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Pen & Paper Roleplaying Central => Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion => Topic started by: Ulairi on April 18, 2018, 02:10:56 PM

Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Ulairi on April 18, 2018, 02:10:56 PM
I picked up "Into the Borderlands" today which is an homage to B1 and B2 and reading through it reminded me how much more useful the old modular adventure products were compared to what 5E is releasing. From my understanding, and I could be wrong because I quit buying the 5E product after the Timat adventures (which were two books) Prince of the Apocalypse. I know that Wizards is trying to do fewer books but what they are producing are a single book that takes parties from level 1 all the way to level 10+. When I got started we were buying the classic module model that may be a module for new groups (B1 and B2) or different modules for parties from 3-5 or 5-7, or what have you. This made my move to "sandbox" gaming so much easier because I could repurpose content from these modules and easily slot them in.

Is the market for the modular style adventures just not there anymore? Folks want the linear product that takes their group from beginning to the end?

One more thought for those folks look to get "Into the Borderlands" It's $50 and I wish it would have been a box set that had the modules printed in the original format.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: fearsomepirate on April 18, 2018, 02:20:05 PM
Because a hardback campaign allows you to center the year's marketing around it and concentrate on a single product. Much easier to keep people's awareness of Tomb of Annihilation high than diffuse attention among dozens of modules. The books sell very well, too.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: S'mon on April 18, 2018, 02:20:07 PM
The hardbacks presumably sell well and have nice fat profit nargins.

I certainly prefer modular adventures to linear paths. Some of my GMs at my Meetup are good at extracting modular adventures out of the WotC hardbacks - maybe WotC assume most sandbox gms can and will do that. Personally I find it easier to convert an OSR adventure to 5e.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Willie the Duck on April 18, 2018, 02:26:44 PM
I would say that since you stopped buying them, the adventure books have gotten better at being modular and or usable/minable for modular gaming needs (Tales from the Yawning Portal is specifically a bunch of smaller adventures, Tomb of Annihilation is a sandbox/hex-crawl island with a massive end-dungeon that can be ignored along with the overall plot if preferred, or used in isolation, Storm King's Thunder is very much more multi-outcome with more ways to go about it than the more linear railroads of the earlier ones).

That said, yes. It appears that a $50 purchase that takes up a quarter, half, or most of a 20-level campaign is the preferred model for module gaming, as far as WotC wants to be in charge of.

I will say that WotC has been upfront that it expects people to take advantage of third party products. So it might not be that WotC doesn't think that there is a market for modular style adventures, only that they don't want to attempt to make a profit doing so, given their overarching corporate strategy.

Overall, however, I've often wondered what model has been more profitable. Were B1 and B2, that you mentioned, profitable for TSR? I assume so, but I guess I don't know.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: estar on April 18, 2018, 02:45:44 PM
Quote from: Ulairi;1034899
Is the market for the modular style adventures just not there anymore? Folks want the linear product that takes their group from beginning to the end?

One more thought for those folks look to get "Into the Borderlands" It's $50 and I wish it would have been a box set that had the modules printed in the original format.

Traditional tournament style modules don't scale. The WoTC offerings are larger in scope than the most of the classic AD&D modules.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Ratman_tf on April 18, 2018, 03:00:10 PM
At a guess, I'd say the popularity of Paizo's adventure paths.
Though 3rd parties like Goodman Games have picked up a lot of the slack.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: estar on April 18, 2018, 03:04:08 PM
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1034921
At a guess, I'd say the popularity of Paizo's adventure paths.
Though 3rd parties like Goodman Games have picked up a lot of the slack.

Paizo is a factor but the Wizards has their own take on the presentation.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Ratman_tf on April 18, 2018, 03:18:02 PM
Quote from: estar;1034923
Paizo is a factor but the Wizards has their own take on the presentation.

Sure enough.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: fearsomepirate on April 18, 2018, 03:23:51 PM
If you have a dozen level 1 adventures, you won't play very many of them unless you are running a lot of games, people are happy resetting at 1 after each one, or it takes forever to hit level 2. A 1-15 campaign book is nice because you end up using nearly 100% of the content. And, not coincidentally at all, if you play at a normal pace, you will finish right about the time a new one comes out.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Haffrung on April 18, 2018, 03:47:20 PM
1) The D&D experience these days is promoted as an epic story with ongoing stories and villains. Paizo's adventure paths and WotC's campaigns in a book provide that.

