Why are modules no longer popular

[FDP Mike]

The difficulty with adventures . . .

This thread is generating some very intriguing discussion.

Most of you are correct in pointing out that publishing adventures does not present as profitable a venture as other sorts of books (i.e., the all-inclusive "sourcebook" -- campaign setting, rules extensions/expansions, class books, and so forth). In particular, with the nature of the d20 market these days, publishing an adventure of 64 pages or less represents something of a risk. To get a decent return on an adventure, a publisher generally needs to go big. This means a high page count and an MSRP that would, at some point down the line, leave a little bit left over for the publisher to put back into . . . well, publishing other stuff.

Essentially, this is what you will see in 2003 from FDP: big adventures of the epic sort. Other than our Arcana Unearthed tie-in adventure, which will be 64 pages, the adventures we've planned for release this year will hit 96 pages at a minimum, and they will be more than "just" dungeon crawls. Gates of Oblivion presents a kidnapping plot wrapped up in a wicked planar adventure (oh, if Manual of the Planes would find a home in the SRD! ), and As of Yet Untitled spans several different locations and finishes off with (admittedly) a huge underwater dungeon. In both, the fate of the world lies in the PCs' hands. (OSM2 is in the works, by the way, and it also will likely reach a minimum of 96 pages.)

As well, I think the comparisons to Dungeon quite valid. Excellent adventures do get published in Dungeon, and the magazine costs much less than a single adventure from a d20 publisher. "More bang for the buck," in other words. As well, using Dungeon as a kind of litmus test for quality also seems quite valid: a very fair question is whether or not a published adventure offers something more than a Dungeon adventure, usually something beyond the quality of the adventure itself -- i.e., a setting, crunchy bits (PrCs, new monsters, new magic items, new spells, NPCs, organizations, and so on), play aids such as handouts. In my mind, a published adventure should most definitely give you more than a Dungeon adventure, and not just in page count.

What, then, does constitute a "well written" adventure?

I can try and speak from my experience at FDP (and from editing some Necromancer stuff along the way). In FDP adventures, we always try to give a little more than strictly the adventure itself, and by this "more" I mean setting, personalities, background(s), and the occasional crunchy goodness (not to mention counters, I suppose). If an adventure can sort of create an atmosphere or mood that transcends the plot, then the plot itself is enhanced greatly. I guess, the matter comes down to one of story. Craft a good story, and the rest should take care of itself; if the story suffers or is uninteresting, then no amount of dextrous fenangling with rules and crunchy stuff will make the adventure necessarily "better."

Then again, "well written" can encompass so many facets that pinpointing just one or two feels limiting. The writer's style can be engaging or not; the rules mechanics can be accurate or not; the new crunchy stuff can be balanced or not . . . and so forth. Trying to stand back a bit from my intimate involvement with FDP adventures, I can say that what we've done is pretty much always well written and as good as or better than what you see in Dungeon. Perhaps the quality that I most enjoy about what the FDP guys create is the story, the atmosphere, the mood. They all own a wonderful sense of what makes for good fantasy, for fun and epic adventuring. And these are guys who cut their teeth (and perhaps other body parts) on 1E and 2E D&D.

Designing adventures in today's d20 climate, however, presents a host of challenges not seen before in D&D. Beyond the flexibility of just the core rules, designers now face a market teeming with variant rules of all sorts -- and designers get to work almost strictly with just the SRD and whatever new rules/crunch they develop on their own. How does one design an adventure, for instance, and take into account all the race- and class-specific books available? all the PrCs out there? all the new feats? Remember, we're talking about both WotC and 3rd-party products as part of the mix. Granted, the beauty of the OGL allows designers to use OGC from other publishers, but how much of this can be done in an adventure? If a designer does incorporate OGC, she most likely needs to provide the complete rules in the adventure: no sense hoping that the GM might happen to own the specific OGC source.

