What's wrong with current high-level mega-modules

[Treebore]

Like a number of previous posters have essentially said, mega-modules may be mega, but that does not mean they cover every aspect of a campaign. Remember, we have essentially forced the publishers to be somewhat generic with their products. That means, Ragnar, if you want all of those elements you mentioned in your game you are going to have to take the bare bones of any given module and give it whatever life you want it to have by connecting the module to your campaign world.

As for Necromancer games. I own Rappan Athuk 1 through 3, Tomb of Abysthor, and the Grey Citadel. They are all very good mega-adventures. There is plenty of material in these modules for any DM with a decent amount of creativity to use. Plenty of that material gives the DM many ways to connect this "isolated" module to the rest of your world. It also provides plenty of opportrunity for political intrigue and roleplaying. Part of Necromancer's "1st edition feel" is that they don't hold your hand and spoon feed you with what you are to do. Like the 1st edition modules, you have to figure out how to make a lot of things happen in ways that are sensible for YOUR campaign.

The Grey Citadel is so good I bet it will teach you a few new DMing tricks. It should get an ENnie nomination, if not the actual award.

So my view on your complaints about mega-modules is don't blame your inability to take a module and make it be a living part of your campaign on the publishers. All the modules you and I have mentioned are very good modules.

You want your hand held go buy some 2e modules, they tell you how to do every little thing. No brain required. Otherwise, put forth the effort to connect these modules to your campaign world and make them "relevant".

I know that if you go to Necromancers messageboards you will find plenty of us willing to help you do it. Which I think you already should know, shouldn't you.

 

[rounser]

mega-modules may be mega, but that does not mean they cover every aspect of a campaign.

Uh...why on earth not? CRPGs don't expect you to rewrite large chunks of them or fill in huge voids, but PnP RPGs do.

Oh yeah, the reasons as I assume them to be/they appear to be - status quo, tradition, static state of D&D designer culture, laziness in design, lack of page count to follow through etc.

Remember, we have essentially forced the publishers to be somewhat generic with their products.

When a mega-adventure is the campaign, there's no need to be generic anymore in the way you need to make smaller modules generic. For the most part, people don't think they're running a Greyhawk campaign when they're running RttToEE; they're running a RttToEE campaign.

That means, Ragnar, if you want all of those elements you mentioned in your game you are going to have to take the bare bones of any given module and give it whatever life you want it to have by connecting the module to your campaign world.

Not what he's referring to. "Connecting the module to the campaign world" doesn't cure miles of braindead megadungeon hack'n'slashery without significant work. Here's the criticism Ragnar raised:
When I come to the tabletop RPGs, I want character development, immersive storylines, and plot development. The problem is, I got more character development and a better storyline out of the Baldur's Gate CRPG than any published RPG module or series of modules.
"Connecting the module to the campaign world" has little to do with that. In fact, I think sometimes that DMs are so obsessed with settings that they can't see the trees (the adventures) for the forest (all the macro-level abstract setting stuff which is fun to create but does little for the game).

So my view on your complaints about mega-modules is don't blame your inability to take a module and make it be a living part of your campaign on the publishers.

"Make it a living part"? Mega-adventures often are the campaign, and IMO, one of the more questionable assumptions of module designers is that they're doing you a favour by leaving things incomplete. If you wanted to design your own material, you wouldn't be using a module.

All the modules you and I have mentioned are very good modules.

YMMV. The Dragonlance Classics series had the epic vibe and sprawling scope, but was a rail-road-a-thon supreme, and so fundamentally flawed. The Dark Sun adventure arc beginning with Freedom was perhaps the best series of published modules I've played in this vein out there, which a lot of variety and a good deal of depth. But for the most part, as he said, Baldur's Gate CRPG series trumps them all (especially from 2 onwards), and no-one's given a good reason why this crazy state of affairs exists. All I see are apologists and weak justifications. To paraphrase someone from another thread, if your average DM produced a gaming experience as good as Planescape: Torment, PnP RPGs would be a lot more popular than they are. The funny thing is, the PnP world has nothing published to answer that level of quality and depth.

 

[Yele]

There's a fundamental difference between Baldur's Gate II and WotC's adventures.

A wildly innovative computer RPG adventure will sell a copy to every interested player.

A wildly innovative tabletop RPG adventure will sell a copy _at best_ to one in every five interested players. The other four are the players, y'see.

That's why WotC got out of the adventure business--it doesn't have anything to do with difficulty of development. Wizards has competent designers, after all.

Take a look at WotC's recent catalogs. How many DM-focused products are there? With the exception of monster books, none (and I'd argue that Fiend Folio, et al, have significant player utility, at least for players who summon, have companions, etc.). That's why you'll never see Book of Challenges II, I'll bet. That book screams "don't buy me unless you're a DM."

