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LFR suffers from being incredibly generic. The area it covers is to large & everything is just so damn dull. Even the general plots are cliched. Yes, i know that for convention play they have to be, but from both a players stand point & a GM stand point *SNORE.*

Their is nothing to get excited about for players or characters. No organizations or groups. Even the idea of making your own Adventuring Company is pretty dull when you get right down to it. Its not real, its kind of like guilds in MMO games, they only exist so particular jerky players can feel superior for no logical reason & be able to gang up on some other players.

Plus their is no connection between setting and player characters. Their are no groups & no focused direction for players to go in. Players have no real choices in how they play & are basically hammered into the direction that the writer invisioned with no real reason for doing it (few of the adventures dont even have plot hooks, its just assumed the PC's want to do what the writer wants them to do). The LFR's takes away the players power of choice & instead replaces it with a very strict plot.

One of the main problem is the maps. Everything is done with "Dungeon Tiles" & so really is repedetive. You can't create with dungeon tiles, you can only repeat. Same goes for the treasure. With no way to negotiate a larger fee, & with the treasure allocation working as it does to stop munchkin play, it just kills any vibe the player has of being important.

Now some people have mentioned that the players don't fell like they actually achieve anything & the offical answer is "Yes, but your only heroic Tier." My reply to this is gaming is about escapism, not sitting around waiting to become important. Also you are important, you are much more then just an everyday villager.

Their really needs to be something specific done with the LFR. Either focus on something or drop it completely.

Boy, am i going to get flamed for this post, but i felt the need to vent.


-M

I'm going to post here as someone who has never played in a Living campaign before, who has no to litte expectations of what one is or should be. Reading some of these posts I am clueless as to what meta-orgs and battle interactives are.

One comparison that comes to mind about the players being involved early on is like the Baldur's Gate computer game (fitting for FR, no?). When you create your character and start off in Candlekeep, does it bore you to clear rats out of a storeroom, or delivering the medicine for the sick cow? Maybe. These mini "quests" aren't even related to each other on a larger scale. But they are still recorded in the journal of things you accomplished as rungs on a ladder before you leave the town and witness your foster father murdered by the stranger who you will encounter later. I'm sure even during a movie or reading a book a scene might seem boring or insignificant, even tempting you to stop reading, but later on it turns up again only to surprise you.

As a newcomer to Living campaigns, I don't feel shorted by playing in adventures where I help a woman find her brother's fate, or seeking out a missing heirloom, for example, without knowing how it could affect my character in the future. I highly anticipate the "oh yeah!" during a future module when I'll look back on what has happened, and I have confidence in the LFR staff that they will make that happen.

This is just my perspective on this, and I know it differs from many, but I would just like to say that I don't feel bored or disconnected from the campaign world as it is. I look forward to seeing LFR evolve, as I'm sure it will.

mowaca wrote:

"Hi, I'm a Wizard from Thay" should have some in-game effect...such as everyone hating your guts or constantly getting arrested. Its something anyone could add easily, but its puzzling why the admins don't care to add this to the campaign.

First off, we DO care. We care to bring you cool and enganging adventures, who, in years to come, build to fanastic finales ( I hope).
That said, there are some practical limits to what we can (or need) include in adventures, and what not.

The 'wizard of Thay' effect you describe for instance is not soemthing to put in an adventure. It is what the DM and other players need to add to make the game come alive. A RPG is not solely defined by the adventure text - not even mostly. It is defined by how you, the other players, and the DM, give meaning to the world.
It is futile to add, in every adventure, how NPCs are going to react to Red Wizards, orcs, shadar-kai from Netheril, arcanists, gnolls, genasi, halflings, barbarians, merchants from Sembia, wizards, Harpers, or people with red hair.
It is the players and the DM that need to define that, using their own judgement and knowledge of the world.

Generic regional information is often lacking for a similar reason: we have only limited space, and a lot of regional information is available in the FRCG and FRPG - it seems folly to repeat that info. We do try to add specific regional elements and flavor where possible.

Now, this does mean that some knowledge may be unknown to a DM. And if you, player, knows more than your Dm, that may be frustrating. But adding more bulk to adventures to include data that is primited in the campaign books is not a solution. Better to have the DM buy the book and have *all* the info.
Another practical problem is that we have a rate of adventure production that is relatively low compared to LG, and PCs that level much faster. That means that results from one adventure won't be noticed until half a year later, possibly when your PC had already entered paragon level. That likely can't be helped until we are further along the way in the campaign, and the major plotlines start to enfold.

In the mean time, we do our best and try to make adventures that are enjoyable on their own, and - we hope - more enjoyable if you play them together. If that bores you, maybe LFR is not for you. But we do care, and we do our best. And so far, the people I meet enjoy them. So we must be doing something right.

Gomez

Sutro wrote:

In comparison, FR has gone through a couple of mind-bending evolutions since its inception, not just the 4e Spellplague. The original FR materials are about as valid to character and world background now as a roll of toilet paper.

I still use the old (2nd editon, even) material extensively. A hundred year changes a lot, and it changes nothing at all. It is amazing on what is still valid.
And I am pretty sure that you are off on Elminster...

Gomez

mowaca wrote:

I don't quite unterstand the vitrolic responses, since Taos and Sutro and others both seem to understand the 'Ennui' aspect, and posters like RTM gave a constructive response of simply adding background to a region he likes. I think the players have a valid complaint about LFR, and I've asked a good question which deserves an answer other than 'its just you' or 'stop complaining'.

Well, I think the vitriolic responses came from:

mowaca wrote:

Its not premature becuase the people I play with are bored with LFR now. Make it more interesting, now.

It comes off as rather temper tantrum-ish. Most likely due the typical internet problem of there being no context or inflection.

I get what you're saying, but even when I read that I was picturing a 3 year old holding his breath and stamping his feet because he wasn't getting what he wanted.

NoFearCavalier wrote:

Regional con attendance is way down. People that used to travel to regional cons aren't going because there aren't interactives or region-specific play opportunities. Maybe there are other ways to get people to travel to regional cons again.

I don't think it's WotCs responsibility to bail out regional cons. Regional cons sprang up during LG because the campaign structure made them possible. However, without LG, I would say that easily 90-95% of those regional cons otherwise don't have a big enough draw to sustain themselves unless they were already doing more than just LG before it went away.

There really isn't a need to keep them going. As someone else pointed out, they can be fairly easy to morph into extended gamedays to help support the regional players, unless you don't have a viable venue for it (i.e. you can only get space that needs to be rented at a premium price to accomodate such a thing).

I enjoyed going to my region's local cons (it helped being in Veluna/Ohio since they were all in the one state). With LFR, if there was a regional con I may go just to see some of the other folks from the state I gamed with in LG. Beyond that, there isn't much of a reason to attend a regional con now. The organizers of those cons need to take a long hard look at either expanding their offerings/coming up with other means of driving attendance or packing it up and saying it was a good run and move on.

WotC has offered some small things to help cons, but again, remember it isn't their responsibility to ensure the health of any con. They're happy to give some small measure of support to cons that want to offer to run their stuff. However, if they have decided that the campaign is to work in a certain way (no Interactives or other regional "special stuff"), then those who run the cons need to take that into account and not expect them change things just because they aren't making a profit on their con anymore. Things change. Part of doing business (and cons are a business even when they are small local ones) is coping with changes in the market.

AuricRAvenhelm wrote:

As a newcomer to Living campaigns, I don't feel shorted by playing in adventures where I help a woman find her brother's fate, or seeking out a missing heirloom, for example, without knowing how it could affect my character in the future. I highly anticipate the "oh yeah!" during a future module when I'll look back on what has happened,

Funny you should say that. One of the regional mods I wrote for Veluna in LG had that type of element to it. I referenced a character from a year 1 mod in it (the one I wrote was a year 6 or 7 mod). I had a lot of people come to me saying "ZOMG I forgot all about him! That was awesome that you dug him up!"

I even had one player use the character he played that mod with (he didn't play him often) and he practically jumped on the table and danced.

I think that was my favorite author moment. :D

AuricRAvenhelm wrote:

This is just my perspective on this, and I know it differs from many, but I would just like to say that I don't feel bored or disconnected from the campaign world as it is. I look forward to seeing LFR evolve, as I'm sure it will.

Thank you for sharing your perspective. We admins need all the help and feedback we can get!

For those of us who played through the nearly decade-long LG campaign from the beginning, most only remember the times after the campaign really hit its stride, ironed out the rules problems, etc. I think if you had told people in 2001-2003--when the campaign rules changed on a monthly basis, when people were getting frustrated by continual character rebuilds, when paper certs went to "magic mart" went to ARs, etc.--that in 2009 people would be missing the way that LG worked, you would have been laughed out of the room by the critics and stoned by the people who quit the campaign in all the turmoil.

Right now, for whatever reason, the LFR play numbers at the start of the campaign are higher than the play numbers at the height of LG. I don't say this to imply that LFR is perfect, or better than LG, or even fine as it is. I say that to recognize that the LFR campaign staff--despite the campaign rules dictated to us by WotC--has a huge challenge. LG set us up by being a totally unexpected and unequivocal success. I feel like part of a rock band that was booked to open for Led Zeppelin/U2/Jonas Brothers/name your band, in front of thousands of screaming fans, and then at the last minute told that the band the people came to see just retired, and that we were going on instead. And we couldn't play covers of any of those bands' songs. Or play songs with lyrics. :-)

Hopefully we can keep play numbers high to keep WotC happy, create content that pleases players and DMs, and evolve into a campaign that pleases as many types of players as possible. We will certainly try.

Thanks,

Shawn
LFR Global Admin

They took away your lyrics, eh? Ouch!

eudemonist wrote:

They took away your lyrics, eh? Ouch!

Yeah, we are ruminating on two alternatives: either a free-form jazz exploration called Jazz Odyssey; or perhaps a musical based on the life of Jack the Ripper called Saucy Jack.

I'm in no way saying that the LFR is a complete waste, but their are some real shocking modules out their. I really loved "Beneath Haunted Halls": It had depth, interesting characters, a nice location & a final fight with the bad guy. It had emotional resonance, that made my players jump for joy.

On the flip side of the coin their was "BALD1-1; Flames of Initiation." Possibly the worst adventure ever to be made for LFR. It was bland, boring, dull & down right plot hammered. Its locations were dull, its plot was pointless, you achieved nothing & you don't even feel good doing it. Its "villains" were completely non-existant & seemed more incidental then interesting, it NPC's were generally just a name. It needed so "Umph," some "Panache." Not a lot, just enough to spark a good DM's imagination.

Their is no real difference in level for these modules, just difference in what is delivered and how. One was brilliant, one was tripe. One left me wanting more, one left me wanting out.

Unfortunately, their are more of the latter, then the former.

I really think that these modules need closer scrutiny by editors before being released & in some cases, being sent back to the writer & for a complete re-write.

Hears hoping that you folks at the RPGA hear what we are saying we want. We want more adventures in places with a little style againt villains with a little panache. Leave the XP grind & over-written treasure placement stuff to the MMO's.

I am always happy to critique any ideas, anyone has with an open mind, after all its what i do. Now if you'll excuse me, i'm staring at the release date for Eberron, willing it to move forwards so i can play another living eberron game (the bestest live game ever).

-M

I played DRAG1-2 yesterday, online. Online is kind of the equivalent of assessing a movie you watched on a plane... hard to do accurately. And yet, I was impressed. The overall story, while simple (not a bad thing, necessarily), had some hooks and plenty of flavor. I came out of the mod with a solid feel for what this part of the region is like, certainly with an 'iconic' understanding of their approach to law and order.

