D&D 5E Where's the Villain? and other musings. Why some published campaigns are great and some aren't (Spoiler alerts)

[TheSword]

Chult is a peninsula, not an island. There's nothing stopping any group, should they wish, from wandering off the east side of the map (which, quite noticeably, does not show ocean along the eastern edge) and walking to places on the rest of mainland Faerûn. Well, other than dinosaurs and yuan-ti infested jungles, of course.

(Chult was an island in 4e, but it's been confirmed it is back to being a peninsula again like it was from 1e through 3e).

Good to know. Bounded on all but a small portion is bounded enough for me. That small strip of land in the south east joining it to the coast would be a psychological barrier as much as a physical one. The intrinsic desire to finish one thing before starting another is what would stop them wandering off. The strong villainous plan and great NPCs also keep things on track - which is why I consider it one of the greats.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The only "great" campaigns are homebrew, tailored to the players.

Published campaigns are a useful time-saver, but like anything off-the-peg, the best they can be is serviceable.

 

[Zardnaar]

The only "great" campaigns are homebrew, tailored to the players.

Published campaigns are a useful time-saver, but like anything off-the-peg, the best they can be is serviceable.

Lots of tricks to learn from those official adventures though.

I've barely run the 5E ones but still learnt a few things about paving, magic item's, design, or a good villain like Strahd.

My homebrews tend to be a bit more sandbox and short term villains.

Could probably do a list of influential adventures.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm not sure I'd use "clear goal" and "Curse of Strahd" in the same sentence. The game I played in was just characters wandering around at random, being beaten up outside towns and ripped off by merchants in towns. The closest we got to a clear goal was helping with the revolution in one of the towns.

Then again, maybe that is a reflection on the murderhobo players in the group. At one point we were in a building on fire, the rest of the party were looting all the silverware from the dining room while my character was saying, "isn't there someone in the attic? shouldn't we rescue them?" Apparantly the answer was no, my character had to help carry a big mirror out of the house instead.

No, I know of a lot of players who have struggled with the "what to do" in CoS. As you say, they either wander aimlessly, or rush straight to the castle and die.

"You need to gain XP until you are powerful enough to face Strahd" is far to metagamey for any players I know.

It's the reason I consider it D&D's most over-rated adventure.

 

[TheSword]

No, I know of a lot of players who have struggled with the "what to do" in CoS. As you say, they either wander aimlessly, or rush straight to the castle and die.

"You need to gain XP until you are powerful enough to face Strahd" is far to metagamey for any players I know.

It's the reason I consider it D&D's most over-rated adventure.

The adventure clearly sets up the three things that assist in Strahds destruction. The sunsword, Strahds memoir and the Icon of Ravenloft. The DMs job is to signpost the importance of this. There are enough methods described in the book. Chiefly Madam Eva’s tarot reading.

That said, there’s plenty to explore either way and plenty of hooks to get there. All of which links back to Strahd.

 

[TheSword]

The only "great" campaigns are homebrew, tailored to the players.

Published campaigns are a useful time-saver, but like anything off-the-peg, the best they can be is serviceable.

It depends on where your group falls on the bell curve of players. If you fall into a middle range I assure you, they can be excellent.

Put it this way. I’ve seen plenty of great published campaigns, Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Annihilation, Kingmaker Revised, Enemy Within, Age of Worms, Curse of the Crimson Throne, Rise of the Runelords etc.

I’ve never seen a single great homebrew adventure. Not one. Ever. You might say it’s Great but at the end of the day, no one but you and your players will ever know for sure, right?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It depends on where your group falls on the bell curve of players. If you fall into a middle range I assure you, they can be excellent.

Put it this way. I’ve seen plenty of great published campaigns, Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Annihilation, Kingmaker Revised, Enemy Within, Age of Worms, Curse of the Crimson Throne, Rise of the Runelords etc.

I’ve never seen a single great homebrew adventure. Not one. Ever. You might say it’s Great but at the end of the day, no one but you and your players will ever know for sure, right?

What makes something great is very subjective. I would not even consider Curse of Strahd or Tomb of Annihilation good, never mind great. The others you mention I haven't read. You might get lucky and hit something that appeals to you and your players, but that doesn't make it objectively great. The best way to have something that fits the tastes of your little group is to make it yourself. But I would maintain that the adventure you run is basically irrelevant - it's the players jamming off each other that makes D&D fun. Even the worst written adventure can become great with great play.

 

[TheSword]

What makes something great is very subjective. I would not even consider Curse of Strahd or Tomb of Annihilation good, never mind great. The others you mention I haven't read. You might get lucky and hit something that appeals to you and your players, but that doesn't make it objectively great. The best way to have something that fits the tastes of your little group is to make it yourself. But I would maintain that the adventure you run is basically irrelevant - it's the players jamming off each other that makes D&D fun. Even the worst written adventure can become great with great play.

Sure but I’m not talking about great experiences. I’m talking about great published adventures. Even if you don’t think they are, you can sure acknowledge that other folks find them excellent. So this is a thread about what makes a great published adventures. If you don’t think any of them are - you’re not the target audience matey.

 

[GuyBoy]

My tuppence worth:
Great published adventures do need at least one great villain, but ideally more. This can be the “end boss” type of villain but it doesn’t have to be. Ideally, there should be level-appropriate villains to “hate” as characters progress through the campaign, as well as NPCs to care about and to help if possible. For me, that was one of the strengths of CoS, though I accept that a strong DM is more important, alongside a good group of players. I was lucky enough to have both when I played a bard in CoS.
Even more important is the DM’s ability to adapt the published campaign to suit their players, and this extends to villains as well as other aspects. As a DM, one of my best villains was adapted from a mere random NPC in the book, to a foil for the PCs of great impact. In fact, even mentioning the name Tom Lumpyface, will garner a reaction from one of my players (and the OP of this thread) @TheSword

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Genuinely interested in whether someone can come up with a really great campaign without a strong master villain.

Let's do it with fantasy fiction.

In both the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, the main villains are mostly off-stage presences that are pretty passive until the ending of The Hobbit. They're dangerous, but dangerous in the way that volcanoes are dangerous -- the chance that, at some point, they will explode into violence, but just a smoking mountain on the horizon otherwise. Both stories, which are archetypal for D&D campaigns, are driven by adventures on the road, essentially random encounters and interparty conflict. They're sandboxes that are moving, more or less, towards a fixed point, but at any point, could definitely wander off and do something else. (Most of the party in LotR wanders off and completely forgets about the main mission in favor of finding their own fun, splitting again after that.)

Similarly, Game of Thrones has many "villains," in the sense that Risk does. Many of them are very compelling, but you could remove any one of them from the campaign -- and, indeed, that happens repeatedly -- without the campaign grinding to a halt. Other than the DM having some trouble wrapping up the campaign, I don't think anyone would find GoT/ASoI&F to be an unsatisfying D&D campaign at all. It's just driven by court intrigue, periodic mass combat and, again, random encounters and interparty conflict (and once again, the Stark kids party completely falls apart early on, giving the poor DM a lot more work to do) instead of a singular villain behind everything.