Would you buy pre-made campaigns?

[catsclaw227]

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

I suppose with some work it could, but the history of the drow and the clash of two major "higher factions" are are crucial to the story. I imagine that it would take a serious offort of tweaking, but it could have something to do with the Titanswar and make use of Slitheren as the primary antagonist race if you want to place it in the Scarred Lands. It would take a lot of work but...

[sblock]
The story arc has to do with the Starborn - the existence of life, both good and evil (the PCs are manefestations of this) and the Host - sort of the darkness between the stars, anti-life (but not undeath). Maybe this could be modified to mean the battle of the Gods vs. Titans, and the titanspawn in general as the antagonist evil race (instead of drow and duergar)
[/sblock]

 

[Nightfall]

Hmm sounds intriguing. Course I'd probably tweak it even more to make it so the Slitheren are a bigger focus...

I am interested to see how this works out.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I would definitley not buy one, for the simple reason that players in my games do what they want (I encourage them and tell them I'm just their to referee and put interesting situations and predicaments before them) and there is no guarantee they will follow the adventure hooks in a pre-made campaign or if they do that they will go about solving the problems in the way the campaign assumes. I'd have to tweak and wing it to such a degree I might as well not have it.

 

[Nightfall]

Aust,

I used to think that too...until Shackled City made me a believer.

 

[Anax]

I don’t know quite exactly what people mean here by pre-made campaigns, but from mention of RttToEE, I think I understand.

I have to say that I’m not a big fan of this sort of campaign. The kind of pre-made campaign that I would like to see more of is along the lines of the old Shadowrun Harlequin book.

The advantage to this kind of setup (multiple smaller adventures that tie into one large plot, although it’s not obvious right away) is that it’s much easier to fit around an existing adventuring group. And the fact that the connections between plots aren’t obvious means there’s a great dawning of realization thing for the players (along with trying to figure out what they’ve done that’s related to that plot arch, and what’s not related.)

Really, I like small modules more than mega-modules. A small set-piece can be adapted to the desires of the characters a lot more easily. And, well, the folks I play with are not to be lead around by the nose. That makes the big book modules tricky. Sure, the characters are heroic, and want to save the world—but the players also like things to be more free-flowing at times. (And downtime is always a pain in the big modules: in RttToEE, we continuously had the “D&D-Day” problem... fifteen minutes of adventuring followed by a full day of rest and recuperation.)

ANYway, what it boils down to is that we prefer smaller chunks of stuff. Not just a plot, but subplots. Things where you feel like you’re accomplishing something, and only later do you realize just how significant that event was. Small chunks, you always feel like you’re making real progress on something nearly attainable, you get regular downtime, and with a handful of adventures in different locales there's always something related that you can get the players to do (without making them feel that they’re being forced to do it.) Then later they find out how the several things they’ve done relate to saving the world, and the epic conclusion can be a bit more heavily scripted.


Now, if you tell me that one or more of these pre-made campaigns satisfies those needs, well, I’ll be a very very happy camper.

 

[Nightfall]

Anax,

This is Shackled City in a heartbeat. Smaller plots that evolve into a larger one that isn't readily seen by the PCs until it's almost upon them. Same with Age of Worms.

 

[Davelozzi]

I think these campaigns are a great idea. I'd love to run one, and plan on doing so when my current campaign (a homebrew) is done. But for now, my players really want to keep going with what we've got (which is good to know), so that's what I'm doing.

In particular, I think both Dungeon adventure paths are excellent. I have all the Shackled City issues and will probably still pick up the hardcover. So far, Age of Worms looks to be even stronger.

What I'd like to see is some of these campaigns for other games. I know that some other games do (Call of Cthulhu in particular), but none so far that seem to be a great fit for my group. I'd love to see a Spycraft, Star*Drive, or even Star Wars mission path. The main reason I don't get more use out of those games is that I don't have time to create the materials and there's not much available to start with.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Absolutely. I own the 3.0 Adventure Path series and the Shackled City hardcover.

 

[Nightfall]

Same here.

 

[catsclaw227]

The advantage to this kind of setup (multiple smaller adventures that tie into one large plot, although it’s not obvious right away) is that it’s much easier to fit around an existing adventuring group. And the fact that the connections between plots aren’t obvious means there’s a great dawning of realization thing for the players (along with trying to figure out what they’ve done that’s related to that plot arch, and what’s not related.)

Really, I like small modules more than mega-modules. A small set-piece can be adapted to the desires of the characters a lot more easily. And, well, the folks I play with are not to be lead around by the nose. That makes the big book modules tricky. Sure, the characters are heroic, and want to save the world—but the players also like things to be more free-flowing at times. (And downtime is always a pain in the big modules: in RttToEE, we continuously had the “D&D-Day” problem... fifteen minutes of adventuring followed by a full day of rest and recuperation.)

ANYway, what it boils down to is that we prefer smaller chunks of stuff. Not just a plot, but subplots. Things where you feel like you’re accomplishing something, and only later do you realize just how significant that event was. Small chunks, you always feel like you’re making real progress on something nearly attainable, you get regular downtime, and with a handful of adventures in different locales there's always something related that you can get the players to do (without making them feel that they’re being forced to do it.) Then later they find out how the several things they’ve done relate to saving the world, and the epic conclusion can be a bit more heavily scripted.

In addition to The Shackled City, The Drow war also satisfies these issues. We haven't had one "D&D Day" yet, and there is a sense of urgency. In the adventure so far...

[sblock]...the only thing that has been a carrot-on-a-stick in the plot line is that they need to go to the main city, Saragost, to warn them of the coming invasion, and along the way let the villages know as well. That is not much to ask unless your characters are insanely chaotic and care not for the lives of anyone else.[/sblock]