I have read many posts indicating that the consensus is that WoTC 4th edition adventures are pretty poor and I was wondering why people hold that view? I've recently started running my first 4th edition game and having read through a bunch of modules with pretty low expectations, found myself pleasantly surprised.
They are qualitatively different from Paizo adventures - I would characterise them as more light-hearted and classic fantasy rather than the dark almost pseudo-horror feel of many of Paizo's offerings. There is also less background material to anchor them to a particular world - however this seems like more a difference of intent rather than a strength or a weakness. I could see both of those things leading people to prefer Paizo-style adventures (I do for one) however the accepted wisdom seems to be that the quality of the WoTC modules is weak on a more objective level.
What is it about them that makes them be regarded as poor? Or do I have it wrong - it's purely a matter of the kinds of stories people like?
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, 2011 Top 32
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I have read many posts indicating that the consensus is that WoTC 4th edition adventures are pretty poor and I was wondering why people hold that view? I've recently started running my first 4th edition game and having read through a bunch of modules with pretty low expectations, found myself pleasantly surprised.
They are qualitatively different from Paizo adventures - I would characterise them as more light-hearted and classic fantasy rather than the dark almost pseudo-horror feel of many of Paizo's offerings. There is also less background material to anchor them to a particular world - however this seems like more a difference of intent rather than a strength or a weakness. I could see both of those things leading people to prefer Paizo-style adventures (I do for one) however the accepted wisdom seems to be that the quality of the WoTC modules is weak on a more objective level.
What is it about them that makes them be regarded as poor? Or do I have it wrong - it's purely a matter of the kinds of stories people like?
I'll start! WOTC modules tend to be a loosely connected series of battles set in small areas with catchy hooks. Gimmicks abound, in an effort, one imagines, to showcase what the developers believe is the strength of 4e: the combat system. The overarching plots tend toward the simple plotline, stop the giants, save the girls.
There is nothing wrong with this if and only if, the object of your game is to kill things and take their stuff. I prefer a more nuanced experience, where there are plot hooks, shades of grey heroes and villains, moral dilemmas, and adventures that include no combat.
Not that I'm saying Paizo modules work perfectly for this in 4e either. They don't and although I see Scott Bett's admirable attempt to convert the Paizo APs, they don't ring quite right to me either.
Which is why I'm glad 4e makes adventure design easier. I can throw together something to suit my group in less time, which is wonderful. I keep reading over the modules and getting the feeling that they were not written for my group. Plus, they've seemed bland and repetitive to me. They seem to lack a narrative flow and seem more like a loosely connected series of encounters than an organic, natural flowing story.
Note: the above is my opinion and not meant to be construed as any sort of expert verdict. Please do not flame me or accuse me of trolling, as Odin looks down on that sort of behavior. And Odin and me are close. One-eyed bugger owes me money.
I hold a similar view. Some of them have some cool aspects and well designed encounters. However, to me they feel like monotonous hack and slash.
Note: the above is my opinion and not meant to be construed as any sort of expert verdict. Please do not flame me or accuse me of trolling, as Odin looks down on that sort of behavior. And Odin and me are close. One-eyed bugger owes me money.
It would be a bit rich if you got called a troll for answering my question - if anybody's going to wear that charge it'll be me.
I hold a similar view. Some of them have some cool aspects and well designed encounters. However, to me they feel like monotonous hack and slash.
This is how they read to me (though perhaps monotonous is a stronger word than i would use). I can understand people not liking them on the grounds of taste, but it seemed more universal to be purely a subjective thing. I wondered if there was something more fundamental than just story preference. (I have heard, for example, that the H1-E3 series of adventures doesnt hand out treasure as per the parcel system laid out in the DMG. If that's the case, it would be pretty annoying given how carefully the character progression is balanced assuming a certain accumulation of wealth).
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From what we tried out before finally getting tired of the whole thing and giving up on it over our 6 months of 4th edition, none of the adventures really seemed to have anything interesting in them.
It was such a huge amount of combat combined with poorly designed skill challenges that didn't draw us into the game, coupled with so many goblin hexers and crossbow turrets that we just assumed there were some in ever mod.
I even went so far as to purposefully build a elf cleric whose passive perception was in the high 20's just so we could stop being annoyed by turrets, and then we played an adventure that had a trap that was so poorly built that is literally said something like, "There is no need to make a perception trap to notice this is a pool of water" instead of something useful with no alternate trap finding DC.
That and the general ability to simply kick in the door and fight until you win in most of them, never having to worry about a battle plan or combining tactics other then moving to flank hurt too. Traps were infinitely easier to smash then to disable, none of the adventures called for the use of spell casting, etc.
I think that philosophical shift is what has caused the poor reaction to the adventures by many. And I understand it has gotten better, as P1 - E3 have progressively seen more story, more interwoven plot, etc, and the Scales of War AP has similarly evolved after the early adventures. So it could also just be their early works involved them still feeling out the right style for the edition.
Worth pointing out that its not a philosophical shift. WotC's adventures were generally poorly received 'round these parts in 3rd as well. Exceptions usually came from some freelancer who might do an exceptional piece of work.
