Despite my cynicism, I'm somehow cautiously optimistic regarding 5e, esp. due to the claims of backwards compatibility.

Everything I've seen of the 4E adventures makes them looks like a total clownshoes shitshow to my eyes; do you think the WOTC crew could actually make some good adventures for 5e?

I don't think it's rocket science, some freebies like The Fane of St. Toad or Challenge of the Frog Idol strikes me as awesome adventures. Do the Wizards designers have some sort of baggage that prevents them from designing good, fun, evocative site-based adventures?

If I was in their shoes I would contract some of the good hobbyist adventure writers to come up with a stack of short, fun, good site-based adventures.

Imagine a 64 page book for 5E of such adventures, that strikes me as a good way to get people playing 5E.

Due to their track record I just have a hard time not imagining them poochy-ing such a simple thing.

Quote from: Planet Algol;503433Despite my cynicism, I'm somehow cautiously optimistic regarding 5e, esp. due to the claims of backwards compatibility.

Everything I've seen of the 4E adventures makes them looks like a total clownshoes shitshow to my eyes; do you think the WOTC crew could actually make some good adventures for 5e?

I don't think it's rocket science, some freebies like The Fane of St. Toad or Challenge of the Frog Idol strikes me as awesome adventures. Do the Wizards designers have some sort of baggage that prevents them from designing good, fun, evocative site-based adventures?

If I was in their shoes I would contract some of the good hobbyist adventure writers to come up with a stack of short, fun, good site-based adventures.

Imagine a 64 page book for 5E of such adventures, that strikes me as a good way to get people playing 5E.

Due to their track record I just have a hard time not imagining them poochy-ing such a simple thing.

I'm not going to break my arm patting myself on the back but I've written what I think are pretty good adventures.  If I can do it, surely to god WotC can.

The problem is that WotC is overthinking the structure of the game and destroying it in the process. It's got a name: "the Encounter" and its completely retarded follow-up, the delve-format. That's basically theoretical bullshit that affects the game play in very nasty ways (by turning it into a set-piece to set-piece miniatures wankfest, for instance), and kills the potential of modules. It needs to get right out the window to come back to the actual structure of adventure design for D&D: the dungeon. The map. The area of adventure that is keyed through the module.

Fans of the game love the maps in the modules. DMs love to draw their own based on those modules they like. It's part of the core experience and shared identity of the game. Why can't they get it, for fuck's sakes?

Once WotC gets over itself with its encountardization, it'll be able to write decent adventures.

I always disliked the line that "modules aren't profitable" in explaining why they ever stopped making them. Sure, they may not be profitable in and of themselves, but they SUPPORT something that is profitable. They give people something else to look at and use that would, by extension, probably lead to sales of other products. Loss-leaders are common in many other industries, why not D&D?

Suggestion: use modules to introduce new/optional rules a few at a time before binding them into a splatbook.

I ALWAYS loved the old D&D modules (even the bad ones), so I never saw why they went away...

Well, Robert Schwalb is on board, so why not?

He seemed rather good at it when i worked for him on TT for WFRP.

In fact, the lad's done rather well for himself. Pity i didn't stay pinned to his rising star!

Quote from: Benoist;503444....as always far more eloquent that I could ever express it....

I've been thinking about "swingyness" (as Goodman Games talks about in re. to the DCC RPG) lately, and what you said was a catalyst for this line of thought:

WOTC really dropped the ball when they repudiated "chaos" in favor of an increasingly tailored, manicured, and regulated "experience."

Unpredictability is exciting.

Quote from: Benoist;503444The problem is that WotC is overthinking the structure of the game and destroying it in the process...Once WotC gets over itself with its encountardization, it'll be able to write decent adventures.

I think that's much of it. It might also be "oh shit, we forgot to write any adventures, lets dash off a few encounters and call it an adventure."
 
Recent stuff I've seen feels like a bad video game in that you have a scene with something to fight, kill it, go to next scene with something to fight. I think Benoist has it right in that they are a series of set piece encounters strung together in a linear fashion and called an adventure. It's all a tedious railroad. I want a chance to explore, interact, and have an interesting plot to interact with.
 

Quote from: Planet Algol;503470WOTC really dropped the ball when they repudiated "chaos" in favor of an increasingly tailored, manicured, and regulated "experience."
 
Unpredictability is exciting.

Yep.  I wonder how much of this is driven by using rpga as the standard with a homogenized structure that leads to a fairly constant outcome.

Quote from: Werekoala;503458I always disliked the line that "modules aren't profitable" in explaining why they ever stopped making them. Sure, they may not be profitable in and of themselves, but they SUPPORT something that is profitable. They give people something else to look at and use that would, by extension, probably lead to sales of other products. Loss-leaders are common in many other industries, why not D&D?

Suggestion: use modules to introduce new/optional rules a few at a time before binding them into a splatbook.

That's exactly what TSR did.  Big hunks of MM2 are in S4, as are magic items and spells that were later featured in Unearthed Arcana.

