The 2004 D&D Open Championships were published as a three part arc in issues 123 (June 2005), 124 (July 2005) and 125 (August 2005). James Jacobs indicated that this was an experiment. Was it successful? Did people enjoy these adventures?
Were there any plans to publish some or all of the 2005 Championship game, Crown of Winter Fire? Over on the WotC site, they are now polling for the characters for the 2006 tournament. At one convention I go to, Kublacon, there's an exclusive tournament run there every year. The adventures are published by Troll Lord games, and I think this is nice because it's like a souvenir if you've gone and an advertisement if you haven't.
Also, have there been any thoughts for converting some of the best adventures from the D&D Campaigns? A few of the Legacy of the Green Regeant and Mark of Heroes modules are really good, and it might be nice to see them polished and presented in Dungeon format. What does everyone think of this? You can't get these modules anymore. How many people have played all of them? I missed out on one of Keith Baker's modules, The Delirium Stone, and now it seems like there's no way to get this adventure.
If they do print the Open we know it won't be in the June or July 2006 issues. Maybe this will help fill the Adventure Path gap and catch up with the 1/3 goal of modules with licensed references?
James or Erik, can we look forward to seeing more from the RPGA and WotC in the future?
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Maybe. If the right adventure came along. I like the idea of RPGA content, but it's got to be up to the magazine's standards in order to make it to print. What works in a four-hour game at a convention isn't necessarily what works in a home setting, so there's often a considerable amount of conversion. Like I said, if the right adventure came along, we'd consider it.
We're unlikely to reprint any of the old Adventurers Guild retail program adventures or the Legacy of the Green Regent adventures. I suspect most people who really want those adventures already had them, and again there is often a gulf of difference between a fully developed Dungeon adventure and a hastily-written tournament. I say this as someone who has written both and edited both.
If the right adventure came along, we'd certainly do this again, but it's not something we have planned for the near future.
--Erik
Maybe. If the right adventure came along. I like the idea of RPGA content, but it's got to be up to the magazine's standards in order to make it to print. What works in a four-hour game at a convention isn't necessarily what works in a home setting, so there's often a considerable amount of conversion. Like I said, if the right adventure came along, we'd consider it.
Thanks for the reply Erik.
As in the past, I'm starting out this reply with "Please don't take this the wrong way..."
Are you saying that NONE of the hundreds of RPGA Greyhawk, Eberron and FR modules are "right" for Dungeon? I can see many of them needing a lot of work, but there are also some that are IMO on par (and possibly better) than many of the adventures you've published.
The conversion process fascinates me. What elements of a convention game need to be tweaked for home play? Were any of the adventures for the 2004 Open modified for the magazine? I've seen (and run) several Dungeon magazine adventures run at gamedays and conventions in the same 4-6 hour block format. If anything, I always thought Dungeon's adventures were similar to the con format. They're generally very modular, linear and strive to be independent of ancillary world background events. In fact, Mr. Jacobs at one point said:
"A pre-published adventure isn't about open-ended play. Open-ended play is supported by campaign settings (and to a lesser extent, the Backdrop articles we publish now and then). An adventure has to present a focused plot that, to some extent, railroads the PCs along a certain course, otherwise it becomes too huge to print in a magazine."
It sounds as if Dungeon adventures are designed more for tournament play than home games. Home games promote open ended play, and tournament or gameday play needs a focused plot that, to some extent, railroads the PCs along a certain course.
Other than editing and quality, what is the difference in structure and/or tone between a Dungeon adventure and the RPGA and WotC tournament modules?
Also, you mentioned a lot regarding the RPGA. Is there any hope of seeing the 2005 D&D Open in Dungeon?
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I would be very interested in seeing some of this RPGA content in dungeon. It would be cool to have a couple of tournament style 4-hour adventures to run at home. I don't know anything about the RPGA yet, so I have no idea how any of these adventures are converted. Maybe it's time for me to start going to some sanctioned events at my FLGS :)
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Creative Director
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One thing to keep in mind as well is that we generally don't reprint entire adventures, be they from other companies, the RPGA, or conventions; we prefer to print entirely new adventures in the magazine.