I think that the issue is that most folk 'round these parts expect their adventure stories to come from people and plots and to be driven by these NPCs. Most WotC stories are contained within some large structure which serves as 'adventure place'. This setup really results in their being little character driven story to the adventure. The PCs are going to go to this place and at the bottom of it there will be a BBEG.
Furthermore WotCs delve design has reinforced the static nature of most of these environments. Outside of depopulating them the PCs don't really have an effect because the encounters themselves are frozen in space and time until the PCs 'trigger' them.
That is not to say I don't like some of the things WotC has done with their adventures. Their focus on the encounters themselves - while leaving much to be desired from a story angle, have been some of the most spectacular encounters I've ever participated in. I really like the amount of time and effort that they spend in making important combats truly interesting and complex affairs involving lots of interesting things going on and engaging the PCs in making difficult and compelling choices in terms of dealing with the encounters.
This has caused me to modify how I run even my conversions of Paizo APs (Age of Worms in my case). I find myself picking out three or four of the most important encounters in the adventure and really rethinking them in order to get the kind of compelling encounters we have seen in some of the WotC adventures so there are ways that WotC has improved the game as a whole with their adventures - its just that they, initially at least, took one step forward with excellent encounter design and coupled that with two steps back in terms of having 'flat' NPC villains with an uninspiring story driving the action.
Truth is there is no particular reason one can't have both but its not been the norm - so far at least.
Is there a reason that a third party publisher couldn't write a 4e adventure that wasn't in the delve format? The format of the adventures seems to be a sticking point for some.
The purpose of making the adventures as vague as possible is because it is up to the DM to provide the connections to his setting, story, and characters, both PC and NPC. WoTC adventures make it very easy to dissect and disseminate all or part of any given published adventure, change a few things to fit YOUR campaign, and play with a fairly minimal amount of preparation.
Is there a reason that a third party publisher couldn't write a 4e adventure that wasn't in the delve format? The format of the adventures seems to be a sticking point for some.
The is no particular reason that one has to hold to the Delve Format that I can think of.
The purpose of making the adventures as vague as possible is because it is up to the DM to provide the connections to his setting, story, and characters, both PC and NPC. WoTC adventures make it very easy to dissect and disseminate all or part of any given published adventure, change a few things to fit YOUR campaign, and play with a fairly minimal amount of preparation.
That is a flawed model. It is more difficult, in most cases, for a DM to sit down and build a story and location from scratch to match his campaign world then it is to adapt a compelling story to ones personal campaign world. Most sword & sorcery tropes hold in some manner across campaign worlds, even home brewed ones. Adaption usually just requires a few tweaks here and there to make your personal home brew stand out or to change some aspect that does not line up in your homebrew. Generally the story itself still works if the monsters on display work. So we can have a story about Illithid kidnappings in town in almost any circumstances in which it is appropriate to have an Illithid as a villain.
The compelling NPC that is neck deep in deep dark cultist activity but is involved, in reality, because he feels it is the only way to protect his daughter works in nearly any adventure that feature a cult with only some minor skinning.
If they decide to tell us a really compelling story set in their default world that will be well received and gain significant following. We saw this with 3rd where Red Hand of Doom, with its interesting back story and strong, active, plot was considered some of the absolute best work that WotC put out. Its no accident that they use that setting for their first AP.
Anyone know where to get some good reviews for 4th ed adventures? I keep wanting to give 4th ed another shot, but with my other games, I don't have time to write my own or convert.
Edit: By good, I mean well written and unbiased, not necessarily positive.
Ah, fair enough! I had not had much experience with 3rd edition adventures, just knew that the designers had offered this sort of philosophy as explanation for their current offerings of adventures.I definitely agree that, even with that philosophy, there is room for more improvement in the adventures themselves. I like the concept and think the format is fine, they just need to include more info in the right places, and more guidance on how PCs can step outside the assumed path. Which still would not provide the sort of intricate and detailed stories that some are looking for, but I think would let them hold true to their philosophy without having quite as much disappointment in their adventures.
Though, as I mentioned, I've heard better things about their offerings of late, so some of this may well have already been addressed.
a big part of the problem was the sheer quality of Dungeon. I've not really reviewed the current crop of Dungeon on DDI but historically the model used by Dungeon meant that their adventures were just phenomenal. When your adventure design process is to take hundreds of submissions and then weed that down to just the two or three best ones your going to get a lot of really high quality adventures. Its essentially a cream rises to the top model.
I recall reading that Barbara Young (an early Editor of Dungeon) used to get very unhappy whenever an in house professional at TSR wanted to write an adventure for Dungeon as she new that there was little chance it would be able to stand up to the rest of the material she was printing simply because she was telling 99% of the people submitting their great idea that it was not good enough and just taking the very best one. Even in house professionals could not compete with that model.
This continued write through the 3rd edition era with most of the adventures appearing had gone through that 1 in a 100 process. Only the APs were done differently and that sometimes showed, though the amount of time and effort spent on the APs helped keep quality high and the writers chosen had mostly already proven themselves by being chosen multiple times from the 1 in a 100 pool. i.e. if you had the talent to be the best adventure out of 100 peoples submissions on multiple occasions then you obviously had talent in adventure writing.