2) A great many DMs today do not create their own material. They don't feel confident in it, they don't have the time - whatever. But where DMs used to fit modules into a homebrew campaign, many DMs today don't have a homebrew campaign to fit it into.

3) Jamming a bunch of unrelated modules together can be awkward in an RPG climate that's all about ongoing stories.

4) As has already been mentioned, the marketing model for WotC today is multi-platform. Far easier to do with with a big flagpole campaign than a bunch of smaller modules.

5) I'm sure there's some kind of publishing economy of scale involved, where it's more efficient to design, publish, and distribute two 240 page books a year than twelve 20 page adventures.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: finarvyn on April 18, 2018, 03:58:21 PM
In the old days, the early TSR modules were tournament adventures. The G-series and D-series modules (and many others of the era) were played at GenCon with OD&D and later re-written to be published as AD&D modules. Somewhere along the line they found that several modules linked together (which they called a "super module") were popular, so the G-series and Desert of Desolation and Elemental Evil books started to sell.

I think that the current hardback promotional strategy probably goes back to the 3E days where so many modules were created that stores got left with boxes of unsold product. (At least, most of the stores around me started selling 3E stuff at a huge discount just to clear shelf space.) This leads to the conclusion that one large hardback module would sell better than a pile of random smaller modules.

Personally, I like the Goodman Games modules. They're small, self-contained (mostly), and can be played in a small number of sessions. I wish more companies would take this approach, or maybe take a number of similarly themed modules and sell them as boxed sets. I find that having a hardback at the game table is a lot less useful than a thin module that can lay flat.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Gronan of Simmerya on April 18, 2018, 04:18:55 PM
Why?

Money.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Larsdangly on April 18, 2018, 04:43:22 PM
Whatever the reason, I think the spread of this style of adventure material has all but ruined the core population engaged in the hobby. If this is what you think D+D is, then you've basically resigned everyone at the table to passive roles, either spooning out or eating dollops of whatever 'story' you are all supposedly enjoying. It is so unlike the experience of actually playing D+D that I find it almost unrecognizable. But, in fairness to the current authors, we started sliding down this slope a long time ago, when TSR started re-formatting their adventure modules to include a block of text the DM was supposed to read at each room entry - a subtle little tweak on earlier game play that gets everyone conditioned to the idea that the module is in charge of the game instead of the players. There is a straight line from that boxed 'color' text to adventures in which the whole arc of play just follows along from one scripted event or encounter to another. And then, of course, you only get to 'enjoy' the adventure if you survive and 'win'. So, the rules of the game have to be adapted to make sure each character has a predictable and very high chance of surviving each encounter, which leads to another requirement that each character more or less 'resets' after each encounter, so the outcomes remain highly predictable. And here we are. If it weren't for the OSR and its close relatives, this hobby would be a big shit show right now.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: S'mon on April 18, 2018, 04:47:50 PM
Quote from: Larsdangly;1034947
If it weren't for the OSR and its close relatives, this hobby would be a big shit show right now.

For me, running OSR stuff with 5e rules definitely hits the sweet spot. Enough random lethality to be interesting, not so much as to be discouraging.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Gronan of Simmerya on April 18, 2018, 04:48:12 PM
Quote from: Larsdangly;1034947
Whatever the reason, I think the spread of this style of adventure material has all but ruined the core population engaged in the hobby. If this is what you think D+D is, then you've basically resigned everyone at the table to passive roles, either spooning out or eating dollops of whatever 'story' you are all supposedly enjoying. It is so unlike the experience of actually playing D+D that I find it almost unrecognizable. But, in fairness to the current authors, we started sliding down this slope a long time ago, when TSR started re-formatting their adventure modules to include a block of text the DM was supposed to read at each room entry - a subtle little tweak on earlier game play that gets everyone conditioned to the idea that the module is in charge of the game instead of the players. There is a straight line from that boxed 'color' text to adventures in which the whole arc of play just follows along from one scripted event or encounter to another. And then, of course, you only get to 'enjoy' the adventure if you survive and 'win'. So, the rules of the game have to be adapted to make sure each character has a predictable and very high chance of surviving each encounter, which leads to another requirement that each character more or less 'resets' after each encounter, so the outcomes remain highly predictable. And here we are. If it weren't for the OSR and its close relatives, this hobby would be a big shit show right now.

