# WoTc and TSR... what is D&D



## GMforPowergamers

in another thread we were talking about cantrips.  One poster said 'prior to 3e' that wasn't true... but yeah that was 23 years ago now that anything was published by tsr for before 3e. 

so I got to thinking. in 2024 we have the 50 anniversary and something is coming (is it a redone 5e, is it 5.5 is it 6e, will it just be called D&D anniversary edition? who knows) but come that day in mid august when we all come here to complain or praise or what ever this new product... it will be WotC has owned D&D as long or longer than TSR.

in another thread I was told that the half way through a edition is "in the end game of" and the two things together kinda hit my head.

so 3e, 4e, and 5e have held out as long as basic, 1e and 2e.  realistically the d20 system (3e) was the BIGGEST of the changes and has stuck (I don't see THan0 and non weapons profs rolling below stats coming back anytime soon.)

so as we look to 2024 (and in theory into 2034 for the 60th) do 1e or 2e really hold much sway anymore? 

I have made no bones and hid nothing, 4e was my favorite edition... but 2e and 5e are both neck and neck for second (and 2e got a big head start from rose tinted nostalgia) however we are now looking at player bases that joined in 5e, they never knew Thac0, they never knew a time when Cantrip was a spell you had to prep in a 1st level slot, and they never heard of Save Vs rod staff or wand... but most also don't remember that feats were NEW to many of us old timers. that HP used to be WAY lower...

then I thought about the people who never knew what a prestige class was... people that never saw a fighter use "come and get it" and they are still D&D fans playing right now.  Going forward a VERY high amount of players and DMs never bought a TSR product... and the longer time goes on the bigger that % becomes. 

what does this mean for the game I started in 94/95? I don't know. It just is something in my head so now I am forcing you to all think aboout it.


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## BookTenTiger

One thing I enjoy about D&D is that it's a very personal hobby. No matter who is publishing it, what editions are being published, etc etc, two tables playing D&D might be using different rules, playing vastly different games... and yet both are playing D&D!

So one person's D&D might be rooted in AD&D, another may be entirely 5e, another may have 4e as their strongest interest... And they are all D&D!


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## Kurotowa

Welcome to getting old. I'm 43 and I've run into that feeling more than once, in a lot of different situations. If you don't want to become the old man who yells at clouds, practice accepting that other people have vastly different life experiences and _that's okay_. Goodness knows it's a hard skill to master, but after all the times my parents and grandparents failed to understand the world I grew up in it's one I try my best to practice.


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## Retreater

As much as it pains me to say it, nothing in D&D prior to 2014 has much significance on most current players.
If we look at it like console generations for video games, these are my analogies.

D&D 5e = PS4/Xbox One era (been out forever, feeling clunky and long-in-the-tooth, but no one has really had a good reason or ability to upgrade) 
D&D 4e = Sega Dreamcast (the system fans love it, most people have never played it, and it crashed quickly)
3.x = PS2 (the basis of modern game design, but clunky, slow, and you probably don't want to go back to it. also your first DVD player/d20 game)
AD&D = NES (primitive, good for old timer nostalgia. you recognize some of the characters from this era, but if you're a modern player you don't want to play these games)
OD&D/Basic = Pong console (it can do one game, the controls are weird, graphic are primitive. some people can still play for hours and enjoy it, but has little appeal to modern audiences. still, if you look closely enough, you can see the origins.)


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## GMforPowergamers

Kurotowa said:


> Welcome to getting old.



yup


Kurotowa said:


> I'm 43



I turn 42 this year


Kurotowa said:


> and I've run into that feeling more than once, in a lot of different situations. If you don't want to become the old man who yells at clouds, practice accepting that other people have vastly different life experiences and _that's okay_. Goodness knows it's a hard skill to master, but after all the times my parents and grandparents failed to understand the world I grew up in it's one I try my best to practice.



i try,,, but also "Get them off my lawn"


"I was with it once... but I didn't change, it did. Now What I am isn't it, and what it is I'm not. Now new things seem strange and weird to me... and it will happen to you TOO..."


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## GMforPowergamers

Retreater said:


> D&D 4e = Sega Dreamcast (the system fans love it, most people have never played it, and it crashed quickly)



post 4... is that a record for someone to come in and bash 4e?


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## Maxperson

GMforPowergamers said:


> in another thread we were talking about cantrips.  One poster said 'prior to 3e' that wasn't true... but yeah that was 23 years ago now that anything was published by tsr for before 3e.
> 
> so I got to thinking. in 2024 we have the 50 anniversary and something is coming (is it a redone 5e, is it 5.5 is it 6e, will it just be called D&D anniversary edition? who knows) but come that day in mid august when we all come here to complain or praise or what ever this new product... it will be WotC has owned D&D as long or longer than TSR.
> 
> in another thread I was told that the half way through a edition is "in the end game of" and the two things together kinda hit my head.
> 
> so 3e, 4e, and 5e have held out as long as basic, 1e and 2e.  realistically the d20 system (3e) was the BIGGEST of the changes and has stuck (I don't see THan0 and non weapons profs rolling below stats coming back anytime soon.)
> 
> so as we look to 2024 (and in theory into 2034 for the 60th) do 1e or 2e really hold much sway anymore?



To me they are like the bedrock foundation that D&D is built on.  Because of them, armor class, hit points, alignment, races, classes, levels, experience points=, etc. are still in the game, even though most have gone through changes over the years.  The core set of ideas that began when D&D was created has endured.

That also means that we can look back at those ideas to gain some understanding of blank spots in recent editions.  5e reduced alignment to one vague sentence that is nearly useless as an RP aid, but we can look back at all prior editions for ideas on how we want to implement a particular alignment for monsters(as DM) and for our PCs(as players).  We can look back at how hit points were handled in prior editions if we don't like how the current one handles them or to fill in blanks.


GMforPowergamers said:


> I have made no bones and hid nothing, 4e was my favorite edition... but 2e and 5e are both neck and neck for second (and 2e got a big head start from rose tinted nostalgia) however we are now looking at player bases that joined in 5e, they never knew Thac0, they never knew a time when Cantrip was a spell you had to prep in a 1st level slot, and they never heard of Save Vs rod staff or wand... but most also don't remember that feats were NEW to many of us old timers. that HP used to be WAY lower...



For me 3e is far and away my favorite, just because I had so many classes, races, prestige classes, feats, spells, etc. that I could build virtually any concept I could imagine, perfectly or nearly so.  2e and 5e are tied for 2nd for me as well, though.


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## Sacrosanct

Every edition is D&D that was called D&D officially, from OD&D to 5e.  The most recent edition is the only one that really matters at any given moment.

"Back in my day we didn't have cantrips" is about as effective as telling someone now "back in my day, we only had an AM radio in the car."  Both probably won't matter all that much to the person now.


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## Maxperson

GMforPowergamers said:


> I turn 42 this year



I turned 52 last month.  Love being born on that even decade.  Makes the age math very easy to figure out.


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## GMforPowergamers

Sacrosanct said:


> Every edition is D&D that was called D&D officially, from OD&D to 5e.  The most recent edition is the only one that really matters at any given moment.
> 
> "Back in my day we didn't have cantrips" is about as effective as telling someone now "back in my day, we only had an AM radio in the car."  Both probably won't matter all that much to the person now.



I'm sorry to laugh... but my grandfather use to complain about FM radio ruining long range radio


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## payn

I'm just happy that the internets have ushered in an age where my choice is no longer play D&D, Vampire, or nothing at all.


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## James Gasik

payn said:


> I'm just happy that the internets have ushered in an age where my choice is no longer play D&D, Vampire, or nothing at all.



You forgot GURPS!  (or maybe you didn't)


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## billd91

D&D isn't exactly the Ship of Theseus - too many significant changes to the structure as well as individual parts to really be the same.

But if we want to use attenuated analogies...might as well have fun with it.

OD&D and the basic varieties are like relatively simply sailboats, highly customizable, simple infrastructure
1e AD&D gets into more elaborate rigged vessels with multiple masts and more elaborate rules of operation and subsystems
2e AD&D takes those rigged vessels and throws wide the various configurations (campaign settings) to the point that nobody can agree on a preferred configuration and the manufacturer can't achieve enough economy of scale to pay the bills
3e D&D puts D&D on more modern materials (steel instead of wood hulls) and a more standardized broader system but then throws the plans to everyone to make their own accessories so the whole thing becomes very convoluted
4e redesigns D&D to be a catamaran. Sure, it's more stable in a number of ways, but it handles differently and doesn't carry as much as its mono-hulled predecessors
5e returns D&D to the mono-hulled sailing ships of pre-3e but with the modern materials filtered through the 3e/4e generations, moreover the manufacturer paces their release of accessories and doesn't oversaturate their own market


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## Jer

James Gasik said:


> You forgot GURPS!  (or maybe you didn't)



For me, playing GURPS was more about "if I don't want to be the GM then I have to resign myself to playing the one game that any of my players was willing to GM'.  Which was GURPS because he was absolutely convinced that GURPS could model any kind of game you would ever want to play, so why not use it for everything?


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## James Gasik

Jer said:


> For me, playing GURPS was more about "if I don't want to be the GM then I have to resign myself to playing the one game that any of my players was willing to GM'.  Which was GURPS because he was absolutely convinced that GURPS could model any kind of game you would ever want to play, so why not use it for everything?



I can attest that just because GURPS said it could do anything didn't mean it could really do anything, as my short-lived GURPS Supers campaign can attest.  And the less said about GURPS Lensman, the better!


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## overgeeked

GMforPowergamers said:


> it will be WotC has owned D&D as long or longer than TSR.



Already past that point by about two years. OD&D by TSR published in 1974...TSR was bought out by WotC in 1997. So TSR owned D&D for 23 years. It's 2022, so 1997 was...25 years ago. WotC has owned D&D longer than TSR did since 2020.


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## overgeeked

GMforPowergamers said:


> what does this mean for the game I started in 94/95? I don't know. It just is something in my head so now I am forcing you to all think aboout it.



Weird. I think about this constantly. I started in 1984 with B/X. I've played AD&D longer than most players new with 5E have been alive. I frequently want the kids to get off my lawn, but they stubbornly refuse. Rangers at 1st level have 2d8 hit points, dammit. Weapons do more damage to larger creatures. You're dead at zero hp. Ability checks are roll under. Grump grump grump. The only good thing that's come from WotC owning D&D is flipping armor class and swapping THAC0 for attack bonus. I could leave the rest and be fine. Though dis/advantage instead of hunting-and-pecking piddly modifiers is great.


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## Stormonu

Things change, people don't.

I can't ever see myself going back to 1E or 3E.  Basic (B/X) or 2E (prePlayer's Option) I might enjoy for a one-shot or two, but I remember being quite sick of 2E's "archaic" engine back in the late '90s.  I'm pretty happy with 5E pre-Tasha's, and I expect that's where I'll sit for the remainder of my days.  Maybe I'll pull in something from down the road, but I'm overall happiest with 5E with the tweaks I've been compiling for my own game.  No more edition churn for me, I pretty much have the game now I wanted all the way back to '79, though I couldn't express it back then with the game design paradigm and mindset of back then.


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## Yora

The big turning point and split in D&D that I see is not between TSR and WotC D&D, but between pre-Dragonlance and post-Dragonlance D&D. Dragonlance changed everything.16 years before 3rd edition was released.

Early D&D was the game of dungeon crawling and XP for treasure. OD&D, AD&D 1st edition, and B/X. But then came Ravenloft and the revised Basic and Expert Sets in 1983, and Dragonlance and the BECMI Companion Set in 1984 and there was a really big noticable shift. Dungeon crawling was out, Sword of Shanara, Wheel of Time, and happy pastoral quaintness was in. "You know, for kids!"

When the OSR was a thing back in about 2008 to 2014, the people involved didn't get excited about returning to pre-3rd Edition D&D. It was all about pre-Dragonlance D&D. OD&D, AD&D, and B/X were the names of the game. AD&D 2nd edition and the Master and Companion Sets remained pretty much completely untouched. (I know there was one 2nd ed. retroclone in the works, but that never got completed.)
Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, and Spelljammer; those are all 2nd edition works. (Forgotten Realms had a few releases right at the very end of 1st, which were all much smaller in scope than the big 2nd edition boxes.) I think there is quite a lot of continuity between 2nd edition and 3rd, which continies into 5th. A greater continuity than what you find in works from 1982 and 1986.


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## Retreater

GMforPowergamers said:


> post 4... is that a record for someone to come in and bash 4e?



Heck no. I love 4e (and for the record, the Dreamcast is my favorite retro video game system). It just has a cult following. So it's not the mainstream appeal of PS2/3.x, but those of us who enjoy it really love it.


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## Parmandur

Retreater said:


> As much as it pains me to say it, nothing in D&D prior to 2014 has much significance on most current players.
> If we look at it like console generations for video games, these are my analogies.
> 
> D&D 5e = PS4/Xbox One era (been out forever, feeling clunky and long-in-the-tooth, but no one has really had a good reason or ability to upgrade)
> D&D 4e = Sega Dreamcast (the system fans love it, most people have never played it, and it crashed quickly)
> 3.x = PS2 (the basis of modern game design, but clunky, slow, and you probably don't want to go back to it. also your first DVD player/d20 game)
> AD&D = NES (primitive, good for old timer nostalgia. you recognize some of the characters from this era, but if you're a modern player you don't want to play these games)
> OD&D/Basic = Pong console (it can do one game, the controls are weird, graphic are primitive. some people can still play for hours and enjoy it, but has little appeal to modern audiences. still, if you look closely enough, you can see the origins.)



