Quote from: hamstertamer;684340I think that you are just applying personal preference.  I guess, for me, I didn't like the sunless citadel or the early ones all that much but liked the older ones better.  Weird, I think how that works.  

We did have a prominent carousel to display modules, while other gaming stores in the area keep them on a shelf somewhere out of immediate sight. I imagine that there was a bit of ideology in the assignment of where they were displayed.  I once took a bunch of back stock of D&D books and created a display in the window, we sold out of everything I showcased in a weekend. Weird right?

So in my experience, game store employees/owners only push what they like and then judge what sells or doesn't based on that.  In this sense, you can't rely too much on game stores for an accurate reading.  I definitely remember people coming in once a week looking for a new book or a new module/adventure.  So I honestly believe that the "module/adventures don't sell" idea is fraudulent.  Put out good quality stuff and people will buy it (even if they never play it).  

If game store employees hide it and down talk it, and say it sucks, then people won't buy.  And usually game store employees are very opinionated.  Which is why I think that, if WOTC is smart, they will sell their products at wal-mart and target, exclusively.  Gaming stores are passé. Screw them I say.

If you look at the published sales numbers, they match my opinion at the time.  Sales of those modules drastically went down after Standing Stones.  This was back when enough people were tracking daily and even hourly Amazon numbers that you could measure what was going on.

Also, both Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury won critical acclaim at the time. In addition to high ranks in reviews, for example The Forge of Fury was ranked the 12th greatest Dungeons & Dragons adventure of all time by Dungeon magazine in 2004, and Dungeon Master for Dummies lists both Sunless and Forge as one of the ten best 3rd edition adventures.  The later modules in that series did not enjoy such critical acclaim.

This thread inspired me to re-read Forge of Fury last night, and it really is an excellent dungeon adventure.  It follows most of the rules laid out by Benoist for crafting a good megadungeon.  It's not a railroad, it's a living changing setting, there are many ways to get into the dungeon, lots of opportunities for creative thinking for the players, lots of realistic relationships between the denizens of the dungeon, it's just a really dynamic and flexible dungeon setting.

Quote from: Tetsubo;684239For me, I didn't want adventures, I wanted rule books and settings and equipment books and terrain books and monster books.

I am completely the other way around.
Every RPG system that only is supported by sourcebooks is lost on me.
I never buy books that extend the rules (new classes, new spells), I hardly ever buy monster books (unless the rule book doesn't contain any at all), and I almost never buy pure regional campaign setting material (apart from the occasional basic setting box; I bought the grey FR box but I didn't buy FR1 Waterdeep and the North and similar products).
They bore me to death and I have no need for them.

The reason is exactly this:

Quote from: CRKrueger;684241Modules are full of NPCs, maps, set pieces, plot threads, traps, sometimes new spells, monsters, goodies and setting info.

Every published module for me is like getting another Lego kit.  I can use it as is just fine, but it's way more useful thrown into the mix here and there.

Seeing those bits in context (as opposed to a textbook catalog) serves me better.
To continue my FR analogue, I really liked FR5 Under Illefarn that was a mix of regional sourcebook and module.

So theoretically the Adventure Paths would be products I like, but Paizo ruins them (for me) by too much fluff text, a rule set that uses too large stat blocks, and, counter to Haffrung's experience...

Quote from: Haffrung;684447Whatever the problems with the railroaded format, and the cheesy setting, you know with Paizo you'll be getting top-notch layout, maps, and production values.

... unusable map material: too colorful, too dark; try to photocopy them to use them in your own adventures...
The production values are all eye candy that screams "buy me". They are aimed at being read, not played.

(So I don't even criticize their railroady-ness as I won't use the adventures anyway, as written.)

Quote from: hamstertamer;684281I have no doubt it is lost to you.  That's why there is a nasty rumor on the internet by certain RPG fans that modules/adventures don't sell.  If a person sees no use in something, then they can't understand why someone would buy it.  Some game designers have adsorbed this attitude as well, and it shows by their reluctance to create modules/adventures.

If I had known I had such power I would have taken over the world! To our lair Pinky!

Quote from: Warboss Squee;684364Something that had a chance to take the good of 3.5 and make it better by discarding the flaws, and failed fucking horribly.

Surprisingly, not everyone agrees with that. *waves hand*

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;684708... unusable map material: too colorful, too dark; try to photocopy them to use them in your own adventures...
The production values are all eye candy that screams "buy me". They are aimed at being read, not played.

They have these things called scanners these days.  And color printers.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;684364Something that had a chance to take the good of 3.5 and make it better by discarding the flaws, and failed fucking horribly.

Wow, and I bet that shows in its sales and market domination, doesn't it?