You really, really need to read "Dave Arenson's True Genius" by Rob Kuntz.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Ulairi on April 18, 2018, 04:52:11 PM
Quote from: Larsdangly;1034947
Whatever the reason, I think the spread of this style of adventure material has all but ruined the core population engaged in the hobby. If this is what you think D+D is, then you've basically resigned everyone at the table to passive roles, either spooning out or eating dollops of whatever 'story' you are all supposedly enjoying. It is so unlike the experience of actually playing D+D that I find it almost unrecognizable. But, in fairness to the current authors, we started sliding down this slope a long time ago, when TSR started re-formatting their adventure modules to include a block of text the DM was supposed to read at each room entry - a subtle little tweak on earlier game play that gets everyone conditioned to the idea that the module is in charge of the game instead of the players. There is a straight line from that boxed 'color' text to adventures in which the whole arc of play just follows along from one scripted event or encounter to another. And then, of course, you only get to 'enjoy' the adventure if you survive and 'win'. So, the rules of the game have to be adapted to make sure each character has a predictable and very high chance of surviving each encounter, which leads to another requirement that each character more or less 'resets' after each encounter, so the outcomes remain highly predictable. And here we are. If it weren't for the OSR and its close relatives, this hobby would be a big shit show right now.

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Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: finarvyn on April 18, 2018, 05:31:59 PM
Quote from: Larsdangly;1034947
Whatever the reason, I think the spread of this style of adventure material has all but ruined the core population engaged in the hobby.
I'm not sure that it's ruined the core as much as changed it, and change is always evaluated by each person as a good or bad thing. I played OD&D for maybe 20 years before I ran a "module" adventures on a regular basis (I don't count products like the City State of the Invincible Overlord, as it's more of a sandbox play area). My group at the time was really into a style which allowed us to improvise and "wing it" a lot, and we didn't need much prep time to run an adventure. And if we played a store-bought adventure it was usually something like the G-series modules which were very open-ended and allowed for characters to act in many ways to reach a conclusion to the storyline. Most of my sessions still run that way today.

On the other hand, there are many players who like a particular level of structure. They want a clear goal and a way to get there. Adventures run through Adventurer's League require a certain degree of uniformity in terms of encounters and style of presentation and rewards given at the end. It's a different style, designed to attract a different customer base.

As folks have noted, much of this is about money. WotC can't sell me more pads of graph paper and I already have as many rulebooks as I need in order to play my freestyle method of play. No real money to be made in that, unless they want to sell me official "D&D" pens and paper. What they can do, however, is offer a variety of adventures that folks might buy in the hopes of promoting the more structured style of play.

Overall, I think that the OSR has done a good job of bringing back a simpler style of rules for simpler types of adventures. I'm not sure that the stuff that WotC is selling is bad, only different. I know that when I watch players at my local game store playing in the AL adventures they seem to be having fun.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Mistwell on April 18, 2018, 05:35:06 PM
Quote from: Ulairi;1034899
I picked up "Into the Borderlands" today which is an homage to B1 and B2 and reading through it reminded me how much more useful the old modular adventure products were compared to what 5E is releasing. From my understanding, and I could be wrong because I quit buying the 5E product after the Timat adventures (which were two books) Prince of the Apocalypse. I know that Wizards is trying to do fewer books but what they are producing are a single book that takes parties from level 1 all the way to level 10+. When I got started we were buying the classic module model that may be a module for new groups (B1 and B2) or different modules for parties from 3-5 or 5-7, or what have you. This made my move to "sandbox" gaming so much easier because I could repurpose content from these modules and easily slot them in.

Is the market for the modular style adventures just not there anymore? Folks want the linear product that takes their group from beginning to the end?

One more thought for those folks look to get "Into the Borderlands" It's $50 and I wish it would have been a box set that had the modules printed in the original format.

Not that I think you're wrong, but you should also know they got MUCH MUCH better after Tiamat. Some of the more recent adventure books are excellent, and nothing like Tiamat. Indeed, a lot of the more recent ones are intentionally broken up to be more modular, and sandboxed.