That's an interesting analogy, but I don't really think it holds water: older editions of D&D are far more accessible than old console games. the 'advancement" of presentation and techniques is very real (hello, Advantage/Disadvantage!), but I can say as someone who tried AD&D after 4E came out in my 20's, it's not as obsolete the same way that tech dependent entertainment is.

Dreamcast or Wii U are a pretty apt comparison for the market position of 4E, though, to be honest. ouch.


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## Parmandur

Yora said:


> Dungeon crawling was out, Sword of Shanara, *Wheel of Time*, and happy pastoral quaintness was in. "You know, for kids!"



One of these is not like the other, one of these does not belong.


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## Azzy

I dunno, I kinda just roll with the changes (evolve or die, as they say). Sure there's stuff from the TSR-era I miss, but I think 5e is the best and most playable version of the game yet. I welcome all the new players and enjoy seeing what they bring to the game.


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## payn

Giving it more thought, my age of internets comment could use some expanding. 

I really got going in D&D in 3E. I tried a little 2E, but always flamed out. Didn't get a real group going until 3E. Took me awhile to master that beast, but the mastery journey was so much fun for me. 2008 comes along and now 4E was all the rage. Early play was a nightmare. The game was the opposite of what I wanted in an RPG. Worst part was, I knew nobody who played 2E anymore. That likely meant that 3E days were numbered. I'd soon be playing 4E, or nothing at all.

Then, along came Paizo and not only kept 3E alive, but made it thrive. I had the best decade of gaming with Pathfinder_ Classic._ I never thought id leave D&D behind, but I just didnt look back. I mean, technically PF1 was D&D, so like the _Gin Blossoms_ say, "you cant call it cheatin, she reminds me of you" The fears of having to find a 3E group somewhere, some how, just never materialized. I got lucky.

Fast forward a few years, and here comes 5E. The come back home call was appealing enough to take a look, but it just wasnt as fancy as my PF1. I felt a little bad for 4E fans as it seems they were facing my reality in 2008. Though, I heard plenty of hold outs and heartbreakers dropping that I figured those folks would keep their favorite fantasy RPG alive anyways. I kept on keeping on with good old Pathfinder _Classic_.  

Fast forward a few more years, and here comes PF2. Playtest ended up being another nightmare. It was, once again, not what I wanted from an RPG. Only this time, there was so much material available, so many systems, and a vibrant online community to cause any fear. I didnt have to move on. Any day of the week I could have a game going in a number of editions and systems (though really I might have to give up on ever playing in Traveller and accept my fate as forever Ref...) That anxiety just doesnt exist anymore. 

So, ultimately it doesn't matter if TSR, WOTC, Paizo, or even Elon Musk owns and publishes D&D anymore.


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## Retreater

Parmandur said:


> That's an interesting analogy, but I don't really think it holds water: older editions of D&D are far more accessible than old console games. the 'advancement" of presentation and techniques is very real (hello, Advantage/Disadvantage!), but I can say as someone who tried AD&D after 4E came out in my 20's, it's not as obsolete the same way that tech dependent entertainment is.
> 
> Dreamcast or Wii U are a pretty apt comparison for the market position of 4E, though, to be honest. ouch.



Maybe. I mean you can still easily find some older video game and systems at used retailers. (PS3, Wii, and360 era mostly - but also a lot of PS2 games.) Game Pass has backwards compatible 360 (and some original Xbox) games for download. I do have a heck of a time finding Dreamcast, though.  
But most stores aren't carrying 3.5 or prior games, and you're not apt to find any being played (if you're a new gamer). From experience, I've seen how difficult of a time my wife is having trying to find a 4e game (her favorite system). 
Granted, you get to a point where the NES's RF switch won't plug in to a modern TV, but even then you can get a retro box that plugs in with HDMI.


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## Parmandur

Retreater said:


> Maybe. I mean you can still easily find some older video game and systems at used retailers. (PS3, Wii, and360 era mostly - but also a lot of PS2 games.) Game Pass has backwards compatible 360 (and some original Xbox) games for download. I do have a heck of a time finding Dreamcast, though.
> But most stores aren't carrying 3.5 or prior games, and you're not apt to find any being played (if you're a new gamer). From experience, I've seen how difficult of a time my wife is having trying to find a 4e game (her favorite system).
> Granted, you get to a point where the NES's RF switch won't plug in to a modern TV, but even then you can get a retro box that plugs in with HDMI.



Hey, tons of prior Edition material is available cheaply in print now: 






						Dungeon Masters Guild -
					






					www.dmsguild.com
				




And Roll20 has AD&D stuff, I believe. it's not that hard to find older edition stuff, and...it's not that hard to grasp for younger people who are interested.

The main thing is, the video games have had upgraded hardware since the 80's. My RPG hardware has not been upgraded since 3E came out, and might even have taken a downgrade due to college living. My kids have actually taken a little shine to NES and SNES games, because of watching me play and having characters that they care about from new games (Kirby, Mario, King Dedede, etc), but the accessibility gap of retro video games is much steeper than retro tabletop or board games even with stuff like NSO.


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## Yora

Recently, Old-School Essentials has made quite a splash as yet another retroclone of B/X. The most authentic to the original game yet, 40 years after its release.
Even with the OSR scene having returned back to its slumber in R'yleh several years ago, this game still seems to have a considerable market. (It's somewhat notorious for each print run being out of stock too quickly.) The game is almost unchanged from the one that was released in 1981, with all the quirks and oddities of game design from that time. But much more accessible to new players than AD&D ever was, which I think is the key to its continuing success.


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## overgeeked

Yora said:


> The big turning point and split in D&D that I see is not between TSR and WotC D&D, but between pre-Dragonlance and post-Dragonlance D&D. Dragonlance changed everything.16 years before 3rd edition was released.
> 
> Early D&D was the game of dungeon crawling and XP for treasure. OD&D, AD&D 1st edition, and B/X. But then came Ravenloft and the revised Basic and Expert Sets in 1983, and Dragonlance and the BECMI Companion Set in 1984 and there was a really big noticable shift. Dungeon crawling was out, Sword of Shanara, Wheel of Time, and happy pastoral quaintness was in. "You know, for kids!"



The Hickman revolution. It’s mostly misunderstood. 


Yora said:


> When the OSR was a thing back in about 2008 to 2014, the people involved didn't get excited about returning to pre-3rd Edition D&D.



The people in the OSR will be glad to know they don’t exist anymore. 


Yora said:


> (I know there was one 2nd ed. retroclone in the works, but that never got completed.)



It’s been on Drivethrurpg since 2015. For Gold and Glory. 


Parmandur said:


> Hey, tons of prior Edition material is available cheaply in print now…



Cheap is dependent on perspective.


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## Maxperson

payn said:


> So, ultimately it doesn't matter if TSR, WOTC, Paizo, or even* Elon Musk* owns and publishes D&D anymore.



Who else is going to put out a Mars setting?


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## Yora

overgeeked said:


> The people in the OSR will be glad to know they don’t exist anymore.



The people still exist. Some are even still active. The environment of creative exchange has ended long ago.


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## Parmandur

overgeeked said:


> Cheap is dependent on perspective.



The old D&D Rules Cyclopedia was originally $24.95, or $29.04 in current money. Currently, it is $27.20 for hardcover and PDF combined. Still useable, heck I have modules for Basic from Half Price Books, I could just get it and run my kids through it and they would not know the way they do with retro video games.


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## overgeeked

Yora said:


> The people still exist. Some are even still active. The environment of creative exchange has ended long ago.



I take it you stopped paying attention to it ages ago is far more accurate.


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## Parmandur

overgeeked said:


> I take it you stopped paying attention to it ages ago is far more accurate.



After Google+ closed down, people just stopped using social media. Little known fact.


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## overgeeked

Parmandur said:


> The old D&D Rules Cyclopedia was originally $24.95, or $29.04 in current money. Currently, it is $27.20 for hardcover and PDF combined. Still useable, heck I have modules for Basic from Half Price Books, I could just get it and run my kids through it and they would not know the way they do with retro video games.



Right. The text is an iffy scan and the book is a paperback glued into a hardback. It’s good to have and reference. Sure. But I’d rather have a print copy of OSE and go from there. Way better quality text and printing.


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## overgeeked

Parmandur said:


> After Google+ closed down, people just stopped using social media. Little known fact.



If only.


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## Parmandur

overgeeked said:


> Right. The text is an iffy scan and the book is a paperback glued into a hardback. It’s good to have and reference. Sure. But I’d rather have a print copy of OSE and go from there. Way better quality text and printing.



That's fair. But, it exists, and isn't outmoded the way that Pong or Atari 2600 games are. I mean, my kids dip their toes into the well of pain that is NES games, but even I couldn't pick up Atari games now.


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## overgeeked

Parmandur said:


> That's fair. But, it exists, and isn't outmoded the way that Pong or Atari 2600 games are. I mean, my kids dip their toes into the well of pain that is NES games, but even I couldn't pick up Atari games now.



You can get classic Atari games in the controller now. Or you could. You just plug the controller into your TV's USB and all the electronics are inside the base of the controller. It's kinda awesome. Asteroids is still an amazing game. That will never be outmoded.


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## Retreater

Parmandur said:


> That's fair. But, it exists, and isn't outmoded the way that Pong or Atari 2600 games are. I mean, my kids dip their toes into the well of pain that is NES games, but even I couldn't pick up Atari games now.



Maybe it's just the old gamer in me coming out, but I think there are some very playable Atari games (River Raid, Vanguard, Berserk, Yar's Revenge, just to name a few). Granted, they are very dated and simplistic compared to modern games, but I think that is part of their charm. 
But when you're talking about modern gamers (whether they are video game or TTRPGs), look at how dated the approach is. To a modern reader, the layout and art look terrible and dated. This isn't even taking into account the poor organization of rules, game mechanics like THAC0 or attack matrices. You don't see live streamers like Critical Role breaking out 1st edition (at least, I don't think so). There's not a push to get OSE games or organized play going in stores, and unless you're going to GaryCon or other convention dedicated to classic games, you're not going to see a lot of out-of-print games being run (or even retroclones).


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## Parmandur

overgeeked said:


> You can get classic Atari games in the controller now. Or you could. You just plug the controller into your TV's USB and all the electronics are inside the base of the controller. It's kinda awesome. Asteroids is still an amazing game. That will never be outmoded.



You can...but I don't think they have all aged as well as Super Mario Bros. or Mega Man. though hey, nostalgia bias comes into play here. 

But still, my point is that TTRPGs have not experienced the same aging effect.


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## Parmandur

Retreater said:


> Maybe it's just the old gamer in me coming out, but I think there are some very playable Atari games (River Raid, Vanguard, Berserk, Yar's Revenge, just to name a few). Granted, they are very dated and simplistic compared to modern games, but I think that is part of their charm.
> But when you're talking about modern gamers (whether they are video game or TTRPGs), look at how dated the approach is. To a modern reader, the layout and art look terrible and dated. This isn't even taking into account the poor organization of rules, game mechanics like THAC0 or attack matrices. You don't see live streamers like Critical Role breaking out 1st edition (at least, I don't think so). There's not a push to get OSE games or organized play going in stores, and unless you're going to GaryCon or other convention dedicated to classic games, you're not going to see a lot of out-of-print games being run (or even retroclones).



Luke Gygax streams 1E AD&D all the time, actually. I bet that's not unique, either.


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## kenada

For a lot of players in my group, “D&D” closely resembles 3e. That tends to manifest most strongly in a preference for some of the fiddly ways 3e works and how it approached customization. I have one player who got started gaming with 5e, and he cares a lot less about customization than everyone else does. I’m sure there’s some correlation between when you got started and what you played longest with what you consider quintessential D&D. 

Of course, the GM (me) would rather run an OSR game, so I’m having to homebrew something that will satisfy all our preferences (or at least all of mine and most of theirs).


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## payn

kenada said:


> For a lot of players in my group, “D&D” closely resembles 3e. That tends to manifest most strongly in a preference for some of the fiddly ways 3e works and how it approached customization. I have one player who got started gaming with 5e, and he cares a lot less about customization than everyone else does. I’m sure there’s some correlation between when you got started and what you played longest with what you consider quintessential D&D.
> 
> Of course, the GM (me) would rather run an OSR game, so I’m having to homebrew something that will satisfy all our preferences (or at least all of mine and most of theirs).



I have often thought that if 5E came out instead of 3E back then, I wouldn't be the customization lover that I am now. 3E/PF1 just set me up to love that style. 5E is a fine game, it just feels first gear to me. Though, it being more accessible and easier to learn clearly shows why its so popular.


----------



## Micah Sweet

GMforPowergamers said:


> in another thread we were talking about cantrips.  One poster said 'prior to 3e' that wasn't true... but yeah that was 23 years ago now that anything was published by tsr for before 3e.
> 
> so I got to thinking. in 2024 we have the 50 anniversary and something is coming (is it a redone 5e, is it 5.5 is it 6e, will it just be called D&D anniversary edition? who knows) but come that day in mid august when we all come here to complain or praise or what ever this new product... it will be WotC has owned D&D as long or longer than TSR.
> 
> in another thread I was told that the half way through a edition is "in the end game of" and the two things together kinda hit my head.
> 
> so 3e, 4e, and 5e have held out as long as basic, 1e and 2e.  realistically the d20 system (3e) was the BIGGEST of the changes and has stuck (I don't see THan0 and non weapons profs rolling below stats coming back anytime soon.)
> 
> so as we look to 2024 (and in theory into 2034 for the 60th) do 1e or 2e really hold much sway anymore?
> 
> I have made no bones and hid nothing, 4e was my favorite edition... but 2e and 5e are both neck and neck for second (and 2e got a big head start from rose tinted nostalgia) however we are now looking at player bases that joined in 5e, they never knew Thac0, they never knew a time when Cantrip was a spell you had to prep in a 1st level slot, and they never heard of Save Vs rod staff or wand... but most also don't remember that feats were NEW to many of us old timers. that HP used to be WAY lower...
> 
> then I thought about the people who never knew what a prestige class was... people that never saw a fighter use "come and get it" and they are still D&D fans playing right now.  Going forward a VERY high amount of players and DMs never bought a TSR product... and the longer time goes on the bigger that % becomes.
> 
> what does this mean for the game I started in 94/95? I don't know. It just is something in my head so now I am forcing you to all think aboout it.