I see Dungeon as being more useful to home campaigns rather than tournaments. Tournament adventrues tend to be much shorter than the average adventure we print in the magazine, and also tend to be a lot more compact encounter-wise, with a stronger focus on combat than other aspects of the game. Since many of the adventures we publish have extensive role-playing encounters, mysteries, and other elements that tend to eat up the hours, they just aren't that well-suited to tournament play.
One thing to keep in mind as well is that we generally don't reprint entire adventures, be they from other companies, the RPGA, or conventions; we prefer to print entirely new adventures in the magazine.
If this is true then in 2005 why were 75% of the Eberron adventures you published reprints from the 2004 D&D Open?
I see Dungeon as being more useful to home campaigns rather than tournaments.
Wouldn't you agree that home campaigns are more for open ended play?
And didn't you say that backdrops and licensed setting books are better for open ended play than pre-published modules?
Tournament adventrues tend to be much shorter than the average adventure we print in the magazine
Ironically, you had to publish the D&D Open as a three part story arc.
Looking at most of the Mark of Heroes adventures, most of them are actually longer than your typical Dungeon adventure. This fact is even more significant when you consider that the older Mark of Heroes adventures don't use the new stat block.
and also tend to be a lot more compact encounter-wise, with a stronger focus on combat than other aspects of the game.
That's just not true. Take a look at Mark of Heroes adventures like Reflections of the Multiverse or Finding the Path. The LoGR modules I've ran have had more NPC and non-combat opportunities than the typical Dungeon adventure. I'll post a query on the LG boards and see what people think about this comment. The few LG modules I've played in are no more combat oriented than any of the Dungeon adventures I've read.
In the past you've defended dungeon crawls in your magazine. I said most of the adventures are designed more like classic crawls and you said this was a good thing and people liked them. You've praised the fact that the majority of your adventures have that classic crawl feel. Most of the original D&D adventure modules were convention oriented.
Since many of the adventures we publish have extensive role-playing encounters, mysteries, and other elements that tend to eat up the hours, they just aren't that well-suited to tournament play.
I couldn't disagree more. Where are the "extensive roleplaying encounters" in Three Faces of Evil? Encounter at Blackwall Keep? Halls of Harsh Reflections? There are just as many mysteries to solve and non-combat related time-consuming elements, if not more, in the majority of convention modules.
When I have time later I'll sift through and compare encounter per encounter Dungeon adventures versus Mark of Heroes, Legacy of the Green Regeant and Living Greyhawk adventures. There's very little difference that I can see.
What you're referring to is open ended play. As you've said "a pre-published adventure isn't about open-ended play".
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Takasi, you were born to be a lawyer, and I mean that as a compliment. You've got some mean cross examining skills going on. Your ability to take words at their literal value, create contradictions where none exist, and to otherwise discredit a person with their own words defies description. I mean this with all due respect - consider a career in law.
If my puppy(Meepo) bites somebody for no reason at all, I want Takasi to be Meepo's defense attorney.
You named your puppy Meepo? That's awesome! What breed?
I did most of the work on the D&D open adventures last year, and I can say that they required significantly more work to adapt to the Dungeon adventure style than any of the other adventures I have worked on. Most of the extra work was due to the tournament style that the adventures were presented in. Features such as pregenerated characters, simplified rules (for tournament play), large gaps in the story arc between adventures, abbreviated stat blocks, and an incredibly tight focus are all things that work for tournament play, but are not acceptable for Dungeon, and had to be changed, revised, or updated.
And even after all that, I felt that the adventures were still better suited for tournament play than for home campaigns.