Anyone know where to get some good reviews for 4th ed adventures? I keep wanting to give 4th ed another shot, but with my other games, I don't have time to write my own or convert.
Edit: By good, I mean well written and unbiased, not necessarily positive.
You also need some one who agrees with your tastes in adventures or the review will likely be meaningless.
You also need some one who agrees with your tastes in adventures or the review will likely be meaningless.Anyone know where to get some good reviews for 4th ed adventures? I keep wanting to give 4th ed another shot, but with my other games, I don't have time to write my own or convert.
Edit: By good, I mean well written and unbiased, not necessarily positive.
Well, not necessarily. If the reviewer gives details, synopsis and points out what they do/don't like, I think that I can determine whether it would be something that I'm interested in.
This is what I've found as well, and when running Second Darkness in 4E I too spent a great deal of time thinking of how to spice up the actual combat encounters to the "4E standard", while at the same time maintaining the overall feel and storyline of the AP.
Now that I've finished running Second Darkness, I have started running a homebrew campaign, and my players have really been enjoying that (you can see the journal in the journals section- PH Dungeon homebrew). I haven't had any trouble adding the same level of detail and narrative that I would have in a 3E game and balancing the combat encounters for this system is much easier for me, so it's been a big win so far.
My advice is don't discard the 4E system just because many of the published adventures have been flops. It's easy to convert 3E material (like pathfinder), and it's an easy system to design your own material for. Give it a fair shot, and if in the end you decide it's not for you, well enjoy whatever floats your boat.
I think that philosophical shift is what has caused the poor reaction to the adventures by many. And I understand it has gotten better, as P1 - E3 have progressively seen more story, more interwoven plot, etc, and the Scales of War AP has similarly evolved after the early adventures. So it could also just be their early works involved them still feeling out the right style for the edition.Worth pointing out that its not a philosophical shift. WotC's adventures were generally poorly received 'round these parts in 3rd as well. Exceptions usually came from some freelancer who might do an exceptional piece of work.
I think that the issue is that most folk 'round these parts expect their adventure stories to come from people and plots and to be driven by these NPCs. Most WotC stories are contained within some large structure which serves as 'adventure place'. This setup really results in their being little character driven story to the adventure. The PCs are going to go to this place and at the bottom of it there will be a BBEG.
Furthermore WotCs delve design has reinforced the static nature of most of these environments. Outside of depopulating them the PCs don't really have an effect because the encounters themselves are frozen in space and time until the PCs 'trigger' them.
That is not to say I don't like some of the things WotC has done with their adventures. Their focus on the encounters themselves - while leaving much to be desired from a story angle, have been some of the most spectacular encounters I've ever participated in. I really like the amount of time and effort that they spend in making important combats truly interesting and complex affairs involving lots of interesting things going on and engaging the PCs in making difficult and compelling choices in terms of dealing with the encounters.
This has caused me to modify how I run even my conversions of Paizo APs (Age of Worms in my case). I find myself picking out three or four of the most...
Anyone know where to get some good reviews for 4th ed adventures? I keep wanting to give 4th ed another shot, but with my other games, I don't have time to write my own or convert.
Edit: By good, I mean well written and unbiased, not necessarily positive.
Unfortunately he stopped doing them a while back, and I don't know how many adventure's he covered but I really found Jack99's 4e Ultrashort Reviews to be unbiased and helpful, even if they are "ultrashort" in his opinion. However, most long reviews I've seen tend to just be a long-winded table of contents with little review anyway.
The purpose of making the adventures as vague as possible is because it is up to the DM to provide the connections to his setting, story, and characters, both PC and NPC. WoTC adventures make it very easy to dissect and disseminate all or part of any given published adventure, change a few things to fit YOUR campaign, and play with a fairly minimal amount of preparation.
The purpose of making the adventures as vague as possible is because it is up to the DM to provide the connections to his setting, story, and characters, both PC and NPC. WoTC adventures make it very easy to dissect and disseminate all or part of any given published adventure, change a few things to fit YOUR campaign, and play with a fairly minimal amount of preparation.
That's what I've heard as well (for some reason I'm thinking it was James Wyatt who once clearly stated that, perhaps in a Dungeoncraft column???). However, I agree with others that it unfortunately comes across as just hack-n-slash linked encounters - especially when you go and advertise it as an Adventure Path.
At least with Chaos Scar, they are being clear in their intent that it's just a bunch of encounters. However, it's also why I can rarely bring myself to bother reading most WotC adventures, and Chaos Scar in particular. I just, personally, can't get excited over them.
Which really is too bad. It seems like they have spent so many years through 3.x and 4e focusing on mechanics, that I'm not sure their story muscles are as strong as they used to be. Then when you go and compare to the storymeisters at Paizo... well, let's just say I don't see "Keep on the Shadowfell" being made into a play any time soon.
On the one hand, a Paizo adventure has a strong enough story that it might be more difficult to twist to fit my campaign, but quite often it's a strong enough story that I twist my campaign to fit it! Besides, I love to read RPG material to be inspired by the ideas, and strong story inspires me far more often than cool mechanical encounters.