1st and 2nd ed are the heart of D&D for me.  Everything I play since then has attempted to put as much of that DNA into the game as I can.


----------



## Micah Sweet

overgeeked said:


> Right. The text is an iffy scan and the book is a paperback glued into a hardback. It’s good to have and reference. Sure. But I’d rather have a print copy of OSE and go from there. Way better quality text and printing.



I have an original printing.  One of my favorite finds.


----------



## Mercurius

Parmandur said:


> The old D&D Rules Cyclopedia was originally $24.95, or $29.04 in current money.



How do you figure? I just checked an inflation calculator, and $25 in 1991 is $49 today.


----------



## Sacrosanct

I always thought comparing DnD to video games is a flawed comparison. Video games are tied to technology. You can do things with video games today that you couldn't remotely do 40 years ago. The same isn't true of TTRPGs. 

There has been advancement in design, sure, but there's nothing you can't do in an older system that you can do today. It's all about imagination, after all. 

So it's much more about personal preference. That's why a much higher percentage of role players play older editions than the percentage of video gamers who still only play the Atari.


----------



## Mercurius

I see D&D as a living cultural tradition that--like other living traditions--isn't simply a linear process of progressive change - like the video game console analogy some mentioned; a clever idea, but not really accurate because D&D is closer to an artistic tradition than it is to a technology. 

Each edition is still "alive" - just like jazz and funk and punk are still alive, whether through the music still being accessible* or people drawing upon older forms and either creating retro music or integrating it into a hybrid. That's the good news of postmodernism: every cultural idea of the past is ready to use as an ingredient in a new form.

(*In the era of Youtube and internet in general, there is more older music now available than there was, say, 20 years ago. As a big fan of jazz and funk from the late 60s through 70s, I am always finding gems on youtube, be they old vinyl tracks that never made it to cassette or CD, but someone converted to mp3, or live recordings, or just music I never heard in the "Age of the CD"--circa 1990ish to 2010ish--in which I got into such music).

Even if WotC takes D&D in a certain direction, that doesn't invalidate past forms. They live on through the material that is still available, but more so from those who still play it or really embrace the "true" spirit of D&D: which is to make the game your own.


----------



## Stormonu

Ah, Dragonlance.  Had it not come out when it did, I probably would have stopped playing D&D and gave up on it.

As for Atari 2600, Yar's Revenge is king. Atlantis, (the sequel) Cosmic Ark, Berserk, Empire Strikes Back, Asteroids, Adventure - still fun.  Swordquest, however, can die in a fire.


----------



## James Gasik

Stormonu said:


> Ah, Dragonlance.  Had it not come out when it did, I probably would have stopped playing D&D and gave up on it.
> 
> As for Atari 2600, Yar's Revenge is king. Atlantis, (the sequel) Cosmic Ark, Berserk, Empire Strikes Back, Asteroids, Adventure - still fun.  Swordquest, however, can die in a fire.



Which Swordquest?  I only played Earthworld, but I presume they were all bad.  I liked the comic though.

Don't forget Adventure! and Raiders of the Lost Ark!


----------



## Parmandur

Mercurius said:


> (*In the era of Youtube and internet in general, there is more older music now available than there was, say, 20 years ago. As a big fan of jazz and funk from the late 60s through 70s, I am always finding gems on youtube, be they old vinyl tracks that never made it to cassette or CD, but someone converted to mp3, or live recordings, or just music I never heard in the "Age of the CD"--circa 1990ish to 2010ish--in which I got into such music).



By that same token, I actually found quite a bit of AD&D and Basic streaming games now.


----------



## TerraDave

Maxperson said:


> ..... the bedrock foundation that D&D is built on.  Because of them, armor class, hit points, alignment, races, classes, levels, experience points=, etc. are still in the game, even though most have gone through changes over the years.  The core set of ideas that began when D&D was created has endured.
> 
> ....



Yes. In fact the things that have often been the most criticized as outdated in the game are the things that endure. Alternate approaches fade away, or stay niche. 

The core adventure experience has also persisted. Story telling, factions, and big settings--with metaplot--all originated with D&D, with TSR D&D--and have also slowly faded in significance. But 5e still has plenty of "you see 3 doors, which do you choose?"


----------



## Parmandur

Mercurius said:


> How do you figure? I just checked an inflation calculator, and $25 in 1991 is $49 today.



Yeah, I used an inflation calculator,  but I must have put a date in wrong or something,  because now I'm getting $52.


----------



## Stormonu

James Gasik said:


> Which Swordquest?  I only played Earthworld, but I presume they were all bad.  I liked the comic though.
> 
> Don't forget Adventure! and Raiders of the Lost Ark!



All of the Swordquests were progressively worse, then they didn't finish the series.

I listed Adventure, but was never quite a fan of Raiders (damn Tste flies).


----------



## MGibster

Kurotowa said:


> Welcome to getting old. I'm 43 and I've run into that feeling more than once, in a lot of different situations. If you don't want to become the old man who yells at clouds, practice accepting that other people have vastly different life experiences and _that's okay_.



Same here.  I think of all the things younger playesr grew up with that I didn't have like Pokemon, Harry Potter, World of Warcraft, and DragonBall Z and how that must have shaped them.  I expect that in twenty years time, these younger people will also see how D&D has changed from what they remembered.

And while I have good memories of AD&D's past, the truth is I don't want to go back to it.  I'm not the same person today I was in 1991.


----------



## Uni-the-Unicorn!

GMforPowergamers said:


> post 4... is that a record for someone to come in and bash 4e?



That sounded like a compliment to me


----------



## overgeeked

TerraDave said:


> The core adventure experience has also persisted. Story telling, factions, and big settings--with metaplot--all originated with D&D, with TSR D&D--and have also slowly faded in significance.



I can’t think of a bit of this that’s true except the fading of metaplot. You think storytelling has faded? I can’t think of an aspect of modern D&D that’s more important than storytelling. Faction play has faded? Big settings have faded? Really? Certainly not in D&D itself. I mean, WotC is releasing settings every year, now multiple settings per year. They may not be to everyone’s taste, but they are doing it.


----------



## TerraDave

overgeeked said:


> I can’t think of a bit of this that’s true except the fading of metaplot. You think storytelling has faded? I can’t think of an aspect of modern D&D that’s more important than storytelling. Faction play has faded? Big settings have faded? Really? Certainly not in D&D itself. I mean, WotC is releasing settings every year, now multiple settings per year. They may not be to everyone’s taste, but they are doing it.




5e has settings, like 1e and B/X D&D did. But there is no equivalent of the gazetteer series or even the greyhawk boxed set. There is no FR setting book. There is certainly nothing like what happened in 2e (which is what I was referring to). There are setting books which are fairly crunch heavy and setting detail lite, at least compared to past editions. 

Not one 5e book has been released for a single class or race or some grouping thereof. There is a dragons book, 'cause dragons.  

5e has linked thematic adventures over multiple levels, an approach invented by Gary Gygax (but now mostly sold in a single book). It has an inspiration mechanic that many tables ignore. It has nothing of the shared story-telling mechanics on the one hand, or metaplot on the other, that flowed from a more story oriented approach.  It has elements of make believe and character aspiration, because it has always had those, which is why people play it.


----------



## James Gasik

Stormonu said:


> All of the Swordquests were progressively worse, then they didn't finish the series.
> 
> I listed Adventure, but was never quite a fan of Raiders (damn Tste flies).



Ugh, I'd forgotten about the flies.  As I was.


----------



## James Gasik

Uni-the-Unicorn! said:


> That sounded like a compliment to me



Please forgive us 4e fans, we're so used to the edition being bashed we've become a little defensive about it.


----------



## overgeeked

TerraDave said:


> 5e has settings, like 1e and B/X D&D did. But there is no equivalent of the gazetteer series or even the greyhawk boxed set. There is no FR setting book. There is certainly nothing like what happened in 2e (which is what I was referring to). There are setting books which are fairly crunch heavy and setting detail lite, at least compared to past editions.
> 
> Not one 5e book has been released for a single class or race or some grouping thereof. There is a dragons book, 'cause dragons.



You mean like TSR blindly publishing settings with 20+ books each, pumping out splats that no one wanted or asked for, and ending up with a warehouse filled with stock they couldn’t sell? So exactly what caused them to become financially insolvent and lead directly to WotC buying them out. 


TerraDave said:


> 5e has linked thematic adventures over multiple levels, an approach invented by Gary Gygax (but now mostly sold in a single book).



Not sure that’s true. 


TerraDave said:


> It has an inspiration mechanic that many tables ignore.



How many? Yours? 


TerraDave said:


> It has nothing of the shared story-telling mechanics on the one hand, or metaplot on the other, that flowed from a more story oriented approach.



Not sure what edition you’re referring to. Inspiration is the closest thing D&D’s ever had to storytelling mechanics. Unless you buy into the misinterpretation of player-authored quests put forward by the Story Now people. No edition of D&D has had “shared story-telling mechanics”. 


TerraDave said:


> It has elements of make believe and character aspiration, because it has always had those, which is why people play it.



Sure.


----------



## GreyLord

Well, comparing Video game generations to D&D....

Trying to align the years to the timing...though not a perfect match...

5e = Playstation 4.  Not very backwards compatible with what came before it I suppose for the most part.  Then you have Xbox One, which has backwards compatibility all the way back to some of the original xbox games.

4e = Playstation 3 which was not very popular in the Americas though it eventually outsold Xbox when counting overseas numbers, but it was great in that it had a new take on things (your media box which has blu-ray, internet, etc).  Influenced what came after.  Xbox 360 was very easily broken at first, and had some very difficult problems in it's lifetime, but there are those who love it today still.  It's also the Wii-U where people got confused over whether it was actually the Wii, and why they should get it.  Those who are fans of the Wii-U are very massive fans, but their numbers are fewer than other Nintendo systems.

3e = The Nintendo Gamecube and the Nintendo DS.  The Nintendo DS and 3ds actually sold quite well and is loved by many still.  It was their first Game system for many of that era.  It's also the Playstation 1 and 2 which revolutionized game systems with it's CD use and higher graphics.  It had a massive library from 3rd party makers which was different than the more controlled Nintendo system that came before. 

2e = The SNES and Sega Genesis.  16 bit graphics were awesome at the time.  They built franchises up (Zelda, Mario, Sonic, etc).  Many see them as the top of that era for games.  Genesis could also be seen as the last great system Sega ever made (Sure, they made a few others, but none with the success of the Genesis and the last finally made Sega stop making Consoles). 

1e = The first one out which people recall fondly.  This is the Nintendo game system.  This is where graphics suddenly take off in full 8 bit color and make people sit down and take note.  This is the Atari 2600 and other systems where for the first time you can play the games from the arcade right in your home.  This is gaming.

0e = What is this?  These are the original games in the arcades that you could go an play.  Always fun to go and play, ever able to evolve with the latest and greatest.  Originally it was this that the other consoles came out to copy and to try to bring the ideas over.  Later, it was just something people loved to play. 

And of course, how could we forget...

BX/BECMI/RC = What is left to fill the gap?  Why, only the greatest of all gaming systems ever made...the PC.  Ever useful, ever adapting, and probably have more users than any single console alone.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Yora said:


> The big turning point and split in D&D that I see is not between TSR and WotC D&D, but between pre-Dragonlance and post-Dragonlance D&D. Dragonlance changed everything.16 years before 3rd edition was released.



interesting... I like where you are going because I thought 2e changed around the raven loft setting... so I may just be seeing it later then you
(edit I also played with people who called late 2e books 3e and got mad when 3e came out and wasn't just those books made core)


Yora said:


> When the OSR was a thing back in about 2008 to 2014, the people involved didn't get excited about returning to pre-3rd Edition D&D. It was all about pre-Dragonlance D&D. OD&D, AD&D, and B/X were the names of the game. AD&D 2nd edition and the Master and Companion Sets remained pretty much completely untouched. (I know there was one 2nd ed. retroclone in the works, but that never got completed.)



interesting again... maybe that is why I get pushed to the sides of OSR wanting that 2e feel... and yes I backed Myth and Magic and someday hope something like it shines


Yora said:


> Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, and Spelljammer; those are all 2nd edition works. (Forgotten Realms had a few releases right at the very end of 1st, which were all much smaller in scope than the big 2nd edition boxes.) I think there is quite a lot of continuity between 2nd edition and 3rd, which continies into 5th. A greater continuity than what you find in works from 1982 and 1986.



so maybe there are multi break points... this post is amazing and full of insight.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

GreyLord said:


> 5e = Playstation 4.
> 4e = Playstation 3
> 3e = The Nintendo Gamecube and the Nintendo DS.
> 2e = The SNES and Sega Genesis.
> 1e = The first one out which people recall fondly.  This is the Nintendo game system.  This is where graphics suddenly take off in full 8 bit color and make people sit down and take note.  This is the Atari 2600 and other systems where for the first time you can play the games from the arcade right in your home.  This is gaming.