The story awards promise that your PC's choices, made in a non-transparent way (which is great), will affect you in the future. This makes you part of the setting.

The mod had a lot of opportunity for RP, good flavor, and the combats had some nice elements to them.

If every mod contained those types of elements, I think players would feel more connected. (I'm holding myself back from discussing the number of regions, but that's not something that will change right now.)

Teos

saint_matthew wrote:

On the flip side of the coin their was "BALD1-1; Flames of Initiation." Possibly the worst adventure ever to be made for LFR. It was bland, boring, dull & down right plot hammered. Its locations were dull, its plot was pointless, you achieved nothing & you don't even feel good doing it. Its "villains" were completely non-existant & seemed more incidental then interesting, it NPC's were generally just a name.

While not my favorite, I would like to share the fact that for my main character, BALD1-1 provided an iconic moment. Sigbert is a traditionalist and wants to get an epic poem written about him about how he died fighting a hideous monster. So at least one of the combats there was a lot of fun for him -- despite spoilsports pulling out sunrods when he had deliberately downgraded his torch to provide only 1 square of illumination.

This illustrates a basic condition of module play -- there are three sides involved. A writer, a judge and the players. If you have no connection to a region -- frankly, why not? If you chose your region to maximize your perception check or whatever, then you have already decided not to have a connection. If someone says to you "where is your character from?" you *should* have a good answer that ties you to a region.

Sigbert is from Waterdeep. He's a recent arrival, as his sister dragged him their to study magic, so she could avoid a traditional nomad woman's fate. He studies magic in the city, does anything that a traditional warrior should do, and tries hard to sneak out of town and head to remote regions of Faerun where he can NOT study magic and instead be a real warrior.

No-one ever writes epic poems about magicians. And southerners have lousy poetry and their women look weak and unable to bear many children. And their food is bad. And Baldur's Gate is a stupid city for people who cannot make it in Waterdeep. And all non-human races are suspect except orcs, because you know where you are with orcs, but you're never sure with an elf.

So, Mr. Elven Amnish Wizard, thanks for asking about where I come from.

I am having a great time but, I can definitely understand feeling less tied to your given region. I look forward to when the content reaches the point where we can level up playing only the mods of one or two regions. If the release rates keep up and they bolseter the releases in the lower tiers, by the time adventures start to retire, we'll probably find we don't really need to start spanning the realms until higher levels when it starts to make more sense from an in-game perspective.

KarmaInferno wrote:

LFR really needs to be able to engage the characters more, so they don't always feel like wandering strangers who happen to stumble into situations.

It's the "outsider" syndrome. While this is okay to start out with, most players want their characters to eventually start to belong to something larger than themselves.

Looking at group psychology, it's not enough to just give participants an open sandbox. You need to do some directing and prodding to get them to get involved. On their own people will largely meander aimlessly and lose interest quickly. If you direct them a bit, give them something to focus on, be it a factional cause or central organizing group, they'll much more readily get interested on a deeper level.

This. Definitely. So far I've had a lot of fun with (most) of the mods, but it's hard to escape from the feeling of "have wand, will travel" nomadic adventurer who happens to show up in opposite corners of the world at a time when goblins are raiding the village, or whatever. It would be nice if my character's background had a BIT more of an effect.

Examples I can think of that would be neat but not game-breaking are bonuses on skill challenges to characters from a region (as suggested by kenobi), or maybe bonus rewards for adventures in your home region - an extra story reward, an additional NPC to talk to (friend of the family), maybe even the odd minor quest (to the tune of 25 XP, 10GP for a 1-1 or something). Nothing too much, as we don't want people not from the region to get jealous, but a few little touches that make you want to play your own region's mods a bit more, and care a bit more about the outcome of said mod.

but it's hard to escape from the feeling of "have wand, will travel" nomadic adventurer who happens to show up in opposite corners of the world at a time when goblins are raiding the village, or whatever.

I get this too. Its very hard to explain in any logical manner how i travel around the continent saving people from goblins week to week. After all aren't their goblins in my home area. We used the excuse that we are all corsairs being employeed by a trading company callled "The Blue Sail Trading Coster," which makes us the Azure Corsairs. Even so, this excuse is getting really thin.

Their are not enough adventures in any one region & the adventures are still pretty dull. The actual LFR seems to have very little sustainability as anything other then convention play. Considering that for many people their first game will be a publicly run RPGA living event, the games need to be better. After all its a good way to bring in people on the edge, who have gamer friends but are a little reluctant. The last thing you want is a module like BALD1-1; Flames of Initiation, which was basically a WoW style "Fetch-Mission."

Of all things thewriters need to do, the one thing they have to keep in mind at all times is: Let the adventurers be heroes, after all thats why this tier is called "Heroic" & not "Village-Peasent."

INGREDIENTS TO A BRILLIANT ADVENTURE
1. A Memorable Villain
2. A Memorable Plot
3. Descriptive Ambience
4. Interesting Characters (NPC's)
5. Chance to Roleplay (rather then skill challenge)
6. Dynamic Vistas & Amazing Locations

GrahamWills wrote:

So, Mr. Elven Amnish Wizard, thanks for asking about where I come from.

Amnish... heheh. Great, now whenever I encounter anyone from Amn I am going to picture them with chin beards and hats and they shall all be named Jacob.

& be completely opposed to technology. Spends all day raising barns. Mwa ha ha ha ha

:evillaugh

And in my head they will now all look like Seth Green (i just watched Sex Drive).

The coolest thing about D&D, to me, is interacting with a reactive world, watching it change as a result of my actions. It's also one of the biggest selling points of a Living Campaign.

I also understand Wizard's desire to maintain tight control of their brand, since it's an active brand.

It seems to me, though, that the two things are mutually exclusive. Control over how the world evolves belongs to one group or the other. It's possible Wizards' plan is to base future products off the evolution of the Living Campaign storyline, but I find it much more likely that the reverse is true. This takes away a lot of the draw of the game, for me.

Three months between adventures in a particular storyline is just too long for people to remember what's going on, I think. In two years I'll be able to go back and play all the Tymanther mods back-to-back, I guess, but I don't think that really cuts it.

I've heard it mentioned that mods are selected through 2010. That means the decisions our characters are making today will affect the world not tomorrow, but in two years. That seems like an awful long disconnect between character action and environmental reaction, to me. People's attention spans aren't that long, particularly newcomers to the game. If the SUPPLY of modules is so rich, the Fair Market Price Shawn mentioned should (eventually) come down, and Wizards should be able to purchase more. Theoretically. Really, though, Fair Market Price should be way lower, given that the suppliers (authors) are willing to pretty much volunteer, right?

Another facet that makes it difficult to engage players in particular storylines is that, by retirement, my character will most likely have played a total of nine Tymanther mods. You can't really develop just all that much in nine adventures.

I hope Wizards will eventually refine its model to make us happy customers, but it takes financial stimulus to get a corporation to act, and, since it doesn't directly make anything off of LFR, we probably won't ever be able to provide that stimulus.

eudemonist wrote:

The coolest thing about D&D, to me, is interacting with a reactive world, watching it change as a result of my actions. It's also one of the biggest selling points of a Living Campaign.

I also understand Wizard's desire to maintain tight control of their brand, since it's an active brand.

It seems to me, though, that the two things are mutually exclusive. Control over how the world evolves belongs to one group or the other. It's possible Wizards' plan is to base future products off the evolution of the Living Campaign storyline, but I find it much more likely that the reverse is true. This takes away a lot of the draw of the game, for me.

Actually, with the release of 4E we've been told that Living Forgotten Realms is now canonical - just like the novels. This opens up some intersting options. It means that based on the performance of PCs, events from LFR might find their way into the novels. It means that events in the novels might open up paths for future adventures for LFR.

Instead of being in a separate "reflection" of the Realms we're shaping the Realms as we go. Mind, we haven't had the opportunity to stir up world-altering events yet, but that time may yet still come.

Three months between adventures in a particular storyline is just too long for people to remember what's going on, I think. In two years I'll be able to go back and play all the Tymanther mods back-to-back, I guess, but I don't think that really cuts it.

I've heard it mentioned that mods are selected through 2010. That means the decisions our characters are making today will affect the world not tomorrow, but in two years. That seems like an awful long disconnect between character action and environmental reaction, to me. People's attention spans aren't that long, particularly newcomers to the game. If the SUPPLY of modules is so rich, the Fair Market Price Shawn mentioned should (eventually) come down, and Wizards should be able to purchase more. Theoretically. Really, though, Fair Market Price should be way lower, given that the suppliers (authors) are willing to pretty much volunteer, right?

It depends. I haven't heard it said that mods are selected from now to 2010, but let's assume that's true.

That could still mean that what's been selected is the "final version" of a module - but rather a module concept - an outline, if you will. It might be as simple as "The players go into the Shadowfell to pickup a MacGuffin opposed by . Average results from 1-1, 1-2, and 1-3 will affect the flavor of this module".

This would mean that 3-6 months after a module's premier the Admins are collating the results and using that to "steer" future mods - while still keeping a general plot outline.

As for the costs being paid I believe one of the Global Admins said that part of the reason for purchasing mods is to help protect the IP rights of the Forgotten Realms at the suggestion from WotC/Hasbro Legal. I can't speak to the veracity of this statement, but it would seem to fit the situation.

Another facet that makes it difficult to engage players in particular storylines is that, by retirement, my character will most likely have played a total of nine Tymanther mods. You can't really develop just all that much in nine adventures.

I hope Wizards will eventually refine its model to make us happy customers, but it takes financial stimulus to get a corporation to act, and, since it doesn't directly make anything off of LFR, we probably won't ever be able to provide that stimulus.

Well, in an organized play environment, what the players want is typically taken under advisement. In addition to posting here, I'd try to contact your Regional point-of-contact with your concerns - just to make sure your comments are being heard by the administration, and run up the chain accordingly.

WolfStar76 wrote:

Actually, with the release of 4E we've been told that Living Forgotten Realms is now canonical - just like the novels. This opens up some intersting options. It means that based on the performance of PCs, events from LFR might find their way into the novels. It means that events in the novels might open up paths for future adventures for LFR.

Instead of being in a separate "reflection" of the Realms we're shaping the Realms as we go. Mind, we haven't had the opportunity to stir up world-altering events yet, but that time may yet still come.

I think making LFR canonical is part of the problem. Wizards wants to retain tight control of canon for their major brand, and rightly so. That means WE will be tightly limited in the amount of "shaping as we go" that will be allowed. We can shape as we go only as long as we shape things the way Wizards wants them shaped.

WolfStar76 wrote:

As for the costs being paid I believe one of the Global Admins said that part of the reason for purchasing mods is to help protect the IP rights of the Forgotten Realms at the suggestion from WotC/Hasbro Legal. I can't speak to the veracity of this statement, but it would seem to fit the situation.

Yeah, I read and understand that. They want to pay for any mods they put out, at Fair Market Price, so as to make it WotC property. This payment means that more mods=more budget outlay. My point was that it seems like there is a pretty ready supply of modules, and, according to economics, when supply is great, Fair Market Price goes down, which might (perhaps) allow for purchasing of more mods at the same cost to WotC.


Really, the best thing I can think of to do is to have (say) four major storylines that transcend regions. Instead of just having one arc per region, where we get to play in a particular storyline once every three months, have a storyline where three or four mods from each "wave" can tie in, even if only tangentially. That way people can see at least a tie-in roughly once a month. In the Weekend kit, the questionnaire asked about which threat we wanted to see more of. I say use all four or five and scatter them throughout the different mods. If a few mods in each wave have even a LITTLE something to do with the Abolethic Sovreignty and a few pertain to the Snake Kingdoms (or whatever), people will feel a lot more connection between them and more of a purpose in their wanderings.

eudemonist wrote:

We can shape as we go only as long as we shape things the way Wizards wants them shaped.

