Campaign Modules / Adventure Paths

[Midnight_v]

..before Paizo broke away... they existed for years selling little adventures and semi-official classes in Dungeon, and Dragon magazine.

I myself admit to buy some of these mags over the years. Now, while very few of them inspired me much recently, i've been wondering about adventure paths and modules, and what make them any good if at all.

There was a post the other day on the front page about What are the top 10 supplements of all time.

Now the questions that're taxing my attention is this:

1. What makes something like that good?

2. Have any of you played a module (post finding the den) that was worth a second of your life?

Most of my time I've played D&D with people who were just sandboxing it, but yesterday I saw Pathfinder had a hardcopy version of uhm... 1 sec...

"Rise of the Rune Lords" in my FLGS. (Which I can only assume is their take on "against the giants")

I often want to try my hand and making a few adventures, and spending time enough on them that people might want to actually sit down and play one.

What would need to be done to make something like that not suck? I'm generally talking about a 3.X style D&D game but I'm MORE than interested if there are modules/paths from other systems that you've seen work.

Thoughts, please?

[fectin]

Previous discussion:

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=52221

[ishy]

Now the questions that're taxing my attention is this:

1. What makes something like that good?

I often want to try my hand and making a few adventures, and spending time enough on them that people might want to actually sit down and play one.

What would need to be done to make something like that not suck?

hot chicks in the art

[Midnight_v]

fuck yeah! Thanks ishy

[Dogbert]

To enjoy RotRL you migth want to find a way to kill half your neurons because the whole thing is an Idiot Plot.

Paizo reminded me why I don't do canned adventures.

[Midnight_v]

To enjoy RotRL you migth want to find a way to kill half your neurons because the whole thing is an Idiot Plot.

Paizo reminded me why I don't do canned adventures.

Gotcha. What I had been wondering was is there such a thing as a "good" canned adventure. As a dm tool having everything coagulated in to 1 lump seems useful, but is there an example of one that might make you want to play it more than once.

[shadzar]

1. What makes something like that good?

2. Have any of you played a module (post finding the den) that was worth a second of your life?

2. no, because everything that exists now is 3rd edition, so therefore completely useless.

1. the modules of old, was a plug and play game. you could use most adventures in any campaign by jsut plugging them in where you needed some place on the map filled, either to change the pace, to give something from it in terms of treasure, or new monsters or even new tone. they could also be strung together like GDQ to give a full campaign, with work by the DM to make it work for the group.

this is think is what an "adventure path" it. a giant railroad to take your players for a ride on. they work so long as the players don't wish to jump off the train, and depending on the overarching theme and ideas it could work for the whole thing or just in parts that you use as above. people wanting to play out Chronicles would play the DL series even though it didnt translate well and was about as heavy a railroad as you could get, with little to no surprises if played straight and you had read the books.

for lazy DMs they use them and like you here many times on here, claim that they are THE WAY the game was intended to be played. sadly these foolish people don't understand the purpose of the module/adventure.

like grabbing something out of Dragon or Dungeon to jsut play to be able to paly like when half your group is missing and you don't want to run the full campaign without letting everyone play, this was the purpose of the modules/adventures. to give DMs something to run with short notice and to give players something to play, if they had little time.

remember the target audience of AD&D was college students with excess money, and free time, but there were times that you didnt have the time to do everything to make a game session, but you had money you could throw $10 out to get something to run for a week or two so you didnt have to stop playing due to lack of material.

some people live by them because they lack imagination to be DMs, and thus found a home in 3rd edition with WotC that made the "store event" that was already planned out for players and DMs like Living Greyhawk, Living Realms, and this new thing whatever it is.

i would say "good" should be based on a few things:

1. can you get new players into the game quickly and help them learn it while playing without slowing down the game? (Game Days)

2. does it play well and enjoyable to play the next part? (GDQ)

3. does it allow use in any existing game for a quick map filler using the module/adventure information? (Saltmarsh being put on a coastline)

if it does one of those things, then it is probably a "good" one.

bad ones would:

1. require the DM to rework everything for it to make sense.

2. ToEE, unless you want to kill the PCs 65336 times in one night, or they jsut want to test every race and class combination available in a single module/adventure

3. are a total railroad with no reward for the players except listening to the DM drone on about what happened outside of the players influence (se 3rd edition examples, or that Shadowfell Keep from 4th)

[Avoraciopoctules]

2. no, because everything that exists now is 3rd edition, so therefore completely useless.

O RLY?

I take it you haven't heard of Death Frost Doom, Valley of the Lost Shell, or Better than Any Man?

p.s. I'm not saying any of those are good, but they exist and aren't 3.x

[Schleiermacher]

If module quality is measured purely in the ratio of entertainment-hours to investment, (and it probably isn't, I mean I'd never slot DFD into an ongoing campign for instance.) then Death Frost Doom in all its nonsensical metal glory is the greatest module of all time. So there's that.

