What turns you off in a purchased adventure?

[Treebore]

See, everyone wants something different. One wants lots of detail, one wants as little as possible. One wants realistic dwarf/elf names, another one doesn't care. The list goes on. I can agree with accurate room, location, and NPC descriptions that don't conflict with stat blocks elsewhere etc...

However, take the name issue for example. Who cares what name the author uses? What if your campaign uses "authentic" names from a given real world culture and timeframe? What if your game uses a totally homebrew naming convention? Basically, why should bad names bother you? They are there to be changed by the DM.

 

[KenM]

2. Info in the wrong place. e.g. The door between rooms A & B is unusual. Room A has multiple exits. Room B has no other exits. Do not describe the door in room B's description! Describe it in room A's description. Include a note about it in room B's description referring the reader to room A's description.

The first printing of Sunless Cidadel(SP?), the ONLY access from the top level to the bottom level was described in the first bottom level room, it was not described AT ALL in the room on the top level.

 

[DragonLancer]

I dont know why a lot of people seem to dislike real world names. I agree that they would seem a bit strange on an Elf or Dwarf. But I do not mind if they are used for Humans.

I would agree wif character names were like colin, gary or bob. But there are a lot names that fit well such as edward, thomas, and william. I prefer more fantasy type names, but some work ok.

 

[lord_banus]

I think a big problem is that roleplaying is a lot more sofisticated that it once was, probably as a result of the advanceing average gamer age. When you are in your teens and just starting out then a dungeon hack is great but later on more roleplaying is called for.

Perhaps the best alternative is to drop the whole notion of a module and replace it with a combination of settings, events and encounters with a stack of plot paths that can utilise them.

For example you might have a swamp based book that contains the settings: trecherous bog, drowned ruins or border region; events like: beast migration or luna eclipse and encounters like: Lizardman tribe or hag trio. The you could have have plots with combinations like: A luna eclipse causes a lizardman migration that passes through an abandoned ruin that the pcs happen to be searching. Another might be that a trio of hags is terrorising the border regions of a swamp and the farmers need the PCS help.

It would also be more reusable and flexible.

 

[lord_banus]

Duplicate

 

[Sir Elton]

Buying Adventures that Suit your Style rather than Tailor make them to your campaign.

Nah. No one can write the perfect adventure, the one adventure that pleases everybody; as this shows.

It makes me wonder though. How many DMs that complain about their pet peeves in their adventures are actually too lazy to adjust the adventure to their group. Think about it, the author publishes his/hers/its adventure one way, and then the DM gets it. The DM is susposed to look it over to see what he can change to fit his troupe. DM's who don't do this, and then complain on how the adventure is unsuitable are asking for an impossible scenario.

They are asking the author: be it man, woman, or company; to produce adventures especially tailored towards them. An impossibility if you have 10,000 customers who want the adventure done 10,000 ways.

However, the solution already presents itself. Look for a company that publishes the adventures you like and buy them. After all, by buying adventures, we are proving they sell. If you want adventures that doesn't use real names, find a company that uses wierd names and buy their adventures. If you want adventures that has great maps for photocopy, find a company that makes this possible. yadda-yadda. No one company can produce one module that fits all your campaigns perfectly. Do your homework. Find a company that makes adventures for your particular campaign in the style that you want and buy them.

If you aren't going to adjust the adventure to fit your group, you can at least adjust your buying habits. By supporting companies that produce adventures, you are supporting the publication of adventures in general, and money is still being passed around in the D20 Publishing Movement. Everyone benefits.

Check RPGnow, check the print publishers. Buy adventures. Make them sell, DARN IT!

 

[MerricB]

10. Ridiculous scales. Even in the modern world I don't run into ten foot wide corridors very often. Why do they seem so prevalent among dungeons?

Actually, I strongly disagree with this one. D&D is a game, and games are no fun when the players can't get involved. 5' wide corridors mean that only one PC can attack the enemy in melee. It's fine once in a while, but in every adventure? No thanks.

(One will note that this is a problem I've occasionally had with Dungeon Magazine's maps).

Cheers!

 

[Derulbaskul]

I hate silly or anachronistic NPCs. E.g., Black Flags over Freeport has an NPC named Billy Bones, who is basically a psychotic Old West gunfighter. Makes me nuts. How are players supposed to take a villain seriously if the villain is nothing but a caricature? (snip)

Yep, as much as I like Green Ronin's stuff, I could never get into Freeport because there were too many instances of silly characters and/or silly names.

 

[Derulbaskul]

(snip) However, take the name issue for example. Who cares what name the author uses? What if your campaign uses "authentic" names from a given real world culture and timeframe? What if your game uses a totally homebrew naming convention? Basically, why should bad names bother you? They are there to be changed by the DM.

Personally, they do bother me. They break the verisimilitude of the module from the "get go"; that is, from the time that I initially read through it.

Also, the idea behind a module is to minimise the amount of work for the DM. Changing names so that they "don't suck" (I realise that this is, of course, a very subjective thing) can be more of a pain than changing the initial adventure background (the background largely appears at the beginning; names can be scattered through the module).

 

[Derulbaskul]

What I really hate, and I have seen in some lately Dungeon Magazine adventures, is when every creature and its brother populate a particular dungeon. In just one short module you find (cooperating together perfectly well): fiendish rats, skulks, a werebaboons, hobgoblins, lemures, halflings, goblins, a half-troll/half-dragon, Raggamoffyns, dark creepers, shadow cloacks, dark stalker, dread guard, monstrous spider, mimic, ogre, fire beetle, beholder, and what not. (snip)

Absolutely. I remember one recent Dungeon adventure for FR that, while generally very good, seemed to be an excuse to use monsters from MMII without any real thought as to how they would fit in an established campaign world. I suppose this is a real issue for me because I believe that the MMII was so badly designed that it should probably be forgotten.