This is true to a point, but we are working toward creating situations where the happenings in the campaign can shape FR. It is certainly not going to be the "Wild West" where anything goes, but hopefully we will get to the point where the players of the campaign shape not only the campaign itself, but the world itself.

eudemonist wrote:

My point was that it seems like there is a pretty ready supply of modules, and, according to economics, when supply is great, Fair Market Price goes down, which might (perhaps) allow for purchasing of more mods at the same cost to WotC.

Fair market price goes beyond just WotC. We are talking about fair market price for RPG adventures, and for the publishing world in general.

Shawn

I know you guys are working on it, and I have faith in you. I'm not trying to complain (too much).

What about paragraph 3? That was the "important" stuff.

eudemonist wrote:

What about paragraph 3? That was the "important" stuff.

Heh. Yeah. I know I sound like a broken record, but it is all in the works. We have regions in talks to create a cross/multi-regional series that would premiere consecutively, giving people the ability to run them one after another to create an instant and fully playable plot arc. We are talking about doing the same thing with Cores and regionals. The players have shared great ideas, some we have been working on since we first met with Chris at DDXP a year ago, and some that are just germinating now.

Shawn
LFR Global Admin

eudemonist wrote:

I think making LFR canonical is part of the problem. Wizards wants to retain tight control of canon for their major brand, and rightly so. That means WE will be tightly limited in the amount of "shaping as we go" that will be allowed. We can shape as we go only as long as we shape things the way Wizards wants them shaped.

That's one side of the coin.

Let me show you the flipside.

It's possible (I'll leave plausibility to another discussion) that WotC will decide to do a major upheaval to and if play numbers remain high for LFR, instead of doing it through a book first, we might well get the first rumblings of those changes in LFR.

Let's say WotC decides to kill off the Zhentarim - or at the very least is open to the idea. Traditionally, this would only happen via characters we read about in books. Now, with LFR being canonical - WE could well hold the power to tear apart the organization once and for all.

Now, that still requires the alignment of a lot of stars - including WotC (almost certainly) coming up with the idea themselves first (I can't imagine they'd approve a mod or series of mods with that theme if it came from outside the company), and then watching the developing storyline. However, the option is there.

Yeah, I read and understand that. They want to pay for any mods they put out, at Fair Market Price, so as to make it WotC property. This payment means that more mods=more budget outlay. My point was that it seems like there is a pretty ready supply of modules, and, according to economics, when supply is great, Fair Market Price goes down, which might (perhaps) allow for purchasing of more mods at the same cost to WotC.

Really, the best thing I can think of to do is to have (say) four major storylines that transcend regions. Instead of just having one arc per region, where we get to play in a particular storyline once every three months, have a storyline where three or four mods from each "wave" can tie in, even if only tangentially. That way people can see at least a tie-in roughly once a month. In the Weekend kit, the questionnaire asked about which threat we wanted to see more of. I say use all four or five and scatter them throughout the different mods. If a few mods in each wave have even a LITTLE something to do with the Abolethic Sovreignty and a few pertain to the Snake Kingdoms (or whatever), people will feel a lot more connection between them and more of a purpose in their wanderings.

I like this idea - it would be a challenge, perhaps, to implement so that if it doesn't matter if I play "region B" before "region A" but still - I like the concept.

Cool. I figured something like that was the case, since I'm sure you guys are as hip to what's happenin' as I am, but I hadn't seen anything to that effect yet. Thanks for playing it again for me, S(a)M.

WolfStar76 wrote:

I like this idea - it would be a challenge, perhaps, to implement so that if it doesn't matter if I play "region B" before "region A" but still - I like the concept.

...or just suck it up and say that the module from region A is a prerequisite for playing the module from region B. "You must possess story award REGA01 to play this module." Conceivably a pain to get a group together for and even more of a pain to enforce, but it would make true story progression possible (it can have a definitive beginning and end). It's rather difficult to write a story arc across three or four adventures when the story arc has to be playable in any order. I'm pretty sure that last just described the existing quest card/module system, which isn't so much a story arc as "Do these random tasks that mean little to nothing to you now. Wait a year. Now play this module."

Chained mods pretty much sum up Weekend in the Realms... which IIRC they are planning on doign again. So from that perspective... we already have that type of "Interactive."

I think I would try to stay away from specific order requirements within a particular wave, if at all possible. Such requirements would almost certainly limit play opportunites, something Wizards really doesn't want to do.

The story wouldn't even need to be central to the regional mods in question. Just a little tie-in somehow. Maybe the AS is behind the goings-on at the Foot of the Lighthouse, or what have you. All it takes is one (preferably slightly cryptic) note from an AS agent (whose name has come up in another mod or two) in the last guy's belongings revealing a little more of the major plot. After playing the three or four "AS" mods in the current wave and gathering a few of these clues, the player would ideally be able to put some clues together and get some insight into what going on with the "behind-the-scenes" story.

Following the conversation here reminds me of a campaign that gave the players a strong sense of locality despite having far fewer published modules than Living Greyhawk. Xen'drik Expeditions did this by 1) limiting the scope of adventures to the Xen'drik continent rather than the entire world of Eberron and 2) providing players with a purpose through the use of factions. True, it wasn't technically a Living campaign, but it still allowed one to have a stake in what happened in the world.

Yeah, I was a big fan of that campaign!

The sad part is my two favorite factions (CoL, and CC) were the two that my players liked the least (favoring BWC and CoS).

Ahwell, was still a great campaign. Someday I might even get a chance to read the last year's worth of mods to see "what happened"

I almost think that I would have preferred that they put of starting LFR until Gencon this year instead of last year. That way they could have let each region get 3 or 4 modules in the 1-4 range written and ready to be published. And have them follow a small plot line to introduce players to the region etc.

This way there could have been some continuity from the start for LFR and its regions. This would have helped with peoples interest as well. Playing in East Rift this week and then next week in Waterdeep and then waiting 6 months to a year for a 2nd module from the region that may or may not have anything to do with the original module does not go a long way of helping the PC's get immersed in the region and its plots

WolfStar76 wrote:

The sad part is my two favorite factions (CoL, and CC) were the two that my players liked the least (favoring BWC and CoS).

You need to find a better class of player. :D

And you can tell them Brian Mackey said so!

Mithreinmaethor wrote:

I almost think that I would have preferred that they put of starting LFR until Gencon this year instead of last year. [...] This way there could have been some continuity from the start for LFR and its regions.

You're assuming that continuity and immersion is the goal.

My impression is that, from WOTC's point of view, the goal of LFR is primarily to give GMs frameworks of pre-written adventures they can adapt for use in their gaming groups (or use to create new gaming groups), as a means of promoting increased 4e play, especially amongst groups not comfortable with regularly coming up with campaigns and adventures from scratch.

The goal doesn't appear to be the creation of a campaign on its own with shared experiences, continuity and immersion, apart from whatever your particular GM creates for you.

Some campaign staff might indeed want to create such a campaign, and WOTC isn't necessarily opposed to any of that happening, but it's really not a priority for WOTC and doesn't guide their decisions.

-- Brian Gibbons.

smerwin29 wrote:

Ironically, yesterday I was reviewing some posts from the Keoland Yahoo list from LG, and 24 months into the campaign there were people complaining that they didn't feel connected to the region and that the Keoland regional campaign wasn't engaging them on a story level. I don't offer this as an excuse for what LFR currently is, but just as a matter of perspective on the nature of what we are dealing with, both as gamers and as a campaign staff.

Regards,

Shawn
LFR Global Admin

The problem in this respect for LFR is the number of regions within which players can expect to play compared to the number of modules per region in which they can possibly play.

There's no way for a player to get invested in 15 regions.

Likewise there's no way for a player to get invested in a single region with only 1 module per quarter.

If you can't change the total number of modules released per quarter/year/etc then slash the number of regions to increase regional module density.

Or frankly, do away with all regions and just have modules tied together in strings that are coordinated by authors.

Either way, but asking players to invest in a dozen regions simultaneously is not going to work.

Say it took the entire year 1 of a region's LG mods to invest their playerbase. You are talking there around a dozen modules, not counting adaptables, minimissions or interactives. In LFR terms you are talking 3 years worth of modules for that. Meanwhile in LG you only had the core modules to 'distract' the players from a given region.. in LFR you have a dozen other regions.

Its a problem.

Exacerbating the problem: very little module primers for the regions that they are set in. And even if done out, you are asking judges to learn how many different regions in order to run those modules?

You have too many regions for what you are delivering.

-James

Thanks to all for their very cogent analysis and heartfelt opinions. LFR is going to be different than what LC and LG were, as people are pointing out. Hopefully people can enjoy LFR for what it is, while the campaign staff does its best to mold the campaign to meet the players' realistic expectations and create a campaign that can offer fun adventures.

Thanks,

Shawn
LFR Global Admin

Do people who complain about plot hooks, realize how hard it is to create one that: (a) works for the majority of PCs without becoming stale (which also means that we should never assume a PC played specific previous adventures), (b) doesn't take up too much time (after all, an adventure must be able to be finished in 4 hours) and (c) doesn't fill up a lot of pages?

There is a reason why even in published adventures plot-hooks rarely gain more attention then a paragraph or three. Each PC is unique and has its own motivations. Good plot-hooks tie-in to those motivations. Regardless of how hard we try, we cannot take all motivations in account. Instead of trying, we tend to use the most basic one that work almost all the time: the NPC hiring the PCs. It is up to the individual DM to modify this basic plot-hook to the group just as when running any other published adventure in their home game. Granted, designing personal plot-hooks quickly is not easy, especially not at a convention or when you lack good knowledge on FR lore, but luckily in a pinch hiring a PC always work. It certainly generates less problems then when we assume the PCs are heroic... (Nothing generated more complaints than the LG rule in year 1 and 2 where we were not allowed to use the hiring plot-hook at all.)

Personally I always ask my players a couple of questions before the start of game and use the answers to modify the plot-hook if it makes sense. The answers also tell me something about what the players want, since the more elaborate the answers are, the more important the story is to that player. If a player does not know the answer, but cares, I happy to give them advice by providing them with the appropriate FR lore. For example, a PC plays a cleric of Selûne, and they do not know why they would go to Cormyr, I point out that Cormyr is under constant threat from Netheril a country ruled by worshippers of Shar. Shar is the archnemesis of Selûne. Hence a good reason for a follower of Selûne would be to see if they can help the good people of Cormyr in their struggle against the insidious manipulations of Shar (which as it happens is also a very good plot-hook for most of the adventures currently set in Cormyr).

Pieter Sleijpen
RPGA LFR Global Administrator

Where would one go to suggest that WotC put the 1-2 page entries for all the LFR (mod) regions from the FRPG and/or FRCG on the RPGA site for download?

It would be a pure waste of pages to put the same regional info into all of the mods for a region, but making it freely available means interested players and DMs can access that information to better prepare a module in that region.

If WotC understandably doesn't want to put published material out there for free, perhaps they could allow the Regional directors to draft a regional overview which can be tailored more directly to the LFR plotlines that they're planning to develop. Maybe this simple reference type document could be updated every year to reflect the new year's plots as well as to summarize previous years' plots (while trying to avoid as many spoilers as you can.)


