The latest D&D survey got me thinking - what kind of short adventure products might WotC be able to offer in order to fill the void caused by their focus on level 1-15 adventure paths? Then the answer came to me - how about D&D Expeditions?
For those not familiar, Expeditions is the "Living Campaign" subset of the D&D Adventurers League. Each season ties into the D&D product line for that season (so Season 1 ties into Tyranny of Dragons and features the PCs fighting dragon cultists) and is set in a different city in the Moonsea region of the Forgotten Realms. There are typically around 15 adventures published each season for a variety of different level groups (1-4 is the most common, with 5-10 showing up more in later seasons; the first 11-16 adventure was just published). The majority are 4-hour standalone adventures (a few are either 2-hour or 8-hour), but the first adventure of each season is always a collection of five mini adventures for level 1 characters that run roughly an hour each. Although each adventure stands alone, there are many recurring characters and callbacks to earlier events that combine to form a sort of campaign.
Is it just me, or would this be the perfect format for a collection of short adventures? I'm picturing a book titled something like Expeditions in Phlan, featuring all of the (edited) season 1 adventures. The introduction would feature a lovely map of Phlan and an overview of the city, along with a short description of each adventure and instructions to run them in sequence to form a sort of campaign. Each adventure would feature a piece of key artwork (similar to the chapter headings in the 5E adventure paths) and would be edited to reflect the lessons learned through rigorous organized playtesting.
I'd buy it. Would you?
For those not familiar, Expeditions is the "Living Campaign" subset of the D&D Adventurers League. Each season ties into the D&D product line for that season (so Season 1 ties into Tyranny of Dragons and features the PCs fighting dragon cultists) and is set in a different city in the Moonsea region of the Forgotten Realms. There are typically around 15 adventures published each season for a variety of different level groups (1-4 is the most common, with 5-10 showing up more in later seasons; the first 11-16 adventure was just published). The majority are 4-hour standalone adventures (a few are either 2-hour or 8-hour), but the first adventure of each season is always a collection of five mini adventures for level 1 characters that run roughly an hour each. Although each adventure stands alone, there are many recurring characters and callbacks to earlier events that combine to form a sort of campaign.
Is it just me, or would this be the perfect format for a collection of short adventures? I'm picturing a book titled something like Expeditions in Phlan, featuring all of the (edited) season 1 adventures. The introduction would feature a lovely map of Phlan and an overview of the city, along with a short description of each adventure and instructions to run them in sequence to form a sort of campaign. Each adventure would feature a piece of key artwork (similar to the chapter headings in the 5E adventure paths) and would be edited to reflect the lessons learned through rigorous organized playtesting.
I'd buy it. Would you?
), but one of the planks of that is that everything points to the same place - they have the hardback adventure, which links in to the current AL season adventures, which ties in to the licensed minis, DM screen, and so forth, which tie in to the video game expansion, which ties into Salvatore's novel... and whatever else I've missed.