Not that I'm saying Paizo modules work perfectly for this in 4e either. They don't and although I see Scott Bett's admirable attempt to convert the Paizo APs, they don't ring quite right to me either.
Could someone expand on that comment? I'm really dying to play a 4th edition campaign, but don't want to play WoTC's modules, at least not as written.. What I really want to do, is try to convert some of Paizo's adventures. Why doesn't the conversions feel right?
For me, story is what happens after the adventure is over and the players talk about what happened. Give me a location with some interesting monsters and characters, and PCs will make story happen.
From my own experiences with conversion, I think they work just fine. The poster may have thought Scott's didn't feel right for any number of reasons. 1 might be that he chose to try to split the AP up among 30 levels, which results in a lot of encounters being necessary to generate the required xp, possibly more than what the storyline really requires or has room for. Personally, I would have tried to take them up to level 20 not 30. This however, has nothing really to do with the system itself and is more an issue of personal taste and vision.
Could someone expand on that comment? I'm really dying to play a 4th edition campaign, but don't want to play WoTC's modules, at least not as written.. What I really want to do, is try to convert some of Paizo's adventures. Why doesn't the conversions feel right?
Not that I'm saying Paizo modules work perfectly for this in 4e either. They don't and although I see Scott Bett's admirable attempt to convert the Paizo APs, they don't ring quite right to me either.
From my own experiences with conversion, I think they work just fine. The poster may have thought Scott's didn't feel right for any number of reasons. 1 might be that he chose to try to split the AP up among 30 levels, which results in a lot of encounters being necessary to generate the required xp, possibly more than what the storyline really requires or has room for. Personally, I would have tried to take them up to level 20 not 30. This however, has nothing really to do with the system itself and is more an issue of personal taste and vision.
Ah, I see what you mean. I didn't think that far ahead, and personally, I'm not too worried about where the characters will end. The few times I've GM-ed 4th ed, creating balanced and challenging encounters in 4th edition looks like the easiest thing in the world, and is one of the main reasons I'd like to try the system on a more regular basis. That and less prep time.
Now, all I need is a PC so that I can run the various character and encounter builders and what not... or hope that WOTC develops a Mac version..
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Could someone expand on that comment? I'm really dying to play a 4th edition campaign, but don't want to play WoTC's modules, at least not as written.. What I really want to do, is try to convert some of Paizo's adventures. Why doesn't the conversions feel right?
Not that I'm saying Paizo modules work perfectly for this in 4e either. They don't and although I see Scott Bett's admirable attempt to convert the Paizo APs, they don't ring quite right to me either.
Paizo's Adventure Paths are rooted in 3.x. They're built off that platform, embrace what works for that platform and fit the tone of that platform, a sense of anything goes. A sense that heroes are everyday people who rise above their peers to become something legendary.
4e's feel is that heroes are different, from the very get go. They don't use the same rules as non-heroes, they don't have the same feel. They're born special and time and experience allow them to refine that specialness. Converting one from one system to the other forces me to make different choices than the original designer made. I bought that module for the choices that the designer made, because I liek those choices and believe in them. Converting them from 3e, a rich and varied system with years of development, options and flavor to 4e, a young system that hasn't developed the same richness of options means substituting monsters, changing tones and making choices that are less than optimal. The giant crab in Burnt Offerings doesn't have an equivalent. So Scott chose to use Kruthiks, I believe. Its a valid choice, but in my mind, having run that adventure in 3.5 and seeing the looks on the faces of my players when a giant frickin' crab popped out of that helmet: priceless. Kruthiks don't have the same pop for me. Reading through the further conversions, too many encounters that we memorable and vivid seem less so to me with the conversion.
I've been running 4e for a few months now and I'd much prefer to forge new adventures for it than convert old ones.
Anyone know where to get some good reviews for 4th ed adventures? I keep wanting to give 4th ed another shot, but with my other games, I don't have time to write my own or convert.
Edit: By good, I mean well written and unbiased, not necessarily positive.
Unfortunately he stopped doing them a while back, and I don't know how many adventure's he covered but I really found Jack99's 4e Ultrashort Reviews to be unbiased and helpful, even if they are "ultrashort" in his opinion. However, most long reviews I've seen tend to just be a long-winded table of contents with little review anyway.
That site is very cool. Thanks Ken.
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I get the feeling that WotC expects the main consumers of pre-made adventures to be beginning players, and intend to walk them through the game.
In this light, a lot of the adventures make more sense.
Indeed, and perform admirably in that respect. I'd like to see them remember the other segment of their market, those of us who aren't beginning and who would like a module to take some of the burden off running a game for people who are also busy with life and family and work. After all, we have money to blow, too!
For me, story is what happens after the adventure is over and the players talk about what happened. Give me a location with some interesting monsters and characters, and PCs will make story happen.
Personally, I would say a fair portion of story comes before the adventure as well with the motivation. A nice, rich motivation (with bonus points for being directly tied to the PCs themselves) can make any encounter carry extra meaning and weight.
