Good/Bad D&D Modules

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 5:12 pm

FatR wrote: Now, it is, of course, pretty much impossible to make a largely setting-agnostic adventure fully fit in given world (although a bit of advice on that wouldn't hurt, as I said above), but is it really that hard to make the rest of the world more helpful and to matter more in general? RHoD and Scales of War make some steps in this direction already, and the latter might have been pretty close to the ideal, had it been less hampered by 4E.

I'm reminded of Paizo's Second Darkness adventure path. I haven't played more than the first encounter of the first module, but I've seen lots of complaints. For example, a group of elves treat your PCs like dirt they scraped off the bottom of their shoes and then they expect you to run around doing errands for them to fix a problem they created in the first place. Good luck with that.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 5:46 pm

hogarth wrote:I'm reminded of Paizo's Second Darkness adventure path. I haven't played more than the first encounter of the first module, but I've seen lots of complaints. For example, a group of elves treat your PCs like dirt they scraped off the bottom of their shoes and then they expect you to run around doing errands for them to fix a problem they created in the first place. Good luck with that.

Do you get to treat them like dirt in the end?

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 5:51 pm

JigokuBosatsu wrote:Was treasure hunt the one in smuggler's caves? If that's the 0th level one I remember, it was pretty fun.

this one...

You start as slaves on a vessel taking you away form your land that a storm causes the ship to wreck, and from adversity you become adventurers...so gain things like classes.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 6:05 pm

RadiantPhoenix wrote:Do you get to treat them like dirt in the end?

After the entire adventure path is over? Who knows -- if I made it that far, I'd probably be sick of the whole bloody thing and want to start a new campaign with a new character.

Swordslinger · Post by **Swordslinger** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 9:26 pm

virgil wrote:You have to accept that there are people more powerful than you for most of your career. How else do you have a challenging foe when you get to the higher levels without breaking verisimilitude? And it's a Warhammer crapsack if only entities hostile to you are of that power level or higher.

It's not so much the idea that more powerful people exist, but rather the idea that they can travel so quickly.

If Elminster is 500 miles away and would take 10 days to arrive by horse, it becomes a lot easier to explain why the old sage isn't fixing all the problems of the world because that 10 day journey there and back is roughly 3 weeks that he's out of action. It also explains why the B team can be important because Elminster can't be everywhere at once.

The problem is that there's teleportation, so he can be everywhere at once. Any city level threat or greater can pretty much be fixed by Elminster and/or the handful of other high level spellcasters who choose to devote a couple days to solving the problem.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 9:46 pm

Swordslinger wrote:The problem is that there's teleportation, so he can be everywhere at once. Any city level threat or greater can pretty much be fixed by Elminster and/or the handful of other high level spellcasters who choose to devote a couple days to solving the problem.

IF they care about a city-level problem. Elminster is one of the Chosen and has his own bigger problems to deal with.

But interesting conversation you two are having so continue.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 9:47 pm

I'm not an expert on FR, so I will contain my further comments to this: Fuck Elminster.

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Fri Apr 01, 2011 6:35 am

Swordslinger wrote: It's not so much the idea that more powerful people exist, but rather the idea that they can travel so quickly.

If Elminster is 500 miles away and would take 10 days to arrive by horse, it becomes a lot easier to explain why the old sage isn't fixing all the problems of the world because that 10 day journey there and back is roughly 3 weeks that he's out of action. It also explains why the B team can be important because Elminster can't be everywhere at once.

The problem is that there's teleportation, so he can be everywhere at once. Any city level threat or greater can pretty much be fixed by Elminster and/or the handful of other high level spellcasters who choose to devote a couple days to solving the problem.

ICBMs can reach any point on Earth in about 1 hour. Clearly, there can be no meaningful conflict between lesser powers in our world, because any city level military force or greater can be near-immediately and without a possibility of meaningful retaliation exterminated by a superpower who doesn't like them.

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Fri Apr 01, 2011 6:37 am

RadiantPhoenix wrote: Do you get to treat them like dirt in the end?

No, not in the AP itself. And no, you won't want to switch sides.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Fri Apr 01, 2011 12:58 pm

FatR wrote: ICBMs can reach any point on Earth in about 1 hour. Clearly, there can be no meaningful conflict between lesser powers in our world, because any city level military force or greater can be near-immediately and without a possibility of meaningful retaliation exterminated by a superpower who doesn't like them.

I don't think anyone has a problem with that kind of situation. But if aliens invaded tomorrow, I somehow doubt that the U.S. would say "Fuck it, let Lithuania handle it".

violence in the media · Fri Apr 01, 2011 1:05 pm

hogarth wrote:
FatR wrote: ICBMs can reach any point on Earth in about 1 hour. Clearly, there can be no meaningful conflict between lesser powers in our world, because any city level military force or greater can be near-immediately and without a possibility of meaningful retaliation exterminated by a superpower who doesn't like them.
I don't think anyone has a problem with that kind of situation. But if aliens invaded tomorrow, I somehow doubt that the U.S. would say "Fuck it, let Lithuania handle it".