While I would not be opposed to doing that again, I agree with what Erik said above that it would have to be the right time and the right adventure. I can't speak for the entire staff, but I know I don't follow or read all (or even very many) of the RPGA adventures that come out, so it's impossible for me to tell if any of them would work. Due to the nature of the RPGA, any initiative to have their adventures reprinted would most likely have to come from them. If they submitted some of their adventures for possible republication in Dungeon, we would definitely consider them carefully. Failing that, only a very special event (like the D&D open) would have enough broad recognition for us to consider approaching them, and based on our experience with the previous adaptation, it's unlikely that we would do that unless we felt the adventures were both very good, and easy to adapt to the Dungeon style.
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Creative Director
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Ironically, you had to publish the D&D Open as a three part story arc.
Actually, we didn't have to publish them as a three-part story arc. What we did need was three short adventures, so we decided to present the adventures in a Campaign Arc (another format we were, at the time, still experimenting with). If we do the D&D Open in the future, we'll do it as one adventure.
I couldn't disagree more. Where are the "extensive roleplaying encounters" in Three Faces of Evil? Encounter at Blackwall Keep? Halls of Harsh Reflections? There are just as many mysteries to solve and non-combat related time-consuming elements, if not more, in the majority of convention modules.
Well, of course you can sift through adventrues and pick out ones that don't have roleplaying sections. However; let's take the last 6 issues of Dungeon and look at them for examples of excellent roleplaying adventures:
#135: Chains of Blackmaw has the PCs infiltrating a prison, without their gear. They have to accomplish their goal while pretending to be prisoners.
#134: Into the Wormcrawl Fissure has Zulshyn, a lillend you can ally with to aid in the fight against Dragotha by impressing her with artistic ability.
#133: Ill Made Graves can start with a diplomatic mission to a tribe of barbarians.
#132: Caverns of the Ooze Lord has numerous opportunities to investigate a creepy small town and interact with the locals.
#131: Prince of Redhand is pretty much all roleplaying.
#130: Spire of Long Shadows has a sizable section where the PCs are taking it easy in Magepoint.
Those are just six examples of adventures or encounters that don't make for good tournament play, since it's so much more difficult to quantify success in a roleplaying scene.
Personally, I could care less if I ever see any Legacy of the Green Regent modules. While I love Eric Boyd's work, the series, overall, has struck me as a bit cumbersome when it comes to fitting it into canon FR lore. Again, this goes back to the difference between tournament play and home campaigns. In a tournament, there isn't as much time to go into lore and how this or that may seem like a contradiction but isn't. The main point is to make it feel like FR in very abbreviated steps, then get on with the game.
Heck, between the Hunter's Blades Trilogy, the Silver Marches supplement, and the Legacy of the Green Regent modules, that area of Faerun is starting to feel like a big temporal anomaly.
Remember, the reason that Khelben split off from the Harpers is that he made a deal with Fzoul to not expand his reach any further into the Sword Coast north . . . if the Green Regent campaign is taken as canon, then Fzoul's broken that pact, and all hell should be breaking loose between the Moonstars and the Zhentarim.
::sigh::
Long story short . . . just publish new FR material in Dungeon that meets your standards.
I'm currently working on an adventure where the party must roleplay a situation where they find it necessary to ask questions to draw out the leaders of the town of Paizo. Then they try to snipe at them in the public square. They get increased experience points if they jump to conclusions and confuse opinions with facts.
I did most of the work on the D&D open adventures last year, and I can say that they required significantly more work to adapt to the Dungeon adventure style than any of the other adventures I have worked on. Most of the extra work was due to the tournament style that the adventures were presented in. Features such as pregenerated characters, simplified rules (for tournament play), large gaps in the story arc between adventures, abbreviated stat blocks, and an incredibly tight focus are all things that work for tournament play, but are not acceptable for Dungeon, and had to be changed, revised, or updated.
[sarcasm]But isn't it your jobs to constantly and tirelessly work for my benefit? You should be happy for the increased workload, especially if it brings me more Eberron material![/sarcasm]
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Creative Director
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I'm currently working on an adventure where the party must roleplay a situation where they find it necessary to ask questions to draw out the leaders of the town of Paizo. Then they try to snipe at them in the public square. They get increased experience points if they jump to conclusions and confuse opinions with facts.