In the end, adventures may be just as popular as ever (which is still not as popular as, say, campaign settings), but the d20 landscape sort of thins them out. Lots of publishers producing lots of adventures greys the skies somewhat, so for a few adventures now to stand out as "classics" means that they have caught on with a large enough segment of gamers to become part of a common experience . . . shared gaming lore, if you will.

Anyway, I've rambled on long enough, and my dog is telling me in no uncertain terms that we better get to the park, like, SOON.

Again, this is a great thread!


Take care,
Mike

 

[Celebrim]

If I imagine myself a publisher that has to choose between thousands of modules, I compose for my a check list to kinda narrow down the field. It might not be the same as your check list, and it might not be the same as the dungeon checklist, but I'd want a check list of 'basic features' I'd expect from any worthy professional module.

1) Good story: A good module is like a short story. Remember the scene in 6th sense? No, not the one with the twist, the one in which the kid says, "In order to have to tell a good story, you have to have a twist." There has to be at least one moment in the story of paradigm shift. There has to be a moment when the reader/player is stunned by the fact that his previous conception of the situation was wildly and completely wrong. IMO, The mark of a good DM is the ability to hit those moments full force. It is that moment when the old wizard reaches his hand out to the child and says 'Come here, Cutter'. It is the moment when you open the newspaper just because it is something that IC your character would do, and the headline reads 'Summit of World Leaders to Commence Tommorrow' and you suddenly realize that you aren't trying to solve a murder; you are trying to save the world.
No paradigm shift; No sale.

2) Evocative Situations: At some point in the module there have to be poignant scenes for the DM to describe and to 'attach' the players to the environment. These scenes make the players 'care' about the game. They make it seem to matter whether they defeat the villian, save the child, or otherwise act heroically. As a DM you sense it the moment the player stops playing in order to get XP or the +5 hackmaster, and starts playing because he starts caring about these fictional characters you've created. There comes a point in good story in which the player is not trying to kill the villian because that is the point of the game, but because he really hates the villian. It I can't find some scenes like that in the story I'm not going to buy it.

3) Fresh and Original: Ideally, we aren't just dealing with a good story, we are dealing with a story I would have probably not come up with on my own. It is outside my standard bag of tricks. It uses some technique of hiding the twist that I haven't seen before. It has a really good hook. It has a cast of characters that is memorable. It has NPC's who are so fully fleshed that the players will remember thier names long after the events are concluded.

4) A good map: I can't over emphasize how important map craftmanship is to a good professional module. In my opinion, map craftsmanship is one of the rarest talents among DM's. I've known plenty of good DM's that couldn't draw an interesting map if thier life depended on it. The map is the most important character in the plot of almost any module. The map is the visual texture of the imagination. A good map is the foundation good module, and most of the professional modules out today fail for me on the map test.
To me, the paragon of all published maps, the one that every adventure should strive toward is I6. You don't have to have as big of a map as I6, but you should have as interesting of a map as I6. Castle Ravenloft is filled with evocative settings for things to happen in. It's 3D maze of towers and levels and traps which lead the party back in bewildering circles, separate them, confuse them, and _SCARE_ them is a perfect marriage with the mood of the setting and the nature of the villain. Every professional module should be striving for the same harmony of effect.
In short, the map needs to appear as if it was made by someone with professional architechtural training, or your module just doesn't strike me as being all that professional. First edition, especially the Hickman modules, had that mastery of map technique in spades and noone since has rivaled it in my opinion.
Mind you, the map doesn't have to be a spatial one, and the
dungeon crawl itself should mostly be a servant of the story. An interesting event map is just as intriguing as a dungeon.