Quote from: Mistwell;684535If you look at the published sales numbers, they match my opinion at the time.  Sales of those modules drastically went down after Standing Stones.  This was back when enough people were tracking daily and even hourly Amazon numbers that you could measure what was going on.

Also, both Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury won critical acclaim at the time. In addition to high ranks in reviews, for example The Forge of Fury was ranked the 12th greatest Dungeons & Dragons adventure of all time by Dungeon magazine in 2004, and Dungeon Master for Dummies lists both Sunless and Forge as one of the ten best 3rd edition adventures.  The later modules in that series did not enjoy such critical acclaim.

This thread inspired me to re-read Forge of Fury last night, and it really is an excellent dungeon adventure.  It follows most of the rules laid out by Benoist for crafting a good megadungeon.  It's not a railroad, it's a living changing setting, there are many ways to get into the dungeon, lots of opportunities for creative thinking for the players, lots of realistic relationships between the denizens of the dungeon, it's just a really dynamic and flexible dungeon setting.

So you are saying then the reason for the drop in sales was because of a drop in quality, not a increase in quantity.  That's pretty much what I said earlier, when i supposed that it was not the " glut of materials" out that caused people to stop buying.  I believe, and I think I'm correct, that making high quality adventures/modules would sell very well.  Also note I was not talking just about just WOTC materials either.  So the idea, "Modules don't sell" is just a myth, and you actually agree with that in a round about way.

Quote from: hamstertamer;684929So you are saying then the reason for the drop in sales was because of a drop in quality, not a increase in quantity.  That's pretty much what I said earlier, when i supposed that it was not the " glut of materials" out that caused people to stop buying.  I believe, and I think I'm correct, that making high quality adventures/modules would sell very well.  Also note I was not talking just about just WOTC materials either.  So the idea, "Modules don't sell" is just a myth, and you actually agree with that in a round about way.

Yes, I am saying there was a drop in quality for WOTC adventures, and that may be why their sales dried up.  But now do you see why a crap adventure would stop people from buying a good adventure from the same publisher?

Quote from: Mistwell;684941Yes, I am saying there was a drop in quality for WOTC adventures, and that may be why their sales dried up.  But now do you see why a crap adventure would stop people from buying a good adventure from the same publisher?

Do you now see why that's irrelevant to the rumor that "adventures/modules don't sell?"

If Hollywood puts out a good movie one summer and it's successful, then they put out a bunch of bad movies next year and they were not successful.  It would not be reasonable of Hollywood executives to conclude "movies don't sell anymore." And this is universal for any type of product.  Did people stop buying shoes because there are too many shoes being made, and some of them are of lower quality then others. No, of course not.

Quote from: Mistwell;684535This thread inspired me to re-read Forge of Fury last night, and it really is an excellent dungeon adventure.  It follows most of the rules laid out by Benoist for crafting a good megadungeon.  It's not a railroad, it's a living changing setting, there are many ways to get into the dungeon, lots of opportunities for creative thinking for the players, lots of realistic relationships between the denizens of the dungeon, it's just a really dynamic and flexible dungeon setting.

I'm going to check the Forge of Fury again regarding some of the points you mention, like the dynamism of the place and the like, but I'd like to point out that the relative linearity of Forge of Fury was discussed in Melan's comparison of Dungeon layouts, which is one of the essays I am referring to when discussing the topic of linearity versus open dynamic environment and exploration in the dungeon:

Quote from: MelanTurning back to my original point, how do Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury stack up to other introductory modules in the maps department? Do they represent design which encourages and rewards exploration, which presents mysteries and which doesn’t constrain players with a pre-written script? In my opinion, they do not. There are hints of good game design in there, but not enough to call the modules better than average (I could list other reasons as well, but that is outside the present subject). Both of these modules miss „something” many classics have, something which is closely linked with avoiding railroading - constructing a map which isn’t a straight line, but rather one which has side-tracks, circular routes, opportunities to approach a given location from multiple directions, opportunities to demonstrate one’s mapping skills (without it getting tedious) and maybe more. Citadel and Forge are disturbingly linear, and are no less railroady than your usual 2e module. (To preclude derailing the thread, I freely admit that many 1st edition modules are just as guilty of the same sin, especially those designed for tournament play.)