Alas, we don't publish non-fiction adventures.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Are you saying that NONE of the hundreds of RPGA Greyhawk, Eberron and FR modules are "right" for Dungeon?
No, of course not. In fact, if you read my post, I said that "If the right module came along, we'd consider it." I do not define "came along" as "Erik reads through 300 hastily written tournaments to find the one good one."
If a good RPGA adventure makes its way to us, we'd consider republishing it.
Other than editing and quality, what is the difference in structure and/or tone between a Dungeon adventure and the RPGA...
This is a good question that deserves a long answer, but I don't have the time to reply right now. Maybe tomorrow.
In my experience, 80% of RPGA adventures are written the night before they are due, or considerably after, by folks who are more interested in creating encounters that work in a tournament setting rather than writing something that is amusing to read.
The "Shards of Eberron" adventures were considerably revised for publication. They were basically just "so here's the encounter. Use these miniatures."
A future project along these lines will need to look more like a Dungeon adventure before we even consider it. I am certain that such adventures exist, but I'm not willing to dig through the piles to find them.
--Erik
And even after all that, I felt that the adventures were still better suited for tournament play than for home campaigns.
I wasn't keen on the "Shards of Eberron" adventures, for precisely that reason. So, if asked whether I would like to see this year's D&D Open adventures in Dungeon, my answer would have to be "No". I would prefer other adventures instead.
That said, if you do decide to publish them, I'll not complain too much.
Mr. Jacobs, the list you provided is fine, but I'm asking about other adventures. You're saying that Dungeon is not about convention appropriate dungeon crawls that can be played in 4-6 hours. Showing one example from every issue of adventures that are not appropriate does not counter the other adventures that are appropriate.
In your recent thread asking us about Dungeon Crawls, how would you differentiate what you consider a crawl versus a convention appropriate module? In that thread you also said that while you're aware that more than a few people don't like crawls there are many who do (including you). Not surprisingly, many of the adventures in your magazine match this format.
Have you specifically looked at the 2005 D&D Open? I did not get a chance to participate in it, and there is no way I can access it so I can't really comment.
Have you looked at the Mark of Heroes adventures?
In an upcoming issue of Dragon there is going to be an article on Dreadhold, an Eberron island prison. Has anyone read the Mark of Heroes adventure "Gambit at Dreadhold"?
Not counting the extra info for the RPGA, Gambit at Dreadhold is over 25 pages long. There are more roleplaying opportunities in this adventure than in the majority of Dungeon adventures I've run for the Age of Worms. The same can be said of Reflections of the Multiverse, Pirate's Bounty and the Isle of Fire and Finding the Way. Blind Man's Hunt is a very roleplay intensive adventure (and it has a very intriguing story). Keith Baker wrote the Delirium Stone, and while I haven't seen it and didn't get a chance to play it while it was available I've heard it was exceptionally well done.
These adventures are sent to retail stores as a part of WotC's gameday kits. I don't think they are hastily written; the production quality is actually pretty nice.
Keith is currently working with WotC for the RPGA's next Campaign: Xen'drik Expeditions. With some coordination you could publish one of their adventures, perhaps the first one. The RPGA already sanctions Dungeon adventures for Reward points, so I don't see how the process would be that much more difficult.
We've had some discussions in the past over licensed settings and core rulebooks. Read the Mark of Heroes guidelines. In their adventures and in their rules they set aside two small paragraphs: "Required Materials" and "Optional Materials". In the required materials section, they specifically say that the ECS is not necessary to run these adventures. For all adventures, it would be nice to see a little area, possibly a sidebar, that does something similar. They even break down which chapters of certain books (like Lords of Madness, Sandstorm, DMG 2, etc) would enhance these adventures (though they're not required).
