WotC & Their Adventures

[Klaus]

I love the WotC adventures. Expedition to Castle Greyhawk is pure gold. My only complaint is I don't have time to play them all.

You mean Castle Ravenloft, right?

 

[Davelozzi]

I can't imagine being upset about the adventure trend. I love it, and as others have said, if you don't need them, just don't buy them.

 

[GVDammerung]

You know, I don't mind the odd adventure from WotC, but I am not a completist and it is annoying that it looks like they are jumping back on the adventure bandwagon. I don't need them to publish adventures, I mean what, doesn't Dungeon pick up the slack? Does anyone feel annoyed by this?

I'm annoyed that Wotc adventures are uniformly less interesting and less well done than those in Dungeon. The Paizo folks know how to publish adventures; Wotc can't touch Paizo. Wotc ought to stick to what it is "good" at - publishing sourcebooks and rules expansions - and leave adventure writing to others.

 

[Nlogue]

I'm annoyed that Wotc adventures are uniformly less interesting and less well done than those in Dungeon. The Paizo folks know how to publish adventures; Wotc can't touch Paizo. Wotc ought to stick to what it is "good" at - publishing sourcebooks and rules expansions - and leave adventure writing to others.

I think Paizo's process is better for getting a good adventure out of a writer. The fact that a writer can submit their own idea for an adventure and have their baby greenlit really makes a difference. WotC can't work that way for myriad (very justifiable) reasons, so instead they give in house outlines to writers, and then seriously overhaul the final product in house as well. By the end of the day the writer of the adventure may have actually had little to do with the final product. I think this process works great for sourcebooks (the more cooks the better for coming up with cool feats, alterante magic systems, classes and whatnot), but for adventure writing, which is basically good storytelling wherein the rules are conventions of the media, too many chefs can taint the broth a bit. Think Hollywood scripts...::shiver::

That being said, Expedition to Castle Ravenloft is pretty darned cool. I just got a chance to page through it and I was really impressed with the adventure. May have to get in on a game where someone is running it. Check this out GVDammerung, it is definately a pretty solid adventure.

 

[Dragonbait]

I can't keep up with all the "crunch" and "fluff" books that have been coming out. Adventures alleviate this. I, for one, am glad that they are publishing 'em again, and I am unanimous in this.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Interestingly, the WotC offerings seem to be clustering into two areas:
- The Fantastic Locations, which are fundamentally cross-promotions with the Minis line
- Longer modules, like Red Hand of Doom, which are bigger than Dungeon can tackle, outside of the Adventure Paths.

I imagine the reason for this is probably because they find them to be the most profitable, rather than the fact that the feel the adventure market is lacking in these types of products. They have put out a couple of 32 page adventures for the Forgotten Realms though so they are not exclusively doing the bigger adventures.

Olaf the Stout

 

[MerricB]

Interestingly, the WotC offerings seem to be clustering into two areas:
- The Fantastic Locations, which are fundamentally cross-promotions with the Minis line
- Longer modules, like Red Hand of Doom, which are bigger than Dungeon can tackle, outside of the Adventure Paths.

Not quite accurate.

We have...
Fantastic Locations - these are map products with short 16-page examples of an adventure that uses the maps.

32-page adventures - "The Twilight Tomb", "Sons of Gruumsh", all four of the Eberron line so far. Traditional adventures that probably could appear in Dungeon magazine. Note that this month's upcoming adventure in this format is designed for novice DMs.

Big Book adventures - Ravenloft, Red Hand of Doom. They're testing out a new format with these as well (Delve).

Multi-book adventures - "The Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde" is the first of a new format: two 64 page books and one 16 page "player" book. I expect to see more in this format. (It's also the sequel to the 32-page intro adventure).

Cheers!

 

[Dykstrav]

More adventures are a good thing!

WotC SHOULD produce adventures, even if it's only one or two per year. Why?

First of all, there were scads of people that remember the days when 3E first came out- products assumed that you were using the three core rulebooks and that's it. Sucks if you were playing a psionicist, the only options you had were in the Pisonics Handbook. That's it. Recent products have included optional material, such as the new psionic powers and the like in products like Frostburn. Cross-promoting is good from a product design standpoint (why pay $30 for a book that doesn't mesh with other supplements?) as well as building product awareness.

Second of all, the fan base has gotten generally older. Most of the serious players are the same people who have been playing since 1E or 2E. In Six plus years, I've still never met a DM who started DMing after 3E. Working 40+ hours a week leaves you precious little time to design adventures from scratch. DMs with jobs and other obligations love being able to pick up an adventure and run with it. Sure, I could flip through the stack of d20 OGL material at the game store, but quite bluntly I'd rather just buy an 'official' product (even if it's not exactly what I'm looking for), skim it for an hour and be able to run it. That's the market for adventures.

I loved the first adventure path series- Sunless CItadel and the Forge of Fury are genuine classics. Could they have been done better? Sure, every adventure can use a little tweaking. They're classics because a new generation played their first characters through them, (or like me) was pleased that D&D was getting away from all the bizarreness of late 2E and back to the good ol' dungeon. New DMs also need something to cut their teeth on, and adventures form the basic language of how D&D players compare their game experiences.

Again, WotC should make adventures. Lots of them! Furthermore, they shouldn't be mishmashes of the latest supplemental material, but should build on a story.

Just for the record, I loved Red Hand of Doom. Best WotC-made D&D product of 2006 without a doubt. But Expedition to Castle Ravenloft merits someone a swift crack to the jaw. I'm still looking forward to the new adventures coming up though.

 

[Ds Da Man]

Just for the record, I loved Red Hand of Doom. Best WotC-made D&D product of 2006 without a doubt. But Expedition to Castle Ravenloft merits someone a swift crack to the jaw. I'm still looking forward to the new adventures coming up though.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. If it were not for RHoD, I would have given up on D&D for awhile. I don't need more crap for classes, feats, spells, etc. and have not bought a D&D splat book in years. Give me more adventures that take characters through multiple levels, and actually are challeging. I loved the rushed feel of RHoD, and the fact that our characters only ended up with +2 weapons. That was fun.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Of course, if they created adventures that *also* showcased New Stuff as well (say, a new race like they did in Deep Horizon), and maybe a prestige class or unique feat that's only available in this adventure, then everyone is happy.

Ravenloft, for example, has lots of magic items, 2 legacy items, 1 PrC which I am particularly enamored with (Knight of the Raven), and a couple of feats.


Really though, the Delve format is beyond Paizo's ability. They can't match it and retain their fans. Even the new statblock has brought detractors for size reasons.


For myself, I'm of a mind that AoW's questionable status is as much to do with it's more Greyhawk content than competition. I imagine some of it might also come down to WotC's "cut" and what returns they saw on Shackled City. In addition, it's common for WotC to poach Dragon's monsters and such, so that may take some out of their pool.

No way to tell though.