Also, I think tying in some threads from across a couple of regions is a great idea. One overlooked plus to the level banding and regional schedules is that 90+% of the time you will have played REGION1-1 before REGION1-2 (unless you deliberately try to play them in reverse.) By tying in multiple regions, you can have x, y, and z going on in the backgrounds of three different regional mods at level 1-4, and be pretty sure that players will have played all of those (that they're going to play) before moving on to the level 4-7 band where you can bring the backgrounds together or cross them over between regions. You don't make the different level 1-4 mods sequels of each other, but you can have alternate paths that the PCs might take if they know information from one of the other mods in that level band. Then later, hopefully using input from reported play, you put out level 4-7s as sequels and follow-ups to the previous mods.

tyweise wrote:

Where would one go to suggest that WotC put the 1-2 page entries for all the LFR (mod) regions from the FRPG and/or FRCG on the RPGA site for download?

Well, you pretty much hit the nail on the head in next paragraph. They want you to buy the book. (FRCG) So putting the stuff on their website for free would be counterproductive in their eyes.

Madfox11 wrote:

Do people who complain about plot hooks, realize how hard it is to create one that: (a) works for the majority of PCs without becoming stale (which also means that we should never assume a PC played specific previous adventures), (b) doesn't take up too much time (after all, an adventure must be able to be finished in 4 hours) and (c) doesn't fill up a lot of pages?

Sure.  After one too many frustrating experiences in another campaign, I would occasionally start off with a warning when running for complete strangers, "Here's the blurb.  If this doesn't sound like something your character would be interested in, you should pick another PC.  It is your job as a player to figure out why your PC wants to play this module, not my job to talk you into playing the module.  Talk to me if you have ideas about how to modify the hook to catch your PC."

But consider the flip-side.  Not everyone wants to play the altruistic moron who bites on every hook that wanders by or the greedy mercenary that jumps at every offered job.

Unfortunately, most motivations beyond those two require some degree of immersion and ability for a PC to be involved in the campaign.  It's very difficult for me to come up with any rational explanation as to why my PC travels hundreds of miles in order to wander into a tavern to get a job from a farmer paying 25 gp.

This, however, is not something that should have come as a surprise to campaign staff.  Choosing the current setup over all other alternatives--fewer regions, regions being cities in a geographical area or factions, assigning four regions to each level band for a year (rotating from year to year)--was designed to give us what it has produced.

I consider the campaign to have failed on a basic level in not considering this issue and taking it into account.  If you're going to create a shallow campaign with twelve regions spread across a continent, where it is expected that a PC will spend eight to ten modules careening wildly across Faerun between missions in his home region, it's pretty obvious that there's going to be some difficulty with motivations.

Do I realize how difficult it is to create a good plot hook?  Sure.  Do you realize how difficult it is to come up with a rational explanation as to why my Waterdhavian PC just travelled from Cormyr to Aglarond in order to wander into a tavern and help out a random farmer?

I consider this a failure on the part of the campaign because, not only was this seemingly not anticipated, the tools that other campaigns have used in the past were deliberately left out: organizations.  Other campaigns have used metaorganizations and factions as ways to motivate PCs, or in the simplest case, simply declared that all PCs are members of one big organization.

Yes, the better option would have been to have official campaign metaorganizations to allow for variety of choice, but since that was evidently not going to happen, how difficult would it have been to just weave something into the campaign background, something like "All PCs are members of a secretive organization.  You will be asked to journey all throughout Faerun, performing missions to benefit the organization and to help them gain friends, allies and people owing them favors.  Members of this organization comes from a variety of races, so you will have to grow accustomed to working with races that might otherwise have enmity with yours."

Let's take the following hook, written by global campaign staff:
Radiant Vessel of Thesk Show

No, that's not Encounter 2, that's the very start of the module.

This isn't a hook.  It's an interesting visual that the author thought sounded cool, but it starts from Sentence #1 with the assumption that the PC's are apparently seeking out this person for reasons unknown and have some unknown contact who has sent them to him.  I don't know what reaction the author was going for, but I'm guessing that the uniform "WTF?!" seen at our table wasn't it.

Starting in media res can be interesting as a change of pace, but the current trend toward dispensing with the need for player motivation leads to players treating this as merely a light "beer and pretzels" game, which I don't consider a good thing for the campaign.

-- Brian Gibbons.

bgibbons wrote:

leads to players treating this as merely a light "beer and pretzels" game

Why do you hate Homer Simpson?

bgibbons wrote:

...
I consider the campaign to have failed on a basic level in not considering this issue and taking it into account.
....
Starting in media res can be interesting as a change of pace, but the current trend toward dispensing with the need for player motivation leads to players treating this as merely a light "beer and pretzels" game, which I don't consider a good thing for the campaign.

-- Brian Gibbons.

A lot of people around here would disagree with your assessment. We'll probably be running 6 (or more) tables at our local game day for Spec 1-1 in a couple of weeks. There have been and always will be compromises to running a living campaign. Considering how young the campaign is, I think the admins and authors are doing a good job. Or maybe beer and pretzels are a popular choice.

Personally, I'm thankful that LFR has taken a different direction than LG or LC. Living City was fun, but how many adventures can you have in one city? I did feel more connected to a region in LG, but I love the open acceptance of D&D rules and freedom to play any mod released in LFR. Even with regions in LG my character still wandered the known world between regional and core mods. In addition, there were massive changes to the structure, tracking and rules between LG and LFR. In hindsight they might have done some things differently. Whether it would it have been better or worse is unknowable.

As the campaign matures, I expect the regions to develop more "flavor". As far as your PC travelling the world, who's to say how long passes between one adventure and the next? I've always assumed my PC's life would be something like the military - months of boredome interspersed with moments of insanity. If it's important to you, there are any number of justifications for a travelling PC. They work as a guard on the trade routes but don't make any real money at it. Adventures occur while he's looking for a "real" job.

I do like the idea of meta-orgs being a motivation for some of my characters, but it's not necessary. For some people belonging to organization X which hands them assignments would be a cool RP hook. For many

It sounds like what you want is more story-driven campaign like Xendrick Expeditions. I'm sure they are coming. In the meantime, if you don't like a hook use DME to tweak it to fit your group. If you don't know enough about your group to modify the hook imagine how hard it would be for someone writing for the multitudes.

Allen.

aljergensen wrote:

As the campaign matures, I expect the regions to develop more "flavor".

You're expecting, that say in a year, that you will see players get involved with over a dozen regions simultaneously? How many players in the campaign could even name all the regions and a single fact about them based solely upon LFR play?

And you think that they will find this involvement by playing as many as 3 or 4 modules in that region while playing 30+ other modules? And that's assuming we're talking just one character here.

I just don't find it likely.

The campaign can't support as many regions as it has with as few modules as it's allowed to produce. One or the other really needs to change.

Even if you desired to 'cycle' through regions rather than try to deliver all at once it would be far better. You have a mandated finite set of resources. Don't make everyone starve to death equally.

It would be far better to see say 4 regions with 3-4 coordinated modules a tier. So that characters could focus upon those areas and learn them. Then when 'new' 1-4s came out they could be from a 'new' region and start a new 'regional' thread.

As it is there's no reason to have so many in-character regions. Is there? Over the next 3 years you're looking to have what 12 modules from each region right? How many of those are going to be playable by the same character even? Wouldn't it be better and easier to focus story arcs?

Have a Waterdeep arc that spans a year, giving out 3 modules a quarter and each progressing from one tier to the next. So that a character could conceivably play that entire story arc and get involved with Waterdeep?

-James

Given what I have seen so far, I don't expect that there will be significant player or character buy-in to regional plotlines at any point in the campaign.

The reason: any interesting plotline is going to get buried in the rubble of the dozen different adventures that any given character will have played for any one adventure in a given region or setting.

Even by this time next year, we will be looking at a probable maximum of 2 adventures per moduler tier per region. That's a big improvement on what we have now, but characters will still have played 3-4 times as many modules from other regions as they have from the region they are focusing on--and many modules are not clearly tied together, so you're probably looking at more like four or five (at most) mods sharing common themes or plot elements that your character will play over the course of ten levels. (25+mods, in most cases). That's, at best, comparable to a short LG story arc--the Brendigund saga, for instance. It will not compare to the regional buy-in where you could easily end up with half of your character's play containing the various regional elements and, in two years 16-32 mods (32 if you include meta-regionals) which would develop and flesh out the setting and regional elements.

Elder_basilisk wrote:

It will not compare to the regional buy-in where you could easily end up with half of your character's play containing the various regional elements and, in two years 16-32 mods (32 if you include meta-regionals) which would develop and flesh out the setting and regional elements.

Only when you travelled a lot and lived in a highly active region.

I just paged through my LG ARs, and funily enough my character tended to jump all across the world as well in just as short a time as happens in LFR at the moment. I rarely thought of a reason for these trips either, except for the fact that my PC was an adventurer who had trouble settling down. In a couple of cases there was a short story arc of 3 or so adventures, but that did not happen all too often.

Even in LG getting immersed into a region and its storyline required work, work that in my area only a few were willing to put in it. In fact, some adventures were impossible to understand unless you did immerse yourself in a region with storylines going back years, which chased away just as many new players as it kept in old. There are downsides to such deep immersion type of campaigns, especially for a living campaign.

As for plothooks, I am currently preparing MOON1-1. No spoilers, the PCs know the following within seconds of sitting at the table. I have written down a list of questions to ask my players (basically home region, religion and their reason for being an adventurer). I can come up with dozens of reasons for the PCs to be in that village based on the PCs' interests and previous adventures. Worship Oghma or Millil? A cleric asked you to help a fellow bard in trouble. Have a favor with the noblefamily from WATE1-1? They heard that one of their sponsored bards could use some help. Just played CORE1-3? You are on your way home, potentially drifted of corse due to a storm. A merchant from Waterdeep? Take a look at Moonshae for trade opportunities for the guild and while you are there, pay attention to Amn spies. It would be bad for bussiness if Amn takes over the Isles. A brave warrior who is looking for glory? The Moonshae is troubled by formorians and pirates and always looking for brave warriors and perhaps the Northmen can teach you something about fighting as well.

Sure, if you play your dwarven cleric from Aglarond I might have difficulties for a decent tie in, but if that is really important, then why are you playing him in the first place? Let that dwarf stick to the Sea of Fallen Stars and make a second PC for the Sword Coast.

Pieter Sleijpen,
who has recently given plothooks a bit of thought and who is contemplating changing the Players Introduction section somewhat to make it clearer DMs really should adapt plot-hooks.

Elder_basilisk wrote:

It will not compare to the regional buy-in where you could easily end up with half of your character's play containing the various regional elements and, in two years 16-32 mods (32 if you include meta-regionals) which would develop and flesh out the setting and regional elements.

Remember, everything is someone's bug and someone else's feature.

The major reason people did that was because they didn't have the choice of playing all mods from all regions. It was great if you were from a region that knew what it was doing. Not so great if your region sucked.

There is nothing stopping anyone from choosing to not play the first couple of years of LFR, wait until they have a lot of regional mods available, then mapping out the best way to have one character play all the mods of a particular region(s)

As an example, let's say I have an 'urban' character who plays all mods set in a big city area. So he plays Baldur's Gate and Waterdeep.

With 4 mods a year, 2 years from now, I'll have the option of playing 24 mods over a short time period. I can get really immersed. I could even choose to make a new character to replay a good half of the mods if I want so I don't have to wait.

That means that 40% of this character's non-Epic mods would likely be set in a city. That's not a bad ratio compared to LG...or pick two regions that are next to each other, with one being the 'region' and the other being the 'metaregion'

Another suggestion . . . play the Loudwater region!

