D&D 5E Where is the content?

[pukunui]

Just because I feel like sharing:

I have been running one fortnightly game and playing in another since 2012 or 2013 (when 5e was still D&D Next). I started running a second fortnightly game in 2014 after the finished rules were out.

I would say my games average 3-4 hours per session.

In that time, I have DMed:

1. Most of Legacy of the Crystal Shard followed by most of Scourge of the Sword Coast. Both ended in near-TPKs. The latter included the surviving PCs from the former.
2. Lost Mine of Phandelver. Successfully completed.
3. Tyranny of Dragons. Started with PCs at 3rd level. Successfully completed at 14th level.
4. Curse of Strahd. Started with PCs at 3rd level. Got all the way through to Strahd, who wiped the party.
5. An episodic campaign that included the "Fane of the Sun Swallower" from Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle, "Trouble in Red Larch" and several other locations from PotA, "Neverlight Grove" from OotA, and the Amber Temple from CoS, plus a slew of old Dungeon Magazine adventures I updated to 5e.
6. "The Sunless Citadel" and "The Forge of Fury" from TftYP, followed by Tomb of Annihilation in its entirety, followed by "The Styes" from GoS (which we didn't quite finish) and a bit of "The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl" from TftYP.
7. "Trouble in Red Larch" from PotA, followed by Scourge of the Sword Coast (including the climactic bit in Bloodgate Keep from the original version of Dead in Thay), followed by Storm King's Thunder. I also ran "Tammeraut's Fate" from GoS as a sidequest, and the PCs visited Gauntlgrym and Gravenhollow (from OotA) on a different sidequest. This campaign is still ongoing (and so far it's taken us 65 sessions of 2-3 hours over more than two years to get this far).
8. Most of the DDAL Season 1: Tyranny of Dragons adventures. They were a mixed bag, and I skipped a few.
9. Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. We made it through a good chunk of this before abandoning it in frustration. I attempted to run Legacy of the Crystal Shard again (with the intention of using it as a lead-in to another SKT campaign starting in Bryn Shander) but we didn't get very far through that either.
10. Odyssey of the Dragonlords. We are only four sessions into this campaign. The PCs are at 3rd level.

As a player, I've played through:

1. A 5e conversion of Age of Worms.
2. A heavily modified version of Storm King's Thunder, which saw us starting with "A Great Upheaval", which included elements of some older adventure, then going through to Grudd Haug, before restarting with new PCs in Luskan, where the DM ran a modified version of Murder in Baldur's Gate that included a side trek to do a 5e conversion of "Last Breaths of Ashenport", before going back into SKT with different PCs. We made it all the way through SKT with those PCs and since then we've continued on with a heavily modified 5e conversion of Scales of War, which we are very close to finishing.

I think that's everything!

 

[JiffyPopTart]

OP: If your group is buzzsawing through adventure paths that fast, then I would guess you are doing the videogame equivalent of following the main quest and ignoring all the side content.

Do you ever have sessions with no combat, or downtime activities, or PC individual goals?

My group is pretty solid in the ROLLPlay camp, but even with that our last session was the following.

1. Explore the market.
2. Bard having an impromptu duet performance with an NPC bard.
3. Going back to the market during the day and looking for exotic animals.
4. Noticing the PC bard was missing.
5. Tracking down the fact that the PC bard had been shanghaied onto a troopship.
6. Securing the bards release and doing a cursory investigation of the corrupt recruiter and shady NPC bard.
7. Actually beginning the adventure proper, investigating some murders at three locations.
8. Figuring out the source of the murders is in the sewers and gaining access.
9. Getting into an argument with some hobos at the sewer entrance and it moving to violence.
10. Called for time.

All the above took 4 real time hours of play and only half had to do with the "adventure" which has nothing to do with the "campaign story" as a whole.

 

[Xenonnonex]

Have you read through this thread? Or even the OP?

You want more adventures. I am saying that you already have adventures in your imagination. Unless you don't.

Have you read your thread title?

 

[Retreater]

You want more adventures. I am saying that you already have adventures in your imagination. Unless you don't.

Have you read your thread title?

I'm not the OP, but just handwaving and saying "use your imagination" several times isn't a good answer. Earlier I presented that there is something like 39% of the official print content at this stage than there was at a similar point in the lifecycle of 3.x edition. These are just facts.