I like this anology better then the one on page 1 the only thing I would change is lable 1 the NES, an chance the 3e to playstation/playstation2...


----------



## Stormonu

I’d change the video game analogy slightly, as I’m a more X-box leaning

5E - PC computer; can emulate all the previous systems, but is its own thing as well
4E - PlayStation 3; ‘nuff said
3E - X-Box. Revolutionary for its time and exploded on the market, generally well-liked and expansive game support.
2E - Nintendo 64.  The last cartridge game, when others were moving to CD-Rom.  In the RPG arena, this was during the time of the rise of Storyteller systems (equal to the PS1), whilst TSR was hanging onto level-based advancements, Spellfire and Dragon Dice.
1E - NES/SNES.  Classic peak of the golden age of gaming.  SNES could be equated to the arrival of UE in D&D.
BECM - Intellivision/Coleco.  More advanced that the 1st iteration, but still simplistic and well-liked.
0E - Atari 2600.  The “first”; crude, incomplete and poorly emulated its source material


----------



## BookTenTiger

Here is the correct analogy:

5e - Basketball Hoop. It's round, it's got a net, you can use it for many different (basketball-related) games.

4e - Hoola hoop. It's fun, easy to use. If you play with it a lot you can really develop a strong core.

3e - Hooper (character from Jaws). It's smart, technical, and wants a bigger boat.

AD&D - Hoop Skirt. It's old but never old fashioned. There will always be someone wearing it on a BBC special.

OD&D - Hoop & Stick. It's eternal, what cave children used to play with.


----------



## Staffan

Maxperson said:


> Who else is going to put out a Mars setting?



Onyx Path Publishing?

Well, technically that's a game and not a setting, but still...


----------



## overgeeked

If anyone’s interested here’s a short video on the Hickman Revolution and how it’s widely misinterpreted today.


If anyone wants to know how Tracy thinks about running games, check out X-Treme Dungeon Mastery (aka XDM). It’s a great resource. 1E is out of print and 2E has recently completed its Kickstarter.

A review of 1E here.


----------



## Hex08

GMforPowergamers said:


> so as we look to 2024 (and in theory into 2034 for the 60th) do 1e or 2e really hold much sway anymore?



Whatever the current edition is will usually be king, with the possible exception of 4E since Pathfinder carried on the 3.x tradition and by some accounts it outsold 4E. That said, games like Old School Essentials, OSRIC, and Castles & Crusades do have a reasonable sized followings and there are still people playing older editions of D&D. Granted, they are a small part of the overall D&D pie but they are there.


----------



## Retreater

Back to the video game analogy (don't hate me) - I think 6e will be the equivalent of the Nintendo Wii. Simple games, designed to bring in people who aren't traditionally gamers and new fans. I think 5e has followed this trajectory increasingly for the past 5 years. 
I think 5e is not the best for traditional/older fans. And this isn't coming into it from a curmudgeon, grognard "I hate that they are changing my beloved settings" standpoint.
What is 5e missing?
1) Not a lot of player option books, which usually pull in dedicated fans and hardcore gamers with the ability for customization.
2) Adventures designed to be used by busy DMs so they can "pick up and play."
What do we get?
1) A large number of starter sets
2) Media tie-in products to get new fans (Stranger Things, Rick and Morty, Magic the Gathering, Critical Role, Nerds candy games)
Just to be clear, I bought a Wii and I enjoyed it for a time. I don't think it's a bad comparison to be linked to one of the top-selling game consoles of all time. It did save Nintendo's console business from irrelevance. 
But I do want more than what 5e offers - and likely what 6e will offer.


----------



## payn

Retreater said:


> Missing from 5E
> 2) Adventures designed to be used by busy DMs so they can "pick up and play."



I'm curious about this point. I would like to hear you expand on it. I am guessing we have some different philosophies on adventure material.


----------



## teitan

I'm going to counter something in the OP, they asked if 1e or 2e still held sway and I am going to argue "yes", especially 1e. 1e is the grand daddy and still iconic as far as the game and its trope go. Its sway is so massive that something the OP misses in his post I will summarize now:

2e was a very imaginative era. Not system. It was still pretty hard 1e era at the core with simplifications and tweaks like customizable thief skills but a lot of what we take for granted AS 2e was a lot of optional rules. The system was cludgy for what they were trying to do in 2e and that was compete in a market that had "left D&D behind". 2e was a Dungeon Crawler/Hex Crawler being bent to _try_ and fit the mold of first, as was popular when it was released, a generic fantasy roleplaying game, possible house system like GURPS, Hero and BRP, which were all very popular games at the time but secondly, and this is where the game got super cludgy and its warts started showing: story oriented games started to really rise shortly after it released with games like Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, Vampire: The Masquerade and the other WOD games becoming extremely popular and TSR scrambled to come up with competing products and even new systems like the Amazing Engine to compete with the changes in the industry. Changes that, as the leader, they should have been at the forefront of. 

So we got some great settings in the deal. Planescape, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, even Birthright. The Forgotten Realms was driven by this story game approach as well starting with the Time of Troubles modules but increasingly through the supplements & novels as opposed to adventures. But if you read the comments on forums and BBS back in the day before 3e came out a lot of people talked about how great the settings were but the AD&D system was a bad fit. 

So what's your point man? Right? I mean, I am long winded, ask my boss. 

As cool as the 2e era was with all those creative settings and especially stand out adventures like Lost Gods and Gates of Firestorm Peaks, Night Below and the like, TSR was really not playing to the strengths of the system. It was a Dungeon/Hex Crawler game. 

Sure they would release the occasional adventure meant to evoke those olden days but man, they were so beyond that now, they had Planescape and Ravenloft now man. Man. Man. MAN. RPGs are ART man. Man. 

And you know what? Even as cool as 2e was with the settings and as tight as 2e was as a continuation and streamlining of 1e, it never sold as well. It was top of the food chain sure but it wasn't the behemoth that was AD&D 1e or even BX/BECMI. We can't blame that on the Satanic Panic. We can't blame that on poor ideas. We can't blame it on fractured markets. I wouldn't even blame it on the glut of settings fracturing the D&D audience because it didn't hurt White Wolf or other successful companies with multiple lines. It was poor management and I don't mean the woman in charge either. 2e wasn't the longest lasting. 1e lasted longer. 1977-1989, it was actually in print after 2e came out for a handful of products.

It was the best intentions to compete in a changing market. It was Blockbuster trying to compete with Netflix.

So where am I getting at? WOTC buys D&D and saves it. Yep that's it. Kinda.

WHen 3e came out they went back to the source. Anyone else remember the original catchphrase for 3e?

*Back to the Dungeon*

The designers for 3e took D&D and distilled it back down to what works. They pared down the line to Greyhawk and the Realms and focused the design on what made D&D the top dog in the industry and it shot to the top again. It was a resource management dungeoncrawler. It was an action game. It was adventure. It was tight design with a strong focus. They were able to appeal to the storygame crowd and the waters of the industry rose because of the D20 license. Some of the biggest companies today rode that D20 boom into being successful publishers today with their own house systems, some built on that D20 license. 3.5 came out and tightened the design a bit and got weirder, emphasized the miniatures, bringing depth to the resource management aspects but keeping the story still above board.

You'd think 4e, a heavy resource management game by design, would have been just as impactful and well received. In spite of myths it sold well, kinda like 2e. I think it got away from the core of what made people like D&D though. ON the surface it was a dungeoncrawler but it was too heavy on the resource management, giving the impression of a more in depth Descent or a tabletop version of WoW (weird that both are kind of dated references these days). It fractured the market. 

Pathfinder, the OSR clones, Dungeon Crawl Classics, a lot of new games cropped up during 4e and they all kinda had the same message or impetus and it wasn't necessarily rejection of 4e like OSR or even 3e, which was part of what birthed the OSR. Outside of Pathfinder it was for a simpler time with less rules, more rulings. Letting the GM run the game they wanted to run, speed of play and that 1e type of game. 4e was easy to create for but it wasn't rules light, it was confusing in its book cycle and was essentially a false starter with the failed promise of DDI and its obvious gearing towards peripheral products. 

So it died. What was 5e? I think 5e has more 1e and 2e in its DNA than newer players want to give credit for. First its very much a continuation of 1e and 2e as if it were a 3e and not a 5e or 4e. Sure it has some elements of 3.x in it but the core, Basic D&D pdf and taking out those optional rules in the actual books? It lines right up with the experience of 1e and 2e aside from the unified XP tables, ASI and changes to the casting system to allow for more flexibility. Adding in the optional elements adds to the game in ways that Players' OPtions: Skills & Powers and the PLayers' Options: Combat & Tactics books did. The skill system is essentially Non-Weapon Proficiencies with thief skills rolled into it. Feats don't really resemble 3.x or 4e style feats. 

5e was designed to appeal to a very broad swathe of D&D fans. It was designed to bring back the diehard 1e or 2e era players and the 3.x era players, bringing them to the same table with simple and easy to use rules and play their style of character together. But the essential design of 5e is still AD&D 1e. Its still resource management and dungeon/hex crawling.


----------



## Retreater

payn said:


> I'm curious about this point. I would like to hear you expand on it. I am guessing we have some different philosophies on adventure material.



I've gone into this a bit in the Rime of the Frost Maiden Post Mortem and Orcs on Stairs threads, and don't want to get us too off track here.
I think many adventures aren't designed to be easily usable at a table. Maybe they're made to be read and not played? There's glaring holes, missing vital information, stuff that DMs have to customize (that can't be done on the fly easily.) You have to read and study 200 pages or more, and they aren't easy to just get started.
The exceptions would be the handful of adventure compilations.


----------



## payn

Retreater said:


> I've gone into this a bit in the Rime of the Frost Maiden Post Mortem and Orcs on Stairs threads, and don't want to get us too off track here.
> I think many adventures aren't designed to be easily usable at a table. Maybe they're made to be read and not played? There's glaring holes, missing vital information, stuff that DMs have to customize (that can't be done on the fly easily.) You have to read and study 200 pages or more, and they aren't easy to just get started.
> The exceptions would be the handful of adventure compilations.



Gotcha, sounds like you prefer those toss away adventures that can be written on a note card, but you have dozens of them to keep the game going. I suppose that was more common on TSR era.


----------



## Uni-the-Unicorn!

James Gasik said:


> Please forgive us 4e fans, we're so used to the edition being bashed we've become a little defensive about it.



Other than a few bad apples I don’t really feel like it is bashed in these forums.


----------



## Retreater

payn said:


> Gotcha, sounds like you prefer those toss away adventures that can be written on a note card, but you have dozens of them to keep the game going. I suppose that was more common on TSR era.



Well, not quite. I think the ideal length is 32 pages. There are others that are a bit longer but are episodic enough to be easier to run (from a story and organization standpoint) - think Red Hand of Doom (128 pages). 
But then you have things like Rime of the Frost Maiden which is basically unusable without days (weeks?) of prep. 
So TSR era or early WotC era (3.x) I think were the ideal adventure era.


----------



## payn

Retreater said:


> Well, not quite. I think the ideal length is 32 pages. There are others that are a bit longer but are episodic enough to be easier to run (from a story and organization standpoint) - think Red Hand of Doom (128 pages).
> But then you have things like Rime of the Frost Maiden which is basically unusable without days (weeks?) of prep.
> So TSR era or early WotC era (3.x) I think were the ideal adventure era.



Gotcha. I think the sticking point for me is when folks try to fault a review objectively, but ultimately the issue is really one of preference for them.


----------



## Retreater

payn said:


> Gotcha. I think the sticking point for me is when folks try to fault a review objectively, but ultimately the issue is really one of preference for them.



Yeah, I try to preference all my opinions with "this is just my opinion" but sometimes it's only inferred. I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, so I know only what has worked (or not) for me and other anecdotes I've heard.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Retreater said:


> Well, not quite. I think the ideal length is 32 pages. There are others that are a bit longer but are episodic enough to be easier to run (from a story and organization standpoint) - think Red Hand of Doom (128 pages).
> But then you have things like Rime of the Frost Maiden which is basically unusable without days (weeks?) of prep.
> So TSR era or early WotC era (3.x) I think were the ideal adventure era.



man a 32 page book seems more beer and pretzels then serious to me... but that doesn't mean I would not try ti


----------



## Stormonu

GMforPowergamers said:


> man a 32 page book seems more beer and pretzels then serious to me... but that doesn't mean I would not try ti



I'd prefer to see more 16-32 page self-contained adventures coming out of WotC, but that just isn't going to happen these days.  I REALLY wish they hadn't gutted Dungeon - it would have been the perfect place to do such a thing.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Stormonu said:


> I'd prefer to see more 16-32 page self-contained adventures coming out of WotC, but that just isn't going to happen these days.  I REALLY wish they hadn't gutted Dungeon - it would have been the perfect place to do such a thing.



what I don't get (I don't really know marketing so there may be a good reason) why they don't at least every few months drop a free 10ish page PDF adventure on the web... I HAVE to imagine that SOME developers are running games (Home and work related) and that they have some notes they could hand to an editior and throw old stock pics with it...

