D&D 5E Why is WoTc still pushing AP's when the majority of gamers want something else?

[doctorbadwolf]

Why is Corpsetaker still constantly making these obnoxious nerd-rage threads when the majority of forumites want something else?

Your initial premise is nonsensical. The amount of people who run homebrew says nothing about the demand for "adventures", nor even the demand for other products. I run homebrew, prior to 5e I had purchased almost no modules or adventures but I am VERY happy with LMOP, SKT and CoS. My demand for other products like setting materials is extremely low, after all I run homebrew. I could use a few more monsters so I got Volo's and love it.

I don't really want anything else right now, especially a big book of crunch, but others do so eventually it will come, probably in a form palatable to most.

"Shove APs down our throats"

Quoted for truth.

I homebrew, and APs are extremely valuable to me bc I use them when winging an adventure, or when the players derail my plans, or when we decide last minute we're gonna play an adventure tonight. I cannibalise them, but I like that if I want giants, there is a thing for that, and if I want elementals, there is a thing for that, complete with encounters and basic fluff I can tweak to my liking.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

They do. Sounds exactly like Wednesday night Adventure League at your Friendly Neighborhood Gaming Store. You can also now download those quick adventures from the DMs guild.

The APs are the next level. For a first time DM who want's to do a campaign for her friends but isn't ready to build one from scratch yet.

"Casual design" isn't supposed to mean "absence of design." What you're talking about sounds like running the first 1% of the plot of an AP. I'm talking about something which is designed to be a standalone, episodic game, with accompanying game structures.

Actually, D&D should be a whole family of games, all using the same physical resolution mechanics but designed using the idioms and structures of a specific game genre. "D&D: Betrayal" can be a dungeon crawl where one person has a secret objective and will betray you halfway through (think of the opening scenes of Raiders of the Lost Ark); whichever side completes their objective gives a bunch of XP. "D&D: Dungeon Crawl" is the basic "kill the monsters, take their treasure" dungeon crawl (probably what you're referring to when you mention Adventurer's League). "D&D: Mystery" is a scene-oriented mystery (murder or theft) with a possible fight at the climax; you get XP if you solve the mystery and/or right the wrong. "D&D: Mad Mad World" is a team-oriented, time-sensitive dungeon crawl where two teams are racing for the same objective through a dungeon, and the first one to get the treasure and get out gets the XP--play will proceed by turns through a randomly-constructed dungeon. "D&D: Freeform Exploration" is just a sandbox. Characters which survive one game of D&D are eligible for use in any other game of D&D. Enough related games and you have something which you can start to call a campaign.

All of these can use the same physical resolution mechanics of D&D (attack rolls, skill checks, etc.) but the game structures are different. E.g. in "D&D: Mystery" you explicitly identify affordances and potential scene transitions for the players to activate, and the players accept that there will be a higher degree of linearity ("railroading") to keep the game short and fun; in "D&D: Mad Mad World" you have the teams take ten-minute turns, which means that long actions such as "we take a short rest" occupy multiple turns and are disincentivized (by player boredom among other things). You might find that you need other things too like multiple DMs in order to run turns in parallel; or in some cases (like in D&D: Betrayal) it might make more sense to have no DM, only a designated "monster advocate" for each scene who runs the monsters in accordance with the guidance in the game. ("The spider chases you; on any turn when it doesn't catch up to you, roll a d6; on a 5-6, it gives up chasing you.")

What I'm trying to say is that if you want a game that is accessible to casual players, it's weird to use campaigns and APs as a base for reaching out to them. It makes more sense to think up an actual game which ties into D&D but still has its own rules, beginning, and end, and takes place entirely in a single night. Then a campaign is the continuity between associated games, not a game itself.

 

[Corpsetaker]

Are you under the impression that anyone doesn't know this?
@Corpsetaker is that kid in grade school who ate bugs to gross people out because he couldn't (or didn't care to) differentiate positive and negative attention*. Guess what, we're giving him that attention because everyone loves having someone to which they can feel superior. It's immature of him and immature of us and everyone is getting what they want out of the situation (except the overall maturity of the board, and those who want that can simply steer clear of his threads).