And, as mentioned above, Tales from the Yawning Portal is just a bunch of entirely modular adventures from the past.  There is a rumor WOTC is planning another one of those, as it sold well and was well received.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: KingCheops on April 18, 2018, 05:46:15 PM
They actually have a very good spread of things right now.  There's the main "Storyline" as they call it for each year or "Season."  Tying into that is the Adventurer's League modular organized play style adventures (available for purchase if you don't play in the league).  They further added to that by starting the Guild Adept program where selected community members create official products for that season.  Based on Tomb of Annihilation that includes the full gamut of adventures, delves, encounters, classes, rules, spells, etc.  Then you have the DM's Guild where you can find anything and everything from the community the publishing of which is aided by Wotc/OBS.  Lastly you have the 3PP.

Their marketing strategy for all this has been remarkably integrated and rather innovative in the table top space.  Several of the seasons were actually written by 3PP and Guild Adepts and Adventurer's League content is often created by 3PP.  Dragon+ will often spotlight DM's Guild products as well as Guild Adept products.  And ALL of this ties into their online content delivery (DnD Beyond youtube and blogs, D&D youtube, the various recorded gaming shows, and the video games).

There are an absolute TON of adventures available for play ranging from free to expensive covering the entire gamut of quality.  Why would WotC want to publish these little modules with all their overhead and expensive writers when they can take a cut from DM's Guild community members writing decent stuff and cross promoting them in Dragon+.

In my personal opinion this is the absolute golden age of D&D content.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: happyhermit on April 18, 2018, 05:50:01 PM
Well I will say personally, getting me to buy anything other than a decent sized hardcover is like pulling teeth, I just don't like softcovers these days. Prior to 5e I barely ran any published adventures, basically just a few classics to give players a bit of that "shared experience" but we always preferred homebrew (still do). I have bought several of the 5e hardcover adventures though, and a very satisfied with them for my purposes (which means most of the content will not be run and is, certainly not all in the order presented). I have swiped a lot from SKT and CoS, TftYP is just a collection of modules. Most of them aren't actually very linear, even if run straight from the books, though apparently the first few were sound like they weren't great anyways.

For those who really want new modules they sell hundreds if not thousands on DMsGuild.

So, I doubt I'm typical but their strategy worked in my case, I doubt I would have bought more than a couple modules (if that) probably only a hardcover complilation like TftYP which I bought anyways. As is I bought several pricey hardcovers and I'm quite happy with them, even though I'm mostly running homebrew.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: JeremyR on April 18, 2018, 05:51:04 PM
I think it's one of the things they learned from the end of the TSR era (and even the d20 boom era).  Shorter modules have much less profit margin, require a lot of shelf space, and have a lot of churn, while bigger, more expensive hardbacks can stay on the shelves longer.

They probably won't maximize profits that way, but it's a way to make the most money with the least effort.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: estar on April 18, 2018, 06:05:10 PM
It no different today than it was back in the late 70s. The first adventures sold like hotcakes. People combed Dragon Magazine and then later Dungeon. The main difference between the early 70s and late 70s was that due to the lack material everybody was forced to roll their own regardless of whether they liked or not.

If anything the situation is better today with numerous readily accessible alternatives to the model that Paizo and Wizards uses. Alternative formats for adventures. More variety of adventures. Even extensive how-tos on making everything on your own.

The first golden age was only that way because of scarcity. Today the second golden age is a result of people finally able to get the alternative out without having spend an arm and leg on capital costs. Or having to bow to the distributer and publishers that be.

Before me and the other people who worked on the Wilderlands boxed got into it the hexcrawl formatted setting was all but dead. But then over the years the bunch of other and other who were inspired to do their own thing brought back to life as another way of presenting a setting.

I don't care that the majority of settings are still formatted like they always been as travelogue. If that what floats their boat so be it. All I know that when it comes to the hexcrawl there is more variety today than ever before.

And that just one example out of many.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: estar on April 18, 2018, 06:12:14 PM
As for why the dominant format the way it is. The reason is simple. When Judges Guild show that pre-packaged adventures and setting sell what was on hand that was readily publishable? Tournament dungeons.

The keyed map followed by a numerical listing of locale contents with a intro section of special stuff and rules (like wandering monsters) are all straight out of the tournaments they ran for Origins, Gen Con and other conventions. They had to be that way so that hundreds of players were treated in a fair manner by dozens of referees running the event.