If I were in charge I would atleast 1/month put out an adventure (they don't have to be great) and have those range form 3rd- what ever(I assume they play up through levels imagine what a level 18 chris perkins dungeon looks like)... but I would ALSO atleast twice a year put out a starter 1st level adventure...with pregens

I would also encourage people to post there own level 1-5 adventures for free on the DMsGuild somehow (Maybe every few months see what ones have the most downloads and spot lite them on the front page)


----------



## Jer

Stormonu said:


> I'd prefer to see more 16-32 page self-contained adventures coming out of WotC, but that just isn't going to happen these days.  I REALLY wish they hadn't gutted Dungeon - it would have been the perfect place to do such a thing.



The 16-32 page self-contained adventures are all on DM's Guild under the "Adventurer's League" tag.  That's where the adventures that would have gone into Dungeon back in the day are being published now.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Jer said:


> The 16-32 page self-contained adventures are all on DM's Guild under the "Adventurer's League" tag.  That's where the adventures that would have gone into Dungeon back in the day are being published now.



i grab some sometimes...but it bumbs me out they are all realms (I know they did a ravenloft season I have those)


----------



## Retreater

GMforPowergamers said:


> man a 32 page book seems more beer and pretzels then serious to me... but that doesn't mean I would not try ti



Well, for around that page count you had Saltmarsh, Desert Nomads, Village of Hommlet, Sunless Citadel, Forge of Fury, the original Ravenloft, the Lost City, the Assassin's Knot. Lost Mine of Phandelver wasn't much bigger (closer to 32 pages than 200). The best reviewed adventures of all-time were that page count.
I think it's a solid size for an adventure covering around three levels of play. String together 3-4 of them with a loose story, and you've got a campaign.


----------



## Parmandur

Stormonu said:


> I'd prefer to see more 16-32 page self-contained adventures coming out of WotC, but that just isn't going to happen these days.  I REALLY wish they hadn't gutted Dungeon - it would have been the perfect place to do such a thing.



They put out whole books of 16-32 page Adventures every year...sometimes they pretend there is a unifying plot to them, sometimes not (like witht he upco.ing Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel).


----------



## James Gasik

Uni-the-Unicorn! said:


> Other than a few bad apples I don’t really feel like it is bashed in these forums.



It's certainly better here than on other forums I've frequented in the past, but almost any discussion where it comes up, you'll find a "that guy" spouting some of the same old "it's too anime" "it's WoW the rpg" "it wasn't D&D" nonsense that makes a person very tired.  Why the last guy who said stuff like that in a thread I was in was so tired about it he started yawning!


----------



## Jer

GMforPowergamers said:


> i grab some sometimes...but it bumbs me out they are all realms (I know they did a ravenloft season I have those)



There's also an Eberron season out there, but yeah.


----------



## Willie the Duck

GMforPowergamers said:


> what does this mean for the game I started in 94/95? I don't know. It just is something in my head so now I am forcing you to all think aboout it.



I don't necessarily think that things mean anything in particular. Some things just are.
All in all, I don't think the video game analogy is the most apt. I think perhaps a better one would be how many people today got their start with Star Trek with Next Generation or later, and many of them can't watch the original without seeing the re-used sets, 60s special effects, and so on. Or how my nephew learned that Darth Vader was Luke's father when he was first familiarized with either of them (as Lego characters, no less). 

The one thing this timeline discussion reminds me of is this: When EGG was first working on _Chainmail _(and I think that is where we have to start the measuring, if discussing influences), most of the pulp fantasy Appendix N material that influenced him (plus the westerns that helped forge the frontier world influence on the game world) was more recent the then than D&D's creation is to now. Cthulhu in 1926, Conan in 1932, LotR 1949 (but the North American revival in 1965, less than a decade previous), Dying Earth 1950. All of these would have been more contemporaneous than the original Star Wars is today (and some of the later works moreso than _The Matrix_ or _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is now).

It reminds me of the situation I had where a someone was complaining about the most recent (at the time) Muppet movies were 'trash' because it had some soon-to-be-dated pop culture references and cameos by past-their-prime celebrities (because the guests on the 1970s tv show were what, exactly?).


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Willie the Duck said:


> All in all, I don't think the video game analogy is the most apt. I think perhaps a better one would be how many people today got their start with Star Trek with Next Generation or later, and many of them can't watch the original without seeing the re-used sets, 60s special effects, and so on. Or how my nephew learned that Darth Vader was Luke's father when he was first familiarized with either of them (as Lego characters, no less).



I have very basic memories of TOS (my dad watching it in reruns) then my first trek movie (and we owned it as one of our first VHS was IV the voyage home... but I always think of myself as a TNG guy. 
I guess it is a good analogy because I like Discovery and Picard and LOVE strange new worlds (so far)


----------



## Jer

GMforPowergamers said:


> I have very basic memories of TOS (my dad watching it in reruns) then my first trek movie (and we owned it as one of our first VHS was IV the voyage home... but I always think of myself as a TNG guy.
> I guess it is a good analogy because I like Discovery and Picard and LOVE strange new worlds (so far)



I mean, my first exposure to Star Trek was reruns in the late 70s/early 80s and I found TNG's first, oh, 2 seasons to be terrible and nearly unwatchable (an opinion I recently reinforced on a rewatch - oof those first two season have a couple of gems and set up some things that pay off later but oof) - so I've always been more a TOS guy than a TNG/DS9/Voyager guy (though DS9 in particular was really, really good).  But I also love Discovery and Picard.  I know I'm in the minority of "old" Trek fans but I think Discovery in particular captures the feel of what TOS was trying to do better than any of the shows that came after it.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Jer said:


> TNG's first, oh, 2 seasons to be terrible and nearly unwatchable



I joke with people about that being a major offense... but I skip from encounter at far point to tasha's death, to season 3 myself so no stones to throw. (I know in there is an Okay Romulan episode and a GOD awful planet Africa/polyamory episode...but I can't remember much else)


----------



## James Gasik

GMforPowergamers said:


> I joke with people about that being a major offense... but I skip from encounter at far point to tasha's death, to season 3 myself so no stones to throw. (I know in there is an Okay Romulan episode and a GOD awful planet Africa/polyamory episode...but I can't remember much else)



Star Trek is a strange beast.  TNG took awhile to find it's stride.  DS9 hit the ground running (but it's first season is still criminally underrated), and Voyager...I won't say anything in case we have some VOY fans in the house.

Then you get Enterprise, which also struggled to find it's stride, and got cancelled the instant they did.

Also, the God awful episode you're referring to is "Code of Honor" and that's not even the worst one.  How about the planet that has to kill Wesley because he walked on the grass?


----------



## Stormonu

Jer said:


> The 16-32 page self-contained adventures are all on DM's Guild under the "Adventurer's League" tag.  That's where the adventures that would have gone into Dungeon back in the day are being published now.



Wow, that's quite a lot.  

How well do these play for non-League casual home play?  Some of the comments I see have me concerned about how competition-minded they may be.


----------



## Parmandur

Stormonu said:


> Wow, that's quite a lot.
> 
> How well do these play for non-League casual home play?  Some of the comments I see have me concerned about how competition-minded they may be.



Pssst, check this out, from WotC during peak pandemic times:









						Downloadable Adventures & Resources | Dungeons & Dragons
					

Get started with downloadable PDF adventures and resources from the lastest edition of Dungeons & Dragons.




					dnd.wizards.com
				




As to quality or utility, about the same as anything from Dungeon/Dragon back in the day, bit of a mix.


----------



## teitan

Parmandur said:


> They put out whole books of 16-32 page Adventures every year...sometimes they pretend there is a unifying plot to them, sometimes not (like witht he upco.ing Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel).



2 in 8 years, 3 in 10, isn’t every year  4 if you really want to count Saltmarsh.


----------



## teitan

For those looking for shorter adventures, Kobold Press has a Patreon where they put out shorter adventures monthly and a journal as well with new subclasses, spells and other bits. Most are Midgard but easily adapted to other settings.


----------



## Jer

.


Stormonu said:


> Wow, that's quite a lot.
> 
> How well do these play for non-League casual home play?  Some of the comments I see have me concerned about how competition-minded they may be.



They vary as you'd expect - kind of like how Dungeon adventures varied.  I've only used a few and they've been fine for at-home play - I wouldn't really call them "competitive".  They might mean that the AL adventures are clearly kind of geared to fit into a fixed time slot, which is one way the AL adventures are a bit different from the kind of thing you'd see in Dungeon back in the day.


----------



## Parmandur

teitan said:


> 2 in 8 years, 3 in 10, isn’t every year  4 if you really want to count Saltmarsh.



They started with Hoard of the Dragon Queen in 2014, and just put out Call of the Netherdeep.

All of the 5E Adventure books have chapters that are "coincidently" about 16-32 pages long. When Perkins was on Dragon Talk for the Tyranny of Dragons reprint he was pretty open about how they design the books as bundles of modules with removable veneer of story that can be mixed and matched.


----------



## Retreater

Parmandur said:


> All of the 5E Adventure books have chapters that are "coincidently" about 16-32 pages long. When Perkins was on Dragon Talk for the Tyranny of Dragons reprint he was pretty open about how they design the books as bundles of modules with removable veneer of story that can be mixed and matched.



I'll have to disagree with Perkins that these are individually satisfying adventure locations like traditional modules. Looking at something like Rime of the Frostmaiden, you have numerous locations that are 2-3 rooms in a dungeon with 1-2 encounters in it. Compare that to something like The Sunless Citadel, which has traps, monsters, factions, story, multiple levels, a memorable boss fight, etc. This was the stuff that we used to get in previous editions as a 32 page adventure. 
Not only is The Sunless Citadel better than any of the side locations in Rime of the Frostmaiden, I'd go so far as to say (in my opinion), it's a better adventure than the _climax _of Rime, which essentially had one encounter worth fighting in the whole darned castle. 
And I'm not trying to promote Sunless Citadel as the pinnacle of adventure design. It's merely above average, but compared to most of 5e's adventure design it's a masterpiece.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Parmandur said:


> All of the 5E Adventure books have chapters that are "coincidently" about 16-32 pages long. When Perkins was on Dragon Talk for the Tyranny of Dragons reprint he was pretty open about how they design the books as bundles of modules with removable veneer of story that can be mixed and matched.



that is intresting. I am going to reread Curse of Strahd and RIme of the Frost Maiden and Strixhaven with that in mind


----------



## Sacrosanct

GMforPowergamers said:


> that is intresting. I am going to reread Curse of Strahd and RIme of the Frost Maiden and Strixhaven with that in mind



Curse of Strahd was totally a short introductory adventure within the overall campaign.  At least for me. I died at level 1 in the haunted house.  Let's say a level 1 fighter didn't last long against a shambling mound when it rose up.  Didn't even last until my initiative as I got ripped in half.


----------



## Lanefan

Parmandur said:


> They put out whole books of 16-32 page Adventures every year...sometimes they pretend there is a unifying plot to them, sometimes not (like witht he upco.ing Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel).



The problem with a whole book of 'em is if I only wanted one of those adventures I'd still have to buy the whole book.


----------



## Retreater

GMforPowergamers said:


> that is intresting. I am going to reread Curse of Strahd and RIme of the Frost Maiden and Strixhaven with that in mind



With Curse of Strahd, you might just need to remove the Tarokka deck items - like the allies and items of power - from showing up in the locations. Each of the towns is pretty well fleshed out for adventures. You obviously have Castle Ravenloft as a satisfying dungeon. Then the Amber Temple comes to mind as an individual location- though I'd probably want to add a little more of a "boss" element to it just to make it feel more complete.


----------



## Parmandur

Retreater said:


> I'll have to disagree with Perkins that these are individually satisfying adventure locations like traditional modules. Looking at something like Rime of the Frostmaiden, you have numerous locations that are 2-3 rooms in a dungeon with 1-2 encounters in it. Compare that to something like The Sunless Citadel, which has traps, monsters, factions, story, multiple levels, a memorable boss fight, etc. This was the stuff that we used to get in previous editions as a 32 page adventure.
> Not only is The Sunless Citadel better than any of the side locations in Rime of the Frostmaiden, I'd go so far as to say (in my opinion), it's a better adventure than the _climax _of Rime, which essentially had one encounter worth fighting in the whole darned castle.
> And I'm not trying to promote Sunless Citadel as the pinnacle of adventure design. It's merely above average, but compared to most of 5e's adventure design it's a masterpiece.



A better comparison on that front are the meaty modular chapters from Curse of Strahd, or the Giant fortresses from Storm King's Thunder. Icewind Dale has intentionally micro encounters, by and large, but there are still big fat dungeons in there.


----------



## Parmandur

Lanefan said:


> The problem with a whole book of 'em is if I only wanted one of those adventures I'd still have to buy the whole book.



Yeah, but that's a business and marketing issue with the bindery, not the modules being 16-32 pages


----------



## Parmandur

GMforPowergamers said:


> that is intresting. I am going to reread Curse of Strahd and RIme of the Frost Maiden and Strixhaven with that in mind



Strixhaven has 4 modules pretty clearly labeled, one for each academic year. Probably one of the most obvious examples, though Perkins usually gives his 16-32 page chapters very Gygaxian module names.


----------



## Lanefan

Retreater said:


> I'll have to disagree with Perkins that these are individually satisfying adventure locations like traditional modules. Looking at something like Rime of the Frostmaiden, you have numerous locations that are 2-3 rooms in a dungeon with 1-2 encounters in it. Compare that to something like The Sunless Citadel, which has traps, monsters, factions, story, multiple levels, a memorable boss fight, etc. This was the stuff that we used to get in previous editions as a 32 page adventure.
> Not only is The Sunless Citadel better than any of the side locations in Rime of the Frostmaiden, I'd go so far as to say (in my opinion), it's a better adventure than the _climax _of Rime, which essentially had one encounter worth fighting in the whole darned castle.
> And I'm not trying to promote Sunless Citadel as the pinnacle of adventure design. It's merely above average, but compared to most of 5e's adventure design it's a masterpiece.