There are really only three places to find Eberron and FR adventures: Dungeon, WotC and the RPGA. In the last two years there have been only 12 Mark of Heroes adventures. Surely someone in the Dungeon staff would have time to at least glance at these adventures? Since they aren't published that frequently I would think the Dungeon staff would want to see how the other side is doing things. You both use the same stat format and have a common goal: producing quality pre-published adventures. Wouldn't it be helpful to monitor their progress and compare their work?
... psst, Gwydion... I will give you 5gp if you hijack and derail this thread.
Takasi,
Since you're always looking for more Eberron content to be published have you considered creating your own? Give the folk at Paizo something to work with? Just curious...
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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We've had some discussions in the past over licensed settings and core rulebooks. Read the Mark of Heroes guidelines. In their adventures and in their rules they set aside two small paragraphs: "Required Materials" and "Optional Materials". In the required materials section, they specifically say that the ECS is not necessary to run these adventures. For all adventures, it would be nice to see a little area, possibly a sidebar, that does something similar. They even break down which chapters of certain books (like Lords of Madness, Sandstorm, DMG 2, etc) would enhance these adventures (though they're not required).
This seems like a pretty cool idea. Could this maybe be added into the scaling the adventure sidebar? Something simple like "for futher ideas, see pg/chapter X of supplement Y." I suppose the big risk might be a backlash for the perceived shilling of products.
In a similar vein, a bibligraphy or footnotes/end notes could make the non-core references a little easier to find. Right now they're buried in the stat blocks for monsters, which makes them difficult for me to find.
As Erik mentioned elsewhere, we don't really have time to sift through RPGA adventures looking for anything to publish; we barely have time as it is to sift through our own pile of contributed manuscripts and adventure proposals.
If you want more information on Eberron adventures, I highly recommend spending 5 minutes every two months to at least glance at these Mark of Heroes adventures. They are nothing like the hastily written, combat-exclusive, short adventures you're describing. Shouldn't you have an interest in reading the only other place for D&D adventures outside of Dungeon? It's not like there's too many to read. Is twelve in two years really overwhelming?
Do you at least look at any of the WotC adventures? I bought a really good one called the Red Hand of Doom that you might like. ;)
If the RPGA worked with you, would you consider publishing a Xen'drik Expeditions adventure? It could help initiate a lot of players into the Campaign, and it would help you find more Eberron adventures. It wouldn't need to be a reprint; it could be a new adventure. The RPGA already provides reward points for Dungeon adventures, so the sanctioning process is already setup on their end.
... psst, Gwydion... I will give you 5gp if you hijack and derail this thread.
*laughs* Ah, man, I would, but it's rude. Takasi /does/ have good points, and while I may appear to have a crusade, I really don't.
Tak, man, it's awesome. If we could harness your thought-process on peace in the Middle East, it'd be done. Shia and Sunni fundamentalism wouldn't stand a chance.
It /would/ be useful to publish these sort of adventures. I know that I am always interested in joining the RPGA, but I can never seem to find enough information to make me want to jump in - I'm intimidated at the Cons, and the website just doesn't answer all of my questions. This has not been disputed by anyone here.
The issue as I see it is a) time, b) resources and c) profitability. I've worked in newspapers and magazines before. I know how deadlines suck, and those were for small daily newspapers. I cannot imagine (well, I can, but I don't work at Paizo) how many late-nights are put in out in Washington, how many deadlines are met, then broken, then met again, then broken when the art comes in five minutes before the article is approved.
Paizo's business model is simple: they only solicit material for certain topics: the Adventure Paths and iconic situations (the anniversary issues, or the launch of a new line, etc). Everything else is submitted to them. Whether it works or not is a moot question - Paizo has had far more success than anyone else with these properties in, well...darn near forever.
Does it work perfectly? No.
Did it make me subscribe for the first time since junior high? Yes.
Yes, it would be nice to have conversion and liner notes. Yes, designer diaries kick ass. No, Paizo is not going to throw it into a .rtf and put it on their website. No, Paizo does not have time to read adventures /already published/ and consider some of them for their own publication.