When you have Wizards' overhead, you've got to sell to everyone at the table, I think.

--Yele, who's been known to crack a cold one with ex-Wizards.

 

[PatrickLawinger]

It sounds to me like you people are asking for a campaign setting.

There is no way we can write a module that gives you everything you ask for without creating cities, political powers, etc.

That isn't a module, that is a campaign setting.

About the only way someone can write a high level module then, is to write something that fits into an existing campaign setting. That is going to garner things like, "Yeah, it sounds good, but it is for FR, I hate FR" (Feel free to substitute GH, Scarred Lands, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, etc.).

The easiest thing for writers/designers to do is to create a "generic" dungeon/castle/mini-setting and let the DM fit it into whatever world/setting/homebrew/etc. they are using.

There are high level modules out there, some of them are quite good. It is up to the DM to adjust them to their campaign.

The higher level the campaign, the more adjustments the DM is going to have to make. Writers and designers simply can not predict exactly what PrCs, magic items, etc. your characters might have from the many sources out there. We design for a basic, balanced party. I have seen a party of 3 clerics and a rogue eat some critters alive, while other, supposedly easier, critters almost toasted them.

Modules are the poorest selling RPG books. I have been told that high level modules sell more poorly than low level modules (I have never seen numbers for this). Modules already have a limited audience (DMs), campaign specific modules are even more limited. If you want something campaign specific, you better be playing in one of the largest settings (FR, GH, Scarred Lands, etc.) or it simply won't happen. If you look at campaign specific modules out there right now, you'll notice that almost all of them have suggestions for fitting into "your campaign world."

Virtually every module you see published (esp. high level modules) is going to be "generic." It is up to the DM to let it be a hackfest or to add the politics, intrigue, etc.

A number of companies are coming out with larger scale books, or "mini-campaigns." These books are larger because the politics of a local area are described, with various options for how shopkeepers in different areas might react to the PCs, etc. Some of these books MIGHT be what you are looking for, but at the same time, these are almost "mini-settings."

Okay, I am tired, don't know if this made sense, but oh well.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

***** Slight Spoilers - Grey Citadel

The Grey Citadel is so good I bet it will teach you a few new DMing tricks. It should get an ENnie nomination, if not the actual award.

I generally like the Grey Citadel, but I have to say that I could not vote for it in the ENnie's, or elsewhere, simply because of one jarring cliche: the villain is a succubus named Lilith. When I cracked open the book on the way home from Gen Con and saw that, I groaned so loud that I almost woke up the guy sleeping next to me. Generally, as I say, it is a fun read and a good module, but I really, really wish Nathan Douglas Paul would have stretched just a bit to find an original name (I don't have any problem with the succubus, just the combo with the name, it's like having an archer named Robin...)

 

[Treebore]

I think Patrick may have hit the nail on the head. Maybe what you want is in actuality a campaign world. If so I hear Midnight and Oathbound are pretty good.

Mega-modules are not meant to be an all-encompassing campaign. They are meant to be the "center-piece" of it, but not a completely spelled out step-by-step road map of a campaign.

The DM needs to decide where it is in the world, what powers of the campaign world know of it and are involved in it. These are things no module writer can integrate into it. They give you a box of information and ideas. You decide how to open that box and spread it around within your campaign world. You decide on who knows what and why. This is how you make a module part of "your" campaign world. To expect it to automatically fit and work within your campaign world is unrealistic. The DM has to make that happen.

If you think that you are being ripped off then show us how to do it. Write one up and submit it to Necromancer. If you can write one as good as you claim it should be, Necromancer will be happy to publish it. Go ask them, I am sure they will tell you the same thing.

Otherwise, figure out how to do your part as the DM and flesh out the module to work as a center piece of a campaign. Any version of the Temple of Elemental Evil ran strictly as the campaign would bore me to tears. Any module ran like that would have the same effect on me. I have always accepted it as my responsibility to take a module and make it come alive. I guess that is why I have heard so many people complain about modules that I ran, complaining how those modules sucked. My players loved every single one. So did I, because of how we brought it to life.

Any module run "as is" is doomed to mediocrity at best. Except for the Grey Citadel. That one can be run as is. It is alive in and of itself, but not for a whole campaign. Just for the adventure spelled out within its pages.

 

[rounser]

Mega-modules are not meant to be an all-encompassing campaign. They are meant to be the "center-piece" of it, but not a completely spelled out step-by-step road map of a campaign.