QuoteI ALWAYS loved the old D&D modules (even the bad ones), so I never saw why they went away...

Yup.  I think WotC was disappointed that nobody on their side of things seemed to have it in them to create anything as memorable as B2, G123, S1, S2, S3, S4, WG4, A1-4, etc., and therefore proclaimed that MODULES DON'T SELL.

I've sat in on a convo with Gary and he flat out stated S1 sold 350,000 copies.  At $5 a pop back then, that was a cool million-five.  Now charge $15 for a similar (in terms of appeal) module in 2013, assume that sales are 3.5x less, the money is still the same.  Now release ten modules in a year.  There's your $50m, Hasbro.  And we haven't even addressed the rulebooks yet.

I'm going to insist, but really this is important: they need to drop the encounter for that to happen. Leave it in the game as one of those structural options, maybe, but drop it for the baseline of the game.

Look at what makes the old modules great: they're open environments contained in a map or two. The dungeon itself is an environment. The wilderness is an environment. The game itself on the DM's side is all about managing the environment: drawing the map, putting locales/rooms on the map, populating each room/locale. Then have the immense pleasure and surprise to see what the players do with this stuff, and see the whole come to life before your eyes.

This is what the game is about. That's why these modules sold. S4 Tsojcanth, the Giants and Drows series... that's what these modules do best. Come on, WotC! This is NOT rocket science!

Y'know, I've routinely had problems sifting through modules because I found the structure and writing so terrible across most rpgs I buy for. But perhaps this is because most of my D&D module experience was with D&D 2e, 3e, and 4e modules with only a smattering of the cheapest 1e I could scrounge. However, as you now talk about it, perhaps I'm looking at modules all wrong.

Perhaps I should look at modules as microcosmic settings with mapped out locales as a waft, equivalently focused plot strings and characters as the colored thread, and the prime story arc as the paint-by-numbers pattern. No one says you have to limit yourself to the prime story arc, but you can follow it if you are a) inexperienced, or b) no other inspiration hits you. Hmm, yes, maybe I've been far too jaded about the value of modules.

But so many of them suck... And I'm tired of sifting or hunting down collectibles.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;503477I've sat in on a convo with Gary and he flat out stated S1 sold 350,000 copies.  At $5 a pop back then, that was a cool million-five.  [...] There's your $50m, Hasbro.  

No, and here's why.

First, let's assume Gary's telling the truth about S1.  350,000 copies sold isn't 350,000 copies sold to people, it's 350,000 copies sold to distributors.  We have no way of knowing how many copies of S1 ended up in retail stores, or in people's hands.  Fortunately it doesn't matter.  What does matter is that TSR didn't sell S1 to distributors at $5 a pop, it sold to them at distributor cost.

Distributor + retail markup is about 60%.  So that $5 retail cost becomes $2 a copy.  That's now $750,000 gross TSR made on S1.  In 2011 dollars, that's just shy of two million.  So you'll need twenty-five+ of those modules a year to hit your $50M target, and that's assuming Hasbro meant gross instead of net, which they almost certainly did not.  $50M net a year and you haven't a prayer even if every module and the core books sell like S1 did.

As an aside, I'm sure the "I'm so much better at writing adventures than WotC" WAAAAAMbulance makes you feel better, but every other RPG company has said the same thing about adventures not selling well enough to justify the cost of producing them.

"Infrastructure" may not be financially profitable; but it is profitable in other ways, such as long-term viability.

The "shared experience" of the oldschool modules is an example of a non-monetary assest.

This is so funny.  Modules would be great but then we would hear the incessant complaints that they are all RAILROADY and whatnot.  One complaint will spawn many more from the OSR crowd.

 

Quotepretty good adventures

GARBAGE!!!!

QuoteFirst, let's assume Gary's telling the truth about S1. 350,000 copies sold isn't 350,000 copies sold to people, it's 350,000 copies sold to distributors. We have no way of knowing how many copies of S1 ended up in retail stores, or in people's hands. Fortunately it doesn't matter. What does matter is that TSR didn't sell S1 to distributors at $5 a pop, it sold to them at distributor cost.

I would not assume anything but I seriously doubt he was telling the truth anyways.  Gygax was known to be a LIAR and a THIEF to boot.

Your one trick is getting tiresome old man.

Quote from: daniel_ream;503518As an aside, I'm sure the "I'm so much better at writing adventures than WotC" WAAAAAMbulance makes you feel better, but every other RPG company has said the same thing about adventures not selling well enough to justify the cost of producing them.

Reading fail much?

I didn't say I'm better than them.  I said, I do write adventures.  Simple things.  Dungeon crawls, mostly.  Few puzzles, mostly monster bashes.  

WotC should go back to adventure writing, too, but they have it in them to make great stuff.  There's someone out there with something as cool as G123 on their minds.  There's an S1 lurking there somewhere (shut up, I don't care if you think it's a deathtrap or whatever, it sold).  They should be writing them, they should be publishing them.