The evidence does not lead to the stated conclusion...

Quote from: estar;637502Sure it does,

No, it does not, again. Here's the conclusion:

Quote"And the whole 'for my group' qualifier is a bit of a canard" (Conclusion).

Here's all the evidence you gave:

Quote....mass entertainment of all kind relies on the fact people have common experiences and backgrounds. Just as it is obvious that mass entertainment doesn't caters to everybody interest.

Adventure modules are no different. There are two things going on with adventure modules that gain mass appeal. One is that Dungeons and Dragon and it's near clones are the dominate roleplaying game for both the hobby and industry. Another that a good many roleplaying games are designed with an implied background even for those that target a genre rather than a setting.

Both mean that by and large there are large groups of gamers that share a common background. Which makes possible to write adventure modules that useful for the majority of it's target audience.

And again I stress that by no means this is a 100% for any segment of the hobby/industry. By their nature roleplaying games are very flexible with a wealth of possibilities for campaigns and settings possible with a given game. Which is why if I had to guess likely at best probably only a slim majority of referees of a given game are interested in published adventures.

Not a
Single.
Word.
Of that supports the conclusion "And the whole 'for my group' qualifier is a bit of a canard"

Not a word of it. A "canard" is a false or invalid argument meant to distract (canard=french for 'duck'=decoy) from the real point.

Nothing you said suggests that argument is incorrect.

Not a single word of it.

The fact that GMs can customize games for their group and thus make them work and have that specific advantage over module designers is in no way invalidated byt he fact that a lotta people buy modules or have things in common.

Quote from: Zak S;637495Sure, For that guy or gal.

That doesn't mean all of the stuff you said before in defense of that position suddenly makes sense.

Sorry, I'm not seeing where I've been nonsensical otherwise.

I've tried to make the case that A) Modules can be fun to play, as a player, even memorable; and B) Can be of aid to a DM as a time saver (when dropped whole and entire in to an existing campaign, or partially, such as a single encounter or a map) or as a source of inspiration (as in, "hey, this idea is pretty cool, I think I'll steal that for my next game.")

I'm not saying that they are superior to homebrewed adventures, but that they can and do serve a valuable purpose, either as a tool or an imaginative aid.

Quote from: Replicant2;637520Sorry, I'm not seeing where I've been nonsensical otherwise.

Pay close attention then..

QuoteI've tried to make the case that A) Modules can be fun to play, as a player, even memorable; and B) Can be of aid to a DM as a time saver (when dropped whole and entire in to an existing campaign, or partially, such as a single encounter or a map) or as a source of inspiration (as in, "hey, this idea is pretty cool, I think I'll steal that for my next game.")

I'm not saying that they are superior to homebrewed adventures, but that they can and do serve a valuable purpose, either as a tool or an imaginative aid.

Those things are all true.

This thing is not true:

Quote"And the whole 'for my group' qualifier is a bit of a canard"

Quote from: Zak S;637530Pay close attention then..


Those things are all true.

This thing is not true:

Well no the whole "for my group" in this context totally looks like a canard because it is invalid to the wider discussion and a sidetrack to the real point, which is that modules do not suck for plenty of other groups for a whole bunch of reasons we've been talking about all along. So your "for my group" thing is all fine and good, but it is a particular case, it is invalid to the wider discussion, and more generally, the more you pursue this post after post to get the point across, the more it looks like a decoy regarding what others were actually talking about.

So yeah. You might not have intended it as a canard, but it looks more and more like it.

Quote from: Zak S;637530Pay close attention then..


Those things are all true.

This thing is not true:

Ironic that you've accused me of being nonsensical, and for evidence have produced a quote for careful consideration that is not mine (it's Haffrungs; I never said that). But I'll play along.

Okay, so modules serve no purpose for your group. You're a creative guy perfectly in tune with a great group of players and so don't need modules at your game table. That's fine, no problem here, and in fact I'm a little envious. But how does your example invalidate what I (and many others in this thread) have professed: That modules do serve a valuable purpose for many? Do you deny that's the case?

Quote from: Replicant2;637541Ironic that you've accused me of being nonsensical, and for evidence have produced a quote for careful consideration that is not mine (it's Haffrungs; I never said that). But I'll play along.

Okay, so modules serve no purpose for your group. You're a creative guy perfectly in tune with a great group of players and so don't need modules at your game table. That's fine, no problem here, and in fact I'm a little envious. But how does your example invalidate what I (and many others in this thread) have professed: That modules do serve a valuable purpose for many? Do you deny that's the case?

i don't. Scroll through the thread, I've said that like 9 times.

Quote from: Benoist;637535Well no the whole "for my group" in this context totally looks like a canard because it is invalid to the wider discussion and a sidetrack to the real point, which is that modules do not suck for plenty of other groups for a whole bunch of reasons we've been talking about all along. So your "for my group" thing is all fine and good, but it is a particular case, it is invalid to the wider discussion,

Why is it invalid? The OP argued took issue the idea that modules "really aren't needed".

That's true. They really aren't needed. "Need" literally means you can't run a game without them. And that isn't true. It's not even true that you can't run a good game without them.

Quoteand more generally, the more you pursue this post after post to get the point across, the more it looks like a decoy regarding what others were actually talking about.

If you wanna be weirdly suspicious all the time for no reason, that's your problem.

Quote from: Zak S;637554Why is it invalid? The OP argued took issue the idea that modules "really aren't needed".

That's true. They really aren't needed. "Need" literally means you can't run a game without them. And that isn't true. It's not even true that you can't run a good game without them.




If you wanna be weirdly suspicious all the time for no reason, that's your problem.