Which had nothing to do with what useful or needed for a campaign run for a bunch of friends at home. This is not the last time that organized play fucked up what the industry offered the players of the hobby.

One good thing about 5e is that organized play is separate from what they actually published. Instead of the home hobbyists being shoved whatever Wizards (and others) cooked up for organized play. It is the other way around. Just look on the DMs Guild and search for the various published official adventures and see all the supplemental material made for organized play. And how different it is from how the published book reads.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Abraxus on April 18, 2018, 06:48:57 PM
I have not run any 5E modules as of yet. I have been singularly unimpressed with Paizo APs. I'm not asking for the APs to be written for a four person overly optimized group. As written even a minimally optmized group can defeat most if not all the creatures in a AP. Yes I can change them to suit my needs but I bought the APs to save prep time as a DM not lose prep time. That being said they will keep publishing them as long as they make money. With PF 2E they can re-release all the old APs as single hardcovers though it might anger their fanbase.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Robyo on April 18, 2018, 07:47:15 PM
I have yet to buy any of the 5e adventures. The price is just too high, just for an adventure. Plus, I don't see my group sticking it out for 10+ levels of adventure pathism.

There's tons of OSR stuff out there that I can grab, for cheap or free, and run with. And besides (as it's been stated), converting older modules to 5e is really not that hard at all.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: fearsomepirate on April 18, 2018, 08:26:11 PM
I had fun playing Rise of Tiamat. I would have bought Yawning Portal, but I already had the originals and had converted most of them to 5e myself! Another thing about books is the slow release rate gives them staying power. It's much easier to remember the catalog when there are only a few books in it rather than hundreds of softcovers.

IMO the books are a better deal, too. $50 for a year of gaming...what would that get you, maybe 4 or 5 softcovers to take you through level 6?
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Steven Mitchell on April 18, 2018, 08:33:48 PM
Quote from: Haffrung;1034934


2) A great many DMs today do not create their own material. They don't feel confident in it, they don't have the time - whatever. But where DMs used to fit modules into a homebrew campaign, many DMs today don't have a homebrew campaign to fit it into.


And on the flip side of that, anyone that creates their own material has alternatives, and the confidence to exercise them.  So they might not buy it even if you put something out for them.  I've been so irritated by the early WotC stuff and their insistence on the big "campaign in a hardback" format that it forced me to do my own thing with 5E.  Now that I've built up my own campaign world and supporting materials, I don't even bother to look at much of the DM Guild stuff.  Frankly, I look occasionally and read a few reviews to see if there is something I want, but always end up preferring my own things to theirs.

It's not really in their best interest to encourage people to be self sufficient.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: fearsomepirate on April 19, 2018, 07:24:03 AM
Why would you be irritated at them selling things if there's nothing you would buy?
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Steven Mitchell on April 19, 2018, 08:47:04 AM
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1035033
Why would you be irritated at them selling things if there's nothing you would buy?

Emphasis added:

Quote
I've been so irritated by the early WotC stuff and their insistence on the big "campaign in a hardback" format that it forced me to do my own thing with 5E. Now ...
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Haffrung on April 19, 2018, 11:47:05 AM
Quote from: finarvyn;1034962
Overall, I think that the OSR has done a good job of bringing back a simpler style of rules for simpler types of adventures. I'm not sure that the stuff that WotC is selling is bad, only different. I know that when I watch players at my local game store playing in the AL adventures they seem to be having fun.

The other things the big books-in-a-campaign offer is a shared experience. Everyone who has gone through Out of the Abyss can share and compare their experiences with other gamers, whether it's IRL, or on Youtube channels, blogs, etc. Those shared experiences have always been an important part of the ecology of the D&D hobby.

And it should be noted that the WotC campaign books are way less scripted and railroaded than Paizo's adventure paths. So kudos to WotC for at least trying to encourage a setting-based, more sandboxy approach to play within their published campaigns.

Quote from: KingCheops;1034967

There are an absolute TON of adventures available for play ranging from free to expensive covering the entire gamut of quality.  Why would WotC want to publish these little modules with all their overhead and expensive writers when they can take a cut from DM's Guild community members writing decent stuff and cross promoting them in Dragon+.

In my personal opinion this is the absolute golden age of D&D content.