But I agree that many memorable parts of an adventure are triggered by the DM reacting to the players, not the other way around.
I have read many posts indicating that the consensus is that WoTC 4th edition adventures are pretty poor and I was wondering why people hold that view? I've recently started running my first 4th edition game and having read through a bunch of modules with pretty low expectations, found myself pleasantly surprised.
What is it about them that makes them be regarded as poor? Or do I have it wrong - it's purely a matter of the kinds of stories people like?
No such thing as a poor, purchased adventure. There is only a poorly run adventure!
As ever,
ACE
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, 2011 Top 32
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I have read many posts indicating that the consensus is that WoTC 4th edition adventures are pretty poor and I was wondering why people hold that view? I've recently started running my first 4th edition game and having read through a bunch of modules with pretty low expectations, found myself pleasantly surprised.
What is it about them that makes them be regarded as poor? Or do I have it wrong - it's purely a matter of the kinds of stories people like?
No such thing as a poor, purchased adventure. There is only a poorly run adventure!
As ever,
ACE
Balderdash. A terribly written adventure is a terribly written adventure. No DM should ever be forced to spend the energy required to turn a stinker into gold. At least give me lead to start with.
Money and XP. WHat other motivation is there?
;D
From my own experiences with conversion, I think they work just fine. The poster may have thought Scott's didn't feel right for any number of reasons. 1 might be that he chose to try to split the AP up among 30 levels, which results in a lot of encounters being necessary to generate the required xp, possibly more than what the storyline really requires or has room for. Personally, I would have tried to take them up to level 20 not 30. This however, has nothing really to do with the system itself and is more an issue of personal taste and vision.
The Rise of the Runelords converted adventure path is set to reach level 24 or so, not 30. I never planned on hitting 30 with the conversion project. Similarly, my conversion of Curse of the Crimson Throne will probably aim to hit level 20 at the end.
Could someone expand on that comment? I'm really dying to play a 4th edition campaign, but don't want to play WoTC's modules, at least not as written.. What I really want to do, is try to convert some of Paizo's adventures. Why doesn't the conversions feel right?
Not that I'm saying Paizo modules work perfectly for this in 4e either. They don't and although I see Scott Bett's admirable attempt to convert the Paizo APs, they don't ring quite right to me either.
Paizo's Adventure Paths are rooted in 3.x. They're built off that platform, embrace what works for that platform and fit the tone of that platform, a sense of anything goes. A sense that heroes are everyday people who rise above their peers to become something legendary.
4e's feel is that heroes are different, from the very get go. They don't use the same rules as non-heroes, they don't have the same feel. They're born special and time and experience allow them to refine that specialness. Converting one from one system to the other forces me to make different choices than the original designer made. I bought that module for the choices that the designer made, because I liek those choices and believe in them. Converting them from 3e, a rich and varied system with years of development, options and flavor to 4e, a young system that hasn't developed the same richness of options means substituting monsters, changing tones and making choices that are less than optimal. The giant crab in Burnt Offerings doesn't have an equivalent. So Scott chose to use Kruthiks, I believe. Its a valid choice, but in my mind, having run that adventure in 3.5 and seeing the looks on the faces of my players when a giant frickin' crab popped out of that helmet: priceless. Kruthiks don't have the same pop for me. Reading through the further conversions, too many encounters that we memorable and vivid seem less so to me with the conversion.
This is more an argument that there is some difference in feel between all editions. In other words one can't play Keep on the Borderlands or Tomb of Horrors in 3rd because they don't have exactly the same feel as BECMI or 1st edition. Hence its true that converting and adventure from one edition to another will impart some change in the feel from the original I don't think that is a big enough issue to scrap the whole idea of doing conversions. I'm a big fan of conversions - always have been and I've run a great number of adventures in both their original systems and in the new system. Its actually one way to get a good feel for where things play out differently between different editions of the game. That said I've nearly never felt that the converted adventure itself was particularly worse then the original. There where some differences and in any given encounter those differences might make for a worse encounter - but they have just as much chance of making for a better encounter, especially in places where the original system was tweaked in a newer edition because of perceived problems.
The biggest difference I suspect you'll actually find between Paizo's version and Scott's will be that in 3.x you usually faced off against a a singular big bad while in 4E you tend to fight groups. I seriously doubt that you'll find that fighting groups is actually a worse combat in most cases - the change ultimately stems from the fact that if the PCs can nerf your big bad the combats over in a very anti-climatic way. Beyond this 4E directly addressed some of the issues with the singular big bad in their monster design.
Beyond that 'the characters are hero's.' is definitely something finds in Paizo adventures - its possible to make 3.5 not have this as an underlying theme but that is not what Paizo has done with their APs (at least not up to Legacy of Fire which is as far as I have gotten). In each case the PCs will quickly attain hero status and if they did not have it initially its very ambiguous in 3.5 as to why the characters are not hero's. A first level fighter - especially one with access to many splat books, is far more potent then a commoner and in fact even better then a warrior and the early game differences are far more pronounced. 4E characters grow much more slowly then 3.x ones so they stay 'within reach' of normal humans for longer.
