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*Pathfinder & Starfinder
TSR/WotC Adventures - Are they REALLY any good? (Warning: Possible Spoilers)
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5984148" data-attributes="member: 996"><p><span style="color: Sienna">I just feel the need to be the wet blanket, here.</span></p><p><span style="color: Sienna"></span></p><p><span style="color: Sienna">I've never cared for published adventures. I'll run a 'module' (which is still how I think of them), if someone organizing a con or event really needs me to, or if some players are just really enthused about it, but it's not something I find compelling, I'd always much rather run my own stuff, even if I make it up as I go. So, maybe 'good' adventure will helps sell 5e, maybe they won't, I don't know, but they won't sell them to me.</span></p><p><span style="color: Sienna"></span></p><p><span style="color: Sienna">Now, I have, for lack of anything better to do, played in the occasional <s>module</s> published adventure, and, I usually find them really lacking in one area or another. Whether they're railroad or sand-box, dungeon crawl or high-concept, they all feel strained and artificial compared to an original adventure or 'collectively told story,' to get snooty about it. I have seen good DMs modify and string together adventures to make a campaign of their own, so I know it can be done, but I don't think the quality of the published adventure makes a huge difference in those cases (though some guys do love to complain about how bad an adventure was before they modded it). </span></p><p><span style="color: Sienna"></span></p><p><span style="color: Sienna">A couple of WotC-era modules do stand out in my mind, though:</span></p><p><span style="color: Sienna"></span></p><p><span style="color: Sienna">Heart of Nightfang Spire: I like how viciously and relentlessly this module punished the 3.0 'I win' tactics, like scry/buff/teleport and the infamous 5mwd. I think you can still find story-hours where otherwise very successful groups ground to a halt in this thing. It's a mean, nasty, evil module, but a perfect example of what you could do to cut some of the problematic classes/spells/combos down to size.</span></p><p><span style="color: Sienna"></span></p><p><span style="color: Sienna">Sunken Citadel: Managed to be a bit evocative of the strangeness of dungeons without being nonsensical. I'm sure there's a cohort of gamers who remember this one fondly as their first adventure.</span></p><p><span style="color: Sienna"></span></p><p><span style="color: Sienna">Thunderspire Labyrinth: Was nice as a very small setting supplement more than as a published adventure. With Keep on the Shadowfell, it drove home how badly CR-style encounter design (an Elite four or five levels above you is no more exp than a solo of your level, you should be able to handle it!) failed in 4e.</span></p><p><span style="color: Sienna"></span></p><p><span style="color: Sienna">Beyond the Crystal Cave: Only Encounters DM's got to see this one - I filled in for the second half of that season, and actually am still running a spin-off campaign from it. It got raves from a lot of fans, and all the players at my FLGS loved it. I can't see why - and I can see why the DM I was filling in for walked away from it. A challenging module to DM from, it required a couple of reads and a lot of page-flipping if you didn't outright memorize sections of it. But, it was a very successful season, so there's clearly something to it. I liked the Shakespearean and other references, and not much else, really, but can't argue with success. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 5984148, member: 996"] [COLOR=Sienna]I just feel the need to be the wet blanket, here. I've never cared for published adventures. I'll run a 'module' (which is still how I think of them), if someone organizing a con or event really needs me to, or if some players are just really enthused about it, but it's not something I find compelling, I'd always much rather run my own stuff, even if I make it up as I go. So, maybe 'good' adventure will helps sell 5e, maybe they won't, I don't know, but they won't sell them to me. Now, I have, for lack of anything better to do, played in the occasional [s]module[/s] published adventure, and, I usually find them really lacking in one area or another. Whether they're railroad or sand-box, dungeon crawl or high-concept, they all feel strained and artificial compared to an original adventure or 'collectively told story,' to get snooty about it. I have seen good DMs modify and string together adventures to make a campaign of their own, so I know it can be done, but I don't think the quality of the published adventure makes a huge difference in those cases (though some guys do love to complain about how bad an adventure was before they modded it). A couple of WotC-era modules do stand out in my mind, though: Heart of Nightfang Spire: I like how viciously and relentlessly this module punished the 3.0 'I win' tactics, like scry/buff/teleport and the infamous 5mwd. I think you can still find story-hours where otherwise very successful groups ground to a halt in this thing. It's a mean, nasty, evil module, but a perfect example of what you could do to cut some of the problematic classes/spells/combos down to size. Sunken Citadel: Managed to be a bit evocative of the strangeness of dungeons without being nonsensical. I'm sure there's a cohort of gamers who remember this one fondly as their first adventure. Thunderspire Labyrinth: Was nice as a very small setting supplement more than as a published adventure. With Keep on the Shadowfell, it drove home how badly CR-style encounter design (an Elite four or five levels above you is no more exp than a solo of your level, you should be able to handle it!) failed in 4e. Beyond the Crystal Cave: Only Encounters DM's got to see this one - I filled in for the second half of that season, and actually am still running a spin-off campaign from it. It got raves from a lot of fans, and all the players at my FLGS loved it. I can't see why - and I can see why the DM I was filling in for walked away from it. A challenging module to DM from, it required a couple of reads and a lot of page-flipping if you didn't outright memorize sections of it. But, it was a very successful season, so there's clearly something to it. I liked the Shakespearean and other references, and not much else, really, but can't argue with success. ;)[/color] [/QUOTE]
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