What's more important: core rules or adventures?

[Aberzanzorax]

Well, both?



I mean, I LOVE good adventures. I LOVE them. I don't really care the system.


But, I HATE a system that makes gameplay suck for me....that's gonna vary wildly for everyone who reads this.



So, my point is, I'd buy any awesome adventure for any system....but I'd not buy a medicore (or poor) adventure for any (including my favorite) system.





For core rules? I'll either find them exemplary and make them my system of choice, or I'll find another system and make THAT my system of choice.


Adventures can be awesome via plot, and systems can be awesome via rules and fluff, but if neither is awesome, why buy it?


I guess what I'm saying is that systems are held to a higher standard...people want to play a certain way. Adventures, however, are stories. A story can be told in any system, but various systems force types of playing. That can be rough for some people (myself included).


So, for your question...I'd rather convert an awesome adventure to my preferred system than convert a mediocre adventure to my preferred (personally held-awesome) system.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Really, it's like the riddle of the sphinx. What utility you get out of crunch or fluff depends highly on what stage of being a gamer you are.

EVERYBODY needs the core rules...up to a point. There comes a time when accretion of further mechanical additions is essentially just gilding on the lilly. A class based game probably won't be hurt by having 7 warrior classes and 18 kinds of Elf, but it isn't vital that it does so.

Adventures are more of an optional thing...but they are still incredibly important. Even though the rules give you all you need, a good adventure is like a "killer app" that can set your ruleset apart from others and really make people want to use it. In addition, different GMs have differing amounts of ability, creativity and time to write their own stuff- and that will vary not just from GM to GM, but over time as well. I started off running all the AD&D adventures, then began homebrewing, which I've done for a couple of decades now. But the older I get, the less time I have to create things all by myself- and the more often I think I'm being cliche- so I often adapt from purchased material. It helps keep me fresh. Another DM of my acquaintance is pretty good behind the screen, but with a job, a wife, and 3 kids, he simply doesn't have the time to homebrew, so all he runs are commercial adventures.

 

[Wicht]

The rules are important, but its the adventures that keep you coming back for more. And while most DMs do homebrew at some point or another, the adventures are still important as they help keep the creative juices flowing. Most adventures are bought with the understanding they will likely never be run, but they help the one buying them continue to crave the gaming experience and, hopefully, they provide a good read.

Beyond this, its published adventures that have traditionally given the gaming community one common point of reference for conversation when we get together and want to talk about our shared experiences.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I appreciate the response so far, but in my sphere of experience, my friends don't have much time to make 100% homebrew adventures, and almost always purchase published adventures. Sure, they'll customize it, but they'll still use adventures as a basis.

...which is precisely what makes rpg design so difficult. The heterogeneity of the roleplaying game experience. Obviously your sphere and my sphere are very different, but both are equally valid, as are many completely different perspectives out there. At the moment, the solution that's evolving is that the D&D monopoly that once existed is fading and different companies are aiming for different player groups.

 

[kitsune9]

I like both. A good set of core rules and an adventure module to either get one started into playing the game.

I'm the kind of person who believes that once a company releases X the RPG, the next accessory should be an adventure path or book of adventures. If the company can, there should be a fledged-out adventure in the core rules (like Top S.I. had) and then after the adventure, a whole bunch of adventure seeds to take the characters next.

 

[Jimlock]

-Simple rules, to the point where actions have limits.

-Good plots/stories that challenge the human brain, stories that make one think and be creative without turning a player into a power-hungry munchkin.

 

[Ranes]

First of all, Mr Yesway of 17 posts fame, well done on an excellent idea for a thread. When I started to read it, my opinion was already formed; my answer just needed typing out. Fortunately, I gave it more thought and now it's really difficult for me to form an opinion. I'll try to explain why.

I'm so flippin' old that when I observed to my first DM, a wonderful and phenomenally intelligent friend who introduced me to D&D, that TSR had started publishing adventures, he was dismissive. "Takes the imagination out of DMing," was his response, I think.

I got into early RPGs very young but I'd already been interested in historical wargames for a couple of years before that (RPGs got me out of wargaming). For Christmas, when I was ten, my father bought me a little paperback book about the hobby of wargaming. It explained that, although you could now buy wargames rules, traditionally, wargamers made their own. The point is, I learned to love writing rules for games and considered (still consider) rules to be tremendously important.

D&D and Traveller were rocket fuel for my gaming soul. I loved the rules and the systems invited and encouraged me to write more. Also, as a schoolboy, money was more valuable than time. I had little of the former but lots of the latter. I could write my own adventures. I found that much easier than writing rules, in fact (and still do).

Nevertheless, over the years, I have played, run and read hundreds of published adventures. I can share experiences with other gamers I've never met. I have marvelled (about the double L; I'm English) at really inspirational adventures. And the original Skyrealms of Jorune game blew my socks off, not for its incomplete and incoherent system but for its utterly fantastic setting. What a place to adventure!

It's not easy to come down firmly on one side or the other. I suppose I lean towards rules but I understand and respect those who would differ. And I am glad they do.

 

[Umbran]

... but if you heard about the Most Amazing Adventure Ever, wouldn't you want to play or at least think about playing it, despite the system?

Not likely. I don't use many published adventures. My campaigns are usually strongly driven by the characters and their individual personalities and choices. Published adventures, when the can apply at all, need a great deal of reworking to fit, so that I don't find them to be much savings.

In the smartphone/app analogy, many GM's are equivalent to people who write apps. Maybe not polished ones for public sale, but things hacked together for their own needs.

 

[Glyfair]

Imagine if George R.R. Martin contributed to a new adventure... wouldn't that drive sales of 4E or Pathfinder or Song of Ice and Fire RPG? (OK, wishful thinking, I know that the RPG market is too small for famous authors, plus they might not understand the medium)

A brief digression, George R. R. Martin in (or was) a roleplayer. The Wild Cards series he was instrumental in creating was based on a Superworld campaign, for example.

Of course, that wouldn't necessarily mean he would be good a creating a professional gaming product.

 

[Kaodi]

Whether adventures sell a great deal is not entirely relevant. The better question is whether they help drive sales of other products.

Anecdotally I also suspect that if you embed solid themed rule systems within solid adventures you have a recipe for success for both the adventures and related products.