The thing WotC isn't providing is support for DMs who run their own settings and campaign worlds. The DMG includes a lot of good advice on creating a world and running your own homebrew campaign. But since they published the DMG, they've provided nothing. And I'm not talking about shorter adventure modules, which as  you point out, 3rd party publishers have covered. I'm talking about DM aids. Lairs, NPCs, organizations, inns, ships, caravans, mercenary groups, bandit gangs, wizard guilds, maps of ruins, support for exploring forests, deserts, or underwater. Stuff that inspires and takes the load off a DM running his own campaign. Because at this point, a DM has the choice of A) running an entire campaign in a book, or B) making up everything himself. I think a lot of DMs want something in the middle.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Robyo on April 19, 2018, 11:50:08 AM
In WotC's defense, the Volo's and Xanathar's Guides have some tasty bits for DM's to add to their games.

But I have found the AiME Loremaster's Guide to be a really excellent aid to DMing. The monster-building section alone beats out the DMG's.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Ulairi on April 19, 2018, 12:33:52 PM
I picked up the first 3 books that came out for 5E and wasn't impressed with them at all. I guess they've gotten better but $50 is a lot to ask compared to the old modular system. I still prefer the old ways but I guess this new process is working.

My biggest beef is the move to TELLING STORIES with the games that happened with 2E.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Haffrung on April 19, 2018, 01:01:29 PM
Quote from: Robyo;1035064
In WotC's defense, the Volo's and Xanathar's Guides have some tasty bits for DM's to add to their games.

Volo's is excellent.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: estar on April 19, 2018, 01:20:05 PM
Quote from: Robyo;1035064
In WotC's defense, the Volo's and Xanathar's Guides have some tasty bits for DM's to add to their games.

I concur, Volo, Xanathar and even Sword Coast are the books Wizards made that are most applicable to home campaign. The thing to keep in mind is the pace of their publishing schedule. Compared to past editions it has been measured and slow.

Also unlike past edition there is the DM's Guild which can use any or all the published works that Wizards have released. So the Haffrung's point may not be even relevant due to the changes how material with official blessing is distributed.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: KingCheops on April 19, 2018, 01:20:08 PM
Quote from: Haffrung;1035063
The thing WotC isn't providing is support for DMs who run their own settings and campaign worlds. The DMG includes a lot of good advice on creating a world and running your own homebrew campaign. But since they published the DMG, they've provided nothing. And I'm not talking about shorter adventure modules, which as  you point out, 3rd party publishers have covered. I'm talking about DM aids. Lairs, NPCs, organizations, inns, ships, caravans, mercenary groups, bandit gangs, wizard guilds, maps of ruins, support for exploring forests, deserts, or underwater. Stuff that inspires and takes the load off a DM running his own campaign. Because at this point, a DM has the choice of A) running an entire campaign in a book, or B) making up everything himself. I think a lot of DMs want something in the middle.


Honest question:  how did you acquire this sort of stuff prior to the Internet community?
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Steven Mitchell on April 19, 2018, 02:17:10 PM
Sword Coast is a terrible book for anyone to use in play regardless of style.  It's part game book, part coffee table tour of the Realms.  It was so bad that I still haven't quite been willing to pull the trigger on Volo, despite a better rep.  Xanathar's is much better constructed and delivered.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Ulairi on April 19, 2018, 02:22:42 PM
The Forgotten Realms is the worst campaign world TSR/WoTC have and it totally sucks that it's the default for 5E. I still don't understand why Greyhawk is ignored.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Willie the Duck on April 19, 2018, 02:39:58 PM
Quote from: Ulairi;1035091
I still don't understand why Greyhawk is ignored.

I think because they tried to use it as the at-least-theoretically-default setting for 3e and it didn't even land with a big wet sickening thud so much as a resounding indifference from their base.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: estar on April 19, 2018, 02:44:40 PM
Quote from: KingCheops;1035082
Honest question:  how did you acquire this sort of stuff prior to the Internet community?

Official Releases, Third Party Releases (diminishing after the early 80s), and above all magazines like Dragon, White Dwarf, Dungeoneer, Judges Guild Journal, Pegasus, etc. By the mid 80s we had Dungeon magazine.