To compare the WotC introductory modules with various other introductory products from the 70s and 80s, I used a graphical method which „distils” a dungeon into a kind of decision tree or flowchart by stripping away „noise”. On the resulting image, meandering corridors and even smaller room complexes are turned into straight lines. Although the image doesn’t create an „accurate” representation of the dungeon map, and is by no means a „scientific” depiction, it demonstrates what kind of decisions the players can make while moving through the dungeon. Briefly going over basic forms, a dungeon may look like any of the following, or be made up of several such basic elements:



In the end, a dungeon without any real branches would look like a straight line (A.), or a straight line that looks slightly hairy (B.). The Slaver modules or Lost Tomb of Martek would fall into this category. Branching dungeons (C.) are a bundle of straight lines (often with sidetracks), sometimes resembling trees. White Plume Mountain is a good example of a branching dungeon. Finally, dungeons with circular routes (D.) are the most complex, especially when these routes interlock and include the third dimension. Again, Paul Jaquays is the undisputed master of this area, with modules like Caverns of Thracia, Dark Tower and Realm of the Slime God. In my opinion, including the second two forms without being overwhelming makes a dungeon map much better than a straight affair.

Let us now look at the modules. I selected six modules aimed at beginners for my analysis and supplemented them with two for high levels (these were included for comparative purposes also). Of the eight, four modules were written by Gary Gygax, which could have skewed the sample a bit. Then again, the aim wasn’t strict „science”, just a fun comparison. On these maps, dashed lines represent secret passages/connections and broken lines represent „level transitions”.

Sunless Citadel



Sunless Citadel’s layout is the perfect example of an almost completely linear dungeon. This isn’t apparent on first sight, because Bruce Cordell introduced a lot of twists to the corridors so they would look more organic, but in the end, it is still a straight line with the „choice” of either going through the kobolds or goblins, woo hoo. Sunless Citadel is, all claims to the contrary, not a classic dungeon: it is designed to be a story, and it plays like a story. Unfortunately, player choice isn’t high in it outside combat tactics... which, granted, are fun. But a good map it is not.

Forge of Fury



Our second module (author Richard Baker) is more promising on first sight, but eventually reveals the same structure: straight line layout, definite beginning and definite end in the form of a boss monster. Little player choice. The only thing that makes Forge’s maps better designed is the presence of optional detours. It is interesting to see the thought process behind them: the big detours lead to „mini-bosses”, a roper and a succubus, respectively.

See the link above for further comparisons.

Those are some interesting diagrams.

Quote from: hamstertamer;684944Do you now see why that's irrelevant to the rumor that "adventures/modules don't sell?"

It's absolutely relevant.  For WOTC, adventurers/modules DIDN'T sell.  And so examining the way of that is highly relevant.

QuoteIf Hollywood puts out a good movie one summer and it's successful, then they put out a bunch of bad movies next year and they were not successful.  It would not be reasonable of Hollywood executives to conclude "movies don't sell anymore." And this is universal for any type of product.  Did people stop buying shoes because there are too many shoes being made, and some of them are of lower quality then others. No, of course not.

Again, examining how the company behind a set of adventures gets replaced in the minds of gamers with the author behind that adventure was my point.  And why it's a highly relevant discussion.  

People didn't buy Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury because they saw Bruce Cordell's and Rich Baker's name on the cover (for the most part) - they bought them because they saw WOTC's name on the cover.  And when that adventure series started to go bad, they stopped buying them for the same reason - WOTC's name on the cover.

This is not something applicable to movies - with rare exception (like Pixar), people don't say "I am going to see a new movie produced by Warner Brothers, yay!".  They might go see it from the subject matter ("superhero"), or director ("Whedon"), or writer ("Coen Brothers"), or actors ("Depp"), but almost never because of the name of the production company ("Paramount", though with the rare exception mentioned earlier).

Quote from: Benoist;684957I'm going to check the Forge of Fury again regarding some of the points you mention, like the dynamism of the place and the like, but I'd like to point out that the relative linearity of Forge of Fury was discussed in Melan's comparison of Dungeon layouts, which is one of the essays I am referring to when discussing the topic of linearity versus open dynamic environment and exploration in the dungeon:



See the link above for further comparisons.

He absolutely 100% gets some of that wrong.  There are four potential entrances to the Forge of Fury dungeon: Front Door, Chimney, Orc Tunnel, and Water Cave.  These allow you to enter any level of the dungeon to begin with, and even multiple places within that level for most levels.  There are also rules for what happens after a raid by PCs, how long it takes for reinforcements to arrive, what those reinforcements are likely to do, etc..  He calls the dragon an ending boss, but there is no reason at all for that to be true - you can start the adventure entering through the Dragon's water cave and encounter the dragon first.  That whole analysis felt to me like a guy who started with a conclusion, and then tried to force the module to conform to his conclusion.  It's not accurate.

I think modules and adventures would sell if they did not suck.

Quote from: Bill;685753I think modules and adventures would sell if they did not suck.

They do, just ask Paizo. Hell, just ask a bunch of 3PP that have made a profit off of good modules like the Dungeon Crawl Classics line or Necromancer Games.