5) Good dungeoneering: This is the point which I think sales most modules to most publishers, and of all the aspects of making a good module I think it is probably the most common talent among DM's. This is the ability to play with the rules to invent the cunning overvillian, the original minion, the interesting synergy of two creatures not normally encountered together, the diverse set of challenges (tactical, RP, problem solving), the cunningly trapped room, the simple logic puzzle, the new monster with an unusual ability, and so forth. Some folks do it better than others, but I've scarsely met an experienced DM who can't do this. A DM who can't do this doesn't keep a party together for long, and for someone like me this is dime a dozen. It takes a module just stuffed with original dungeoneering to even perk my interest (RttToEE), and a module otherwise featuring original dungeoneering can fall flat for me (HoKS) because it is lacking so much elsewhere.
If I am a good indication of the average DM, the problem a publisher has with trying to sell a module based on dungeoneering alone is that I typically don't bother to buy modules like this because I don't really want to run the whole thing. Instead, I browse through them for the best ideas for traps, foes, and problems that I want to steal and incorporate in my own stories, and that is the last time I pick them up.

 

[nikolai]

I'm with you all the way Celebrim. I'd also like to add one of my own pet peeves:

6) Standard Monsters. I'm fed up of seeing monster listing which read something like "Snarks 4 (see MM): 8, 10, 12, 7 hp" or copies of Monster Manual stat blocks in the back of the module. There's no reason why designers can't spend the standard 15 point buy for abilities elsewhere, reassign the standard skill and feat (& equipment) selections of monsters and give us something a little out the the ordinary.

It's much more interesting to encounter orc berserkers (warriors with toughness and a raised Con) than the standard MM ones, or an elderly Gryphon who's strong but doesn't have the dexterity he used to. I could carry on with examples ad infinitum. Doing this sort of thing is quite simple with 3e, but I very rarely see it.

I accept that it does take plenty of effort to actually do this, but for me that's one of the main reasons for buying a module someone else has written.

nikolai.

 

[Kichwas]

There is no glut. Find me a list of 15th level modules and tell me how many people bought the DMG. No glut, sorry.

Walk into the average gaming store and count the modules on the shelf. Ask how fast they're selling...


There's serious glut. My local store has taken to a 20% discount if you buy 3 or more d20 books in an effort to clear out their shelves. Some of that stuff has sat there for more than a year and a half.

They range over all the levels. No module, of any level, sells. Even if it's the only one out covering it's area or level.

You don't need to cover every level from multiple angles to have glut, you merely have to exceed the demand for product.

The reason there are so few 15th and similar level modules is that by the time you reach that level, most games are highly intwined into a themed plotline that is pulling them along. As such, any module at that level is going to be a hard sell unless it is a continuation of something from an earlier level. And much like movie sequels, each suceeding part gets less eyeballs.

So there are nearly no modules for this level, as the demand is so small as to be insignifigant. At this level of demand one module is enough to fill the market, two makes for glut.

 

[Kichwas]

For instance, Rapan Athuk gets alot of praise, but I honestly feel that any decent and motivated DM can turn out a Rapan Athuk quality module EVERY MONTH from here to the end of eternity. There is nothing at all compelling or inspiring to me about Rapan Athuk - though I suppose it may fall into such a category for you if you've never seen a large lethal dungeon before.

This one reminded me of what I used to turn out back when I usd those random charts and tables at the back of the 1E DMG. I suppose a lot of people liked it because they stuck with D&D during the 80's and 90's when TSR just wasn't turning out that kind of stuff anymore.

 

[Celebrim]

"This one reminded me of what I used to turn out back when I usd those random charts and tables at the back of the 1E DMG."

Funny, but I had had the exact same thought, arcady.

Nikolai: And the really annoying part is things like that are the absolutely easiest part of writing a module. There really is no excuse for any module not having a selection of monsters with unusual abilities in unexpected combinations.