For a group that wants to travel in the same region for a while, start with Ogre of the Barrow King, go to the Icy Spire, and explore Spellguard! That's 5+ levels of adventuring all in the same region.

I'm very glad that the campaign staff is working on adaptables to broaden the play-style-choices for LFR. My group plays the wandering-pickup-region game weekly with different players each week, but our regular meeting group has been enjoying the Loudwater area story line for several weeks, and looking forward to several more!

Elder_basilisk wrote:

any interesting plotline is going to get buried in the rubble of the dozen different adventures that any given character will have played for any one adventure in a given region or setting

Agreed. I would love to see fewer regions and more mods per region. We shall see!

Madfox11 wrote:

Sure, if you play your dwarven cleric from Aglarond I might have difficulties for a decent tie in, but if that is really important, then why are you playing him in the first place? Let that dwarf stick to the Sea of Fallen Stars and make a second PC for the Sword Coast.

Pieter Sleijpen,
who has recently given plothooks a bit of thought and who is contemplating changing the Players Introduction section somewhat to make it clearer DMs really should adapt plot-hooks.

For every single mod I've run I always ask the player what reason does his character have for being in XXX. After they give me that information I tailor the plot hook to their reason. It takes some work but it works better than expecting the plot hook to be a one size fits all element.

I organize a monthly gameday in my area. We started in October with about 20 players. This past month we were running 2 locations with a total of 42 players. The campaign is growing. It is the work of the DMs that run our events that keep the players coming back. One thing that we stress to all the DMs is to make the story personal to the players at that table. That is how you get player investment, without trying to pawn it off on the module authors. Authors who obviously have a lot less connection to those players at the table than the DM that is running the adventure.

D_karr wrote:

For every single mod I've run I always ask the player what reason does his character have for being in XXX.

Why are you asking players what reason they have for being in Porn

Probably the same reason adventurers do everything else. The GP was too good to resist. Besides, the recruiter promised them unique experience from epic encounters.

Mithreinmaethor wrote:

Why are you asking players what reason they have for being in Porn

Well, it's their characters after all. :D

Sounds a lot like the latest Order of the Stick

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0622.html

Mithreinmaethor wrote:

Why are you asking players what reason they have for being in Porn

Do you HAVE to have a reason to be in porn? :P

MwaO wrote:

There is nothing stopping anyone from choosing to not play the first couple of years of LFR, wait until they have a lot of regional mods available, then mapping out the best way to have one character play all the mods of a particular region(s)

I would hope that your recommendation for people who are interested in getting involved in a storyline is not "don't play LFR until 2011; by then it will have stopped sucking for you." LFR is still young and a lot of people are still checking it out to see if it is going to work for them (myself included). It doesn't matter if the campaign will be ready for us in 2011. For my part, if the whole package does not measure up now, I'll find something else to do. (And though I have no doubt that my contribution to the play numbers Dave Crist was crowing about earlier in the thread is reasonably impressive for an individual, the jury is still out).

The bottom line is this: either regional buy-in and continuing storylines matter to the campaign management or they do not. If they do not, there will still be nothing in 2011 even if there are 24 regional mods available and a character can play from 1-30 without ever leaving his region. On the other hand, if the campaign management does care, they should be able to lay the framework for doing something about it now. The question is whether or not the campaign administration considers it a priority or not.

(Though, even if regional buy-in etc DOES matter to the campaign management, I doubt that it can be sustained over a 2-3 year writing process. (So the wait until 2011 model probably won't work--even if anyone was willing to wait that long). Some of the major weaknesses in at least my region and meta-region's LG storylines came from that kind of a time lapse. Over that period of time, the entire management responsible for the stories typically cycled at least once, possibly more times and any stories that the previous coordinators had been keeping under their hats passed through so many hands that the final resolutions were often no longer consistent with the initial stories. The good news was that, under the previous model, there were enough modules released each year that some of them at least had the coordination necessary to create a cohesive storyline--at least for a while).

You're leavign out the other possibility. What if the current model doesn't change and in 2-3 years the play numbers are at the same levels or higher? Is "regional buy-in" then going to be considered a necessary element?

As it is, there seem to be lots of people playing with no regard to "regional buy-in." This can certainly be chalked up to the campaign being new and shiny and the bloom hasn't come off the rose yet. As it stands, the higher ups in the RPGA look at the play numbers to determine how the campaign is doing rather than listening to a vocal minority.

That's not to say that they don't take such criticisms to heart... but if you have a player base in the thousands and you have a small handful of poeple complaining, and reported play numbers inidcate that people are playing a lot and new people are coming in, then why change it?

Dragon9 wrote:

That's not to say that they don't take such criticisms to heart... but if you have a player base in the thousands and you have a small handful of poeple complaining, and reported play numbers inidcate that people are playing a lot and new people are coming in, then why change it?

It's very true that they have to be wary of a vocal minority providing a false impression of what the majority is looking for. I'd be shocked if the regulars on this forum represent even one percent of the player base, although I suspect that it represents a higher percentage of active DMs.

On the other hand, I think it is notable that there are effectively no voices coming out in support of the way that the RPGA is structuring regional mods/storylines. People supporting related aspects of the campaign, like replaying adventure? Yes. People who feel that the vocal disagreements go too far and should be toned down? Sure. But there is no one standing up and saying that the random, disjointed nature of the regional mods is really working for them and they would like to see more of it in the future.

Right now, assuming that we start seeing the initial story lines from the 1-1 mods get wrapped up by the 1-6 mods (2-2 mods?) it will be 2010 before stuff from 2008 really pays off. That is assuming that your character from the 1-1 mod has happened to level at just the right rate to qualify for the various story mods.

For the players I run, no one is even caring about which character ran which adventure. most of the players have 2-3 characters, so the odds of the right character playing the right followup adventure at the right time are pretty small. They just sort of keep following the few plotlines as players, not characters. Essentially, the story of LFR has become entirely metagame OOC information.

Personally, the RPGA would be well served by dumping the fixed regions entirely. Figure out three or four storylines/themes for each tier of modules then set up three or four clusters of adventures in different parts of the world. Characters can work through two or three sets of adventures before they level out of range, then move to a different set of locations for the next tier of modules.

Telvin3d wrote:

Personally, the RPGA would be well served by dumping the fixed regions entirely. Figure out three or four storylines/themes for each tier of modules then set up three or four clusters of adventures in different parts of the world. Characters can work through two or three sets of adventures before they level out of range, then move to a different set of locations for the next tier of modules.

That's actually not a bad idea...

The whole region thing seems more like a LG legacy thing than an actually necessary thing.

Maybe keep the Events and PoC admins spread out as they are now, but consolidate the Writing admins and dump the formal regional nature of modules. Put out mods in bunches as you say.

Big Mike
Generally a LFR/RPGA fanboy

Telvin3d wrote:

On the other hand, I think it is notable that there are effectively no voices coming out in support of the way that the RPGA is structuring regional mods/storylines. People supporting related aspects of the campaign, like replaying adventure? Yes. People who feel that the vocal disagreements go too far and should be toned down? Sure. But there is no one standing up and saying that the random, disjointed nature of the regional mods is really working for them and they would like to see more of it in the future.

I think it's more along the lines of the typical reaction to most things. Those who disagree or are unhappy with something speak out the most vocally against it while those who are fine with it, and quite often support it, are much quieter about it.

Personally, i have no problem with the modules as is. I enjoy roleplaying my PCs but I don't get so into it that what some may seem as disjointed continuity affects my enjoyment of playing. I play each module as a separate entity. A "snapshot" in my characters life, if you will. I don't worry about the details of how or why I ended up in the Dragon Coast when I was last in Waterdeep. I don't worry that the prequel to the mod I am playing is one I played 7 mods ago, to my playing of the character, it was just a while ago in my characters reckoning.

I understand that not everyone can separate themselves like that and some people enjoy that sort of total immersion in their character that when such situations arise they can't reconcile it to their style of play. That is the sort of player that I seem to see complaining about the current structure. (not saying it's good or bad, and not everyone complaining about it may feel that's the reason either... just my observation)

I also think that the current module release structure was a damned if they did damned if they didn't situation. They went with the situation they thought best: Release a steady stream of mods to allow people to get through Heroic tier with a character. As of DDXP, this will have provided us with 37 mods (not counting adapteds) broken down as: 16 level 1-4 mods, 14 level 4-7 mods, and 7 level 7-10 mods.

Their other option, as some have complained about, would have been to release more lower level mods and wait on the higher level stuff. So 37 level 1-4 mods. (or maybe less with a smattering of 4-7 mods) This could have allowed for more "regional buy-in" by allowing non-level-band-increasing storyline. However, we would then be hearing people calling out for more higher level mods and complaining they were focusing too much on lower level stuff. We would have been hearing complaints that people were running out of stuff to play (which is a complaint right now too).

This is all assuming that they wanted, no matter what, to have a regional system of sort in play. They were going to have complaints either way. They opted for the full heroic tier release followed by mixed releases. Could the second method have allowed for more regional buy-in? Sure, but with the rapidity of leveling that happens in 4e, I could see more complaining about that release schedule than the current one. YMMV on that though.

I have seen people talk of how the year 1 releases in LG were all lower level, but the speed of leveling was slower than it is in 4e (relatively... we're going through 30 levels now instead of 20). Playing all your regions stuff in LG in year one would get you to 3rd level. So, lets take a hypothetical situation: If you had 9 mods in an LFR region... you could play them all at high tier and be just shy of 5th level. Ready for the next level band... but the 4-7 mods would not be coming out for quite some time. So then you make a character to play through the other regional mods, but you get through each region and then need to make another character. This goes on for a while the first year until people start complaining that they need level 4-7 mods now because they're getting to high level and they can't move their primary character forward (after all, not everyone has alt-itis like I do :D). Now mind you... we haven't even touched on core mods, adaptables or specials yet. would you have better immersion in a region? I bet you would. Would you be happy that there were all these other mods to play that you have to make all these alternate characters for? People would complain that they would have to make too many PCs to play all the mods.

Obviously that's an example taken to the extreme other end. You could strike a balance in between there, but no matter what you do, there will be some group that isn't happy. If you did half 1-4 and half 4-7, there would be those who would complain that they had to take their character out of the region to get to 4th level to continue on with the second half of the year's mods for their chosen region. Etc.

I guess I also see the immersion in the story coming more from one's self rather than how the campaign administration has decided to structure the mod release.

Dragon9 wrote:

I guess I also see the immersion in the story coming more from one's self rather than how the campaign administration has decided to structure the mod release.

I think that the current system sets it up as an impediment to that however.

You want to be immersed into what's going on in Waterdeep for example.

So you play the first mod. Now you play a dozen other modules.

You play the second waterdeep mod and hope that you recall a dozen mods back to that first one.

Now you play another dozen or so modules before you get to play the third (which is not out yet).

Now I admit I'm the kind of person that tends to read one book at a time rather than several. But I would be surprised to hear that most people will elect to read a dozen books simultaneously.

But that's in essence what's going on here.

It's too many regions and not enough per region to focus upon one that you are interested in.

And even if you DO get the feel for all those dozen regions that your character A is 'invested' in, will everyone else? Will your DM have over a dozen regional feels down when he/she is judging you?

It's mismanagement of resources. There are a finitely mandated number of modules. But they are spread far, far too thin.

Perhaps its too much trouble to coordinate the modules into reasonable threads/series, but keeping them within a small number of settings would let the players get a feel for each setting.

Tell me what regions do you have a feel for based solely upon the modules out there? Compare that to the regional feel you had when playing say in LG.