Finally is a Crab cooler then a Kruthics? Yeah I'd agree but this is a singular case. Conversions have a chance to take another look as an adventure in which the authors and editors where generally working against a brutal deadline and not every encounter was the most inspired it could be - in my experience for every instance where the converter made a choice that might not have been as cool as in the original there is another point where the choice is absolutely inspired and will in fact enhance the work. Beyond that its not always obvious what will strike ones players as more exciting - that Kruthic nest under the helmet has about as much chance of turning out to be a truly exciting and memorable encounter for ones players as the Crab does - My Cleric's fought Kruthic's in 4E and they are a pretty fun encounter - the nest members operate with an interesting synergy. In other words I could easily see the 'reveal' of the crab being more awesome but the actual combat over the next 45 minutes being more fun against Kruthic's then against the crab.
I have read many posts indicating that the consensus is that WoTC 4th edition adventures are pretty poor and I was wondering why people hold that view? I've recently started running my first 4th edition game and having read through a bunch of modules with pretty low expectations, found myself pleasantly surprised.
What is it about them that makes them be regarded as poor? Or do I have it wrong - it's purely a matter of the kinds of stories people like?
No such thing as a poor, purchased adventure. There is only a poorly run adventure!
As ever,
ACE
My next adventure is going to center around fringe porn - I hope my players like it.
My next adventure is going to center around fringe porn - I hope my players like it.I have read many posts indicating that the consensus is that WoTC 4th edition adventures are pretty poor and I was wondering why people hold that view? I've recently started running my first 4th edition game and having read through a bunch of modules with pretty low expectations, found myself pleasantly surprised.
What is it about them that makes them be regarded as poor? Or do I have it wrong - it's purely a matter of the kinds of stories people like?
No such thing as a poor, purchased adventure. There is only a poorly run adventure!
As ever,
ACE
Man, no one wants to see John Noble naked.
My next adventure is going to center around fringe porn - I hope my players like it.
So, what, you'll be running Hook Mountain Massacre?
;}
Finally is a Crab cooler then a Kruthics? Yeah I'd agree but this is a singular case. Conversions have a chance to take another look as an adventure in which the authors and editors where generally working against a brutal deadline and not every encounter was the most inspired it could be - in my experience for every instance where the converter made a choice that might not have been as cool as in the original there is another point where the choice is absolutely inspired and will in fact enhance the work. Beyond that its not always obvious what will strike ones players as more exciting - that Kruthic nest under the helmet has about as much chance of turning out to be a truly exciting and memorable encounter for ones players as the Crab does - My Cleric's fought Kruthic's in 4E and they are a pretty fun encounter - the nest members operate with an interesting synergy. In other words I could easily see the 'reveal' of the crab being more awesome but the actual combat over the next 45 minutes being more fun against Kruthic's then against the crab.
Or heck, take the best of both worlds - use the kruthik stat blocks but describe them as giant, acid-spitting, spike-covered crabs.
My next adventure is going to center around fringe porn - I hope my players like it.
So, what, you'll be running Hook Mountain Massacre?
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Oh snap.
Or heck, take the best of both worlds - use the kruthik stat blocks but describe them as giant, acid-spitting, spike-covered crabs.
Hear, hear! One of my favorite easy DM tricks is to take an existing monster and change the way it looks and its name (without telling the players). I mostly use it in Star Wars Saga Edition, since the critter lists are relatively limited. I've had lizard Wampas (different environment, same stats) and snow critters with Rancor stats.
This is a fantastic way to convert easily. I've done it in D&D as well. I got a little tired of the 'oh it's X monster, we need to do Y' (which has its place), so I changed the way some undead critters looked. I think they were ghouls, but I described them as almost hovering shadowy-robed figures. The party's front-line fighters ran so fast that the second rank of mages (who had already started casting, thanks to the old initiative system) were the ones that were attacked. Thankfully, the mages' magic missles took care of the critters, but it was priceless.
Not really adding much to the conversation, but had to put in my aside.
Indeed, re-skinning, as it's often known, is a very useful technique when converting. And in 4e, you can use the monster builder to tweak your Kruthic's stats to match your vision of Giant Crabs, in just a few minutes.
I do this a lot... For example (in my Savage Tide 4e game) I've recently made an advanced dimetrodon (dinosaur) by re-skinning a rage drake ravager - with no changes to its stats at all, it made a decent 4e brute, and its flavour seemed fine with what you'd expect a dimetrodon to be (fast and furious). I even used a rage drake ravager mini, and stuck a piece of red cardboard on the top for its fin ;-) For blackfang Rhagodessa, I took pieces of two other monsters and made a paragon level skirmisher with a grab, bite and scuttle (shift when carrying), and made it inflict damage when you escaped; I also made a swarm version based on some other swarm of paragon tier - took me about half an hour all up.
