Quote from: Baulderstone;974301I don't have 5E, so I may be incorrect, but I think the problem with those adventures is both being that long and being story path campaigns. The story path model can be effective in something that lasts a session, but a campaign long story path is a long time to keep the players on a railroad. Some players do like that kind of structure, but others are going to feel trapped in it after a while.

By contrast, Masks is an investigative sandbox that that can followed up in any way the players choose and resolved in a number of ways. It also has number of loosely connected side adventures the players can pursue or ignore. The Great Pendragon Campaign does have a more linear structure, but that linear structure is dealing with larger events. The players own lives and family dealings provide them with a lot of freedom. The secret to a good campaign mega-supplement is to give the players a lot of room to move inside it.

I agree. Personaly I have no particular interest reading a 200 pages book of "been there done that" adventure for D&D, for that reason I prefer playing older modules or shorter adventures.

Quote from: S'mon;974280I think I'm the only person who didn't like the Starter Set!
I think my problem is with Phandalin - it's both a "starter town" and adventuring location, yet it's undetailed except as a quest hub. The NPCs only exist as videogame-style quest givers. No personalities, no stats. When I tried to run it I found there was nothing to bring to life, not even anything to spark off of. Even 4e-era WoTC did better; eg Loudwater in the the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting has several NPCs with a fair bit of personality, and the presentation is much less cramped. Hell, even Keep on the Shadowfell does better! Paizo's Sandpoint is a work of genius by comparison.

I see what you mean, but for me the Phandalin approach is more useful.  What I need in an NPC is a name, a few details that hint at ties to the community, and let me provide the personality.  For example, I got from Carp that this was a kid that explored a lot.  I wanted more fantastic elements in the game, since I was introducing some new players.  I changed Carp to a talking cat that lived on the same farm, and kept the same name.  Gave him an acid tongue.  None of that was really intended or hinted by the module, but I find that usually the similar ideas that an author includes fall flat, whereas obviously the ones I decide myself have a better chance of sticking.

The two Goodman Games modules I bought were too far the other way, however, even for me.  Just completely flat.  Even the bare bones NPCs gave me nothing.

Quote from: Baulderstone;974301I don't have 5E, so I may be incorrect, but I think the problem with those adventures is both being that long and being story path campaigns. The story path model can be effective in something that lasts a session, but a campaign long story path is a long time to keep the players on a railroad. Some players do like that kind of structure, but others are going to feel trapped in it after a while.

By contrast, Masks is an investigative sandbox that that can followed up in any way the players choose and resolved in a number of ways. It also has number of loosely connected side adventures the players can pursue or ignore. The Great Pendragon Campaign does have a more linear structure, but that linear structure is dealing with larger events. The players own lives and family dealings provide them with a lot of freedom. The secret to a good campaign mega-supplement is to give the players a lot of room to move inside it.

Except CoS and Out of the Abyss are not story path adventures. They have a variety of different paths amd approaches for the PCs to progress the story. Not saying they're at the level of Masks but if anything they're even less linear than that.

Even Storm King's Thunder which is pretty flawed is closer to a sandbox than a story path, it almost suffers the Skyrim effect where the PCs can get lost in all the sidequests leaving the impending doom in the background.

I get the feeling many are dismissing the 5e hardcover adventures without even reading them, let alone playing them.

*double post*

Quote from: Voros;974457I get the feeling many are dismissing the 5e hardcover adventures without even reading them, let alone playing them.

I was a player in Out of the Abyss, it looked good but the GM struggled and eventually gave up. Not having read it I get the impression WotC's appalling presentation skills were to blame. Weird how their 3.0 stuff from 2000 is much better presented than anything from the last 10-12 years.

Quote from: Voros;974457I get the feeling many are dismissing the 5e hardcover adventures without even reading them, let alone playing them.

I concur, while WoTC adventure each have their own issues overall they are pretty open and loose. In part because the author has only a single hardcover book to detail the campaign.

Quote from: Voros;974457Except CoS and Out of the Abyss are not story path adventures. They have a variety of different paths amd approaches for the PCs to progress the story. Not saying they're at the level of Masks but if anything they're even less linear than that.

Even Storm King's Thunder which is pretty flawed is closer to a sandbox than a story path, it almost suffers the Skyrim effect where the PCs can get lost in all the sidequests leaving the impending doom in the background.

I get the feeling many are dismissing the 5e hardcover adventures without even reading them, let alone playing them.

They get dismissed from my list of possible purchases because I've found that "big adventure hardback" is a pain for me to use.  That kind of book has to get reviews of unabashedly awesome before I'll struggle through the drawbacks.  WotC's tendency to have bloated text that isn't very useful to the GM isn't helping their case any, either.  I'm still irritated about the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.  But even if that isn't the case with their adventures, the massive campaign hardback is not high on my list.  By the time I prep to use a book like that, I could have written material directly for the campaign that is far more useful to me.  It's not so much a criticism of the books as a recognition that the format doesn't work well for me.

Fair enough, there is certainly something to say for the concision of the old 16 to 64 page modules but I do have to say the 5e adventure hardbacks don't strike me even remotely as being overwritten. They're open to criticism but at least criticise them, not what TSR or WoTC made 10-20 years ago.

Unlike many RPG products the WoTCs adventures are readily available in physical stores so a person can pick one up and read a few pages to get a sense of how verbose or well organized it is.