And for some of us, maybe we like to run official content. Maybe we're too busy or not imaginative enough to create compelling material. DMs come in all makes and models, so publishers should be rushing to support them as customers, especially if this is indeed the height of D&D's popularity.

 

[Xenonnonex]

I'm not the OP, but just handwaving and saying "use your imagination" several times isn't a good answer.

I would say having an over reliance on "official" material is not a good thing. You can tie yourself up into not being able to come up with things on the fly.

Earlier I presented that there is something like 39% of the official print content at this stage than there was at a similar point in the lifecycle of 3.x edition. These are just facts.

And for some of us, maybe we like to run official content. Maybe we're too busy or not imaginative enough to create compelling material. DMs come in all makes and models, so publishers should be rushing to support them as customers, especially if this is indeed the height of D&D's popularity.

Do you want quality adventures?
Or do you want mediocre adventures?
Rushing to satiate some fan whim is going to give you poorly received adventures. And then you will have people complaining about the poor or lack of quality control and the inundation of supplements.

 

[dave2008]

And for some of us, maybe we like to run official content. Maybe we're too busy or not imaginative enough to create compelling material. DMs come in all makes and models, so publishers should be rushing to support them as customers, especially if this is indeed the height of D&D's popularity.

That is what I don't understand. D&D is clearly very popular, yet even the big 3PP are not make much adventure content. WTF is going on. I mean there must be a reason. Paizo still seems to pump out content for PF2 (I think - I could be wrong). Why aren't there more adventures / APs coming out? I can think of only a few reasons:

1. DMsGuild: the amateur market is flooding the adventure market making it hard for 3PP to make a splash.
2. They really aren't very profitable. High cost / low reward.
3. The market for APs is not as large as we think. This is related to #1 I think.
4. Something else?

 

[robus]

That is what I don't understand. D&D is clearly very popular, yet even the big 3PP are not make much adventure content. WTF is going on.

It’s not like WotC are hitting it out of the park with their adventures either, only a few have been declared great (LMoP & Strahd?) and most are quite mediocre (so much so that I’ve stopped buying them).

I would love for there to be an exciting adventure set in a fantastic world.

Perhaps the licensing terms are too unbalanced?

 

[pukunui]

I can recall in the 3e days, the official line was the adventures were loss makers and it was the splatbooks that were the moneymakers. That's why there were so many more of them.

I wonder if maybe WotC is finding that still to be something of the case? That adventure books, even the mini-setting ones with player content and gazetteers, just aren't as profitable as they thought they'd be, so they're turning more to setting books?

 

[Retreater]

I would say having an over reliance on "official" material is not a good thing. You can tie yourself up into not being able to come up with things on the fly.


Do you want quality adventures?
Or do you want mediocre adventures?
Rushing to satiate some fan whim is going to give you poorly received adventures. And then you will have people complaining about the poor or lack of quality control and the inundation of supplements.

I don't want to come up with things on the fly. I want plans. I want organization. I want a book I can look over and remember details from session-to-session and not forget when a few weeks go by without a game. I want a shared community experience of war stories we can re-tell about classic modules we all played. I want evocative art I can show my players. I want professional design, sound adventure logic, not just stuff I make up on the fly.

For people who are great at improv, that's awesome for them. I have a job that drains my creativity on a regular basis, leaving little left for hobbies. So I really appreciate using published adventures so I can better relax and enjoy time with my friends playing this game.

And I don't think that anyone can say the 3.x era didn't produce quality content and that we had only "mediocre adventures." Look at "Sunless Citadel" and "Forge of Fury" (both of which were good enough to be reprinted in 5e). Look at "Red Hand of Doom." Look at "Age of Worms" from Dungeon Magazine. Look at Ptolus, Lost City of Barakus, Aerie of the Crow God, Black Ice Well, and numerous other 3PP offerings.

If we're in the height of popularity for the game, where is the support?

 

[dave2008]

It’s not like WotC are hitting it out of the park with their adventures either, only a few have been declared great (LMoP & Strahd?) and most are quite mediocre (so much so that I’ve stopped buying them).

I would love for there to be an exciting adventure set in a fantastic world.

I personally don't ever buy adventures to run them (I can't use printed adventures of any type, they just befuddle me), but I think it is weird that more of them are not being made.

Perhaps the licensing terms are too unbalanced?

5e is OGL, there are no licensing terms, unless you want to use WotC IP. Then of course you could publish to DMsGuild. I don't know, but something seems off.