D&D General (SPOILERS for Vecna: Eve of Ruin) Are My Standards Too High for Adventures?

[Remathilis]

There's a large gap between Saturday Morning Cartoon "remake the multiverse" vague evil and assaulting/enslaving/eating the player characters.
... Actually, assaulting and enslaving happened all the time on SMCs- like, every week or two. Capture the party, send them to the bylaxian gem mines to help the enslaved gnomes dig up the ancient evil we're looking for.

Eubani asking for the villains to commit more compelling evil acts, and then you Remathilis jumping to the extreme of saying Eubani's asking for the villain to "eat the player characters" and saying they have "edge desires" is a pretty rude way of exaggerating and dismissing a criticism.

Now personally, for this adventure, yeah the scope is huge and the evil is less focused on the villain doing awful things- it's focused on stopping the villain, we already know he's doing bad things. The separate earlier adventure is sort of evil, the cultists are kidnapping people. WotC 5e adventures have had evil stuff in them previously, I wouldn't criticize them in general for that and not every adventure needs it... although Vecna's a pretty weak presence in this adventure.

So tell me what you would do that makes it fall between Masters of the Universe and Game of Thrones levels of villainy?

 

[Micah Sweet]

So tell me what you would do that makes it fall between Masters of the Universe and Game of Thrones levels of villainy?

Have Vecna destroy a town or other small community to get something they have that he wants? Maybe a strongpoint guarding something he needs for the ritual? What bad stuff does Vecna actually do (not just threaten to do) in the adventure?

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Have Vecna destroy a town or other small community to get something they have that he wants? Maybe a strongpoint guarding something he needs for the ritual? What bad stuff does Vecna actually do (not just threaten to do) in the adventure?

His cultists are kidnapping and killing tons of people to feed him secrets for his ritual. Something he directly told them to do.

 

[Distracted DM]

His cultists are kidnapping and killing tons of people to feed him secrets for his ritual. Something he directly told them to do.

Actually AFAIK nothing says that they're killing tons of people. "They snatch away people and strip their secrets in rituals like the one you stopped."

They pop people in a ritual cage, cast the magic ritual to take their secrets, and... yeah that's it. You can add whatever you like, say that they're murdered afterwards or whatever, I probably would- but there's no dead folks or previous victims to find.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Actually AFAIK nothing says that they're killing tons of people. "They snatch away people and strip their secrets in rituals like the one you stopped."

They pop people in a ritual cage, cast the magic ritual to take their secrets, and... yeah that's it. You can add whatever you like, say that they're murdered afterwards or whatever, I probably would- but there's no dead folks or previous victims to find.

The adventure says that anyone whose secrets are sacrificed has their soul drained as well and they become a living zombie.

 

[Distracted DM]

The adventure says that anyone whose secrets are sacrificed has their soul drained as well and they become a living zombie.

Unknown to the authorities, a cult of Vecna operates in the catacombs beneath Neverwinter’s sprawling Neverdeath Graveyard. Cult members have been kidnapping city residents who carry significant secrets, draining their knowledge and their souls in a fell ritual and passing the collected secrets to Vecna as he gathers power for his Ritual of Remaking. (See the introduction for more information about Vecna’s plot.) In the process, the kidnap victims become creatures robbed of their knowledge and volition.

Obviously villainous. Also not "killing tons of people." It'd be nice to run into some of these victims to help spur the PC's motivations.

 

[Shardstone]

I don't think the stakes of any adventure really matter tbh. I've never had a table tell me they don't want to save the world; if you execute it right as a DM, there should be buy-in regardless. This means its usually DM bias that gets in the way of this stuff. However, we have plenty of non-save the world adventures. Saltmarsh, Radiant Citadel, Infinite Staircase, and Golden Keys are all small-scope adventures. Askins for a small scope 10-20 adventure is a little silly though; I'm sorry, but if I can cast Wish, I have more interesting things to do other then help some local farmer with their very local problem.

 

[DEFCON 1]

A large company with more resources should be able to put out a better product then a small company with less. And yet…

WotC has consistently been dropping the ball on its adventures and when you only put out 1 every few months, that shouldn’t happen or at the least very rarely.

You would think after Spelljammer and Dragonlance they would realize you can’t half ass this stuff. Not when trying to grow the brand larger and larger.

Then again, people still buy it and maybe they make enough money that WotC feels they can serve under par products. Basic capitalism, do it as cheaply as possible while raking in as much cash as you can.

Who are the large companies besides WotC that are putting out higher-quality adventures than the small companies? If you think WotC should be able to, then I would assume the evidence would be other large companies that are doing it while WotC is not. So which companies are they, and what would you say are happening in the adventures that they are doing right that WotC isn't?

 

[MichaelSomething]

Who are the large companies besides WotC that are putting out higher-quality adventures than the small companies? If you think WotC should be able to, then I would assume the evidence would be other large companies that are doing it while WotC is not. So which companies are they, and what would you say are happening in the adventures that they are doing right that WotC isn't?

I've always said EnPublishing puts out great adventure after great adventure. I know that at least one Enworlder was hired to write stuff. And by not being a megacorp, they are free from the never ending greed of endless growth! Isn't that enough to know EnAdventurrs are great?

 

[Distracted DM]

Who are the large companies besides WotC that are putting out higher-quality adventures than the small companies? If you think WotC should be able to, then I would assume the evidence would be other large companies that are doing it while WotC is not. So which companies are they, and what would you say are happening in the adventures that they are doing right that WotC isn't?

I'm not entirely sure that I'm following the logic here.

It's only reasonable to expect that WotC can put out high-quality adventures if other large companies can? So if there aren't other large companies putting out high quality adventures, then are you saying that large companies aren't capable of putting out quality stuff more often than small companies?
BTW there really aren't any other tabletop companies that'd be considered comparable to WotC's size- Paizo's the next up as far as TTRPGs go.

Honestly... it kind of makes sense. A big company definitely loses things along the way, even if they gain other advantages. It's much easier to guide a vision, or stay on course, on a small ship with a single captain than it would be on a big one with lots of captains all having a voice on the direction.