-James

JamesMaissen wrote:

Perhaps its too much trouble to coordinate the modules into reasonable threads/series, but keeping them within a small number of settings would let the players get a feel for each setting.

Tell me what regions do you have a feel for based solely upon the modules out there? Compare that to the regional feel you had when playing say in LG.

1) There ARE only a small number fo settings. Only a dozen plus Core. They could have had many, many more regions in play.

2) Under LG, I still didn't have that good a feel for the main region I played in. And it was a region with a strong flavor, given everything. Main thing it did for me, though, was to force me to look at my character's Divine spell list and figure which spells I had access to cast that did not use a holy symbol as a focus... And relax my "inhibitions" when using the same character in Core modules.

JamesMaissen wrote:

So you play the first mod. Now you play a dozen other modules.

You play the second waterdeep mod and hope that you recall a dozen mods back to that first one.

I guess I'm just blessed with a good memory. :D

Now I admit I'm the kind of person that tends to read one book at a time rather than several. But I would be surprised to hear that most people will elect to read a dozen books simultaneously.

But that's in essence what's going on here.

So am I. I cant juggle more than one book at a time. I tend to look as the mods as serialized short stories though.

Tell me what regions do you have a feel for based solely upon the modules out there? Compare that to the regional feel you had when playing say in LG.

Well, there's a few things at play here. To address your first question, Currently I have to say "None of them." however, that is because I am trying to play all the 1-1 mods before moving on. So I have only played one mod out of each region. The quality of the mods has ran the gamut of quality as one would expect, but Iam not goign to judge the campaign in it's infancy when I have only taken a small taste of the regions.

as to your second question: I only ever played in one region: Veluna. Well, I did play a couple Yeomanry mods, but two mods is hard to get a feel for a region. Did I have a sense of the regional feel for Veluna? Yes I did... but then again I played there for 6 years, I wrote mods for the region, acted as a sort of assistant in regional development with the Triad, and I also managed several meta-orgs. So I was rather knee-deep in the region.

I have a hard time trying to compare the two since I was so heavily involved with my region in LG and in LFR I'm just playing. Top that off with trying to compare 6 years of LG experience with a few months of LFR, and I cannot make a fair comparison yet. I remember the early years of LG too when everyone was complaining. So all the complaining of LFR is hardly new to me. :D

Ahh, the good old "sod off, we have good numbers and we don't care about you... freak" argument. I was wondering how long after Dave Crist's post it would take someone else to repeat that "argument."

Dragon9 wrote:

You're leavign out the other possibility. What if the current model doesn't change and in 2-3 years the play numbers are at the same levels or higher? Is "regional buy-in" then going to be considered a necessary element?

As it is, there seem to be lots of people playing with no regard to "regional buy-in." This can certainly be chalked up to the campaign being new and shiny and the bloom hasn't come off the rose yet. As it stands, the higher ups in the RPGA look at the play numbers to determine how the campaign is doing rather than listening to a vocal minority.

That's not to say that they don't take such criticisms to heart... but if you have a player base in the thousands and you have a small handful of poeple complaining, and reported play numbers inidcate that people are playing a lot and new people are coming in, then why change it?

Well, in your moment of meldramatic martyrdom you are forgetting that play numbers mean a lot. And while I know that you wish to be as melodramtic as possible to highlight your plight, you seem to be ignoring the fact that if the indicators show that thousands and thouands of people are enjoying it as it is, why should they change it because you, one person, is dissatisfied? Or even a small handful of people are dissatisfied. If the disgruntled parties make up less than 1% of the entire population of players, how is that sound reason to change the direction of the campaign? If a large number of people are dissatisfied, then it becomes more viable to look into changing policy. This is why we have regional POCs. If they all start getting flooded with complaints, they'll look into changing things when they get together for their meetings.

Now, to be fair, I was hardly telling anyone to sod off, and even chalked things up to being new. I was merely poiting out something that many in their dissatisfaction may not have considered. You may like to think that, ultimately, you're more than just a piece of data in a chart on play statistics that are seen by the higher ups in marketing, but ultimately you're not. Nor is anyone else. If the play numbers stay high or even increase, then they know people are playing and enjoying the game. Things will only change if a signifigantly larger portion of the RPGA population starts complaining about soemthing rather than a small handful of people, or if they see their play numbers drop precipitously.

Elder_basilisk wrote:

Ahh, the good old "sod off, we have good numbers and we don't care about you... freak" argument. I was wondering how long after Dave Crist's post it would take someone else to repeat that "argument."

Yes, it's similar to the "sod off, I want this campaign to cater to my tastes and I don't care about everyone else" "argument".

I guess the old saying is true. You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't please all of the people all of the time.

kinevon wrote:

1) There ARE only a small number fo settings. Only a dozen plus Core. They could have had many, many more regions in play.

It's not a small number of settings when you consider the number of modules that are being released. It suddenly becomes a very large number. Heck it's almost as if there aren't regions just mandates that every module be set in a different place.

-James

My personal dissatisfaction is as I stated a lack of connection to the campaign.

When I play I feel like a leaf in a whirlpool. I'm just along for the ride. I have no stake in the situations I find myself in, and really have no empathy or concern for most of the NPCs.

I have to struggle to come up with reasons my characters should give a damn about the people and places they encounter, and that's even on the altruistic goody-two-shoes characters.

There's no sense of belonging, or ownership. Of being a part of a larger whole.

Solutions I can think of are:

- focus on storylines instead of doggedly making sure every region has X number of adventures. I recognise that WotC probably wants to show off as much of the new Realms as possible, but that can create a disconcerting and distracting amount of directions to keep track of. Tighten up and focus.

- introduce organizations that PCs can belong to. They needn't be the elaborate meta-orgs of years past, in fact they might be structured to need little or no administrative work. Just being able to claim membership in something will help players connect their PCs to the world. Player-run and created adventuring companies are nice, but it's not the same.

- include extra flavor or minor benefits for PCs playing in a region they have the background for. I know that DMs are supposed to do some of this, but all too often I'm seeing games run exactly as written with not even the slightest nod to PC backgrounds. Something actually included in the adventure might help.

When I played Living City, when stuff happened to Ravens Bluff, it was very personal. It was my home, dammit, not some far off place with people I've never met and probably will never see again. I knew all the major NPC by memory. Charles O'Kane. Myrkessa Jelan. Heck, King the Dog.

Playing as a Keoland resident in Living Greyhawk was much the same. Stuff that happened to Keoland mattered to me. And even when traveling to other regions, I could appreciate the deep care and involvement the locals had in their regions. Made for very deep connections for roleplay and character development.

Whereas playing Living Forgotten Realms so far has felt a bit like playing a board game. Sit down, flick the spinner to see what region I'm in today, and move around on the board. Game gets done, board gets packed away and the next game is a completely new experience with little or no connection to any previous games. Episodic, disconnected, and while indeed fun in it's own way, not particularly deep or involved.


-karma

Dragon9 wrote:

If they all start getting flooded with complaints, they'll look into changing things when they get together for their meetings.

If Dave Crist's post is any indication, it is more likely that they will take complaints as personal attacks and either get surly, get more set in their ways, or quit.

That said, the regional points of contact are not an appropriate place to direct complaints that go to the structure of the LFR campaign. No matter how tightly coordinated East Rift modules are, they will not present a coherent and compelling regional feel and regional plots in three or four mods a year, each of which has to have another seven or eight mods in between them if you are going to play them with one character.

Now, to be fair, I was hardly telling anyone to sod off, and even chalked things up to being new. I was merely poiting out something that many in their dissatisfaction may not have considered. You may like to think that, ultimately, you're more than just a piece of data in a chart on play statistics that are seen by the higher ups in marketing, but ultimately you're not. Nor is anyone else. If the play numbers stay high or even increase, then they know people are playing and enjoying the game. Things will only change if a signifigantly larger portion of the RPGA population starts complaining about soemthing rather than a small handful of people, or if they see their play numbers drop precipitously.

Unfortunately, what this seems to amount to is:
A. Stop complaining--you're just 1% or 1% and you are insignificant. Everyone has to complain before anyone ought to. I'm sure that you mean well, but the argument could as well be summarized as "shut up!"
B. If you want people to listen to your complaints, you have to quit--and get others to do so as well.

Now, it may well be the case that the only kind of feedback that will get anyone's attention is quitting. On the other hand, that is hardly a satisfactory solution for people who have enjoyed playing with friends in the RPGA and would like to have more fun doing it rather than lose the whole project altogether. I suspect that you will find that once someone quits, they will probably find something else to do and by that time it will be too late to fix the problems that drove them away. For my part, I would like for the campaign to improve and to fix the things that I don't like about the campaign so that I don't have to look for alternatives.

I'm certainly not telling you to "shut up." I am, however, tryign to point out the reality of the situation to you.

In LG things changed several times over the life of the campaign. However, they changed one of two ways: 1) The admins witnessed a host of unintended consequences (a la Magic Mart), or 2) there was a large segment of the LG population that were logging complaints about something.

The secodn reality of the situation is: they are unlikely to change somethign until they have a empirical evidence of a situation to base the change off of. Take for example the endless debates that happened before the campaign started over the Found Item rules. People were convinced that thsi was going to overpower the game despite there being no evidence that it would. So far, the magic item situation isn't out of hand, so there's no need to change anything about it so far (the access slots went away and that seemed to be because so many people were confused over it).

Now as for one's satisfaction with the campaign, that's more difficult to have hard evidence for except through play numbers or a large number of people logging complaints over it. A small number of vocal people wailing and gnashing their teeth are unlikely to effect change in the campaign.

As for Dave Christ beign surly... well, yeah... he's Dave. He was the head of my region in LG, so I have seen more than my fair share of his posts. He and many other admins are usually more than happy to listen to concerns about the campaign. A lot of it depends on the complainers attitude. If they make a calm rational statement about their concerns they are very cordial. Someone who throws a temper tantrum or the typical internet rant, then they get surly and tell people to STFU. When people come forth with statements that amount to: "You guys are teh sUxX0Rz! Improve the campaign now!" I don't blame them for being surly.

Dragon9 wrote:

Take for example the endless debates that happened before the campaign started over the Found Item rules. People were convinced that thsi was going to overpower the game despite there being no evidence that it would. So far, the magic item situation isn't out of hand, so there's no need to change anything about it so far

As one of the people that thought (and still think) that the found item rules are bad, I will say and said then that the evident problems with them will be seen at the Paragon tier of play, not before.

You can, however, see that the stove and burners are on before putting your hand on them. Your millage may vary.

-James

When I play I feel like a leaf in a whirlpool. I'm just along for the ride. I have no stake in the situations I find myself in, and really have no empathy or concern for most of the NPCs

Exactly. My character has travelled half way across the world to fight goblins. What did we kill all the local goblins, did we run out of monsters to kill in my home region?

I have to struggle to come up with reasons my characters should give a damn about the people and places they encounter, and that's even on the altruistic goody-two-shoes characters

Their are only so many times we can pull the "Right place, wrong time card." Then it ends up the 4E equivilant of starting your campaign in a tavern with the mysterious mage sitting in a dark corner who gives you a plot hook.

Add in Plot Hooks that hit the Player Characters directly. For instance make the adventure about a kidnapped associate or a friend of a friend rather then just having the players walk into a situation and say "well, i'm here & i have this sword. I suppose i could kill your monsters."

Its more dynamic. Its not a case of changing the rules, or the system its about changing the dynamic of the writing. It has to be about the heroes, not the NPC's.

-M

The LFR staff welcomes feedback. We listen to feedback. We don't always respond to feedback directly, because then we would be spending the hours that we need to be working on adventures instead debating every point in that honored Internet fashion.

