What about adventures?

[Scrivener of Doom]

(In the interest of full disclosure I am not - at this point in time - interested in 5E. However, I felt the same about 4E and now it's my favourite edition.)

All the blogs by Mike Mearls et al have focussed on the mechanics of the game. Blah, blah, blah.

However, we have not seen anything about the plans for adventures.

I know it is considered that adventures do not sell but the simple fact is that official adventures are often used by even the most experienced DMs to learn a new ruleset. I often wonder if one of the reasons that 4E failed is because Keep on the Shadowfell and Pyramid of Shadows, relatively early releases, were so appallingly bad that it was as if they were designed to highlight the flaws in 4E rather than to showcase the high point. Ditto for many (if not most) of the Scales of War adventures. (And, unlike the days of 3E, the GSL ensured that the good third party publishers weren't going to be publishing adventures!)

I don't care about balancing wizards, the ways skills are going to work and all the other nonsense the designers are talking about - it's obvious that they will be working on these things because these are what make the game - but I am interested in how the game is going to be supported.

What is the future of Dragon and Dungeon? Will they continue to be relatively content-free for most of the year?

Anyway, I digress. I want to know what the plans are for adventure support.

 

[ahayford]

I firmly believe that adventures drive sales of the other books. Even if they do not sell well (I'm not convinced they don't) I believe content is what helps to drive the sales of the other books and gets new people interested in your game. Obviously, this doesn't apply to all people, but I believe it applies to a large percentage of the RPG base. I believe a lot of Paizo's success has been because of the quality of their APs and adventure modules. (along with great customer service and focus on quality).

 

[pauljathome]

However, we have not seen anything about the plans for adventures.

The modular nature of 5th edition is going to make writing adventures more challenging. Given WOTCs track record with adventures at the best of times this makes me wonder how good published adventures will be.

That said, it is really way too early to expect WOTC to have any plans for adventures that they're willing to share with us. Let the poor guys get the game itself into something approximating reasonable shape first

 

[am181d]

I firmly believe that adventures drive sales of the other books. Even if they do not sell well (I'm not convinced they don't) I believe content is what helps to drive the sales of the other books and gets new people interested in your game. Obviously, this doesn't apply to all people, but I believe it applies to a large percentage of the RPG base. I believe a lot of Paizo's success has been because of the quality of their APs and adventure modules. (along with great customer service and focus on quality).

Anecdotally, I can count on one hand the number of adventures I've bought in the last 20 years.

But I don't disagree that adventures were a key to Paizo's success.

 

[Mantriel]

WotC as a company is trying to maximise profits. Making a good adventure takes 2-3 game designers, some painters/drawers, a few map makers, a lot of time, and a huge lot of playtesters. Obviously not very efficient way to create a product which will be sold for 10-20 bucks, and it won't sell very well at the end anyway. On the other hand, if they create a rules heavy "core" book, like "Monster Manual 20", or "Complete Bard 2" they can sell that for 30-50 bucks and it will sell better then the adventure module. So I guess, no. Adventures from WotC will remain terrible as usual.

-

The main business model behind d&d 4 was and is probably going to be for d&d 5 that every d&d player is different and wants different products. One wants to play heroic high lvl fantasy (Dragonlance), the other one Steampunkish intrigue campaigns (Eberron), the third wants to play a horror game (Ravenloft) etc. WotC as a company decided to instead of creating products to accommodate all of these wishes, to instead focus on core products, with the occasional Novel, Boardgame or CCG thrown into the mix.

 

[Serendipity]

As long as they get freelancers to write the adventures, I should be happy. The laundry list of baaaaaaaad in house WotC era adventures is - and has been - enough to prevent me from even looking at them, regardless of edition. (Yes, there have been exceptions, but they have been for the most part just that, exceptions.)
What interests me is how they will organize/market adventures given the purported modularity of the system. The worst of all possibles is one where every adventure assumes modules X, Y, and Z, and fails to make adequate provisions for doing without them or using different modules....but I think that unfortunately might well be the case. (Not directly related but does anyone else remember that Prestige Classes were an optional rule in 3.0??)

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

(snip) That said, it is really way too early to expect WOTC to have any plans for adventures that they're willing to share with us. Let the poor guys get the game itself into something approximating reasonable shape first

I hear what you're saying... but I actually think that talking about adventures is a critical part of selling us on the game that they are trying to make.

After all, the game doesn't take place in a vacuum; it takes place within the context of an adventure so, IMO/YMMV, talking about adventures that are planned is a critical part of explaining the nature of the game that is going to be published.

Also, as someone who has explored a few fantasy heartbreakers over the years, I have almost always thought about the design in the context of the adventures I would like to run with it.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I firmly believe that adventures drive sales of the other books. Even if they do not sell well (I'm not convinced they don't) I believe content is what helps to drive the sales of the other books and gets new people interested in your game. (snip)

I totally agree.

It's been a long time since WotC produced consistently good adventures (actually, they never have... and TSR stopped doing it about halfway through the 1E era) so the argument that adventures don't sell is also based on data collected during a period of time when the majority (?) of adventures were absolute crap.

Personally, if I was in Mike Mearls' shoes I would be making sure that Chris Perkins and Rich Baker were the authors of a mini-campaign covering the first 8-10 levels from day 1 of 5E's release. (And I would further be making sure that 1. they were edited and 2. Chris and Rich were working off finalised copies of the rules.)

 

[Ahnehnois]

Hopefully, their approach is that the fans provide the adventure.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Hopefully, their approach is that the players provide the adventure.

I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you conflating players with DMs or am I completely misunderstanding you?