The one 5e-era WotC adventure book that really is pretty good for this is Princes of the Apocalypse.  There's about 15 small-medium stand-alone adventures in there if you chop off some interconnecting bits and forget about the overarching backstory, and some of them are quite good.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Retreater said:


> With Curse of Strahd, you might just need to remove the Tarokka deck items - like the allies and items of power - from showing up in the locations. Each of the towns is pretty well fleshed out for adventures. You obviously have Castle Ravenloft as a satisfying dungeon. Then the Amber Temple comes to mind as an individual location- though I'd probably want to add a little more of a "boss" element to it just to make it feel more complete.



I wont get the chance tonight (our once a month game is tonight) and may not tomorrow (after work I have plans) but I am going to try this... it intrigues me. 

in my head I am now imagining going to strixhaven and taking 'spring break' in Voloki' and having to stop some cannibals on the way back to school... and if that would work.

Maybe get a ticket to a circus along the way.


----------



## Retreater

Lanefan said:


> The one 5e-era WotC adventure book that really is pretty good for this is Princes of the Apocalypse.  There's about 15 small-medium stand-alone adventures in there if you chop off some interconnecting bits and forget about the overarching backstory, and some of them are quite good.



Oh yeah! I ran PotA in just that way. We did an episodic "dungeon of the week" campaign with my group of old gaming buddies from college whenever we could get together for a gaming weekend (twice or so a year). It was a blast - very beer and pretzels type of gaming. 



Parmandur said:


> A better comparison on that front are the meaty modular chapters from Curse of Strahd, or the Giant fortresses from Storm King's Thunder. Icewind Dale has intentionally micro encounters, by and large, but there are still big fat dungeons in there.



Yeah, when I was breaking it down for @GMforPowergamers I was thinking that CoS had more than its share of satisfying locations (every village, the Castle, Amber Temple, the Mountain Pass, the Winery). I guess it's just my tastes, but I'd put any location in CoS against anything in Rime.
Storm King's Thunder I don't remember too much because I heavily altered it because we went way off the (admittedly nonsensical) rails Wizards of the Coast laid for that campaign. If I remember right, the Fire Giant area was really solid, though.


----------



## Stormonu

Parmandur said:


> They started with Hoard of the Dragon Queen in 2014, and just put out Call of the Netherdeep.
> 
> All of the 5E Adventure books have chapters that are "coincidently" about 16-32 pages long. When Perkins was on Dragon Talk for the Tyranny of Dragons reprint he was pretty open about how they design the books as bundles of modules with removable veneer of story that can be mixed and matched.



This is really apparent in Ghosts of Saltmarsh.  It's three interconnected modules (U1-3) and four additional (unrelated, but fitting theme-wise) old Dungeon Magazine adventures rolled into one book, with some extras (Seaborne encounter tables, extra maps and rules/stats for seaborne vessels).


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Retreater said:


> Yeah, when I was breaking it down for @GMforPowergamers I was thinking that CoS had more than its share of satisfying locations (every village, the Castle, Amber Temple, the Mountain Pass, the Winery). I guess it's just my tastes, but I'd put any location in CoS against anything in Rime.



and I appreciate it. I don't know how true it is but the more I think about it the more sese it makes and the more i WANT you to be right.


----------



## Parmandur

Retreater said:


> Oh yeah! I ran PotA in just that way. We did an episodic "dungeon of the week" campaign with my group of old gaming buddies from college whenever we could get together for a gaming weekend (twice or so a year). It was a blast - very beer and pretzels type of gaming.
> 
> 
> Yeah, when I was breaking it down for @GMforPowergamers I was thinking that CoS had more than its share of satisfying locations (every village, the Castle, Amber Temple, the Mountain Pass, the Winery). I guess it's just my tastes, but I'd put any location in CoS against anything in Rime.
> Storm King's Thunder I don't remember too much because I heavily altered it because we went way off the (admittedly nonsensical) rails Wizards of the Coast laid for that campaign. If I remember right, the Fire Giant area was really solid, though.



The rails are usually the weakest parts of these books, though some (Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Annihilation) are better at that than others (SKT, Tyranny of Dragons).

But bust open SKT, look at the chapter titles and page counts.


----------



## Stormonu

Lanefan said:


> The problem with a whole book of 'em is if I only wanted one of those adventures I'd still have to buy the whole book.



I can understand that, but at the same time you might end up with something worth using that you wouldn't have bought/considered before (happened with _Isle of the Abbey_ for me with _Ghosts_)


----------



## Lanefan

Stormonu said:


> This is really apparent in Ghosts of Saltmarsh.  It's three interconnected modules (U1-3) and four additional (unrelated, but fitting theme-wise) old Dungeon Magazine adventures rolled into one book, with some extras (Seaborne encounter tables, extra maps and rules/stats for seaborne vessels).



The more I hear about GoS the more I find myself thinking I really should give it a long hard look sometime.


----------



## Retreater

Lanefan said:


> The more I hear about GoS the more I find myself thinking I really should give it a long hard look sometime.



I bought it for myself on Amazon for Christmas one year. I think they were doing a buy 2-get-1 free deal - I picked up Saltmarsh, Eberron, and Descent into Avernus. (I tell myself Avernus was the free one - it makes me feel better.)
I really liked the original Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh adventure. I had converted it to 3.x back in the day and had a great time. Then it was the first thing I tried to run in the D&D Next Playtest. 
I was thinking about running it for my 5e group, but one of the players had to go and buy the adventure and read the whole thing. Now it's on my "can't run it list." 
But the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh is definitely solid - the other two in the trilogy (Dunwater and the Final Enemy) are less so. I don't really know about the rest of the compilation's contents.


----------



## Micah Sweet

James Gasik said:


> It's certainly better here than on other forums I've frequented in the past, but almost any discussion where it comes up, you'll find a "that guy" spouting some of the same old "it's too anime" "it's WoW the rpg" "it wasn't D&D" nonsense that makes a person very tired.  Why the last guy who said stuff like that in a thread I was in was so tired about it he started yawning!



There are also forums, like rpg.net, where the 4e love is almost over-effusive.  At least here you get a rounder picture.


----------



## Micah Sweet

GMforPowergamers said:


> I joke with people about that being a major offense... but I skip from encounter at far point to tasha's death, to season 3 myself so no stones to throw. (I know in there is an Okay Romulan episode and a GOD awful planet Africa/polyamory episode...but I can't remember much else)



Measure of a Man from TNG season 2 is top-notch.  Carries forward thematically to a lot of future Trek too.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Micah Sweet said:


> There are also forums, like rpg.net, where the 4e love is almost over-effusive.  At least here you get a rounder picture.



maybe I should try RPG.net if they are very pro 4e


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Micah Sweet said:


> Measure of a Man from TNG season 2 is top-notch.  Carries forward thematically to a lot of future Trek too.



Messure of a man... yes that too was awsome.


----------



## teitan

Parmandur said:


> They started with Hoard of the Dragon Queen in 2014, and just put out Call of the Netherdeep.
> 
> All of the 5E Adventure books have chapters that are "coincidently" about 16-32 pages long. When Perkins was on Dragon Talk for the Tyranny of Dragons reprint he was pretty open about how they design the books as bundles of modules with removable veneer of story that can be mixed and matched.



I’ll have to disagree with him because they failed at that.


----------



## Parmandur

teitan said:


> I’ll have to disagree with him because they failed at that.



I'm not gong to claim they are all winners (since this was in the context of Tyranny of Dragons), but name any of the Adventure "paths" and you can break out how they have individual chapters that are equivalent to older modules.


----------



## teitan

Parmandur said:


> I'm not gong to claim they are all winners (since this was in the context of Tyranny of Dragons), but name any of the Adventure "paths" and you can break out how they have individual chapters that are equivalent to older modules.



Yeah but they aren’t the same. They aren’t stand alone. It’s not like throwing down Keep on the Borderlands and then throwing down X1 or Tomb of Horrors. They’re more tightly woven than even Queen of the Spiders when it pulled G,D, & Q together. It’s more like Temple of Elemental Evil where each chapter, sure, is a dungeon or sub adventure but they’re still tied to each other and carry on a story. Comparing Princes of the Apocalypse to Yawning Portal? They aren’t the same. They aren’t modular. It’s cool you think so but it’s demonstrably a weak attempt. Yes they’re 16-32 page signatures, cool Chris, but they aren’t 16-32 page adventures that are complete one and done and they aren’t sold as such. You can, with work, extract bits of them but I can’t sit down on a Thursday and read Chapter 3 of Avernus and run it standalone on Saturday. I can sit down with Yawning Portal and grab a random adventure and run it with little prep work and no need to extract it from a larger narrative while the Adventure Paths do have a narrative structure.


----------



## Staffan

Retreater said:


> I'll have to disagree with Perkins that these are individually satisfying adventure locations like traditional modules. Looking at something like Rime of the Frostmaiden, you have numerous locations that are 2-3 rooms in a dungeon with 1-2 encounters in it. Compare that to something like The Sunless Citadel, which has traps, monsters, factions, story, multiple levels, a memorable boss fight, etc. This was the stuff that we used to get in previous editions as a 32 page adventure.
> Not only is The Sunless Citadel better than any of the side locations in Rime of the Frostmaiden, I'd go so far as to say (in my opinion), it's a better adventure than the _climax _of Rime, which essentially had one encounter worth fighting in the whole darned castle.
> And I'm not trying to promote Sunless Citadel as the pinnacle of adventure design. It's merely above average, but compared to most of 5e's adventure design it's a masterpiece.



Personally, I think Sunless Citadel is too big. Or rather, it is too big a dungeon. My preference these days is for dungeons you can deal with in a single excursion, or at least that have separated bits (which I guess you could call levels) of about that size. Instead of focusing on the dungeon, make an adventure out of *getting* to the dungeon.

Or to put it more succinctly: 32 page adventure yes, 56-room dungeon no.


----------



## Parmandur

teitan said:


> Yeah but they aren’t the same. They aren’t stand alone. It’s not like throwing down Keep on the Borderlands and then throwing down X1 or Tomb of Horrors. They’re more tightly woven than even Queen of the Spiders when it pulled G,D, & Q together. It’s more like Temple of Elemental Evil where each chapter, sure, is a dungeon or sub adventure but they’re still tied to each other and carry on a story. Comparing Princes of the Apocalypse to Yawning Portal? They aren’t the same. They aren’t modular. It’s cool you think so but it’s demonstrably a weak attempt. Yes they’re 16-32 page signatures, cool Chris, but they aren’t 16-32 page adventures that are complete one and done and they aren’t sold as such. You can, with work, extract bits of them but I can’t sit down on a Thursday and read Chapter 3 of Avernus and run it standalone on Saturday. I can sit down with Yawning Portal and grab a random adventure and run it with little prep work and no need to extract it from a larger narrative while the Adventure Paths do have a narrative structure.



I think you overestimate the connective tissue of these books: they are usually pretty thin, though they will serve if desired. Perkins particular example of an Adventure he likes to use as a random insert in his own games is "The Sea of Moving ice" from Rise of Tiamat, a ~15 page Module that is very lightly connected to the overarching story of the book. Rise of Tiamat actually has a very weak structure, but very clear Module lines.


----------



## teitan

Staffan said:


> Personally, I think Sunless Citadel is too big. Or rather, it is too big a dungeon. My preference these days is for dungeons you can deal with in a single excursion, or at least that have separated bits (which I guess you could call levels) of about that size. Instead of focusing on the dungeon, make an adventure out of *getting* to the dungeon.
> 
> Or to put it more succinctly: 32 page adventure yes, 56-room dungeon no.



Sunless Citadel was really a “how to run a Dungeon” dungeon. It was the first 3e adventure and followed the same format as all the older modules and was meant to illustrate the whole “back to the dungeon” philosophy that helped D&D back to being the 900 lbs gorilla of the TTRPG industry. It helped a lot of us to understand how to play 3e since it was so different from 2e and a style of play that TSR had foregone since at least the early 90s for the most part.


----------



## James Gasik

Micah Sweet said:


> There are also forums, like rpg.net, where the 4e love is almost over-effusive.  At least here you get a rounder picture.



I don't mind criticism of a thing, I can be quite critical of 4e's weak points.  But when the criticism is basically a dismissal as being "like some thing it's not", that bugs me.  I still get irritated when I hear people call the Book of Nine Swords "too anime" as their rejection of the premise, or say Psionics are "too science fiction".  

Though I will admit, the power names for The Tome of Battle are a bit over the top.  Now a real objection, like "The Warblade is just better than the Fighter in most respects, so rather than fix the Fighter they made a Neo Fighter" I could stand- though I will point out this is par for the course for WotC.

Look at all the different attempts at making a "gish" in 3e, each slightly better than the last, rather than just fixing one.  Eldritch Knight to Spellsword to  Hexblade to Duskblade to Abjurant Champion (and a few that I missed in between).


----------



## Maxperson

Parmandur said:


> I'm not gong to claim they are all winners (since this was in the context of Tyranny of Dragons), but name any of the Adventure "paths" and you can break out how they have individual chapters that are equivalent to older modules.



If the one my players gave to me is any indication, it takes a fair bit of work to pull a section out and then fit it in as a stand alone in your setting.  It takes quite a bit less work in my experience to pull the actual stand alone adventures out of the books and insert them.