However, my point in posting was to say that part of the reason that I'm not buying 3rd edition modules, is that that basic requirement of varied and unusual monsters seems to be _the only thing_ that editors are judging module submissions by if what is being published is any judge. 'City of the Spider Queen', 'Heart of Nightfang Spire', and 'Rappan Athuk' are prime examples of modules that take full advantage of templating and adding classes to monsters, but which have absolutely no other redeeming features at all IMO. I could write a program that accepts a CR and generates endless hordes of templated, leveled creatures. It takes no imagination whatsoever, and I hate to burst people's bubble, but probably 80% of the DM's out there could crank out more leveled subvillians and thier attending thugs than they could ever manage to squeeze into a plotline. If you are only targetting a 1/5 of 1/5 of the already relatively small audience, no wonder you can't make money on modules.

Mark my words. We are hitting crunchy bit saturation. Sooner or latter everyone is going to have more rule books than they can use, and the only people still making money are going to be the ones that have settings and stories that excite people and attract a fan following.

 

[jester47]

I think one of the most overlooked problems with modules and why they don't sell well is structure. People are turned off by boxed text modules.

What people want is locations. The best module format(IMO) is the one followed by ICE and some of GWs WHFRP stuff. Thier mdules present a location, and then present adventure hooks and information.

I think if publishers followed this tactic several things would happen:

1. People could get more milage out of the product.
2. The product acts like a location sourcebook rather than being locked into one set of events.
3. The product becomes reusable rather than disposable.

Think about it. Would WotC have been able to get away with the Return to Series if they had published in this way?

An example. The Temple of Elemental Evil. Imagine if it had just given maps (pre destruction and post destruction), its history and detailed Hommlet and Nulb. Then it gave adventure information for the temple at different time in its history. Everyone would already have Any potential sequal and could use the location as they saw fit.

I think such a change is needed. And if such a change comes, modules will sell more.

Aaron.

 

[Fenes 2]

I have to agree. I would probably buy adventures that consist of a location and a great number of hooks instead of a mega-dungeon crawl.

 

[Celtavian]

Re

Modules still exist, in fact, a greater quantity of modules exist than ever before in the history of gaming. There is no lack of modules.

WotC is probably steering away from modules because they make less money than other books and if they did modules, they would hurt one of the primary markets of other D20 companies for little to no gain.

It seems that more than a few d20 companies make good money off a popular module. My buddy bought a bunch of Necromancer games products just because he liked Rappan Athuk so much.

He ran our Greyhawk characters through the module. That just goes to show that a fun module often goes beyond the boundaries of the fantasy world it was created for.

Given that there are so many modules out there, I would think it has become more difficult to create a module with this kind of appeal. That is probably why WotC doesn't bother anymore, leaving the chance of a universally popular module to other D20 companies.

Even back in the old days, there were only a few truly stand out modules that just about everyone played. The three obvious being Keep on the Borderlands, Temple of Elemental Evil and Against the Giants.

Module creation leaves too much to chance. Better to stick with sure products like rule and source books and leave the chance products to other d20 companies.

 

[tf360]

I'm not sure if the product that you're discussing is a module or a mini-campaign setting at that point. For example, the FRCS detailed specific areas of the Realms and then provided several adventure hooks. I can't imagine that anyone forked up $40 for some adventure hooks.

When it comes down to it, most DM's buy modules for one reason, time. They simply don't have the time to write their own material. So providing a product that provides adventure hooks, doesn't really solve the time matter. I'm certain that given the preference, 90% of DM's would opt to gamemaster their own material because it is tailor made for their campaign and they are intimately familiar with it. They can create whatever location or monster template that they want, stock it with any treasure that they want, etc. etc. Most DM's have enough talent to create an interesting story line and a good setting, while only a handful have the ability to craft sourcebooks and other generic products.

I'm also a little skeptical about the success of the mega adventure. I think that a better approach to the mega adventure is a series of interconnected adventures that work both as a massive adventure and as independent adventures in a specific location. The mega adventure can detail the location, while providing additional campaign hooks and potential adventuring ideas in addition to the adventures themselves. The last mega adventure that I was involved with, CotSQ at GenCon, was terribly disappointing. Albeit, I only ran the prologue section of the adventure, however running it for four hours was painful enough, let alone doing it for multiple sessions.