If you were involved in the right area at the right time with the right people, you could get stuff through fanzines and handouts. For example Lee Gold's Alarums and Excursions. Which I didn't know existed until the 90s and the early internet.

Depending on what you found and had the time for, early computers got a serious workout for random generation of stuff. I still have a printout of a 1,000+ village made with a program found in Dragon Magazine (I think #42). There was some AD&D 1st edition disk for DOS that one could buy.

My usual procedure until the Internet grew big enough was to use the yellow pages to find all book stores, model shops, and comic stores in a town. Go to them and see what magazine and product was available. Then use that to send for catalogs. That how I found Tim Kask's magazine Adventure Gaming in a store in Pittsburgh.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Haffrung on April 19, 2018, 02:45:09 PM
Quote from: KingCheops;1035082
Honest question:  how did you acquire this sort of stuff prior to the Internet community?

Lots of published material. The Book of Lairs (1, 2, and 3). Castle Book. Rogue's Gallery. Dungeoneer's Survival Guide. Dungeon Master's Campaign Guide.

And I didn't have as much need back when I could devote 10 hours a week to D&D. I'm older now, with less time and more money. WotC would get more of my money if they made more material that helped me run my game.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Willie the Duck on April 19, 2018, 03:00:16 PM
Quote from: Haffrung;1035101
And I didn't have as much need back when I could devote 10 hours a week to D&D. I'm older now, with less time and more money. WotC would get more of my money if they made more material that helped me run my game.

Definitely this.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: KingCheops on April 19, 2018, 03:03:07 PM
What if WotC is content to take a cut of someone else doing the work and selling it through a separate distributor so WotC literally just has to sit there and collect money (plus protect its IP)?  DM's Guild has TONS of content that WotC literally spent nothing on and they get a cut of it.

estar mentions about fan magazines -- is that not replaced by blogs, websites, and podcasts these days?  I personally really like Dyson's Dodecahedron and Elven Tower for maps.  I like Down with D&D and DM's Deep Dive for podcasts.  Sly Fourish (Mike Shea's blog who's the guy who does the Deep Dive) is great along with PowerScore (Sean McGovern also makes pretty good material for the DM's Guild).  Check out https://campaignwiki.org/1pdc/ (https://campaignwiki.org/1pdc/) for a bunch of one page dungeons.  Matt Colville's youtube channel is great.

Honestly the old model of buying those books you mention was pretty shitty.  I equate it to buying albums when a single wasn't available.  You buy the album and find out there's only like 2 songs you like (the single you wanted and another radio friendly one that will likely be released shortly) and the rest aren't good.  What we have right now in D&D is like the listening stations back in the late 90's.  You still had to expend the effort to go the store, find the album, and listen to it in the store.  Now we have curated playlists on various internet music stations/stores.  All that's missing for D&D are curators.  I think the Dragon+/Youtube/Guild Adept program is the first step towards that.

Honestly, as someone who has a full time job and two toddlers, the real problem you're complaining about isn't lack of content.  It is lack of time.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: KingCheops on April 19, 2018, 03:08:43 PM
Oh snap I completely forgot about Tribality in my list.  Lots of great stuff there.  I'm just so used to their articles popping up in my Google+ feed that I glossed over them.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Mistwell on April 20, 2018, 10:22:07 PM
Quote from: Haffrung;1035063
I'm talking about DM aids. Lairs, NPCs, organizations, inns, ships, caravans, mercenary groups, bandit gangs, wizard guilds, maps of ruins, support for exploring forests, deserts, or underwater. Stuff that inspires and takes the load off a DM running his own campaign. Because at this point, a DM has the choice of A) running an entire campaign in a book, or B) making up everything himself. I think a lot of DMs want something in the middle.


Volo's Guide, and the upcoming Mordenkainens Tome of Foes, cover most of this I believe.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Kyle Aaron on April 20, 2018, 11:28:01 PM
Quote from: Haffrung;1034934
1) The D&D experience these days is promoted as an epic story with ongoing stories and villains. Paizo's adventure paths and WotC's campaigns in a book provide that.
This is true about the promotion, but the reality is that for most gamers, play is casual, people come and go, pick up games and put them down. The same 4-6 people in a weekly campaign that lasts for several years is often dreamed of by DM and player alike, but is, for better or worse, rare. I did a survey on rpg.net ages ago, it was less than 20% of respondents. The typical "campaign" was 6-12 sessions, and I use the quotation marks because a campaign implies a beginning, middle and an end, yet many didn't reach a conclusion of the story, the game or group fizzled out in some way. And while I said, "include the one-session fizzles", people excluded them, so the true average is lower.