If we're talking about Dungeon Magazine adventures, I don't think I've ever used one of them straight out of the box, and I'd certainly never run an Adventure Path from atart to finish, but there are several issues I've gotten my money's worth from in lifting stats, maps or inspiration -in one case I lifted a whole dungeon from an adventure path, villains and all, and ran it as a standalone with a completely different hook. Worked magnificiently.

[mlangsdorf]

The middle section of Savage Tide (their very weird remake of Isle of Dread) is reasonably decent. The PCs, starting at level 1, acquire a ship and a hatred of pirates, head south to the Isle of Dread, and help defend a mainland colony there against a a pirate invasion. For levels 1-9, it's pretty decent, especially as an inspiration.

The upper level stuff goes into some weird plot by one of Demogorgon's heads to kill the other, and involves too many deals with demons to be suitable for a lot of gaming groups. There's lot of stuff to steal at that point, though.

[hogarth]

To enjoy RotRL you migth want to find a way to kill half your neurons because the whole thing is an Idiot Plot.

Paizo reminded me why I don't do canned adventures.

Adventure paths are a crutch. But there's nothing inherently bad about a crutch; in fact, they're a huge benefit for people who need them.

My experience with adventure paths vs. homebrew campaigns is that adventure path campaigns last at least ten times as long, on average. That's why I play them almost exclusively nowadays.

My comments on specific adventure paths are in the other thread linked to above ("What Makes a Good Adventure Path?").

[Midnight_v]

Well, I'd like to make a module. . .

Thats ACTUALLY way ahead of myself, because I'm still at step Zer0 determining if such a thing is possible; for the question becomes solidly is there an adventure path anywhere that doesn't suck.
Some interesting things off the cuff in fact I think its you hogarth in the other thread that mentioned:
1. Why doesn't Elminster do it syndrome. So that's something that has to be answered.

Another issue
2. The other thing that I've found is that being a module things somewhat by by nature inherently railroady.

Though I don't think it something that can be avoided or hell that's the INTENT of a module.

There are other issues but I think those are the ones that stand out.

Oh and 3: Hot chicks.

So you know.... there's that.

Its just like any other analysis at this point separating the wheat from the chaff.

I'm still digesting the other threads though, but I've found something that might be worth a damn as an idea all ready.

Before I go forward with anything, have to answer sufficiently to all the questions as to why this things are bad.

[hogarth]

Another issue
2. The other thing that I've found is that being a module things somewhat by by nature inherently railroady.

Though I don't think it something that can be avoided or hell that's the INTENT of a module.

Certainly. The difference between playing a module and playing a sandbox campaign is similar to the difference between reading a book and writing a book. Doing the latter well is probably more rewarding, but is much more work.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I don't have it in front of me, but I remember Little Keep on the Borderlands being quite sandboxy.

[hogarth]

I don't have it in front of me, but I remember Little Keep on the Borderlands being quite sandboxy.

I guess it depends on your definition of "sandbox". In my opinion, merely having no plot (beyond "kill some of these monsters and take their stuff") is not sufficient for a module to be a sandbox. YMMV.

[Blasted]

I'm running RotR atm because I was asked to DM a pathfinder game and my response "I don't have enough time to create something." was met with "Well, run an AP."
So I'm running a very railroady campaign for relative newbies. It works as advertised. Not a lot of work to be put in, but the plot is so full of non sequiturs I make up more relevant stuff to fill in the gaps.

There are issues with the encounters not being well considered, especially once parties can fly or teleport, etc. And I hate going through the monster abilities and trying to figure intelligent tactics and spell choices for them. The suggested ones are often ill conceived.
I would be happy with a decent plot and well thought out, level appropriate opponents.
I'll probably run another when this one finishes, it's just easy and we have lots of people who want to play. The fast advancement helps a lot, but I've tossed out XP in favour of "You're now level X".

[shadzar]

2. no, because everything that exists now is 3rd edition, so therefore completely useless.

O RLY?

I take it you haven't heard of Death Frost Doom, Valley of the Lost Shell, or Better than Any Man?

p.s. I'm not saying any of those are good, but they exist and aren't 3.x

nope, never heard of them. my use of modules pre-2000 was for a one-shot game, or to mine ideas and NPCs, etc from. i don't live by them nor enjoy playing in many of them. i prefer something designed by the DM that conforms to the players at the table rather than those people at T$R or Wot¢.

i only hear about the ones mentioned in places like here, DF, or enworld like the shit storm that was keep on shadowfell.. other than a Game Day i had to run for a bit during 3rd, and return to white plume also for 3rd, i havent really looked at modules since Player's Options came out in 1995. nope, not even DCCs or the like.