Why do 3e/3.5e modules suck?

[Snoweel]

I was at my mom/mum's house last night and I found my old 2e modules.

Now, while I love 3.5e and consider it an improvement over 2e in every way (which really hit home as I glanced at the old 2e stat blocks), I was struck by how interesting the old 2e modules were, in terms of plot and character, in comparison to the modules released for the newer edition.

Why is this? My guess is that products have a real crunch focus these days, at the expense of interesting stories, characters and other fluff.

Whaddaya reckon?

 

[Aaron2]

Now, while I love 3.5e and consider it an improvement over 2e in every way (which really hit home as I glanced at the old 2e stat blocks), I was struck by how interesting the old 2e modules were, in terms of plot and character, in comparison to the modules released for the newer edition.

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

Starting IIRC with the Dragonlance adventures of 1e, there was a real focus on story-driven (i.e. railroading) adventures for D&D. They tried to get away from that with 3e. There have been a few story driven adventures for 3e, such as the Iron Kingdom Witchfire ones but they are the exception now.


Aaron

 

[Crothian]

There are plenty of good 3ed modules also plenty of sucky ones, but the same is true for 2ed as well.

 

[Wormwood]

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

Seconded.

Hold on...lemme ask my group.

[...]

Okay: thirded, fourthed, fifthed.

 

[Eosin the Red]

3E/3.5E stuff is generally sucky to read. The older stuff told cool stories along with an adventure or a setting scenerio. This is not just modules. I did enjoy reading Fields of Blood, Midnight, The Dark Side Sourcebook (Star Wars), and Book of the Rightious but other d20 titles that are entertaining to read elude me. The entertaining stuff stands out these days where once I would have said that the boring stuff stood out.

I am writing a module right now that I hope will avoid being sucky

Module Announcement

 

[Wormwood]

Why is this? My guess is that products have a real crunch focus these days, at the expense of interesting stories, characters and other fluff

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.

So in that regard, the only thing that 'sucks' is when a perfectly good module is needlessly padded with background detail that my players will never, ever need.

Unless it's boxed text, of course. That stuff is important.

 

[teitan]

I think the biggest reason is that 2E modules ASSUMED you were playing in their setting. You played a Dragonlance novel... it was Dragonlanceish, you played a Forgotten Realms module, it felt like the Realms. Even when they dropped the logo from the modules, each one still had an assumed setting like a Paladin in Hell assumed Planescape etc.

In 3e we are getting modules that are not geared to a specific setting, most of the time. They are written for a more generic flavour with the idea that the DM will add the flavour him/herself. Much like the rulebooks, the modules are toolkits in the setting department.

I prefer the latter approach myself as most modules I have purchased (Necromancer Games almost exclusively) have been very easy to convert to another setting and very, very cool scenarios.

Jason

 

[The_Gneech]

Well, I dunno ... most of my pre-3.x stuff are very early AD&D things written by the venerable Col_Pladoh, such as The Keep on the Borderlands or The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth -- and what makes them cool to read is that distinctive Gygaxian style. The other stuff I have before 3.x is the Lankhmar material, which varies greatly in quality and a few of the "Complete X Handbooks," of which the one for thieves is excellent and the rest aren't worth the read.

As for 3.x, there is a certain genericness to the WotC stuff as reading material, I don't deny it -- the same way that most of the post-Howard writers of Conan stories seem very generic compared to REH himself. However, a lot of it plays very well once you put your own spin on it, and that's more important from a gaming perspective, if not necessarily from a sales perspective. (There's a lot of older stuff that I bought just to read, knowing full well I'd probably never use it in a game ... Lankhmar being a good example.)

Some of it may simply be that D&D isn't "new" any more -- it doesn't have that raw vitality of everything being an experiment and every idea being a new idea. AD&D made gaming (relatively) mainstream, and 2e took it in all sorts of new directions, some great and some not-so-great ... but one thing it did was very thoroughly explore possibilities. If a lot of 3.x seems "ho, hum," it's possibly because 2e had been there and done that.

3.x has yet to really find itself within the gaming culture, although d20/OGL is certainly having an impact. But even if the individual products don't have quite the same oomph (the adventure path started by Sunless Citadel, as good as it is, is no Against the Giants/Vault of the Drow), the system itself is much more robust, and that will only help in the long run.

-The Gneech

PS: Let us not discount the amazing power of nostalgia. In 10-15 years, people will be fondly reminiscing about what a neat character Meepo was and wishing these new expansion crystals had the same soul...

 

[Altalazar]

I think there is a large nostalgia factor.

I also think, linking back to the thread about what made the old modules better than the 2E ones, that the more generic and open ended modules are actually the better ones. The ones where the DM fills in the backgrounds and it is easily adaptable to any world, both in locale and plot.

There is a whiff of railroading to the "detailed" story modules - as someone said, they are a good read but they are poor for real play, just the opposite of the open ended modules.

 

[kamosa]

OGL vs Strict quality control

I think the OGL has allowed a lot of modules that would never have seen the light of day to emerge in 3E. Instead of being squashed by the all knowing, all caring hand and eye of TSR, the crappy modules are allowed to go out and prosper.

You get more, but it isn't always as good.