I work in a large corporation. You'd think it would be easy to communicate from one department to the next. It's not. Now imagine a seperate company handling a portion of our business - do we want oversight? Definitely. Do we want final say? God yes. Do we want to do the work ourselves? No, because otherwise, we wouldn't have hired them. That's the relationship Paizo and WotC appears to have to me. I seriously doubt Erik can walk into WotC HQ and get a puff off of the Brand Manager's cigarette and a kiss from his admin assistant - well, I don't doubt all of that. ;)
Does anyone here seriously think that Undefeated and Amazing Stories and Polyhedron went on hiatus because no one at Paizo cared?
Oh, and avast! And yarrrr! Belay that order, lad. And stuff.
Pirates. Dinosaurs. Demons. And Takasi, if you are ever at Origins or Gen Con, I'd buy you some rum and listen to you. Just realize that sometimes something that makes sense to you doesn't make sense to everyone else. =)
and while I may appear to have a crusade, I really don't.
I totally understand.
The issue as I see it is a) time, b) resources and c) profitability.
These aren't the only things that add to success. You can give someone all the time, resources and money in the world and that's not going to spark innovation. Sometimes it takes fresh perspective and a little trial and error to improve.
Paizo's business model is simple: they only solicit material for certain topics: the Adventure Paths and iconic situations (the anniversary issues, or the launch of a new line, etc). Everything else is submitted to them.
Are you sure it's that simple? There are a lot of professional authors in the past year that are not related to the AP, anniversary issues or the launch of new lines. The D&D Open was one example of RPGA collaboration, and I thought the outcome was pretty good.
Yes, it would be nice to have conversion and liner notes. Yes, designer diaries kick ass. No, Paizo is not going to throw it into a .rtf and put it on their website.
Why not? If they're going to make conversion notes anyway, why would it be harder to put them on the web site through an enhancement similar to their previews? How is it any easier to try to squeeze these into the magazine or combine then with all the newly formatted artwork and maps in the pdf distribution?
No, Paizo does not have time to read adventures /already published/ and consider some of them for their own publication.
It isn't so much about considering preprinted adventures. It's about deciding whether certain authors and programs (like the Mark of Heroes) might provide another excellent opportunity for collaboration. At the very least, they can glance at them to question their belief that most convention oriented material is short, combat exclusive and hastily written.
And Takasi, if you are ever at Origins or Gen Con, I'd buy you some rum and listen to you.
I'll be at KublaCon on Memorial Day weekend and GenCon SoCal after that. However, if I'm there I'm either listening to speakers or chucking dice. This is probably the best forum for discussion, but I'll still take your rum. :)
I'll be at GenCon Indy and I'll glady accept your rum. :D
-- John
Mr. Jacobs, here's a list of the first set of Xen'drik expedition adventures currently in development:
Cabal of Shadows
CBL1 - The Sahuagin Stone
CBL2 - Shadow Over Stormreach
Crimson Codex
CDX1 - Prophecy's Unwitting Servant
CDX2 - Forbidden Knowledge
Blackwheel Company
CMP1 - Principal of the Matter
CMP2 - Price of Success
Covenant of Light
CVN1 - Divine Inspiration
CVN2 - Crisis of Faith
All Factions
EXE1 - Well of Woe
Here's the description for Well of Woe:
“When Thelanis falls on the dusk of the Slayer’s jungle, a fire alights in a well of woe. Forever extinguished, the dreamer awakens and the pariahs rise.” This small fragment of Draconic prophecy means many things to many people, but the members of four factions race to enact their will on it and unlock its true meaning. A three-round (12-hour adventure) for 1st-level characters.
This introductory adventure for all factions will be available in August at GenCon. If the RPGA provided you with the adventure in the next month or two, would you be willing to review it for consideration?
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Creative Director
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If the RPGA submitted a query or manuscript for these adventures we'd certainly look them over for publication. They'd have to go through the same process all our other submitted adventured go through, of course. I'd certainly need something more in depth than the brief description above before any decisions were made.