I disagree. Sounds like tradition talking - "the reason why you can't buy an entire campaign off the shelf and run it is because that's not the way it's done."

About the only way someone can write a high level module then, is to write something that fits into an existing campaign setting. That is going to garner things like, "Yeah, it sounds good, but it is for FR, I hate FR" (Feel free to substitute GH, Scarred Lands, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, etc.).

The easiest thing for writers/designers to do is to create a "generic" dungeon/castle/mini-setting and let the DM fit it into whatever world/setting/homebrew/etc. they are using.

Those are some good reasons why they don't exist - such an adventure would indeed imply a setting, in a similar manner to the way Night Below did. However, one could do the same thing as Night Below (as in, show just a slice of a Generic D&D world close up, such that it could be a part of FR, GH, DL or whatever, and include guidelines to put it in these settings as Night Below did) minus the megadungeon theme, and meet Ragnar's criteria. That would overcome the "It's FR, and I hate FR" stigma, whilst allowing it to still be slotted into FR/your homebrew/run standalone without the need for a now semi-redundant setting. Indeed, this means that it couldn't be a road trip, but you don't need a road trip with the current rate of advancement in D&D. A village and it's environs could take a party to 20th if the place was chock-full of adventure.

Also, note that Ragnar's complaint was about lack of variety, depth and quality, not how easily things slot into your campaign world. These are different issues. Additionally, I can see the "why this doesn't exist" and "why this shouldn't exist" becoming muddied as if they were one - which they aren't.

 

[rounser]

That's why WotC got out of the adventure business--it doesn't have anything to do with difficulty of development. Wizards has competent designers, after all.

http://oracle.wizards.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind9908C&L=dnd-l&P=R27716

> I would like to see a generic Campaign-syle adventure (preferrably in a
> boxed set) at least once a year.

That we will not do.

First, boxed sets cost too much. One reason TSR foundered and nearly died
was that it didn't price it's products correctly; boxed sets in some cases
lost the company money with each sale because nobody had the guts to put a
"real" SRP on them. Things like the PlaneScape box, for example, should
have had SRPs in the $80 range.

You will see more products like the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords, a thick book
with maps and other material bound in.

Second, those products take too long to design. Handling character
development from really low levels to really high levels is incredibly
tricky. Our data tells us that most people who play D&D restart their games
about every six months. So we're going to be designing products with an eye
towards that time frame as the logical maximum amount of time we can expect
anyone to stick with a product. Something that would take a whole year to
play through won't be fully used by many consumers.

Third, there are only so many "big ideas", and they often don't come on a
schedule. When we get a really great proposal for something epic, we'll put
a product on the schedule. But we're not going to task the designers will
creating something like that in the absence of great inspiration.

I'd venture that one of the reasons for 6 month restarts is a chicken and egg type thing, in that nothing but megadungeons are produced on that scale, and megadungeons lose their appeal, even with dedicated RP'ers (see anecdotal evidence online about the second book of Night Below for instance, including some from our own Psion, and which mirrors my own).

 

[Etan Moonstar]

The reason Baldur's Gate and other computer rpgs can have such thorough character and storyline development is because the player(s) are NOT given anywhere near as much free will as exists in most tabletop rpg campaigns. You don't need to rewrite or fill in parts of them because the player(s) are never given choices that take them beyond the already-written boundaries of the planned module. There is nothing more railroaded than a strictly computer rpg (assuming there's no DM involved--NWN, for example, can allow more flexibility)--it's just that railroading is more obvious in tabletop play (such as in the original Dragonlance campaign or many 2E modules). Character and story depth can come only in one of two ways: a tightly-written (railroading) module that requires the players to do certain things so the story and characters develop in the pre-planned fashion; or some individual adaptation work done on the part of the DM and players to take the bare bones of the module and make it their own creation.

 

[Rasmus]

I can tell from the lack of comments on Beastman's text, that no one here plays or have played Warhammer Fantasy RP.

The Enemy Within campaign contradicts everything said against creating in-depth mega adventures which aren't dungeon crawls. And I don't know a warhammer GM, who doesn't own them. They have recently been re-published and are fantastic.

So, I don't buy the dungeon crawls, because I know it can be done better.

What I would like to see are not necessarily long high level adventure modules, but modules for high level play. The hard thing, at high levels, as a DM, is creating intelligent and challenging adventures, because you have to consider so many spells which affect the plot. I would like to see an example of how it could be done.

I would bet that an experience game designer, who had many many hours could do it better than I.

I don't care if its not generic! That I can fix on my own. It's easy to change the names and remodel a few locations etc. In the mega-dungeons they have done the easy job: populating a number of rooms with monsters and traps. Anyone can do that.