Years ago, back when D&D was young, modules were king, and they were the cause of many shared experiences... let's face it, most old players went through Tomb Of Horrors, Queen of Spiders, Pharaoh, etc. These ended up being common experiences that most players of that age shared inbetween them.
Now we have the Adventure Path: Shackled City, and I was wondering if anyone thought that the same thing was happening with it. I've run across a couple of groups running it here in Atlanta, and we've been swapping stories. Might this bring the overall community closer together?
Squid
This message board is a good proof of it, man. My own campaign wouldn't be the same without you guys. I stole ... ahem ... borrowed a lot of ideas by reading those message boards and I'm always delighted hearing of such stories. I put on watch some threads here, waiting for new posts on campaign journals.
But one conclusion we can make is that rpg is stories first. Expensive sourcebooks full of nothing (or worse selling the same stuff in a new package) will never bring to the RPG community the same feeling of belonging than mods do. However the industry seems to have abandon the idea of writing stories. Take for instance FR campaign setting : except Into the Dragon's Lair, PoR-Attack on Myth Drannor and City of the Spider Queen, there has been no modules at all for FR during the last 5 years. Compare that to 2E Randal Morn trilogy, Volo's trilogy, Undermountain, Four from Cormyr etc during the glorious days of TSR. Not to speak about Greyhawk... Nowadays you get novels, minis, sourcebooks, lots of rules but no stories. Wonder why the hobby doesn't grow these days...
Thank God we still have Dungeon magazine. I'm looking forward the new AP and the story arc about Waterdeep. Common experiences I will share with all of you and that will make me cherish this hobby all the more.
Bran, who gets frustrated with its limited English vocabulary.