Why D&D is slowly cutting its own throat.

[MerricB]

Module writing is, IMO, dead at WotC.

I guess you are just ignoring the three Eberron adventures, the upcoming Forgotten Realms adventure, the ongoing series of free online adventures (including the new one from six days ago), and the two Fantastic Locations (map/adventure products)?

Yes, there's nothing like making completely unsupported assertions.

 

[JoeGKushner]

As a perpetual hombrewer, I'm very curious about this, Sholari - what makes published modules better than the homebrew adventures (and campaign-settings?) you experienced?

Done. The adventure is done. I've been in many games that had to stall as the GM didn't know what the next move was.

Maps. Most GMs I've seen couldn't make a map to save their own life.

Level Balance: The baseline is there. Once again, another case where a GM not sure of what CR/EL is killing off too many players. (Been there, done that.)

Items: Same thing as the baseline is following standard D&D treasures so to speak and you don't have to worry about finding Black Razor in the 1st level dungeon.

 

[Umbran]

I'd say that there are 5% of GMs out there that are truly talented and they should not be using published adventures, because they can deliver a better end product, but the other 95% would be better served by integrating the quality of people more talented than them.

I'm sorry, but I have to ask - is your experience in gaming so broad that you think you've played with enough GMs that you can actually put numbers on the estimate and have any prayer of accuracy?

 

[diaglo]

I guess you are just ignoring the three Eberron adventures, the upcoming Forgotten Realms adventure, the ongoing series of free online adventures (including the new one from six days ago), and the two Fantastic Locations (map/adventure products)?

what if you want to ignore the Eberron Railroad?

 

[Felon]

Module writing is, IMO, dead at WotC.

Ryan Dancey laid it out for us a couple of months back. One of the big gains of the open-game license was supposed to be that WotC could step back from adventure publication and let third-party publishers go nuts cranking out modules for the consumer. It was not an illogical decision, after all, because they'd just be publishing material that countless DM's had already gone to the effort of putting together. Surely every DM has their pet-project that they wish they could share with the community at large and bask in their appreciation.

But a great deal of the third-party publishers aren't doing that. They're publishing their own settings with supplemental rules material, loaded chock-full of ill-conceived and poorly-designed feats, spellls, and PrC's. But they're not writing adventures.

So, according to Dancey, WotC will wind up stepping into that void once again. This time, they will make their products minis-friendly. I'm loving it.

Even Dungeon magazine is cutting back on modules, becoming more of a DM's magazine.

Not sure what you're talking about. Dungeon cast off Polyhedron and is standing fast with their three-adventure format. And that's a pretty ideal balance of quantity versus quality.

Eberron is over-hyped. I think much of Eberron's success is due to the fact that we're constantly being told that it's a huge success by WotC's Marketing department and it's easy to be a success when the majority of the current effort is being directed toward that product line.

Yeah, Eberron turns me off, turns a lot of folks off. The last thing D&D needed was to ratchet up the magic level another a couple of notches. D&D seems to have a commitment to making D&D as over-the-top and inaccessible as possible. But giving credit where it's due, I do like the way that Eberron adventures are paced like a three-act movie, with some investigation and some scenes designed specifically to build tension.

 

[Testament]

A WotC rep once told me, "This is the same company that puts out a new edition of Magic every two years." Several people have admitted that D&D 4 is already pretty much on its merry way, possibly next year. In short, the corporate muckitty-mucks see a new edition as a constant refreshment of their intellectual property. New core rules/base system changes sell books, although the paradigm may shift when D&D 4.0 arrives.

In other news, the sky is falling. Magic is reset every two years to ensure that new players can enter the Standard and Extended environments and not have their owning ensured, the paradigm is completely different.

Module writing is, IMO, dead at WotC. Even the RPGA is drying up when it comes to modules.

What colour is the frickin' sky where that's the case? The RPGA is continuing to provide us with modules on a regular basis (I just played through three excellent Living Greyhawk mods on the weekend, I highly recommend "Atonement"), and Wizards is re-entering the adventure market, albeit on a limited basis, this year.

 

[Felon]

I'm sorry, but I have to ask - is your experience in gaming so broad that you think you've played with enough GMs that you can actually put numbers on the estimate and have any prayer of accuracy?

He's likely speaking in the same general terms that you were a couple pages back when you were insisting good fluff isn't all that hard for DM's to come up with. Granted, there is a difference in that he's actually guessing at a number rather that using a cryptic qualifier like "any DM worth his Cheetos", but the former is preferrable to the latter.

 

[The Shaman]

*snip*

With the exception of mapmaking which is largely a function of artistic ability, everything you're describing is part of the learning curve of GMing - it sounds like you're suggesting that most GMs have little experience and should default to adventures so the players don't have to suffer through the GM developing these skills.

This of course begs the question, if GMs rely too much on published adventures for their game content, will they have the opportunity to gain these skills?

 

[MerricB]

This of course begs the question, if GMs rely too much on published adventures for their game content, will they have the opportunity to gain these skills?

Well, given the amount of material Wizards produce to help DMs produce their own adventures, I don't think that is a problem.

The DMG, Sandstorm, Frostburn, Heroes of Battle, DMG2, Lords of Madness - all of those are books produced by WotC that are particularly suited to that purpose.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

what if you want to ignore the Eberron Railroad?

Still new adventures apart from those.

Actually, I just finished running "Whispers of the Vampire's Blade" - it was a lot less railroady than it read. Believe it or not, 4th level PCs have a lot of trouble catching up to a vampire who doesn't want to be caught.

Cheers!