiple tables, making it a poor ending to the single table Ghosts and Scourge adventure experience.
They may have good bits and be workable as adventures, but for what they were intended to do they fall short.

But, I'm also one of the rare detractors of the Starter Set adventure, finding it lacking in many places. But I'm a pretty hard critic by nature.
Still, Green Ronin does some solid stuff, so Out of the Abyss will be a nice guide to future efforts. And I'd love to see Kobold Press take a second shot when not having to juggle an in-progress rule set.

 

[Hussar]

Out of curiosity, what do people consider to be the bad WOTC adventures? The various Return to ... stuff? Sure, there's been some hit and miss here, but, I'm not sure that WOTC really deserves the reputation. TBH, I haven't bought that many WOTC adventures, but, the free ones they used to have for 3e were ok for one shots. Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil was a pretty good module. Lords of the Iron Fortress, going way back to early 3e was decent. AFAIC, WOTC just hasn't produced that many modules to deserve the bad rep that it gets.

 

[Parmandur]

Had fun with Keep on the Shadowfell, but I proceeded to leave the hobby for five years without finishing it, so not that much fun apparently.

 

[Jester David]

Out of curiosity, what do people consider to be the bad WOTC adventures? The various Return to ... stuff? Sure, there's been some hit and miss here, but, I'm not sure that WOTC really deserves the reputation. TBH, I haven't bought that many WOTC adventures, but, the free ones they used to have for 3e were ok for one shots. Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil was a pretty good module. Lords of the Iron Fortress, going way back to early 3e was decent. AFAIC, WOTC just hasn't produced that many modules to deserve the bad rep that it gets.

Most WotC adventures tend to fail by presenting a large dungeon and then just calling it a complete adventure. Which was fine back in early 1st Edition days, but doesn't fly now. Dungeons are nice, and it's rare to even see a Pathfinder module without a crawl somewhere, but they're not the be-all-end-all and there needs to be more than just a series of interconnected encounters with a veneer of a plot.

This blog really emphasises some of the problems with the first couple 4e adventures:
http://elevenfootpole.blogspot.ca/
These are pretty emblematic of the design problems that started with 4e and are still somewhat around now.
So Keep on the Shadowfell and Thunderspire Labyrinth I guess. I'm pretty down on Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle and the Dreams of Red Wizards for having no idea how an ending works. And both GoDSC and the Tyranny of Dragons adventures fail from a basic plotting, in that they're focused around the bad guys gathering parts of a magic item, so to "win" the PCs just need to get one and hide it real well.

I also haven't heard great things about the "adventure path" series of modules that launched 3e. I hear the first two were good and after that they got so-so. I know Expedition to Castle Ravenloft was well received (I have problems with it though) and Red Hand of Doom was beloved. Other than that, I can't think of many adventures off the top of my head. Most of the 3e/4e adventures were fairly forgettable.

--edit--

And then I found this:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-Adventures-and-Locations-(Winners-Announced)

36 adventures, with 7 or 8 receiving better than mixed results. That's a 22% success rating.

 

[delericho]

Red Hand of Doom seems hands down a much higher quality than everything else. Anyone have an idea of why it turned out so much better?

To be honest, I consider RHoD to be over-rated. It's a very very good adventure, but it has some very significant weaknesses. (Notably, it has five chapters that you must tackle in order, at each chapter has a fairly short sequence of encounters that you have to tackle pretty much in order. There's actually not a lot of scope for diversion from the pre-written plot there.)

But it scores extremely well for three big reasons: firstly, it was the first major WotC adventure book published for some years, and at a time when people were calling out for more adventures. Secondly, in comparison to both the adventures that preceded and that followed it, it is markedly better. And thirdly, despite being a railroad, it does present a decent selection of opponents, and presents a classic plot well - it's good at what it does.

Or, do folks consider it to be not quite big enough to be a proper adventure path? I'm interested in what would qualify as an adventure path. The whole Against the Giants line of modules seems to be nearly there, although, it spans level 8-14, and not 1-14 or 1-20 as do other adventure paths.

Technically, an Adventure Path should be a series of adventures that provides a complete campaign. So GDQ1-7 would be the earliest TSR example, followed by Dragonlance, then WotC did the 3e path, Dungeon did Shackled City, Age of Worms, and Savage Tide, there was the 4e set of nine adventures, and of course Paizo's Pathfinder adventures.

"Red Hand of Doom" would therefore be excluded for being too short - covering levels 5-10 it's more likely to be a part of a campaign rather than the whole. And, of course, it's also only a single adventure.

(Arguably, this same definition also excludes "Princes of the Apocalypse" and "Out of the Abyss" - are these one big adventure, or several collected into a single volume.)

Worth noting, of course, that that's just my definition, and is neither universal nor perfect.

 

[delericho]

Out of curiosity, what do people consider to be the bad WOTC adventures?

Of the ones that I have personal experience with:

Heart of Nightfang Spire
Deep Horizon
Bastion of Broken Souls (such a shame, this one - nice concept, bad execution)
Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil
Expedition to the Demonweb Pits
Expedition to Ruins of Greyhawk
Keep on the Shadowfell
King of the Trollhaunt Warrens
Tomb of Horrors (the new 4e hardback one, not the PDF reissue of the classic)
Sceptre Tower of Spellgard
Hoard of the Dragon Queen
Rise of Tiamat

I've also heard bad things about just about every 4e adventure, but most especially the rest of the HPE1-3 series (IIRC, there is one exception, though I forget which - P2 perhaps?), "Marauders of the Dune Sea", and also the "Scales of War" path in eDungeon. However, I'd long since checked out of 4e by then, so can't speak from personal experience. (And, as I say up-thread, I've equally heard lots of good things about "Madness at Gardmore Abbey".)

Finally, I've left the biggest stinker of the lot off my list above: "Scourge of the Howling Horde". A product so inept that they printed dark grey text on a slightly lighter grey background... and that's one of its more endearing features.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Speaker in Dreams and SUnless Citadel from 3e were both great adventures...