What if the aliens were apparently only invading Lithuania? Or if Lithuania was unable to convince anyone else that aliens were invading?

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Fri Apr 01, 2011 1:08 pm

violence in the media wrote:What if the aliens were apparently only invading Lithuania?

Or what if they were only invading Libya?

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Fri Apr 01, 2011 1:17 pm

hogarth wrote:
violence in the media wrote:What if the aliens were apparently only invading Lithuania?
Or what if they were only invading Libya?

talozin · Post by **talozin** » Fri Apr 01, 2011 1:52 pm

FatR wrote:
RadiantPhoenix wrote: Do you get to treat them like dirt in the end?
No, not in the AP itself. And no, you won't want to switch sides.

Is the other side bent on the complete annihilation of every living thing? Because I'm having trouble imagining exactly what other creed they might be following that wouldn't at least make me go, "Hm, if the elves hate them this much, maybe they have some good points after all."

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Fri Apr 01, 2011 1:58 pm

talozin wrote:
FatR wrote:
RadiantPhoenix wrote: Do you get to treat them like dirt in the end?
No, not in the AP itself. And no, you won't want to switch sides.
Is the other side bent on the complete annihilation of every living thing? Because I'm having trouble imagining exactly what other creed they might be following that wouldn't at least make me go, "Hm, if the elves hate them this much, maybe they have some good points after all."

They're trying to smash a meteor into the planet. So not every living thing, just every living thing on the surface.

talozin · Post by **talozin** » Fri Apr 01, 2011 2:12 pm

hogarth wrote: They're trying to smash a meteor into the planet. So not every living thing, just every living thing on the surface.

Perhaps a somewhat smaller meteor aimed at the elven homeland would satisfy everyone involved. Except the elves, of course, but they were asking for it anyway.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Fri Apr 01, 2011 7:10 pm

JigokuBosatsu wrote:I'm not an expert on FR, so I will contain my further comments to this: Fuck Elminster.

That's the whole problem with FR, but you have it backwards: Elminster Fuck.

K · Post by K » Fri Apr 01, 2011 7:56 pm

Swordslinger wrote:
virgil wrote:You have to accept that there are people more powerful than you for most of your career. How else do you have a challenging foe when you get to the higher levels without breaking verisimilitude? And it's a Warhammer crapsack if only entities hostile to you are of that power level or higher.
It's not so much the idea that more powerful people exist, but rather the idea that they can travel so quickly.

If Elminster is 500 miles away and would take 10 days to arrive by horse, it becomes a lot easier to explain why the old sage isn't fixing all the problems of the world because that 10 day journey there and back is roughly 3 weeks that he's out of action. It also explains why the B team can be important because Elminster can't be everywhere at once.

The problem is that there's teleportation, so he can be everywhere at once. Any city level threat or greater can pretty much be fixed by Elminster and/or the handful of other high level spellcasters who choose to devote a couple days to solving the problem.

I said this in one thread and I'll say it here: the default is not "Elminster has better things to do," the default is "Elminster doesn't actually know about your problems in your corner of the world."

I mean, it's not like there are televisions advertising every monster attack in the world and he can just plan out his day based on that. By the time the story gets to Elminster, the monster that has been threatening the village has already been killed by local adventurers.

Second, he might not care because there are other people that can fix the problem. I mean, he could probably make a huge dent into the demons pouring out of Myth Drannor by popping in every day, but he could also just let adventurers go in and gain fame and XP themselves. Then, when he actually does have better things to do, there will be other high-levels who can deal with the problem.

Third, he has his own enemies. If he showed up every time some manticore was eating babies he'd get ambushed by liches eventually.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon Apr 04, 2011 5:47 pm

How about Eliminster is busy catching up with his TiVo recordings.

It's canon that Eliminster has a portal leading to present day Earth in his secret asteroid base.

If you were an Epic spellcaster what would you rather do, constantly risk your potentially eternal life fighting all sorts of demons and devils and other monsters to protect an iron-age shithole or take a couple of your bottomless sacks of gold to Miami and rent a beachfront condo with flushable toilets.

We can assume that 90% of his time is spend doing lines of blow off the inner thigh of an underaged latina hoocker while Days of Our Lives plays in the background and he only goes to Toril often enough hat Muystra doesn't come looking for him.

Post by **Zherog** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 4:58 pm

As far as adventures go, I have a soft spot for The Skullcrackers from 0one Games.

I had to do three things when I wrote it (with limited word count): introduce the campaign setting; introduce the adventure path; make the adventure fun. So I took a stab at a sandbox-like adventure. The PCs can do whatever they like to investigate, and certain actions trigger reactions. There's things I'd do different (like begging for more word count, so I could include more action/reaction scenarios), but I liked how it turned out, overall.

(I'd link to the product page on 0one's site, but my employer blocks it.

)