What type of adventuring do you prefer?

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I like all of the options in the poll, some to more degrees than others in my gaming career.

I currently prefer Adventure Paths. I like them for many of the reasons Traveon Wyvernspur lists as likes for Mega-Adventures. Epic? Check. Plenty of world events that can shake the very foundations of what everything is built upon? Check.

I don't find them constraining. Nothing NEEDS to happen to keep the campaign going. Good APs give hooks and advice for going off the path. And I rely on the same resources TW would (short adventures) when the party explores other options.

What the framework of a good AP gives me is motivations and machinations of the NPCs of the world. If the party does not explore the path as the author expected, then I adapt the story appropriately. I imagine a poorly written AP could lead to "do this or the world goes boom," but I wouldn't run such an AP without heavy modification. The results of the party not reacting as expected to part of the pre-written path depends upin what they did instead and how that effects the overarching plots of the villains.

My group once loved a string of short-ish adventures. Mostly in the form of 1E adventure modules. We pretty much played each as we could get our hands on them as a one-shot with whatever characters we had of appropriate level. If we had a steady stream of adventures as fun as those we could conceivably do this again.

We also once loved mega-site adventures. We even had a run of nostalgia and tried playing WLD again recently. I don't know if it's that particular mega-site, but it bacame too much of the same thing. Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil suffered the same issue after a while. Undermountain was just too unfinished for our tastes. The last one we definitely had fun with was Ruins of Greyhawk. We never finished it, but we did get pretty far.

 

[S'mon]

I'd like a fairly open campaign where the PCs have lots of opportunity to determine the direction of the campaign, interspersed with set-piece modules, from 1 session delves up to about 4 sessions for a major adventure. I would like the opportunity for dominion rulership, to protect, defend and expand my own domain.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I dislike adventure paths, in fact I wouldn't play in one, because as a player I like to feel I have a lot of freedom.

 

[OnlineDM]

I said it doesn't matter. I'm currently running one adventure path game (at level 19 out of 30 so far) and having fun, but I'm the DM, not a player. I'm running another campaign (at level 8) that's a bunch of larger adventures stuck together.

I have yet to play in a campaign that's gone more than 3 levels, so I'm not sure of my own preferences there, but I think I'd be open to pretty much anything as long as I'm having fun.

 

[Gilladian]

I voted "it doesn't matter". I can enjoy anything, and the idea of PLAYING in a LONG campaign would just be so exciting, I would not care.

The last campaign I played in strictly as a player was "you have personal goals, and here are some possible routes to achieve them"; so mini-adventures and dungeons and things that more or less arched together into a story.

Other than that I have not played more than 2-3 levels of a campaign in close to a decade. Perhaps longer. I'm always the DM.

I run things that string together, too; long mega-adventures tend to bore me after a while, and epic plots are so cliche...and maybe I just can't be that coherent for that long!

 

[Ahnehnois]

I don't understand the question.

You play for a week. What happens, happens. You play for another week. What happens, happens. I don't really put any dividing lines in there. It's one game, regardless of how long it runs.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

What type of campaign do you prefer to play if you managed to play long enough to get from level 1 to level 20? Please explain why.

This may be a stupid question, but...what's the diff between an AP and a mega adventure?

 

[Elf Witch]

I voted it doesn't matter. I have played in all the things you mentioned and what made the game fun was the DM and the other players it really didn't matter what was being run.

 

[SkredlitheOgre]

I voted "Doesn't Matter." My 3.5 game was all (fairly) short adventures that turned into nothing but hack 'n slash toward the end. My Pathfinder group is currently running three "campaigns," I suppose, as I'm running a module based campaign with an over-arcing story line. We're also playing Rise of the Runelords AP, and we doing playtesting for Adventureaweek.com, which is more short adventures with an over-arcing story line.

In my first GURPS Supers game, it was a giant sandbox. Our second Supers "campaign" was more of a "megadungeon" in the sense that we had to go through a lot of travel and time-consuming stuff, and we ended up underground.

 

[Oryan77]

I don't understand the question.

You play for a week. What happens, happens. You play for another week. What happens, happens. I don't really put any dividing lines in there. It's one game, regardless of how long it runs.

I think of an "adventure" as having a definite beginning and an end. A "campaign" is the life span of the adventuring career. I'd say what you are referring to is a campaign rather than an adventure.

The DM may run several short "adventures" (kill the villain poisoning the town water, then get hired to save the princess from the dragon, then investigate a murder in another town, etc, etc). Or he may run a single adventure path (start at level 1 and investigate the goblin hideout which leads into a bigger plot that expands throughout levels 1-20).

This may be a stupid question, but...what's the diff between an AP and a mega adventure?

I think an adventure path is considered to be a single plot that is supposed to take you from level 1 to level 20. It might feel like many short adventures, but overall, the goal of the AP is to learn about a scenario and play out the end of that scenario by level 20.

A mega adventure would be similar to an AP, but you may complete it after gaining only a few levels. So it could be a long adventure, but it might start at level 8 and end when you hit level 12 or more. Usually a lot of game world time has passed. The published books for these are usually thick, or a boxed set.

Short adventures to me are usually the published books that are around 30-60 pages and can be completed in just a few sessions. Usually not earning a PC more than 1 or 2 levels.

Then there are the really short adventures (like in Dungeon magazine) that may be only a few pages long and can be completed in 1 session. You usually don't gain a level in them. I use these as side quests.