1. The RPGA/WotC buys the rights to the adventures, so they would have to be the one to submit it. The author(s) cannot. I would love to see some of the past Special Delve adventures for Living Greyhawk or Mark of Heroes get considered for Dungeon.
That's correct. I don't see it as much as a problem though.
2. The material is free for RPGA members. It may take a bit of time and energy to join the RPGA, but once you do you can pretty much download any of these mods that you want. The aforementioned Special Delve adventures are the only ones that have a limited release. LG regional modules are limited by geography, but people still share them.
Only members with official herald DM status can download the adventures, and they are only available for a brief period of time (usually 2-3 months). You also have to sanction an event in order to download them. There are certain adventures that are only available as premiere events at conventions.
Regardless of the availability of the adventure, I think there's a substantial percentage of Dungeon readers who will never obtain these adventures unless they are in Dungeon.
What would work better for everyone involved--the RPGA, WotC, Dungeon, the players--is if this was done in the other direction. Good adventures from Dungeon should be worked into the RPGA campaigns. They did this with "Mad God's Key," and WotC is going to be doing this with their published adventures.
I do agree that it would be awesome if Dungeon collaborated with the RPGA and developed their own contribution to the Mark of Heroes, Xen'drik Expeditions or Living Greyhawk Campaigns.
As far as the RPGA taking Dungeon adventures that are not tailored to their Campaigns and working them in, the RPGA does allow sanctioning of all Dungeon adventures for reward points. You don't get xp for your Campaign characters though.
Only members with official herald DM status can download the adventures, and they are only available for a brief period of time (usually 2-3 months).
In some cases, it's more like 1 month. This is a major pain, and probably my single biggest gripe with the RPGA's system. Can someone here please explain to me why on earth a herald level DM (or higher) should not be able to download whatever they want?
I mean, if I want a LG adventure from 3 years ago, who cares?If I want an Eberron MoH adventure from last year, that became available in June (a year after original play at GenCon, etc) - but got retired in August - then I'm out out of luck?!?!
This makes no sense to me at all...
Maybe, for campaign tracking reasons, etc. I can see them saying that you can no longer earn points for playing a retired adventure, but it seems like once in the archive, it would be available for download for years afterward, just for homeplay, etc.
Hey DMR...that was one of my big hang-ups with the D&D Campaigns as well. Our group got behind at one point, then couldn't get any of the "gap" adventures, etc. It is strange that a lot of work goes into these adventures, then we never see them again. I think the original (from LotGR) idea of putting all the adventures together and selling them/offering them up wold have been very popular.
On a weird/cool note, Takasi apparently likes something of mine (Finding the Path, from Mark of Heroes). Yay!
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I'm sure people know what a support I am of LG. So . . .
Erik is absolutely right.
The requirements for RPGA adventures are very specific, and very different from what would be good in a magazine adventure or as an individual product adventure. Only a very few of the absolutely best LG adventure would rate as anything but totally sucky if they appeared in Dungeon as written, and even the best ones would need significant revision. The formats are just so completely different.
This doesn't mean the adventures aren't awesome as RPGA adventures for 4 hour convention slots. And it doesn't mean that some of the writers aren't totally incredible. It just means they have done their job and written to that format, not to one that would be good in Dungeon. There are several people whose work I'd love to see in Dungeon, but in adventures written specifically for that, not just reprinted or modified LG adventures. I'd want to see them completely unleashed.
I'd also love to throw a screaming fit about his comment on deadline and tournament content. The only thing is, I had to do that once. (And can never forget it for another reason, damnit.) I can say that from what I've experienced reviewing this last year the rate of missed deadlines is down well below that 80% mark. We've gotten a lot better. Really!
I will also add, as someone who has read through over 100 adventures merely to catalogue content, I would never expect Paizo to have a full time employee (submission screener or editor or whoever would do it) just to review 300 LG and however many other RPGA adventures every year. However good it might sound, I don't think it would ever be practical.