I then copy and paste all the monster stats into a single document, 1-2 pages per fight, so I have the adventure text pretty much as it is for running the adventure, but when it comes to fights I flip to my self-made conversion document and run it from there. The overall effect is that the game plays out pretty much exactly the same, especially if you give some thought to what levels your 4e PC's should be at for which parts of the AP. For example I actually started my Savage Tide adventures around 7th level, starting with a trimmed-down version of the second adventure (which was for around 4th level under 3.5). If it goes to the end, it will finish at 30th level (was around 20th-21st level under 3.5)
So I'm very much on Jeremy's side of the fence - you can successfully convert from any edition to any other and make it work. The typical reasons to do so, at least for me, are
- You really like an adventure, but it's written for a different edition.
- You really like being able to play a part in creating a campaign, but don't have the time and/or inspiration and/or talent to do it from scratch.
For example my Savage Tide 4e game came about because I was excited about trying out 4th edition, but couldn't find anything pre-published that suitably inspired me to actually be the DM, and certainly didn't have time or inclination to try creating anything from scratch. But having successfully run Age of Worms, I thought I'd give Savage Tide a go, setting it in Eberron - the combination of all three elements (STAP, 4E and Eberron) just seemed to click for me, more so than any of them in isolation. As it turns out, we've all enjoyed it, and I've found doing the conversion gives me just enough additional work to do that it flexes my creativity without being a burden on my time.
As another example, back when 3.0 came out I ran a group of friends through a conversion of the AD&D (1st edition) G1-3 Against the Giants. It was a bit of a slug-fest, even when I trimmed it significantly, but it worked out pretty well, and was certainly better than my other idea of running them through the Sunless Citadel would have been.
So yeah, as DM the most important thing for me is finding a basic campaign idea, and accompanying set of adventures, that I feel inspired to run for my group of players. I love to weave in bits of long-running plots, with recurring characters and themes (some crossing from one campaign to the next), but getting the balance and feel right is most important. With a good set of adventures, which sometimes includes pieces from elsewhere that seem to fit or do that piece better, it doesn't matter what edition they were designed for, you can re-design pieces of them for the edition you are running, and usually when you do they actually turn out better.
Especially with 4e, I've found that all the non-combat pieces are pretty well written in the published adventures I'm running, in fact those bits are the main reason I'm running the adventures in the first place. Not to say that they are perfect - you always find a few holes, and also need to tweak or even re-work some pieces completely based on how your campaign is actually shaping up (no plan survives first contact with the enemy intact, and all that, i.e. your game only exists when the players interact with it and take it places you never imagined). But then those kinds of adaptions are what you should do if you were running it in the "right" edition anyway - you always look to improve on the outline the authors have given you. In converting from one edition to another, the primary thing you also get to re-work is the fights - invariably, the extra attention you give it means they turn out better (i.e. more engaging, challenging, and hence fun). To a lesser degree, some non-combat pieces get a similar working over - in examining the old rules and thinking of how to convert them, you see flaws in the author's approach, and look to improve it, usually by expanding bits that are a bit shallow, and trimming pieces that seem superfluous.
As a player, I've had the unfortunate experience, more than once, of a lazy DM who decides to just run us through an adventure exactly as written, for better or worse. Invariably we find pieces where it just feels wrong. Now I'm not saying that the DM should have converted those adventures to another edition and they would have been fixed... But I am saying that even if you run adventures as written, you should always spend the time reading it properly and adjusting it in ways that you think will make it more fun for your group. The published adventure is always just the beginning point - a spring-board for the DM to get them (and the players) started. Whether you run it under a different version of rules or not, doesn't really matter much, as to how the adventure plays out - the key is really how much effort the DM puts in to tailor the adventure to make it as much fun as possible for everyone.
You could take a 3.x adventure and convert it "as written" to 4e, and I pretty much guarantee it will suck. You could run a "typical" pre-published 4e adventure (WotC) as written, and it would probably be OK, but a bit lacking in the "story" department unless you have some strong story-teller types in the group who come up with fun stuff on the fly. You could run a "typical" 3.5 adventure (Paizo) as written, and it would probably be OK, but a bit lacking in the "fight" department unless you have no min-max types amongst your players. But really, if you take any of these scenarios, and tailor the adventure for your players and their PC's, then you are much more able to make the most of it for everyone. Whether you are converting from one edition to another is, pretty much, irrelevant - doing that adds a bit of work, but overall you should be doing a reasonable amount of customisation anyway, so converting from one edition to another doesn't have to be a large component of that overall customisation workload...
Balderdash. A terribly written adventure is a terribly written adventure. No DM should ever be forced to spend the energy required to turn a stinker into gold. At least give me lead to start with.
Wellllllll....never mind....
As ever,
ACE
From my own experiences with conversion, I think they work just fine ... This however, has nothing really to do with the system itself and is more an issue of personal taste and vision.
This is a really good point as well. One of the things that makes doing conversions so rewarding for a DM is that you can change things or scew them toward your personal taste, but not everyone's personal taste is the same. In fact, as Hastur notes, you should probably be willing to step in when looking at a conversion and make modifications needed to scew the conversion back toward what it is you want from the adventure.
Scott has his preferences in what he wants to be doing during game night and those may not line up perfectly with yours. Use the opportunity to make some changes to get things the way you'd like them.
