Would you buy pre-made campaigns?

[DaveMage]

Yes, and I've bought all that I know are out there - for the same reasons listed above: lack of time to design my own.

 

[tetsujin28]

So is there a market for pre-made campaigns?

Absolutely. If it's good, I'd pick it up.

 

[Psion]

Back in 2e, I ran Night Below over the course of one summer (well, half of Night Below, then summer ended and I moved). The first bit of NB was really great, with a bunch of stuff going on in Haranshire - some related to the main plot, some not. Then the plot moved on to the second book, which was basically one loooong dungeon crawl... and about halfway through that, we kinda lost interest.

I see that we share the same enemies in our formative years.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Back in the 2e days, one of my favorite mini-campaigns was Tale of the Comet. I never did get to run it, but it sure looks fun.

I liked the Tomes products too. Never bought Axe of the Dwarvish Lords, and Return to the Tomb of Horrors looked neat. I was quite impressed with Rod of Seven Parts, though. I'm glad that's still a theme in Dungeon these days.

Considering that I only get together with my group monthly, I really doubt that we're ever going to get through all of these adventures. Maybe someday, though.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I'm interested in them as long as they are well-written, and have some variety throughout. Obviously they have to be fairly linear in order to work, but it should not be completely obvious in its railroading.

The ultimate would be, IMO, if more than one campaign could be easily fit together and portions skipped, so that the group follows one campaign for a while, then jumps off to deal with something different (a second campaign), and then they come back to the original campaign and time has passed, events have happened and the party picks the original thread back, having skipped a bunch of things they could have done at lower levels.

 

[Nightfall]

I see that we share the same enemies in our formative years.

In mine it was just Spelljamming and WAY to much FR stuff.

 

[catsclaw227]

That's a good point. I'd be interested in a big campaign, but not if it's just a honkin' big dungeon crawl (Return to TOEE, I'm looking at you).

The Drow War from Mongoose is like this. My players are 4th level (started at 1st) and have only been in one small dungeon crawl (a set of mines). Other than that, it's been overland, village/town and large city intrigue. TONS of RP as well as a good amount of good ol' fashioned hack. Excellent.

 

[Nightfall]

Hmm...any chance that converting the Drow war into say the Slitheren/Ratman war is still a viable idea?

 

[delericho]

I would be interested in such a product if it were a collection of adventures that built into a campaign, rather than just one big adventure spanning lots of levels (Shackled City rather than Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil), as this makes it easier to reuse components, which gives me more options to work with.

The big problem with a "campaign in a box" however is that such a thing is, of necessity, expensive. Now, I have no issue with spending the money, provided I'm going to get use out of it, and that requires some sort of guarantee of quality.

In real terms, what that means is that there has to be some sort of name recognition that attracts me to the product. If Paizo did an Adventure Path in a book that wasn't Shackled City (or Age or Worms - basically, something new), I would buy it in a moment. Likewise, if Bruce Cordell, Monte Cook and Sean Reynolds collaborated to put together a book. Unfortunately, Mongoose lose me because I don't recognise the names of the authors. I know that's not very fair, but it's a key factor in my buying decisions.

 

[Nightfall]

Del,

Well it is an understandable reaction. I mean it's like buying Champions of Ruin and finding out they didn't quite "ruin" it the way you wanted.