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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TheSword" data-source="post: 9212993" data-attributes="member: 6879661">So I’m a big fan of published adventure campaigns. That will come as no surprise to anyone who sees my comments. I’m inherently lazy and not great at detail. I can solve problems but ask me to do any kind of dull or repetitive task and I get bored quick. So published adventures tick a lot of boxes for me. I see a lot of folks attacking published campaigns quite vociferously for things that to my mind seem like very trivial things.It is known that there are always three versions of any written work. What the writer intended to say, what they actually write and what the recipient reads. There are a lot of possible combinations in those three moving parts. Any complex system is going to start gaining conflicts and D&D is a complex system. It’s not possible to have over a dozen classes, multiple feats, racial abilities, magic items, environmental factors and an infinite number of monsters or NPCs. We see systems remove these conflicts with simplification. Though there are many of us that like a bit of crunch and would see rolling a D6 and succeed on a 5 or 6 as  unsatisfying.Published adventure campaigns are often expected to be playable out of the box. Pret a manger as it were.  I honestly don’t see how this could possibly be the case. To be so would require some objective standard of what the ‘correct’ gaming group looks like. Which we know doesn’t exist. It would also require a standardized level of DM skill - also a pipe dream. Of course every published campaign is ready to go - provided the DM is willing to match their style to that of the campaign - something many of us (particularly on these boards) seem reluctant to do. That is possible though. You could just get over your annoyance that the troll fight was too hard or the bandits too easy and just play on.My question is what are the hard lines. What is an absolute requirements for you to enjoy a published adventure. Do you set the bar so high you are seem always to be disappointed - in which case have you ever found an adventure campaign that met your expectations? For the sake of the discussion if you just don’t like the idea of running someone else’s work on principle then this discussion ain’t for you. That’s a totally valid way to play but let’s keep this thread for people who do want to use a published adventure and go from there. (Yeah, definitely going to need to + this thread.) disagreeing with what the standard should be is fine - but let’s not start getting down on the idea.Here are my hard lines. These are just my own, and I don’t expect any company to start working to them just because it’s my preference.- It has to be inspirational. That doesn’t mean it needs to be novel - it could do the classics very well and that would still be great for me. Ultimately it needs to hook me with the idea that would make me play.- It has to be interesting to read. If I can’t enjoy reading the book first - it ain’t never gonna make it to the table. I’m not looking for a reference book - it’s got to take me on a journey.- It has to have good artwork and good quality colour maps. I play on VTT I don’t want to have to go searching for fan made versions of the maps in the book just so I can use them. Theatre of the mind is valid but it insufficient for me. This also links to the inspirational and fun to read elements before.- It needs to have great engaging NPCs that make me want to play them as a DM.- It needs to have sufficient detail to save me time and to allow me to get into the zone of the NPC, monster or location. Names, descriptions, key information.- It needs to feature Gaming from Below to flesh out the world and make it feel like a real and lived in place..- It needs to have a mixture of freedom and progression - usually by having small sand boxes with things to do separated by some kind of gate to keep things moving along.- It needs to understand and use the rules system that it’s written for in a competent way.- It needs to anticipate PCs actions to certain extent. Sufficient to give me at least one path as an example of progression.For me a published campaign doesn’t need to anticipate every possible PC action or even what I consider to be ‘obvious’ just because I know my players. Nor does it need to grant permission for things to proceed a certain way. I recently saw a published campaign criticised because clues were supposedly ‘gated’ behind a skill check. A child was upset and a DC13 charisma check would calm her down. The reader seemed to claim this meant the clue couldn’t progress on a failure as if giving the child a present, distracting her with a task or just using compulsion magic couldn’t also resolve the problem. Those things weren’t spelled out so the AP was poor. I don’t need your permission I just need an example to point me in the right direction.It doesn’t even need to be great start to finish. The trilogy of adventure books Cormyr, Shadowdale were fantastic, while Anauroch was really poor but I still remember that as a brilliant campaign. We just cut it short. As I said, I don’t need perfection to be happy.What are your hard lines to be able to run something like Curse of Strahd or Rime of the Frostmaiden. Incidentally this would also refer to D&D clones like Pathfinder etc.</blockquote>

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