Oh come on. Get the fuck over yourself man. You made a claim pertaining to your group, which may well be valid for you and yours, but not for everyone else on planet Earth. People have been talking about how they like to play some modules, how they're useful to them in a variety of ways, but instead you choose to go on with silly tangents, rhetorical/lexical crap and teenager arguments of shit like "NO I really didn't SAY that because THAT WORD".

Fuck that noise man. Go back to your pointless back and forth bullshit, if you love it that much. That'll be without me.

Is he like this with everybody?

Quote from: Zak S;637559Is he like this with everybody?

Yes.

"Weirdly paranoid for no particular reason" describes him quite well, I think.

Quote from: Zak S;637559Is he like this with everybody?

Anyone who would deserve it, yes. This is one such occasion.

If you're being super-thick in conversations, at some point I'm going to give up and either stop talking to you in some way, or tell you to go fuck yourself. You've been really thick in past conversations we've had together, and I really don't feel the need at this point to do all the legwork by myself to end up just getting into another round and round exchange that leads nowhere. So I'm moving on.

Quote from: estar;637506I agree that roleplaying games are very flexible but also many games come with implied backgrounds. For example for the 1st edition AD&D Monster Manual there is a definite, but light, sense of an implied world behind all the monster entries. Which accounted for that fact that back in the day many campaigns in my hometown treated Orcs largely the same.

The net effect that for gamers of a given system have a shared body of experience and assumptions that can be used to craft a adventure modules that is broadly useful and appealing.

However it nowhere near a 100%. Because of the flexibility of RPGs I would say only a slim majority of referee would be interested in published adventures at best. For some games where flexibility is part of the design (GURPS, Savage Worlds, FUDGE) that number of referee interested in published adventures is vastly lower.




I would say it is a challenge to design a useful adventure that will appeal to  somebody with the detail of your campaign (and mine as well) but not impossible. While you have a lot of details, I bet many of them are born of our common heritage of myth and legends.  That while the combination of details is unique, the details themselves are recognized variations of existing themes.

If the goal of the author of a adventure module is going to appeal to a referee of a detailed campaign then the author needs to supply some adaptation. In short to lay bare the "bones" of the adventure. Then the referee can go, you know that shrine to a saint is 90% the same as I would have for a shrine of Saint Joseph.

Now I only attempted something like this once with my recently released Scourge of the Demon Wolf. But on the flip side for the Majestic Wilderlands I deliberately stuck with tropes of the vaguely medieval fantasy setting. I developed a lot of interesting detail in the way a US soap opera develops compelling plots set against the lifestyle of the United State.

I did this to make the setting details more approachable to my players because as a GURPS referee I always had to be recruiting novice players as time went on. However another side effect is that various D&D modules released over the years, even things like Harn modules were easily adaptable to the details of my setting.

In short if a referee's campaign is like Barker's Tekemul then yeah it is highly unlikely any published module will appeal to that referee. But if it say something like Harn then the chance go way up as many fantasy RPG share Harn's medieval and fantasy roots. Then if you get something like Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk which was welded to AD&D from the get go it almost become a no brainer. Which is probably why Golarion was developed by Paizo.

Using my Scourge of the Demon Wolf adventure it is a adventure module revolving around a village being attacked by wolves. Just about applicable to any fantasy setting there. But...

It is also a Majestic Wilderlands adventure with the assumptions of that setting.  For this adventure it means

1) The village is a part of a quasi feudal system
2) That there is a culture of wandering vagabonds vaguely similar to Travellers or Gypsys
3) That mages live together for mutual protection, research and to pool living expenses
4) That demons are part of the metaphysics including the magic to summon them.
5) That bandits exists.
6) That there a dominate religion that most of a village would adhere too

By adding these element I limited the audience of Scouge, but since I think most of these elements are shared by the majority of older edition fantasy referees that the limitation won't impact sales severely. Furthermore I explicit spell all this out in a couple of paragraph which perhaps doesn't do much good for sales of this product. But I think will hugely impact the sale of the next adventure as I hope to gain a reputation of easy to adapt adventures.

And above all it is a balancing act, tip too far in one direction then I think sales will be negatively impacted but get it right then I have a shot.

Well, once again twixt you and Ben we are getting some useful meat from this conversation.

System assumptions (implied settings) and shared tropes (Like your Majestic Wilderlands exaple above) are examples when it is a very different cost/benefit.

And as I said, I like my adventures to be magnified versions of my setting, so for me it is harder.  More like Tekumel, in that way.  I still think that it is going to be purely a cost/benefit, and that a GM's own adventure for their own setting is going to reperstent it better, and provide a better fit. You read my descriptive phrase (admittedly, I chose this room as it was an exagerated example), and this is how I like my rooms to be, so that my PCs are as much archeologists as adventurers (really.  I mean that).

Quote from: Zak S;637554Why is it invalid? The OP argued took issue the idea that modules "really aren't needed".

That's true. They really aren't needed. "Need" literally means you can't run a game without them. And that isn't true. It's not even true that you can't run a good game without them.

I wouldn't get too fixated on that throwaway snippet. I don't believe that modules are crucial to the success of any game.

But the whole of my OP, and the subsequent discussion that followed, was whether modules serve a purpose and are helpful to the RPG hobby. These points seem to be settled in the affirmative, so I'm prepared to move on.

Quote from: Replicant2;637622I wouldn't get too fixated on that throwaway snippet. I don't believe that modules are crucial to the success of any game.

But the whole of my OP, and the subsequent discussion that followed, was whether modules serve a purpose and are helpful to the RPG hobby. These points seem to be settled in the affirmative, so I'm prepared to move on.

okay

Quote from: Zak S;637559Is he like this with everybody?

Yes, he can get that way.

Just remind him of this thread, and in particular this post.