Every time the Global Administrators meet with Chris Tulach (a couple times a month), we discuss a variety of topics. Chris is the interface between the LFR staff and WotC. Through our discussions, WotC is made aware of the issues that we feel are important, and that the players feel are important.

The LFR staff is aware that certain players want the campaign to be less episodic and more like LG was in the sense that you could pretty much play your PC's entire career in one or two regions, with all that doing so entails. We are aware that there are ways we can make that happen. However, because of the structure and style of the campaign envisioned and implemented by WotC, there is going to be a limit to this. This will not be LG. Go back and listen to the D&D Podcast where Chris Tulach talked about LFR. He stated right up front that LFR was going to be much more episodic than not.

So no one is telling anyone to shut up. (Well, maybe Dave is. I wouldn't want to get into a surliness contest with Dave.) However, we are trying to be up-front with people about what LFR--at least for now--is, so that they can make informed decisions about their participation in the campaign. Naturally we want people to play LFR and have fun. When we see complaints from a few people that make it sound like LFR is causing them severe pain and distress, but we know sometimes the things that are causing the pain are not likely to change in the near future, the natural reaction on our part is to say, "If what we are doing is hurting you, but we cannot change what we are doing, please stop allowing us to hurt you." This is not the same as telling someone to shut up or even to quit the campaign. It is trying to provide information and suggest reasonable alternatives.

Complaints about the desires of certain players have been registered and understood, and such feedback is appreciated. The repetition of those complaints by the same person do not, unfortunately, add to the worth of the argument. Instead, that repetition weakens the argument and makes future feedback and good discussion harder to find in this medium. The good feedback and suggested solutions on this and other threads are appreciated by the LFR staff. We will continue to do our best to advocate for the players--ALL the players--to make the campaign tenable while still meeting the goals and mandates for the campaign provided by WotC.

Thanks,

Shawn
LFR Global Admin

Plot hooks have always been a problem for Living Campaigns (any large shared-world campaign). Players desire as a general rule to have unique PCs, not cookie cutter made, and authors are challenged to find one or two plot hooks that work for everyone. The two most generic types are 1) you are an altruistic hero who like doing good deeds for total strangers, or 2) "show me the money," and you see appeals to those personality types in most LFR adventures. Being so fine tuned, as your friend or family member is in trouble, while quite feasible in a home campaign, becomes infeasible in a Living Campaign. We might assume that many PCs would become friends with the cute bartender in the tavern where you always start the adventure, but it is just an assumption and questionable I think.

Once you have 2-3 adventures in a region, then many of the story awards become potential plot hooks. Someone you helped before is back and needs more help. We are building a relationship. Again, there is a problem with that in a Living Campaign, that we cannot publish an adventure which requires each PC, or even any PC at the table, to have a specific story award in order to make sense. There have to be variant reasons or hooks for the total stranger to walk into the adventure. We want to be inclusive, not exclusive. (The exception to that is the Quest Adventure, and witness the complaints about the need for the card and task accomplishments which are exclusive plot hooks for why those PCs will go on the adventure.)

Keith

I would like to give a big "here here" to Shawn (our LFR Global Administrator) & Keith (not so secret "Lord of Waterdeep") who has the hard job of putting up with us lot.

It is good to hear that our problems with the current LFR (which is a work in progress) are being heard & to some degree acted on. Having reviewed a lot of what is being said the crux of the arguments all over the LFR boards seem to be

- Not enough connection to local events, adventures & commuities
- Poor (& in some case no) "Plot Hooks"
- No motivation for PC beyond being uber-altruistic or money hungry (which doesn't work satistical in Living)
- Less "Fetch" & "Kill-All." More variety in the adventures
- More variety in types of Adventures (by the way loved "weekend in the realms" for its interesting premise).
- More interesting Villains (not Stats, but background stuff like methodology and appearance).
- Maps not made up of Dungeon Tiles (personal irrational pet peeve, but not to worry, i'm basically over it)
- More chance for the players to play "Heroes" rather then "dogs bodies" like in some modules. (you know the one i'm talking about if you've read any of my previous posts.)

I think this pretty much covers it. Now the first part of fixing a problem is identifying the problem (or at least thats what my mother used to tell me).

Maybe if collectively we put out heads together to find solutions for these "problems," we may be able to come up with possible solutions. maybe something that could be incorprated into the modules or by DM's at their table on a case by case basis.

So who wants to go first. Feel free to tackle any of the problems on the list, but lets not state anymore huh?

-M
(Wow that ended up longer then i expected)

I would agree with moving away from the dungeon tile system. It seriously limits creativity by the module authors and there are no good tools for making maps with dungeon tiles. The only program currently available is very buggy and difficult to work with. I believe it's just as easy for a DM to mix and match dungeon tiles to closely match a module's map or simply draw it up on a battle map.

I will third this comment. There are a variety of situations that are difficult if not impossible to draw with dungeon tiles (and IME, the more tiles you have to pile on top of each other, the more fiddly and time consuming the actual use of dungeon tiles becomes). The requirement to use dungeon tiles was the straw that broke the camel's back when it came to me submitting modules to the campaign. Upgrade my MS Word to 2007? I don't want to but I could find a way to use a copy. (Major disincentive, but not necessarily a deal breaker). Use dungeon tile for all combats? Forget it. (I thought about writing and asking for permission to instead use the poster maps that came in the Fantastic Locations series and more recently on the backs of the D&D Minis posters, but they didn't match up to the stories I had in mind).

tomjscott wrote:

I would agree with moving away from the dungeon tile system. It seriously limits creativity by the module authors and there are no good tools for making maps with dungeon tiles. The only program currently available is very buggy and difficult to work with. I believe it's just as easy for a DM to mix and match dungeon tiles to closely match a module's map or simply draw it up on a battle map.

Keith53 wrote:

Once you have 2-3 adventures in a region, then many of the story awards become potential plot hooks.

Keith

But, by the time you've played 2-3 adventures in a region you are going to be Paragon level for that character.

Am I wrong in what I heard that regional mods aren't going to offer many paragon level mods (if any)?

Even if they do, you're not going to have as many as 4 mods a year in that region, as you are going to level out of *the* mod for the region in any given quarter.

Structured more in threads by story would be far more engaging. And by this I don't mean series, but just 'loose' sequels and related modules. As you were saying above, things that might tie in story awards, showcase familiar faces, and the like. Having 2-3 mods that you could play in a row for a given 'region' would allow a player to invest a character in that region.

It would go a long way,

James

Now I get that there is a licensing argument: that wizards wants to buy and own all the LFR adventures. But I mean, wouldn't all these problems go away if they just had volunteers write the adventures? I mean, commissioning one person to write one adventure every six months really isn't cutting it. Why not commission one person to edit 10 adventures every six months and just have volunteers do the writing, it was better that way!

I'm sure at least half the people on this forum would gladly write adventures for nothing more than the pleasure of having other gamers play them. big deal If I have to sign my adventure away when I send it to wizards, I'm cool with that.

I say that wizards should post an adventure template and let the crazed fans start writing! Maybe hand out a prize to the best adventure every year?

Regional adventures may be written at paragon tier and some direction has already been provided in that regards for the coming year. Not saying that eliminates the problem of keeping a specific PC tied to a specific region. I think most of the admins have said from the beginning, that will not be a viable strategy.

Regarding the limits caused by WotC paying for the LFR adventures, yes, if they changed their minds on this requirement, it would have an effect. But if they don't like that effect, then they are unlikely to be motivated to change their minds. Currently, they are very happy with LFR adventures and LFR play numbers.

They pay the authors for the adventures to obtain total IP ownership. They do this mainly because the Forgotten Realms has been an IP they care greatly about. It allows them to approve plots and adventures, to maintain creative control. The number of adventures they can purchase is limited by a) the budget and b) allocation of time of persons who do the reviews on R&D and on the Novels team.

Contrast this paradigm of LFR with that of LC. All authors were paid in those days but there was no R&D or story team review and approval (it stopped with the employee assigned to the RPGA with those duties). Instead, TSR gave the RPGA a very small "sandbox" in the Vast, Ravens Bluff, and we were told to stay in the sandbox. Now in LFR we can roam over wide areas of the Realms, but the condition is, we must have the review.

The lawyers will insist to obtain IP ownership of derivative or original works, they have to pay fair compensation, or else they will not be able to enforce the contract.

Keith

Elder_basilisk wrote:

Now, it may well be the case that the only kind of feedback that will get anyone's attention is quitting. On the other hand, that is hardly a satisfactory solution for people who have enjoyed playing with friends in the RPGA and would like to have more fun doing it rather than lose the whole project altogether. I suspect that you will find that once someone quits, they will probably find something else to do and by that time it will be too late to fix the problems that drove them away. For my part, I would like for the campaign to improve and to fix the things that I don't like about the campaign so that I don't have to look for alternatives.

Yeah, this pretty much sums up my wife and I. We are playing LFR right now because:
A) We don't have the time in our lives to devote to a true home game and neither do our friends
B) Our friends (or most of them) play LFR as their Home Game substitute
C) We really want to play Something

However, it looks like we might be jumping ship for another game and taking a fair number of our group with us. Or we're going along while the group is jumping ship. Not sure which it is. Needless to say we may be back. We may not. The main thing is we're looking for the immersive experience and not seeing it in LFR.

Of course, it doesn't help that we both played extensively in the Realms when we had time for home campaigns and loved the Realms. We only switched to Greyhawk when we found Living RPGA stuff to be the only way we could get game (and ended up loving LG). Course, I never understood the whole argument of the new Realms. You know, the "OMG! IT IS SO FOULED UP IT IS UNPLAYABLE BY ANYONE AND WE *MUST* HACK IT UP TO FIX IT! REALLY !!!!" argument. I played Realms for years (not quite decades) and found it very, very enjoyable. Now it is this place my friends and I meet to play these games because we don't have time to write our own campaign setting or adventures.

But hey, that's just me. And my wife. And some really close friends. And pretty much our gaming group. But you know, not a lot of people.

Keith53 wrote:

Regional adventures may be written at paragon tier and some direction has already been provided in that regards for the coming year. Not saying that eliminates the problem of keeping a specific PC tied to a specific region. I think most of the admins have said from the beginning, that will not be a viable strategy.

So what's the point of having over a dozen regions?

Wouldn't a roving number of regions better serve the playerbase?

Instead of having 1 module set in each of 12 regions, have 4 modules set in each of 3 regions. Then for the next quarter possibly cycle the regions, removing one while adding in another.

Personally I would introduce new regions when you introduce a new batch of 1-4 modules and progress from there. It would coincide with player desires to start one of the new classes that invariably will have just come out then.

It allows a proper showcase of the respective regions and allows players to get a character involved with a region. What's not to like?

As it is many of the story awards are going to either be meaningless or have to turn around nearly immediately, right? Either that or you're going to have a lot of weird tie-ins for 20th level characters for something they did or didn't do years previously. Seems downright silly.

But I'm glad to hear that I was wrong in hearing that there won't be paragon tier regionals.

Regardless as each region just gets a single module a quarter, and in general a character levels out of a level band each quarter you're not going to be able to play on average more than 2 modules in a given year for a region with a specific character.

That's a shame. Seems to defeat the entire purpose of HAVING regions. As it currently stands it seems that they are detracting from play rather than enhancing it.

-James

saint_matthew wrote:

- Maps not made up of Dungeon Tiles (personal irrational pet peeve, but not to worry, i'm basically over it)

The mods are done with dungeon tiles from WotC fiat. After all they want to push product through sales of the tile products. Also, they want to push DDI. The map maker in it will be using the tiles ets exclusively, and they can then be imported into the gametable. This will help push people into playing LFR in the DDI gametable.