----------



## Parmandur

Maxperson said:


> If the one my players gave to me is any indication, it takes a fair bit of work to pull it out and then fit it in as a stand alone in your setting.  It takes quite a bit less work in my experience to pull the actual stand alone adventures out of the books and insert them.



Less work? Certainly. 

Which one do you have, btw? I know you've said on here...somewhere.


----------



## Maxperson

Parmandur said:


> Less work? Certainly.
> 
> Which one do you have, btw? I know you've said on here...somewhere.



I have two.  The one I bought is Dungeon of the Mad Mage, because I love undermountain.  Those are just dungeon levels so it's easy peasy to pull those out.  There's no real story to it.  You just have to ignore references to Halaster and maybe change a few names.  The one the player(well, one really) got for me is Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

Compare that to the one I pulled out of Candle Keep.  I didn't even have to use Candle Keep.  All I did was stick the magic book that led to the adventure in with some other treasure that they found.


----------



## Parmandur

Maxperson said:


> I have two.  The one I bought is Dungeon of the Mad Mage, because I love undermountain.  Those are just dungeon levels so it's easy peasy to pull those out.  There's no real story to it.  You just have to ignore references to Halaster and maybe change a few names.  The one the player(well, one really) got for me is Hoard of the Dragon Queen.
> 
> Compare that to the one I pulled out of Candle Keep.  I didn't even have to use Candle Keep.  All I did was stick the magic book that led to the adventure in with some other treasure that they found.



Now Hoard of the Dragon Queen opens pretty wildly, but Episodes 1-3 can be viewed as one 21 page module pretty easily, Episodes 4 and 5 are just kind of bad for 14 pages (useable, sure, but not stellar), and then things really get going with episodes 6, 7 and 8:

- Episode 6: Castle Naerytar is a 30 page Ruined Castle with a Black Dragon overlord(s) and factions brewing in the dungeon that can be exploited. Very weak connection to the "plot."

- Episode 7: Hunting Lodge is a 10 page madcap fight Dungeon that is also party thinly connected to the plot.

- Episode 8: Castle in the Clouds is probably my favorite in this book, and is a 15 page dungeon with all sorts of weird politics dividing the monsters that can go a bunch of weird ways.

Rise of Tiamat gets even more episodic than this. Most subsequent Adventures try to speed past the 1-5 range and get at the meaty stuff.


----------



## Retreater

What I hated about Dragon Queen was the middle section, which was I think featured guarding a caravan as it went on a railroad tour of the Sword Coast. It was probably the dullest, most pointless adventure segment I remember running in the past twenty years. Basically a tabletop videogame cutscene that lasted for weeks of play. The rest of it might've been awesome, but that one section really hit me bad.


----------



## Parmandur

Retreater said:


> What I hated about Dragon Queen was the middle section, which was I think featured guarding a caravan as it went on a railroad tour of the Sword Coast. It was probably the dullest, most pointless adventure segment I remember running in the past twenty years. Basically a tabletop videogame cutscene that lasted for weeks of play. The rest of it might've been awesome, but that one section really hit me bad.



I quite liked the low level intro, and once you get to the castle in Episode 6, it gets pretty good again, but that middle is...meandering.


----------



## Micah Sweet

James Gasik said:


> I don't mind criticism of a thing, I can be quite critical of 4e's weak points.  But when the criticism is basically a dismissal as being "like some thing it's not", that bugs me.  I still get irritated when I hear people call the Book of Nine Swords "too anime" as their rejection of the premise, or say Psionics are "too science fiction".
> 
> Though I will admit, the power names for The Tome of Battle are a bit over the top.  Now a real objection, like "The Warblade is just better than the Fighter in most respects, so rather than fix the Fighter they made a Neo Fighter" I could stand- though I will point out this is par for the course for WotC.
> 
> Look at all the different attempts at making a "gish" in 3e, each slightly better than the last, rather than just fixing one.  Eldritch Knight to Spellsword to  Hexblade to Duskblade to Abjurant Champion (and a few that I missed in between).



WotC was allergic to fixing things in 5e until very recently.  Of course, I generally don't like the fixes, so they can't win with me.


----------



## James Gasik

Micah Sweet said:


> WotC was allergic to fixing things in 5e until very recently.  Of course, I generally don't like the fixes, so they can't win with me.



That is unfortunate, and while I think there are things about the game that can be improved, leaving behind the people who are happy the way things are isn't really fair either.

Of course, it all comes down to the direction they are fixing things.  Turning 5e into the "magical warrior" edition might solve a problem here or there, but it repeats a problem the previous two editions had, where the non-caster classes were usually relegated to the dust bin, and the magical types got all the new shiny toys.

I mean, what did we get in 3e, Barbarian, Fighter, Rogue, Knight and Marshal?  Warblades (debatably).

Then in 4e, we didn't get anything approaching a Martial Controller until Essentials with that one Ranger variant and it was...meh.

And we had more "magical" power sources than you could shake a stick at, Arcane, Divine, Primal, Psionic, Shadow...

I guess at the end of the day "cool stuff" = magic almost exclusively.  Feels kind of meh to me.


----------



## Lanefan

Retreater said:


> I bought it for myself on Amazon for Christmas one year. I think they were doing a buy 2-get-1 free deal - I picked up Saltmarsh, Eberron, and Descent into Avernus. (I tell myself Avernus was the free one - it makes me feel better.)
> I really liked the original Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh adventure. I had converted it to 3.x back in the day and had a great time. Then it was the first thing I tried to run in the D&D Next Playtest.
> I was thinking about running it for my 5e group, but one of the players had to go and buy the adventure and read the whole thing. Now it's on my "can't run it list."
> But the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh is definitely solid - the other two in the trilogy (Dunwater and the Final Enemy) are less so. I don't really know about the rest of the compilation's contents.



I'm stuck halfway through running Secret of Saltmarsh, that party is on hold right now until some players return to socializing.


----------



## Lanefan

Parmandur said:


> I'm not gong to claim they are all winners (since this was in the context of Tyranny of Dragons), but name any of the Adventure "paths" and you can break out how they have individual chapters that are equivalent to older modules.



I guess the question there is how easy those chapters are to chop out and run as standalone adventures, i.e. how much effort is required to divorce the adventure from the backstory and built-in plot of the published AP, and divorce layout-wise from the rest of the complex if several chapters occur in one location or site.

With PotA it's quite easy, with other APs maybe it's not so much.


----------



## Parmandur

Lanefan said:


> I guess the question there is how easy those chapters are to chop out and run as standalone adventures, i.e. how much effort is required to divorce the adventure from the backstory and built-in plot of the published AP, and divorce layout-wise from the rest of the complex if several chapters occur in one location or site.
> 
> With PotA it's quite easy, with other APs maybe it's not so much.



It's always pretty darn easy. The "plots" are mighty thin. Usable enough to work as a campaign framework, but honestly it's probably about as easy to completely extricate any given module from their respective plots as it is to make the plots work for one's group.


----------



## Lanefan

teitan said:


> Yeah but they aren’t the same. They aren’t stand alone. It’s not like throwing down Keep on the Borderlands and then throwing down X1 or Tomb of Horrors. They’re more tightly woven than even Queen of the Spiders when it pulled G,D, & Q together. It’s more like Temple of Elemental Evil where each chapter, sure, is a dungeon or sub adventure but they’re still tied to each other and carry on a story. Comparing Princes of the Apocalypse to Yawning Portal? They aren’t the same. They aren’t modular. It’s cool you think so but it’s demonstrably a weak attempt. Yes they’re 16-32 page signatures, cool Chris, but they aren’t 16-32 page adventures that are complete one and done and they aren’t sold as such. You can, with work, extract bits of them but I can’t sit down on a Thursday and read Chapter 3 of Avernus and run it standalone on Saturday. I can sit down with Yawning Portal and grab a random adventure and run it with little prep work and no need to extract it from a larger narrative while the Adventure Paths do have a narrative structure.



I could probably sit down and run any one of several parts of PotA as a standalone with virtually no prep whatsoever, if I suddenly found myself in need of a dungeon complex and didn't have one ready to rock.

The only thing I'd have to do would be to put some sticky notes on the map to cover over passages that connect to other chapters, which would take me maybe a minute, tops.

Converting it to match my 1e-variant system I could do on the fly; it's not like I haven't had any practice.


----------



## Lanefan

Staffan said:


> Personally, I think Sunless Citadel is too big. Or rather, it is too big a dungeon. My preference these days is for dungeons you can deal with in a single excursion, or at least that have separated bits (which I guess you could call levels) of about that size. Instead of focusing on the dungeon, make an adventure out of *getting* to the dungeon.



Which is great until the moment your PCs get access to fast overland means of travel (flight devices, reliable means of teleport, etc.), at which point you become reliant on the dungeon itself to provide the interest.

Sunless Citadel, while not my favourite module (Forge of Fury is way better!), is about the size of adventure I usually run; i.e. more or less comparable to many of the "classic" modules and certainly smaller than some (Dark Tower, Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth to name two).


----------



## James Gasik

Yeah adventures about getting to a location can run into some issues.  First, players can get access to abilities to trivialize overland travel.  This is nothing new, it's been this way for a very long time, and yet many classic adventures from earlier versions of the game act like this isn't the case and the journey should be difficult.

And then there's the other extreme- the players run into a roadblock and never reach the location in the first place...


----------



## Staffan

Lanefan said:


> Which is great until the moment your PCs get access to fast overland means of travel (flight devices, reliable means of teleport, etc.), at which point you become reliant on the dungeon itself to provide the interest.



That just means you need to have other fun stuff for the "journey". You might need to prepare certain things to get to the dungeon, even learn its exact location, negotiate with locals to gain access, or maybe even have a changed focus for the adventure to "help locals do a thing" with the dungeon just being part of the whole.

While it does not translate directly to D&D, think of a game like Ocarina of Time. You don't go directly from dungeon to dungeon, but instead each dungeon needs you to do a number of things before entering (or before you have a chance to deal with that dungeon's challenges). Before going into the Shadow Temple, go to Kakariko Village, and learn that an evil spirit trapped beneath the village has broken free and infested the Temple. In order to enter the temple you need to have the Eye of Truth, in order to deal with all the illusions in there, and getting the Eye of Truth is a mini-dungeon of its own. That's the kind of thing I want, but adapted to D&D.

That's why one of my favorite D&D adventures is Dragon's Crown. It's a really big adventure, and it takes you from Tyr, to Urik, to the Sea of Silt, then back across the whole setting to the Ringing Mountains, the Forest Ridge, crossing the Hinterlands, and eventually breaching the Dragon's Crown fortress. There are certainly dungeons, but there's also raider tribes, negotiating with a sorcerer-king, a weird gladiatorial game that's a cross between a battle and a football game, travel across the Sea of Silt, multiple instances of discovering ancient history, negotiating with man-eating halflings, handling thri-kreen driven mad by the adventure MacGuffin (and encountering a distant traveler possibly setting things up for later), and exploring a forest full of flesh-eating plants. In addition, there are a number of side treks you can throw in along the way. Now, that's significantly more than a 32-page adventure, but you could easily do the same thing on a smaller scale.


----------



## Yora

James Gasik said:


> Yeah adventures about getting to a location can run into some issues.  First, players can get access to abilities to trivialize overland travel.  This is nothing new, it's been this way for a very long time, and yet many classic adventures from earlier versions of the game act like this isn't the case and the journey should be difficult.
> 
> And then there's the other extreme- the players run into a roadblock and never reach the location in the first place...



Which I believe to be a major factor of why anecdotaly so many groups decide to start a new campaign by the time they reach 10th or 12th level.


----------



## Aldarc

Staffan said:


> While it does not translate directly to D&D, think of a game like Ocarina of Time. You don't go directly from dungeon to dungeon, but instead each dungeon needs you to do a number of things before entering (or before you have a chance to deal with that dungeon's challenges). Before going into the Shadow Temple, go to Kakariko Village, and learn that an evil spirit trapped beneath the village has broken free and infested the Temple. In order to enter the temple you need to have the Eye of Truth, in order to deal with all the illusions in there, and getting the Eye of Truth is a mini-dungeon of its own. That's the kind of thing I want, but adapted to D&D.



This sort of game design is sometimes referred to as Metroidvania, a portmanteu of the two games that exemplify it: i.e., Metroid and Castlevania. These are games that block exploration of areas, even as part of early play, but these areas can be returned to and accessed once the player has acquired power-ups, items, or other things. I have mentioned this game design philosophy in one thread that talked about what TTRPGs could learn from video games.


----------



## Staffan

Aldarc said:


> This sort of game design is sometimes referred to as Metroidvania, a portmanteu of the two games that exemplify it: i.e., Metroid and Castlevania. These are games that block exploration of areas, even as part of early play, but these areas can be returned to and accessed once the player has acquired power-ups, items, or other things. I have mentioned this game design philosophy in one thread that talked about what TTRPGs could learn from video games.



I think using power-ups to reveal new areas of exploration in D&D is probably something best used sparingly. A video game usually has more limited options for what the player can do, so it's easy to make something off limits until you get e.g. the jump boots. But in D&D, someone will say "but I have the _jump_ spell we can use", or ask if maybe they can climb up, or go get an effin' ladder or something. So if you want to make things off limits until later, you probably need to use some form of direct plot token ("The door will only open in the presence of the Crown of Majesty").


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Staffan said:


> I think using power-ups to reveal new areas of exploration in D&D is probably something best used sparingly.



I have a player that hates when we do it...

1 DM had a magic wall that we couldn't pass but could see through (wall of force) and see a door on the other side. We went 2 or 3 levels before a PC could disintegrate it and some of us wanted to go back and he FLIPPED not wanting to back track. 