*He might even originally been serious in his motives. After all, WotC-isn't-meeting-my-preferences, is a rational position. It is only the and-that's-more-than-just-unfortunate-but-instead-malfeasance/them-not-listening-to-their-customers bit that requires spurious logic.

Actually, I was that kid who sat in the back with his head down who woke up just long enough to take his tests and exams and ace them. I was that kid who's parents had to threaten him almost every night to do his homework, but when that homework was done it was always right. I was that kid who went to college, grew up only a little and still managed to finish in the top of his class.

I now own my own home, not a mortgage, two cars, a wife, takes trips around the world, and lives a comfortable life as a consultant.

Basically I was that kid that you and your friends were most likely jealous of.

Now if you want to talk about the discussion at hand then we can do that. If you want to insult people then you are on the wrong discussion forum.

 

[dave2008]

What I'm trying to say is that if you want a game that is accessible to casual players, it's weird to use campaigns and APs as a base for reaching out to them. It makes more sense to think up an actual game which ties into D&D but still has its own rules, beginning, and end, and takes place entirely in a single night. Then a campaign is the continuity between associated games, not a game itself.

Something like Lost Minds of Phandelver maybe? But you could have multiple versions for different themes and locals.

 

[Corpsetaker]

Something like Lost Minds of Phandelver maybe? But you could have multiple versions for different themes and locals.

I have found that new players I know are a bit put off of AP's because they feel a bit overloaded and tend to get bored rather quickly. Adventures like the Lost Mines and other short ones gives them a sense of completion early on. It allows them to get to know their characters better so they can gradually move on to an AP.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Actually, I was that kid who sat in the back with his head down who woke up just long enough to take his tests and exams and ace them. I was that kid who's parents had to threaten him almost every night to do his homework, but when that homework was done it was always right. I was that kid who went to college, grew up only a little and still managed to finish in the top of his class.

I now own my own home, not a mortgage, two cars, a wife, takes trips around the world, and lives a comfortable life as a consultant.

Basically I was that kid that you and your friends were most likely jealous of.

Now if you want to talk about the discussion at hand then we can do that. If you want to insult people then you are on the wrong discussion forum.

Oh, CS! Given that I'm fully accepting of your role here and what you're doing, there was really only one way you could disappoint me. That would be denying what you were doing when called out on it.

Seriously, I'm not even trying to be insulting. You've got a good gig going here being the guy to push people's buttons and seeing them fly off the handle. You're low-brow royalty! Why aren't you owning that?

And no, neither me nor my friends would ever be jealous of you. You've taken the easy way out on getting attention instead of doing the hard work/heavy lifting of producing commentary and conversation that is engaging and thought provoking. I approve of you because you fill a need, but it's not respectable work.

 

[hejtmane]

That is the question what do you call home brew, I run my own campaigns which are ever changing by players decisions so I go off more frame work and adjust ny fights by those decisions normaly I have a rough outline sets of monsters and backup encounters depending on decisions made. In that sense I homebrew with my campaigns. I also home brew magic items not all but I do quite a bit but I still love more magic items gives me more ideas to leverage.

Now classes and feats I usually stick to the book I will modify a classes I deemed bad case in point not had anyone want to play it yet but I would modify the beastmaster in current form it blows imo and on Frenzy Barb I may make a small adjustment not sure no one wants to play one after they see the totem tree and I would revamp the BattleRager because they screwed up it does not match the books and what people think of when using a Battlerager so once again I offered to fix it but most people pass because it blows in the book.

Other than that I pretty much stick to the book and I make house rules from there but that is more minor stuff like I have a player playing a barbarian based of tavern brawler so I allow his rage bonus to stack with his unarmed attack it is not like it breaks anything because they can use a higher damaging weapon and get it just a bad rule not sure why it is even exist.

