Why do 3e/3.5e modules suck?

[BiggusGeekus]

Hmm. The way I see it, the 'crunch' is the stuff that sees play at the gaming table, while the 'fluff' tends to get forgotten once I leave the bathroom.

Stop going to the bathroom.

There! Problem solved!

 

[Mark Chance]

Not So...!

There are many good 3.X modules out there. Heck, I've written two of them. For 3.0, The Office & Affairs of Love, a PDF available from Anubium. Most recently, for 3.5 and Dawnforge, check out the recently released Path of Legend.

 

[Staffan]

W3rd.

It was Dark Sun's Arcane Shadows module in particular that led to my initial post.

Arcane Shadows is a good one too, though a bit more railroaded than Dragon's Crown. Freedom! is also a favorite of mine, especially as a campaign starter - there are lots of loose ends hanging around in that one which leaves you with lots of stuff to build more adventures on.

Now admittedly, Dark Sun modules require much more extensive rewriting than most in order to fit them into a homebrew, but it can be done.

Entrenched bad guys are still entrenched bad guys. The world mightn't be a lifeless desert but it's still a horrific place to live (for whatever reason) and the-benevolent-NPC-who-is-mortally-wounded-at-the-start-of-the-adventure-and-becomes-the-MacGuffin-that-must-be-taken-to-a-special-place-in-order-to-begin-the-healing-of-the-world remains just that.

Of course, but for something on the scale of Dragon's Crown, that's a lot of rewriting work. And it would IMO remove what made it so great - the way it really hooked into the setting.

That's the problem with generic modules - they work so hard to not be attached to any particular setting that they may as well take place underground.

Well, most of them do

And I think it was Steve Miller that pointed out that the differences between the "generic slush" D&D settings (e.g. Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Mystara, most homebrews) are largely negligible, and that it's childs play to adapt modules from one to the next.

Indeed. I could easily most stuff intended for FR in Greyhawk, and vice versa. Dragonlance and Mystara might be a bit more trouble, since they've distanced themselves a little from default D&D - Dragonlance moreso, the only D&D cliché I can recall is missing from Mystara are drow (there are shadow elves, but they're quite different from drow). It's when you get to the exotic/oddball stuff that there are problems switching settings: Al-Qadim, Spelljammer, Planescape, Dark Sun, Ravenloft.

 

[Psion]

2e modules are better to read, 3e modules (at least some) are better to play.

I dunno about that.

Dead Gods and Rod of Seven Parts were way more interesting to read *and* play than RttToEE or City of the Spider Queen.

Of course, the Night Below, was (at least for part of it) about as droll to play as the aforementioned 3e modules.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Hmmm, nobodies mentioned what is probably the bigget reason.

The common wisdom now is that adventures don't sell. This is borne out by a great deal of sales data, and is pretty much agreed to by everyone in the business. Back in the 2e days, WoTC/TSR was making modules, with the best designers in the game doing work that today goes to the d20 companies.

Nowadays, the best designers are working on sourcebooks, both at WoTC and at the d20 companies. Adventures are secondary, because they aren't profitable enough to have the top designers making them, or spending the time they did in the 2e days (which were terribly inefficient).

That alone is reason enough for the quality shift you see, leaving aside issues of crunch vs. fluff.

This is my theory - though in interest of full disclosure, I almost always make up my own adventures, and am not a big buyer of modules.

 

[Sir Elton]

So it appears to me, based on this thread and others similiar, that there are a lot of people out there who want modules that take next to nothing to use it, want a plot-line that is totally original, yet fits seemlessly into your on-going campaign or home brew world. Plus the ecology and the politics of the module most be completely fleshed out and explained, and still fit into with what you have going in your on-going campaign or homebrew, or it must be perfectly written to whatever your tastes are, despite the fact the author doesn't know you and can't read your mind.

I can't read anyone's mind here. Can you? I generally write what I think is interesting. They want me to do egyptian themed modules, so I do Egyptian themed modules in the future because I like the Egyptians. The Kingdom that Egyptus founded and Pharaoh ruled is so cool and mysterious! As for doing something for people's campaigns, no. Forget it. I don't know your campaign so I'll do what I like.

I, on the other hand, am happy if it has good maps, good NPC's/monsters that are fully and correctly statted out, and a handful of good ideas that i can use for inspiration. I do everything else i need to do to make it fit my campaign.

