D&D General Matt Colville on adventure length

Staffan

Legend
So, Matt Colville posted a video on adventures, their length, and individual adventures vs campaign-length ones:
The Cliff's Notes version:
  • The preponderance of big campaign-length adventures like Curse of Strahd (which, for the sake of brevity, I'll call Epics) is bad for the hobby, and shorter adventures (which I'll call modules) would be better.
  • The main reason is that with modules, you get a sense of accomplishment. You went to Do A Thing, and then you Did A Thing, and now A Thing is Done. Then you can move on to do A Different Thing. But with Epics, doing The Thing takes a really long time, and you're likely to get distracted long before The Thing is done, either by real-life issues, by not being able to keep track of everything that's going on, or by getting distracted by the new shiny.
  • Modules also require less prep, or at least prep in smaller chunks. You don't need to read hundreds of pages to get a grasp of what's going on, only a few dozens. That makes it easier to grab-and-go.
I think I agree with Matt here, at least partially. The Epic has a certain allure. Being able to say that you finished Tyranny of Dragons, or Princes of the Apocalypse, or Strength of Thousands sounds really cool, and it's very appealing to the DM to be able to buy a book (or a set of books in the case of a Pathfinder AP) and say "Well, this is going to be really cool, and now I'm set for a year or two of gaming." But realistically, it's rare for things to work out that way. I have lost count of the number of campaigns we have started, full of new excitement, and never finished. The closest my game group has gotten was Princes of the Apocalypse which we started mid-2015 and played on and off until early 2020 when we switched to Roll20. At that point, the PCs were about to enter the final node, so we really only had one part left – but we never got around to finishing it once we started playing IRL again.

The problem is that, as a business proposal, modules suck. The number of people who want to start a campaign and would be open to, say, going to explore the frozen north and maybe lift a curse in Rime of the Frostmaiden is probably a lot higher than the number of people in the market for a 6th level adventure where you need to figure out a whodunnit in a small town. In addition, modules want to be self-contained. You want a minimum of dependencies on things outside the adventure itself. And you know what's really easy to make self-contained? A dungeon. So there's a big incentive to make a module into a dungeon (not that Epics are really short on those either). They will also generally be designed to be very generic, because specific means you're excluding potential customers, and modules can't really afford to do that.

I really don't know how to solve this problem, other than by making sure adventure writers (and other people involved in creating adventures) don't need to worry about putting food on the table or keeping a roof over their heads. But I think there's an interesting discussion to be had here.
 

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tetrasodium

Legend
Supporter
Epic
So, Matt Colville posted a video on adventures, their length, and individual adventures vs campaign-length ones:
The Cliff's Notes version:
  • The preponderance of big campaign-length adventures like Curse of Strahd (which, for the sake of brevity, I'll call Epics) is bad for the hobby, and shorter adventures (which I'll call modules) would be better.
  • The main reason is that with modules, you get a sense of accomplishment. You went to Do A Thing, and then you Did A Thing, and now A Thing is Done. Then you can move on to do A Different Thing. But with Epics, doing The Thing takes a really long time, and you're likely to get distracted long before The Thing is done, either by real-life issues, by not being able to keep track of everything that's going on, or by getting distracted by the new shiny.
  • Modules also require less prep, or at least prep in smaller chunks. You don't need to read hundreds of pages to get a grasp of what's going on, only a few dozens. That makes it easier to grab-and-go.
I think I agree with Matt here, at least partially. The Epic has a certain allure. Being able to say that you finished Tyranny of Dragons, or Princes of the Apocalypse, or Strength of Thousands sounds really cool, and it's very appealing to the DM to be able to buy a book (or a set of books in the case of a Pathfinder AP) and say "Well, this is going to be really cool, and now I'm set for a year or two of gaming." But realistically, it's rare for things to work out that way. I have lost count of the number of campaigns we have started, full of new excitement, and never finished. The closest my game group has gotten was Princes of the Apocalypse which we started mid-2015 and played on and off until early 2020 when we switched to Roll20. At that point, the PCs were about to enter the final node, so we really only had one part left – but we never got around to finishing it once we started playing IRL again.

The problem is that, as a business proposal, modules suck. The number of people who want to start a campaign and would be open to, say, going to explore the frozen north and maybe lift a curse in Rime of the Frostmaiden is probably a lot higher than the number of people in the market for a 6th level adventure where you need to figure out a whodunnit in a small town. In addition, modules want to be self-contained. You want a minimum of dependencies on things outside the adventure itself. And you know what's really easy to make self-contained? A dungeon. So there's a big incentive to make a module into a dungeon (not that Epics are really short on those either). They will also generally be designed to be very generic, because specific means you're excluding potential customers, and modules can't really afford to do that.

I really don't know how to solve this problem, other than by making sure adventure writers (and other people involved in creating adventures) don't need to worry about putting food on the table or keeping a roof over their heads. But I think there's an interesting discussion to be had here.
I thought it was a great video when I saw it & agree with him, but there is one benefit of modules that he didn't directly★ mention. Specifically the fact that players will ask questions or do/investigate things that requires the GM to make things up. When that happens in a module it's easy for the GM to make things up that are tied to some ongoing events in the world future adventure hook or larger plot & any inconsistencies with the module are easy to smooth out in what might only span a couple tens of pages. When that happens in a ~200 page hardcover monolithic adventure the GM needs to be aware of & accommodate everything developing in the many dozens of pages then make a commitment to continually adjusting the ongoing cascade of problems they caused with that creation

★indirectly with the prep overhead if you extend it a few steps
 


mamba

Legend
I like adventure paths, but I can see why they fizzle out often. To me something like the Dragonlance AP is a good approach, there is an overall arc, but you have rather immediate goals to accomplish. Of course that is also true for Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Annihilation etc., the risk to me is that this becomes too samey compared to different small modules, so you need to find a balance there.

Commercially I see why WotC only releases 200 page books, whether with one giant adventure of 6 or so short ones however. For short ones there are 3pp / DMsG and DTRPG
 


I'm A Banana

Potassium-Rich
It's not the same as getting a single 32 page book that interests you. You're still buying a 200+ page book that you likely won't finish.
It's like I always tell The Ladies: Finishing is overrated.

How about putting a half dozen or so mods into one book?

Ya know; the method WOTC uses to deal with this issue for years now...
I really like the WotC anthologies. Radiant Citadel was a very good and very fun. And I think one of the big mistakes of the setting books for Spelljammer, Planescape, and Dragonlance was in doing One Big Adventure instead of like a dozen smaller ones. ESPECIALLY there, having a wide selection of different setting flavors would be extremely valuable, even if you don't run them, just to get a sense of how the stories you tell in that setting are different than other D&D adventures.

And these shorter adventures do give a sense of having finished a thing. Episodic, self-contained, no need to be more elaborate than a one-off.

I notice he's super annoyingly vague about how he defines "short." Like, give me a measurement, my dude. Give me a number of hours of play time or a number of gaming sessions. 32 pages can be a LOT of table time when all is said and done.

Anyway, I'm on board with the idea, and think it's an especially good idea for trying out novel settings or monsters that don't then overstay their welcome.
 

el-remmen

Moderator Emeritus
I notice he's super annoyingly vague about how he defines "short." Like, give me a measurement, my dude. Give me a number of hours of play time or a number of gaming sessions. 32 pages can be a LOT of table time when all is said and done.
At one point he says “six weeks.” Given his oft-stated preference for playing weekly, to me that means six sessions to complete. Assuming 4 to 5 hour sessions that is 24 to 30 hours of game play.
 

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