We do the old school house rule of 1 and 20 auto miss and auto hit

First we need to clarify what is HomeBrew not everyone does the same thing for homebrews. I try to avoid homebrewing classes or feats I will modify current ones if I feel like they really need it but overall I try to only homebrew my campaigns and make house rules for the gaps.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Actually, D&D should be a whole family of games, all using the same physical resolution mechanics but designed using the idioms and structures of a specific game genre.

I don't know if D&D is ready to rush into the 80s like that, and become a 'core system.' ;P

Actually, it did, back then if not officially, and d20 is very much the core system of D&D, anyway. But it's a neat idea to do it officially.

What I'm trying to say is that if you want a game that is accessible to casual players, it's weird to use campaigns and APs as a base for reaching out to them.

AL & APs do give the casual player base an immediate sense of belonging and shared experience, though - a little common ground with the more serious hobbyists.

It makes more sense to think up an actual game which ties into D&D but still has its own rules, beginning, and end, and takes place entirely in a single night.

That does sound like a compelling idea, especially for potential new players drawn in by the rise in boardgaming popularity...

...an actual, but D&D-like, boardgame might be good for that, too. Maybe revive Castle Ravenloft/Wrath of Ashardalon/Legend of Drizzt... probably the last, sadly because:FR, but still, something along those lines would logically do a lot better in the current boardgame market...

 

[Jer]

AL & APs do give the casual player base an immediate sense of belonging and shared experience, though - a little common ground with the more serious hobbyists.

I see the AL as a way to get existing gamers who are not roleplayers up to speed on what roleplaying actually is. They can see it at their local gamestore and even if they're there for the Pokemon tournament they can see there's this other Organized Play thing going on and hey it's once a week like Pokemon nights and it looks like a fun thing to try.

The APs are for the next level after that. You've got them interested and now they're thinking "hey I could run this for my friends". The argument that smaller adventures would be better for that is possibly correct, however after the d20 glut and then the 4e fallout many gamestores basically decided to stop stocking smaller adventures. I know the stores in my area all prefer having a handful of books that are evergreen over having a large number of smaller adventures that cycle in and out. Wizards producing a whole lot of small adventures does no good for bringing new people into the hobby if the game stores don't stock them. (Any discussion about what Wizards should be producing that doesn't take into account what modern gamestores are able to stock is somewhat pointless - getting retailers to give your product space when they could be using that space to sell another boardgame is crucial. Right now I think 5e's smaller footprint on books that retailers need to stock is helping it mend fences with retailers who felt burned by either d20 or 4e or both. To a large extent the AP formula is a compromise between selling lots of smaller adventures and stocking evergreen titles that retailers are able to sell at a pace that makes it worth keeping stock in their stores).

That does sound like a compelling idea, especially for potential new players drawn in by the rise in boardgaming popularity...

...an actual, but D&D-like, boardgame might be good for that, too. Maybe revive Castle Ravenloft/Wrath of Ashardalon/Legend of Drizzt... probably the last, sadly because:FR, but still, something along those lines would logically do a lot better in the current boardgame market...

I've thought of this before and I don't think that it actually would work well. The overlap between boardgames and RPGs is not actually that great and I don't really think that something like Wrath of Ashardalon (as much as I love it) gives a player a good idea of what a role playing experience is like. I personally like the idea of having more starter sets - along the lines of the "How to Host a Mystery" games. You might need to strip down the rules a bit more, but there's a lot of merit in having a game that maybe doesn't have a lot of replayability BUT is cheap enough that it doesn't matter and is easy enough to pull off the shelf and run on a whim. They could lead into a larger campaign, but they wouldn't have to.

 

[dave2008]

Actually, I was that kid who sat in the back with his head down who woke up just long enough to take his tests and exams and ace them. I was that kid who's parents had to threaten him almost every night to do his homework, but when that homework was done it was always right. I was that kid who went to college, grew up only a little and still managed to finish in the top of his class.

I feel so sorry for you man, that really sucks. To not be challenged in your formative years really sucks. I had a similar issue with school and college (mostly - architecture school has certain demands that cannot simply be glossed over), but I was luckily able to be to engaged through sports, art, my parents, and of course D&D.