Sneaky, huh? :D

Dragon9 wrote:

The mods are done with dungeon tiles from WotC fiat. After all they want to push product through sales of the tile products. Also, they want to push DDI. The map maker in it will be using the tiles ets exclusively, and they can then be imported into the gametable. This will help push people into playing LFR in the DDI gametable.

Sneaky, huh? :D

Yeah, I was completely aware of the reasoning behind the mandate, but that doesn't make it any more palatable.

At a DM, it is not awesome to draw the tavern tile that come at the first Dungeon Tiles. I am not a fan of drawing the map that got a lot of detail and where I cannot know what is these things and where I don't know if the PC will walk in all the place in the map.

I'm going to post a counter to one of the points here, just to provide an alternate perspective:

I think Dungeon Tiles in LFR mods are awesome. I started to require them for regional adventures while I was Triad in LG because they made designing maps easier (for me) and they made putting maps out faster for a GM who had the tiles. Just because the maps are designed with the tiles doesn't mean you have to use tiles - you can still draw the map out - and using the tiles allows a level of detail and complexity in terrain that would take up a lot of time if everyone was drawing the map.

The use of Dungeon Tiles was mandated not only for the reasons which Dragon9 listed, but also to make maps more professional in appearance. Since WotC views this like a product line which represents the Forgotten Realms, they want quality maps. If you can find a reasonable representation among the Dungeon Tiles (which is usually doable), the details and presentation are the next best thing to a professionally drawn custom map.

We do have permission in cases to make a custom map where it is simply not possible to represent the scene using Dungeon Tiles, but I expect that to be very rare.

Since we use a free dungeon tile mapper as an image source for making the digital maps, no cost is involved to the authors.

Keith

Keith53 wrote:

The use of Dungeon Tiles was mandated not only for the reasons which Dragon9 listed, but also to make maps more professional in appearance. Since WotC views this like a product line which represents the Forgotten Realms, they want quality maps. If you can find a reasonable representation among the Dungeon Tiles (which is usually doable), the details and presentation are the next best thing to a professionally drawn custom map.

I think one of the problems with the Dungeon Tiles for me is that unless you actually have the dungeon tiles, you're likely using the printout of the mod for reference. Which is often going to be a black and white printout of the mod.

And the problem there is that b&w printouts of the mod are extremely difficult to read, especially when there's lots of detail - green trees as an example print grey as does brown ground.

Keith53 wrote:

Since WotC views this like a product line which represents the Forgotten Realms, they want quality maps. If you can find a reasonable representation among the Dungeon Tiles (which is usually doable), the details and presentation are the next best thing to a professionally drawn custom map.

Well, the powers that be obviously did not see the DRAG1-3 maps before they went to publication. Those are some of the most brutal, unreadable, hacked-together maps that I have ever seen. For that matter, even the better modules have wildly variable map qualities.

The difficulties of making the dungeon tiling work before the WotC tool is finished are the cause for the variable quality of the maps, including the ones in DRAG1-3. I realized they were hard to read in black-and-white print, but I simply did not had the tools available to make it easier. All I can do is appologize, and advice people to look at the electronic document before printing out the adventure. WotC also promised that their tool is going to take black-and-white printing into account so that they actually can be read when printed without colors.

Having said that, if you do have a problem with maps, don't let them stiffle your own creativity. Draw/make your own that are bigger, include other details or make more sense to you and your players. Of all the things you can change in an adventure, this is one of the easier things that are very unlikely to actually change the story.

Madfox11 wrote:

Having said that, if you do have a problem with maps, don't let them stiffle your own creativity. Draw/make your own that are bigger, include other details or make more sense to you and your players. Of all the things you can change in an adventure, this is one of the easier things that are very unlikely to actually change the story.

Don't forget, though, if you do make your own version of the map, to keep in mind any "interesting" terrain in the original map, since, as Pieter pointed out in another thread, sometimes the monsters have powers that synergize with the terrain...

Then again, don't forget that the players can also use the terrain to their advantage. At the end of the first BHH module, in the fight outside the Halls with the two Dire Wolves, our party Rogue used his Positioning Strike power to one-shot one of the wolves by pushing it off the edge of the cliff.

At least, what the GM defined as the reason we had such limited fighting room was that we were on a narrow path between a higher side cliff on one side, and a sheer drop on the other... So the Rogue pushed the wolf off the drop side............
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Thud!

On the overall thread:

I think the mods are getting better. The first 1-2s I played were similar to the 1-1s. The 1-2s I have played of late have generally been an improvement. If I look at Eric Menge's AKAN1-2 vs AKAN1-1, I mean that's just a world of difference in terms of the amount of background, flavor, character, etc. No surprise, given the author. Similarly, AGLA1-2 has much better color and others in the 1-2 show improvements as well. Not perfection in all cases, but much better. It doesn't solve the whole issue (the few mods per region, etc.), but it is a step in the right direction.

Maps/Tiles

I think the Tiles are fine periodically. I get the product angle. However, I also see them getting pretty old and many are no longer available for purchase. They do limit what can be imagined and the immersion aspect. They are very hard to read in black & white when I print out mods. I'm glad to hear exceptions can be made. I understand WotC's angle here and I think this will change over time. For one, I can't believe the market for tiles will go one forever.

Teos

i'm level 7 1 char works fine for me LFR
drop in drop out participation
a little railroaded but im only free so many hours a week i feel things get done before the LFR i used to never complete quests missions or such...chars tened to end at level 7 unexploered
the railroad effect does have its downsides i can not be so characterfull i need to ask the right questions and do the right action to provake the adventure of the night

I like the idea of linking and combineing adventures! as we dont do conventions this is a fantastic resourse! so thank you very much!

Keith53 wrote:

Regional adventures may be written at paragon tier and some direction has already been provided in that regards for the coming year.

So does this mean my players can finally meet up with [s]Drizzt, er, Grimm Shado and rock out with him against the Pirate Assassins? Awesome!

EDIT: Let me assure you, this adventure would treat the Forgotten Realms IP with the reverence and respect it deserves.

Keith53 wrote:

Regional adventures may be written at paragon tier and some direction has already been provided in that regards for the coming year.

I'm not entirely sure how to interpret this statement. By "may", do you mean "Regional adventures may be written for the paragon tier; then again, they might not." or "WOTC has given their approval that regional adventures may now be written for the paragon tier."

The former strikes me as the more interesting formulation, in that it implies the possibility of having the regional "Faerunian world tour" model essentially serve primarily as the heroic tier feeder for the campaign, with campaign continuity and immersion kicking in once you hit paragon tier (with an occasional paragon tier regional module to finish off storylines).

Sadly, that's a lot to read into an ambiguity in a three-letter word.

Keith53 wrote:

The use of Dungeon Tiles was mandated not only for the reasons which Dragon9 listed, but also to make maps more professional in appearance.

While the maps may look more professional when viewed online, quite a few look like utter crap when printed out. I'm clearly not in tune with the NewRPGA mindset, but I'd consider a hand-drawn map in which I can clearly make out all of the terrain details to be far more professional than a gray blob.

-- Brian Gibbons.

The tiles are pretty and all, but they are horrid for a product that might get printed in all sorts of formats. If it's not designed to be photocopied 20 times and then faxed another 20, and STILL be legible, well, it might not be good for this purpose.

Then again, I'm a old school graphic designer. If it's not legible from 20 feet away, it's crap.

WotC should really offer a black & white simple lineart map generator. I'd snap that up in a second.


-karma

Brian,

I think what it means is that, for the 2Q09 module releases, the Regional groups have the option of releasing a module for any one of the following level bands:
1-4
4-7
7-10
11-14

As usual, now, they can only release a single module for the quarter, but the module released, at least for 2Q09, no longer needs to be in lock-step across all the regions for levels covered.

And, as the future gets unveiled, the level bands available for publishing will gradually widen, until, eventually, it offers all three tiers, and all 3 level bands per tier.

One module, 9 possible level bands... The choices, the CHOICES!!!!111!

So, from the past to the future:
3Q08 = 1-4
4Q08 = 4-7
1Q09 = 7-10
2Q09 = 1-4, 4-7, 7-10, or 11-14
3Q09 = 11-14 (GenCon premiere of Paragon tier LFR)
4Q09 = 14-17
1Q10 = 17-20
2Q10 = 1-4, 4-7, 7-10, 11-14, 14-17, 17-20 (maybe 21-24?)
3Q10 = 21-24 (GenCon premiere of Epic tier LFR)
4Q10 = 24-27
1Q11 = 24-30
2Q11 and onward = 1-4, 4-7, 7-10, 11-14, 14-17, 17-20, 21-24, 24-27, 27-30

NB: Release schedule of the future pure speculation on a non-LFR admin type's part

bgibbons wrote:

I'm not entirely sure how to interpret this statement. By "may", do you mean "Regional adventures may be written for the paragon tier; then again, they might not." or "WOTC has given their approval that regional adventures may now be written for the paragon tier."

Some regional adventures will be paragon tier, some will not.
Right now, we cannot yet say which or how many adventures each year.

Gomez

kinevon wrote:

3Q09 = 11-14 (GenCon premiere of Paragon tier LFR)3Q10 = 21-24 (GenCon premiere of Epic tier LFR)

NB: Release schedule of the future pure speculation on a non-LFR admin type's part

I think your speculation on the Gencon releases is incorrect. It has been mentioned that GenCon is considered an acquisition con, so I would doubt they wouldn't have a strong low level showign there to try to get new players. Those two scenarios you posted would be more likely for DDXP.

bgibbons wrote:

I'm not entirely sure how to interpret this statement. By "may", do you mean "Regional adventures may be written for the paragon tier; then again, they might not." or "WOTC has given their approval that regional adventures may now be written for the paragon tier."

With the English language, the context is often important. I meant "may" as in we were approved to do so (in response to a previous question whether that would be allowed), much like, "yes, you may watch TV tonight," as versus "can," to imply we are physically and mentally capable of writing a paragon tier regional adventure, but we have not received permission to do so. If I wanted to convey that no decision was made, or we are uncertain, then I would have specifically stated that.

As the Admins are not authorized to reveal more definitive information on the levels and specific adventures, you will have to wait. Some of the speculation extends beyond what we know and possibly what has been decided at this point, meaning I don't know.

However, we are trying to ensure full disclosure on Major Quests so that players will know when the finale becomes available and at what levels it will be written. Otherwise choice of character and advancement strategy might be awkward.

While I expect some "high" level adventures at Gencon, since it is defined as a player acquisition con, I expect a reasonable number low heroic tier adventures. Not a promise on numbers.

Keith

Dragon9 wrote:

I think your speculation on the Gencon releases is incorrect. It has been mentioned that GenCon is considered an acquisition con, so I would doubt they wouldn't have a strong low level showign there to try to get new players. Those two scenarios you posted would be more likely for DDXP.

I expect GenCon to feature both low-level AND paragon tieir play.

Remember, just because all mods for all regions are in the same level bands right now doesn't mean that's the plan going forward. Starting with the next round of mods it's my understanding that different regions will be writing mods of varying bands across the entire Heroic Tier.

There's no reason to assume this trend won't continue for the "Year 2" mods (XXXX2-1). Or, even if all the individual regions do paragon tier, it would be easy enough to simply run some select mods from the existing year one library for low-level fun.

I don't envy Dave and Chris the headache of figuring out what the ratio of Heroic and Paragon tier mods should be for GenCon.