D&D General Why 5E Adventurs Suck!!!!!

[Retreater]

The big thing that I can tell is that most of the adventures are designed by a team of authors who don't know what the others are doing. And the editors aren't doing their jobs to make sure there is a unified theme and that things work together.
They will give assignments to work-for-hire writers and then just glue the individual chapters together, creating uneven tone and challenge, in a flavorless book made as cheaply as possible.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Good thing there's EnPublishing! They dozens of 5E adventures you can run that are high quality!

I feel like you have posted this a bunch recently?

 

[DEFCON 1]

I blame the players. They are the ones who do ridiculous things like being told we're playing Curse of Strahd and they show up with a kalashtar clockwork sorcerer with a pirate background before we even have a session 0 and they make no effort to integrate their PC into either the group or the style of campaign. And then once you start playing they just want to wander around and knock over gravestones every chance they get. Do they have a reason for this? Anything in their backstory why they feel the need to make a nuisance of themselves? Nope. They just think it's funny.

If you get stuck with those kinds of players, it's no wonder no one would want to run a 10 level AP... with little to no chance that schmuck players like that would actually take the campaign seriously.

But players who actually enjoy following story? They will take an AP and follow every breadcrumb and run with it.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I feel like you have posted this a bunch recently?

Does that make it less true???

 

[mamba]

Does that make it less true???

The frequency with which a claim is made has no bearing on its accuracy / correctness.

 

[Staffan]

I blame the players. They are the ones who do ridiculous things like being told we're playing Curse of Strahd and they show up with a kalashtar clockwork sorcerer with a pirate background before we even have a session 0 and they make no effort to integrate their PC into either the group or the style of campaign.

One of the strong points of Paizo's adventure paths is the Player's Guides: 8- to 16-page PDFs that discuss what kind of campaign this is going to be and what kind of PCs would work best. They often have some hints about what happens, though in very vague terms (e.g. "Sarenrae worshipers could bring some extra excitement to some parts" or "You'll be dealing with a lot of wilderness travel"), and also things to avoid ("While this adventure starts with PCs on a ship, it's not going to be a nautical campaign so don't pick things like dolphins for animal companions.")

 

[Weiley31]

But players who actually enjoy following story?

I think that is also another aspect of it all as well. They have a story in the module and it's expected that the players of the PC will follow it. For me and others, such players like to see/hear the story.

Then there are other players who go full hog in the whole "DND let's ya do anything" and then we come to the crux of players not wanting to be "railroaded." Some players will think that following the story IS a kind of railroad. That DMs are hampering the fun if Thanos still gets the Snap off despite Thor cutting the head off. Then that's not getting into the fact how people will nitpick things considered plot holes in a module.

It's a strange give and take in DND.

 

[MichaelSomething]

The frequency with which a claim is made has no bearing on its accuracy / correctness.

Then I'm gonna keep saying it. As long as people desire access to high quality adventures, I'll keep pointing to where they are.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Well they don't generally they're more mediocre imho. But why? We know WotC is capable of making good ones.

The big problem is the format. It's very hard to design a level 1-10 adventure let alone 1-20. It's an art form not a science. Paizo perhaps came the closest BUT.

Alot of those adventures fall apart later but you probably didn't reach those levels.

For example we played Kimgmaker and loved it. And gave up at the start of part 4. Savage Tide started out super strong. Perhaps the greatest low level adventure ever. Then you left Sasserine.

You ... you made it that far in Kingmaker? I was holding it together by sheer willpower by module 3. Partly because they didn't playtest the city building for module 2 (and it wasn't fun). Partly because they tried to tell the players what to do at the start of module 3 and that they would stay home and fort up rather than going and buying time and making bodies.

But yes I agree with the basic issue. There is a limit to what you can pre-write for players and expect them to stay on the rails. (I had the same issue as a player in Runelords; by about module 3 my dynamic character had to follow the plot)

 

[KYRON45]

I think that is also another aspect of it all as well. They have a story in the module and it's expected that the players of the PC will follow it. For me and others, such players like to see/hear the story.

Then there are other players who go full hog in the whole "DND let's ya do anything" and then we come to the crux of players not wanting to be "railroaded." Some players will think that following the story IS a kind of railroad. That DMs are hampering the fun if Thanos still gets the Snap off despite Thor cutting the head off. Then that's not getting into the fact how people will nitpick things considered plot holes in a module.

It's a strange give and take in DND.

Players: Ruining D&D since 1974