From my own experiences with conversion, I think they work just fine ... This however, has nothing really to do with the system itself and is more an issue of personal taste and vision.This is a really good point as well. One of the things that makes doing conversions so regarding for a DM is that you can change things or scew them toward your personal taste, but not everyone's personal taste is the same. In fact, as Hastur notes, you should probably be willing to step in when looking at a conversion and make modifications needed to scew the conversion back toward what it is you want from the adventure.
Scott has his preferences in what he wants to be doing during game night and those may not line up perfectly with yours. Use the opportunity to make some changes to get things the way you'd like them.
It should be noted that this holds true for all adventures, not just converted ones. Anytime you create an adventure, you are designing it towards a specific playstyle that you are familiar with. While it can absolutely be (and usually is) adapted for a different playstyle at the table, there's no such thing as a "neutral" adventure in this sense, converted or otherwise.
My conversions do tend to focus on a lot of combat encounters and, though I certainly am a fan of combat encounters, this is largely because the combat encounters are the part that requires the most conversion work.
My conversions do tend to focus on a lot of combat encounters and, though I certainly am a fan of combat encounters, this is largely because the combat encounters are the part that requires the most conversion work.
Indeed. I haven't tried, but I would reckon conversion jobs to 4th ed only required you to convert monsters and traps, and to build in skill challenges where appropriate. Oh, and that treasure parcel thing.
Some years ago, I converted the abso-fu**ing-lutely brilliant adventure Umbra (in Dungeon) to 3,5, and all I had to do was come up with new stat blocks for the monsters and NPCs.
My conversions do tend to focus on a lot of combat encounters and, though I certainly am a fan of combat encounters, this is largely because the combat encounters are the part that requires the most conversion work.
Indeed. I haven't tried, but I would reckon conversion jobs to 4th ed only required you to convert monsters and traps, and to build in skill challenges where appropriate. Oh, and that treasure parcel thing.
Some years ago, I converted the abso-fu**ing-lutely brilliant adventure Umbra (in Dungeon) to 3,5, and all I had to do was come up with new stat blocks for the monsters and NPCs.
That's pretty much exactly what's required. Some encounters need slightly enlarged areas, and certain story elements need to be turned into quests (mechanically), but other than that it's monsters, traps/hazards, skill challenges, and treasure.
Some encounters need slightly enlarged areas.
Due to the pull, slide, push mechanics?
On topic:
I also find that the new format is a completely turn-off for me. Room descriptions in one half, enounter descriptions in another? I was appalled when it showed up in late 3,5, and as annoyed when it made the transition to 4th ed. And come on, reproducing the same goblin stats for every encounter? It sure is a nice way to earn money (aka. rip off the customer), but that space could have been used for something else.
OK, that came out worse than it was intended to.. to clarify, I like 4th edition, I just don't like the way WOTC handles the source material and the adventures.
Some encounters need slightly enlarged areas.Due to the pull, slide, push mechanics?
Due to the increased value of mobility in the game. 3.5 cared very little for having a great deal of space to move about in, but that's a big part of 4th Edition's combat. The forced movement mechanic is part of this, but so is zone use, area bursts, class features like a Warlock's Shadow Walk, etc.
On topic:
I also find that the new format is a completely turn-off for me. Room descriptions in one half, enounter descriptions in another? I was appalled when it showed up in late 3,5, and as annoyed when it made the transition to 4th ed. And come on, reproducing the same goblin stats for every encounter? It sure is a nice way to earn money (aka. rip off the customer), but that space could have been used for something else.
OK, that came out worse than it was intended to.. to clarify, I like 4th edition, I just don't like the way WOTC handles the source material and the adventures.
I find the new format to be a godsend. The room/encounter format (known as the delve format) is created that way so that the DM can run an entire room without having to flip through multiple pages. Monster stat blocks appear multiple times for the same reason. I'll gladly pay an extra couple of dollars if the final product makes my game run more smoothly, and for me (and a great deal of other DMs, judging by the continued use of the delve format) the current adventure format does just that.
I find the new format to be a godsend. The room/encounter format (known as the delve format) is created that way so that the DM can run an entire room without having to flip through multiple pages. Monster stat blocks appear multiple times for the same reason. I'll gladly pay an extra couple of dollars if the final product makes my game run more smoothly, and for me (and a great deal of other DMs, judging by the continued use of the delve format) the current adventure format does just that.On topic:
I also find that the new format is a completely turn-off for me. Room descriptions in one half, enounter descriptions in another? I was appalled when it showed up in late 3,5, and as annoyed when it made the transition to 4th ed. And come on, reproducing the same goblin stats for every encounter? It sure is a nice way to earn money (aka. rip off the customer), but that space could have been used for something else.
OK, that came out worse than it was intended to.. to clarify, I like 4th edition, I just don't like the way WOTC handles the source material and the adventures.
I can see how the delve format is useful when you are running the game, but personally I don't find it useful for determining whether the adventure is one I want to run or not. YMMV of course, but I suspect that the delve format is one of the reasons a lot of people don't rate published WotC adventures very highly. No concrete evidence to back up this opinion, but from various forum comments I get the impression that they rate better from those that have actually played them than from those who have just read them.