The Wizards marketing speaks to the dreams of players, not the reality. This may be deliberate, since gaming is a luxury we buy with our hearts not our heads.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: fearsomepirate on April 20, 2018, 11:39:53 PM
Quote from: Haffrung;1035063
The thing WotC isn't providing is support for DMs who run their own settings and campaign worlds. The DMG includes a lot of good advice on creating a world and running your own homebrew campaign. But since they published the DMG, they've provided nothing. And I'm not talking about shorter adventure modules, which as  you point out, 3rd party publishers have covered. I'm talking about DM aids. Lairs, NPCs, organizations, inns, ships, caravans, mercenary groups, bandit gangs, wizard guilds, maps of ruins, support for exploring forests, deserts, or underwater. Stuff that inspires and takes the load off a DM running his own campaign. Because at this point, a DM has the choice of A) running an entire campaign in a book, or B) making up everything himself. I think a lot of DMs want something in the middle.


I'd really like something like this. Could be wrong, but I don't think they'd be cannibalizing their sales if they put out a sandbox-oriented product line in parallel with the campaign hardbacks. Basically I would like something like the 1e Greyhawk box updated to 5e, but fleshed out better. The DMG actually has a surprising amount of decent stuff for a modern book, but it lacked monster tables. I've tried to use the Xanathar's tables before, and they are pretty bad. Every time I've rolled on them, I've ended up discarding the result and using the 1e tables instead.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: KingCheops on April 22, 2018, 10:52:58 AM
Quote from: fearsomepirate;1035294
The DMG actually has a surprising amount of decent stuff for a modern book, but it lacked monster tables. I've tried to use the Xanathar's tables before, and they are pretty bad. Every time I've rolled on them, I've ended up discarding the result and using the 1e tables instead.

What was it about the X tables that didn't work?  I haven't used them yet and just want to know what to look out for.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: S'mon on April 22, 2018, 12:23:33 PM
Quote from: KingCheops;1035467
What was it about the X tables that didn't work?  I haven't used them yet and just want to know what to look out for.

Me too - I thought the Xanathar tables looked decent?
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: fearsomepirate on April 22, 2018, 06:55:36 PM
Quote from: KingCheops;1035467
What was it about the X tables that didn't work?  I haven't used them yet and just want to know what to look out for.

They just keep coming up  with things that don't really fit the location I'm rolling for. They might just be too big.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Christopher Brady on April 22, 2018, 10:40:41 PM
Were there modular adventures?  I remember Keep on the Borderlands being relatively linear, your goal is to find the big treasure, right?
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: S'mon on April 23, 2018, 05:10:28 AM
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1035563
Were there modular adventures?  I remember Keep on the Borderlands being relatively linear, your goal is to find the big treasure, right?

Modular/module = can put into an ongoing larger campaign.
No, Keep on the Borderlands is not linear and does not have one big treasure as the goal.
A module could be linear, some of the later B series were quite linear. But you don't really see true linearity until late 2e era.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: Ulairi on April 23, 2018, 09:24:34 AM
Quote from: S'mon;1035601
Modular/module = can put into an ongoing larger campaign.
No, Keep on the Borderlands is not linear and does not have one big treasure as the goal.
A module could be linear, some of the later B series were quite linear. But you don't really see true linearity until late 2e era.

Yup. It's during 2E that TSR found out about the popularity of the novels and that fans of the novels would start buying gaming product if it had fluff and crap for them. And the hobby really got into 'story telling' being the purpose of the game. I hate late era 2E.
Title: Why did Wizards of the Coast move away from the modular adventures?
Post by: RandyB on April 23, 2018, 01:01:37 PM
Quote from: Ulairi;1035620
Yup. It's during 2E that TSR found out about the popularity of the novels and that fans of the novels would start buying gaming product if it had fluff and crap for them. And the hobby really got into 'story telling' being the purpose of the game. I hate late era 2E.

I've read an argument that the move to storytelling can be benchmarked with Dragonlance, which IIRC was mid-to-late 1E.