That is why I like Necromancer and the others i have mentioned. They say here, this is a neat setting I have come up with, here are a bunch of NPC's, locations, Magic item recomendations, treasure recommendations, and plot arc ideas, etc... Use what you will and add/modify to your hearts content.

This is the best part of writing modules. Telling the DM that they can transmogrify the module to fit their vision. All you really need is a map, some characters, and a situation and let the player characters tell the story for themselves.

Anyone think i am missing the mark? Or can think of other reasons I am missing and haven't been mentioned here? I am honestly mystified why modules aren't the best sellers out there.

Me too. Anyone worth their salt can write rules, but writing a module requires more imagination and creative writing skills. All you need to do is write technically and you can write rules. A module requires both technical and creative writing skills to pull off successfully. So I am puzzled as to why modules aren't selling.

 

[Snoweel]

There are many good 3.X modules out there. Heck, I've written two of them. For 3.0, The Office & Affairs of Love, a PDF available from Anubium. Most recently, for 3.5 and Dawnforge, check out the recently released Path of Legend.

Yeah well, I meant "Why do 3e/3.5e modules suck apart from those two?"

Hmmm, nobodies mentioned what is probably the bigget reason.

The common wisdom now is that adventures don't sell. This is borne out by a great deal of sales data, and is pretty much agreed to by everyone in the business.

Now I could be wrong, but I think you're confusing cause and effect here.

Anyone worth their salt can write rules, but writing a module requires more imagination and creative writing skills. All you need to do is write technically and you can write rules. A module requires both technical and creative writing skills to pull off successfully.

I'm with you.

I'd ideally game with just the three core rulebooks (and possibly extra monster books, depending on the quality of the artwork) as well as Unearthed Arcana, which pretty much fixed everything I didn't like about D&D.

Other than those books, I don't want to pay for new spells, magic items or prestige classes (or God forbid, more core classes) - I have all the tools I need to make them myself.

What I do need is adventure ideas, which I usually find modules to generate/provide the most of, even if I barely use any of the module as written.

So yeah, I want to see more modules or (even better) mini-campaigns.

And I don't give a damn if there's not a single stat block in there.

 

[el-remmen]

Personally, I think the best modules written for D&D were in the pages of Dungeon, for both 1E and 2E.

No publsihed modules can even compare (let alone surpass) some of the best adventures ever by people like Willie Walsh, Bill Slavicsek or Ted Zuvich.

I honestly, have not bought even one module for 3E (except for RttToEE - but mostly to cannibalize maps and see how he did the "re-fill" of areas over time thing), because I have about 60 issues of Dungeon, between them and wiritng my own scenarios I have enough adventures to last me til I die. . . .

 

[Treebore]

Emmerle,

I agree that there have been a number of very good adventures in Dungeon over the years, it is why I bought it from issue 11 on until 5 months ago. But I have bought a lot of modules that are just as good and better than anything I have seen in Dungeon. Dungeon cannot do Grey Citadel, Tomb of Abysthor, Rappan Athuk, or Lost City of Barakus. Nor can it do Banewarrens and another bunch of modules I cannot even think of right now.

Modules are far more useful to me than sourcebooks. I think another thing module writers should do is try writing one's that use the "oddball" rules, such as underwater, flying, etc... So it can also showcase how little used rules work. Of course the author needs to be right.

I would also like to see modules that attempt to write up the background for the "standard PrC's", and integrate that background into the adventure.

One module series I think would be great is one centered around the specialist wizards of Thay in FR. The main theme being each module describes one of the specialty schools, with maps, and any associated "standard PrC" that school would use. Give me the major players and some political plot hooks with suggestions to illustrate where the author thinks all of this can go. Then I will do the rest. The geographical and god references can be left vague, as well as feats "unique" to FR (provide suggestions for those using FR), and it will be generic enough for anyone to use in any campain world.

 

[d4]

Me too. Anyone worth their salt can write rules, but writing a module requires more imagination and creative writing skills. All you need to do is write technically and you can write rules. A module requires both technical and creative writing skills to pull off successfully. So I am puzzled as to why modules aren't selling.

i don't agree. i find technical writing to be much more difficult than creative writing.

i don't feel confident in my ability to write new rules for the game, so i leave that to the professionals. however, i can easily come up with scads of ideas for adventures, so i don't buy modules.

an adventure only requires technical writing if you're actually going to write down all the details. given that i improvise 95% of my GMing, i don't bother to write that stuff down. all i need is a good idea.

(yes, i know i can get good ideas from reading published adventures. i'll start doing that as soon as i run out of my own ideas.)