Even worse was the game I used magic paintings that were moments in time frozen. they saw them in places as early as game 2 level 3, but around level 7 (game 18ish) a PC got a bracelet that gave them  access to go into them... and the first one they went into they found not only that they could learn lore, but remove treasure from that time (and of course get XP) but there was a second copy of the painting elsewhere in the world and once they did the right thing they could travel from one to the other...   now they had to decide if they wanted to go back to that first dungeon with 2 paintings (and I had them also unlocking OTHER dungeons) it drove the player nuts... but that wasn't the worst of it.  One of the 1st paintings had a second bracelet in it that instead of giving access to the paintings gave access to a completely different mechanic where they could travel into and out of the shadowfell to avoid some obstacles... and that ALSO meant they could go back to other places... and the OTHER of those 2 paintings had a guy stuck in it that could teach them to do a special boon... I thought that player was going to have a nervus break down.

basically they spent 4 levels exploring and finding the paintings, then 2 levels back tracking to enter them, learning new things and getting new items that then had them rego through finding more things...


Staffan said:


> A video game usually has more limited options for what the player can do, so it's easy to make something off limits until you get e.g. the jump boots. But in D&D, someone will say "but I have the _jump_ spell we can use", or ask if maybe they can climb up, or go get an effin' ladder or something. So if you want to make things off limits until later, you probably need to use some form of direct plot token ("The door will only open in the presence of the Crown of Majesty").



yup... we have also TPKed from opening doors the DM assumed we couldn't open but we had some cool swiss army win button spell that did...


----------



## James Gasik

GMforPowergamers said:


> I have a player that hates when we do it...
> 
> 1 DM had a magic wall that we couldn't pass but could see through (wall of force) and see a door on the other side. We went 2 or 3 levels before a PC could disintegrate it and some of us wanted to go back and he FLIPPED not wanting to back track.
> 
> Even worse was the game I used magic paintings that were moments in time frozen. they saw them in places as early as game 2 level 3, but around level 7 (game 18ish) a PC got a bracelet that gave them  access to go into them... and the first one they went into they found not only that they could learn lore, but remove treasure from that time (and of course get XP) but there was a second copy of the painting elsewhere in the world and once they did the right thing they could travel from one to the other...   now they had to decide if they wanted to go back to that first dungeon with 2 paintings (and I had them also unlocking OTHER dungeons) it drove the player nuts... but that wasn't the worst of it.  One of the 1st paintings had a second bracelet in it that instead of giving access to the paintings gave access to a completely different mechanic where they could travel into and out of the shadowfell to avoid some obstacles... and that ALSO meant they could go back to other places... and the OTHER of those 2 paintings had a guy stuck in it that could teach them to do a special boon... I thought that player was going to have a nervus break down.
> 
> basically they spent 4 levels exploring and finding the paintings, then 2 levels back tracking to enter them, learning new things and getting new items that then had them rego through finding more things...
> 
> yup... we have also TPKed from opening doors the DM assumed we couldn't open but we had some cool swiss army win button spell that did...



Something like that happened in Sunless Citadel when I ran it- there's a door that has a very high DC to open, but you can get a key later.  Sure enough, my party forces it open, and gets into a fight they were not prepared for at level 1.

We lost the Monk before they were able to retreat.

As for not wanting to backtrack, I don't understand that mentality at all- is it just that they don't like not being able to "solve" things as they approach them?

I once ran a campaign where they found a summoning portal, but you needed special keys to use it.  Each key conjured a specific thing, and all but a few special keys were one-use.  So the Sword Key conjured a magic sword that the person who activated the portal could use, etc..

At one point, a player had to leave the game, but they remembered they found a Priest Key, which conjured a living Cleric to the present from the distant past, who agreed to aid the party!


----------



## Lanefan

Staffan said:


> That just means you need to have other fun stuff for the "journey". You might need to prepare certain things to get to the dungeon, even learn its exact location, negotiate with locals to gain access, or maybe even have a changed focus for the adventure to "help locals do a thing" with the dungeon just being part of the whole.
> 
> While it does not translate directly to D&D, think of a game like Ocarina of Time. You don't go directly from dungeon to dungeon, but instead each dungeon needs you to do a number of things before entering (or before you have a chance to deal with that dungeon's challenges). Before going into the Shadow Temple, go to Kakariko Village, and learn that an evil spirit trapped beneath the village has broken free and infested the Temple. In order to enter the temple you need to have the Eye of Truth, in order to deal with all the illusions in there, and getting the Eye of Truth is a mini-dungeon of its own. That's the kind of thing I want, but adapted to D&D.
> 
> That's why one of my favorite D&D adventures is Dragon's Crown. It's a really big adventure, and it takes you from Tyr, to Urik, to the Sea of Silt, then back across the whole setting to the Ringing Mountains, the Forest Ridge, crossing the Hinterlands, and eventually breaching the Dragon's Crown fortress. There are certainly dungeons, but there's also raider tribes, negotiating with a sorcerer-king, a weird gladiatorial game that's a cross between a battle and a football game, travel across the Sea of Silt, multiple instances of discovering ancient history, negotiating with man-eating halflings, handling thri-kreen driven mad by the adventure MacGuffin (and encountering a distant traveler possibly setting things up for later), and exploring a forest full of flesh-eating plants. In addition, there are a number of side treks you can throw in along the way. Now, that's significantly more than a 32-page adventure, but you could easily do the same thing on a smaller scale.



Follow-the-breadcrumbs adventures or adventure paths can be fine - I've both played in and DMed some that worked out really well - but there's two very big risks:

1 - the whole thing becomes a not-so-subtle railroad where the players/PCs have (or feel they have) little choice but to be led by the nose from one crumb to the next until the adventure or path is done; or

2 - the players, either in or out of character, get fed up and say "Screw it - we're not jumping through all these hoops any more.  Let's just go bash some Giants instead!" and left-turn out of the adventure sequence.

There's a linked pair of old-school modules - C4 To Find A King and C5 Bane of Llywelyn - that are designed this way: the two modules together consist of something like eight mini-adventures (four per module) that pretty much have to be done in sequence to finish the quest.  I made the mistake of running this once as part of a bigger campaign, and by about the fifth or sixth mini-adventure both I and my players were fed up with all the hoop-jumping and couldn't wait for it to end.  In character, though - and high praise to the players here for staying in character and doing what the characters would do - they felt that by that point they were committed to the mission and had to see it through; so we all just sucked it up and plowed through the rest of it.


----------



## James Gasik

Tales from the Outer Planes is the one adventure I literally had a party ragequit out of.  Basically, the whole thing is one long "chain of deals" as you go from one extraplanar entity to another- some of whom are notorious for being massive trolls (and not the regenerating kind!).


----------



## payn

Lanefan said:


> Follow-the-breadcrumbs adventures or adventure paths can be fine - I've both played in and DMed some that worked out really well - but there's two very big risks:
> 
> 1 - the whole thing becomes a not-so-subtle railroad where the players/PCs have (or feel they have) little choice but to be led by the nose from one crumb to the next until the adventure or path is done; or
> 
> 2 - the players, either in or out of character, get fed up and say "Screw it - we're not jumping through all these hoops any more.  Let's just go bash some Giants instead!" and left-turn out of the adventure sequence.
> 
> There's a linked pair of old-school modules - C4 To Find A King and C5 Bane of Llywelyn - that are designed this way: the two modules together consist of something like eight mini-adventures (four per module) that pretty much have to be done in sequence to finish the quest.  I made the mistake of running this once as part of a bigger campaign, and by about the fifth or sixth mini-adventure both I and my players were fed up with all the hoop-jumping and couldn't wait for it to end.  In character, though - and high praise to the players here for staying in character and doing what the characters would do - they felt that by that point they were committed to the mission and had to see it through; so we all just sucked it up and plowed through the rest of it.



1 can be head off by having adventures where the clues are not sequential and the NPC take action as the PCs develop the story. The better adventure paths (Paizo ones, WOTC ones seem to be bad at this based on my admittedly limited experience) are usually built to support that. Experienced GMs should spot this a mile away and prevent it.

2 The players always have this freedom even in sandboxes. I find the trick is to get buy in on the type of adventure the players want to take. Keep the incentives coming to stay within the box. This isnt only a problem for adventure paths. I have been in too many sandboxes to count where the GM just isnt interesting as an adventure developer so players constantly take left turns looking for something that is interesting. 

The GM has equal stake in making a game interesting as the adventure writing itself.


----------



## Staffan

Lanefan said:


> Follow-the-breadcrumbs adventures or adventure paths can be fine - I've both played in and DMed some that worked out really well - but there's two very big risks:



Perhaps. But I'd rather risk that than have a module filled up with a 50-room dungeon and not much more. Heck, I find the 12, 11, 19, and 13-room dungeons from Legacy of the Lost God too big (or at least too encounter-filled).


----------



## Sabathius42

Parmandur said:


> That's fair. But, it exists, and isn't outmoded the way that Pong or Atari 2600 games are. I mean, my kids dip their toes into the well of pain that is NES games, but even I couldn't pick up Atari games now.



Edit:  Misread what you meant by "pick-up" so my reply doesn't address your point really, but I am addressing the physical availability side so I will leave my post.


You can walk into any big box store (Walgreens as an example) in the US and buy a retro classics console for an Atari, intellivision, NES, SNES, and Genesis that homs up to any modern TV and has 40-50 games.  You can also purchase the Atari Classics disc for a modern Xbox for $10 with those same games.

Unless you are talking about some obscure consoles it's really a bad analogy because playing retro games in 2022 is not hard to accomplish.


----------



## Sabathius42

GMforPowergamers said:


> what I don't get (I don't really know marketing so there may be a good reason) why they don't at least every few months drop a free 10ish page PDF adventure on the web... I HAVE to imagine that SOME developers are running games (Home and work related) and that they have some notes they could hand to an editior and throw old stock pics with it...
> 
> If I were in charge I would atleast 1/month put out an adventure (they don't have to be great) and have those range form 3rd- what ever(I assume they play up through levels imagine what a level 18 chris perkins dungeon looks like)... but I would ALSO atleast twice a year put out a starter 1st level adventure...with pregens
> 
> I would also encourage people to post there own level 1-5 adventures for free on the DMsGuild somehow (Maybe every few months see what ones have the most downloads and spot lite them on the front page)



I have a huge folder Ron my PC of the tons of maps, small adventures, and micro supements they used to release during 5e.  I was hoping the Elemental Companion "free supplement" at the beginning of 5e was going to be ongoing (it was an amazing freebie) but that died on the vine.


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## GMforPowergamers

Sabathius42 said:


> I have a huge folder Ron my PC of the tons of maps, small adventures, and micro supements they used to release during 5e.  I was hoping the Elemental Companion "free supplement" at the beginning of 5e was going to be ongoing (it was an amazing freebie) but that died on the vine.



it looks like we are getting more free stuff this week


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## Vaalingrade

Sabathius42 said:


> You can walk into any big box store (Walgreens as an example)



I tihnk you mean Walmart, as Walgreens is a sad drug store, not an angry big box.


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## payn

Vaalingrade said:


> I tihnk you mean Walmart, as Walgreens is a sad drug store, not an angry big box.



Thats terrible state of affairs when your business is drugs and you are still sad.


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## GMforPowergamers

payn said:


> Thats terrible state of affairs when your business is drugs and you are still sad.



its like a corner store on steroids... but it's big claim to fame is it's pharmacy. In general Wal-marts ALSO have pharmacies but few think of them as a pharmacy.


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## Vaalingrade

payn said:


> Thats terrible state of affairs when your business is drugs and you are still sad.



The only drug you need is a positive attitude and milk, kids!

And caffeine. Our society will collapse without caffeine.


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## payn

Vaalingrade said:


> The only drug you need is a positive attitude and milk, kids!
> 
> And caffeine. Our society will collapse without caffeine.



I never was a good kid. Caffeine is for amateurs.


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## Vaalingrade

But on topic, D&D is D&D, no matter which inanimate object you've formed a parasocial attachment to. The worst thing D&D fans do to it is declare themselves the arbiters of what is D&D, making the community a worse place by doing so.


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## James Gasik

I'm sure that each edition and version of D&D had people saying "it doesn't feel like/that's not D&D".  To paraphrase: "If players were intended to roll one die to resolve everything, Gygax wouldn't have given us subsystems!".


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## Sabathius42

Vaalingrade said:


> I tihnk you mean Walmart, as Walgreens is a sad drug store, not an angry big box.



No, I most certainly mean Walgreens.  They carry lots of stuff, it's not just a store for medicine.

Saw this there the other day.



			https://www.walgreens.com/store/c/my-arcade-pac-man-handheld-portable-gaming-system/ID=300403161-product


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## Vaalingrade

Sabathius42 said:


> No, I most certainly mean Walgreens.  They carry lots of stuff, it's not just a store for medicine.
> 
> Saw this there the other day.
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.walgreens.com/store/c/my-arcade-pac-man-handheld-portable-gaming-system/ID=300403161-product



This city has approximately 16 million Walgreens and I've never seen and thing higher tech than a nose hair trimmer. I'm impressed.


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## Sabathius42

Vaalingrade said:


> This city has approximately 16 million Walgreens and I've never seen and thing higher tech than a nose hair trimmer. I'm impressed.



You do actually have to browse around rather than beeline to the pharmacy and back out the door.


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## Vaalingrade

Sabathius42 said:


> You do actually have to browse around rather than beeline to the pharmacy and back out the door.



We've both seen the inside of a Walgreens -- why would I want to do that?


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