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5 years ago ::
Jul 17, 2008 - 7:21AM
#11
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Dang it I just got my post eaten.
Long story short: 4e is new and will hopefully have some great adventures published for it on par with Red Hand of Doom. OD&D and 1e were almost exclusively plotless dungeon crawls for a long time.
I dislike 4e for many, many reasons, but I'll give them that much of a chance (although I don't know why; they've failed on delivering my expectations almost every time since Gleemax was announced).
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5 years ago ::
Jul 17, 2008 - 7:45AM
#12
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sigh... yes of course, because we did not fall instantly in love with 4E my group is obviously a bunch of dull players with a lousy GM. All Praise 4E, yada yada yada.
We just aren't big fans of the beat up the monsters and take their stuff style of game. The encounters were entertaining little board games but the premade characters and the adventure itself were dull and boring. Dungeon Crawls are quite frankly the style of adventure we find least fun. KotS was a Dungeon Crawl, it got dull really fast so we stopped playing it and moved on to more interesting games.
Like I said KotS is not the kind of adventure that is made with long time players in mind. It is meant for new players. My group has been playing since 1st edition we got sick of dungeon crawls a long long time ago.
That is why I am taking the time to write an adventure that is more the style my group plays to give the system a better chance of being interesting to my group. Eventually we will try playing 4E again.
But I am not going to go up to them and say "Hey guys lets stop playing the M&M game that we have been enjoying for the last few weeks to give that game we didn't enjoy a 2nd chance".
When one of our other games wraps up we'll give it another go, but not before that.
So my question is, if you like a better story, and you like intrigue, and you dont like dungeon crawls, why play through Kots to begin with when it tells you that its a dungeon crawl? You didnt enjoy the pace and fluff of the adventure, that has nothing to do with the 4th edition mechanics. If you usually play homebrew, then you are right to say that homebrew is the best way for you to go if you want to properly evaluate whether 4th edition is right for you. To you Kots sucked, to me it doesnt. I hope your next go at 4th edition is more enjoyable. 
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5 years ago ::
Jul 17, 2008 - 8:38AM
#13
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Date Joined:
Aug 24, 2007
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So my question is, if you like a better story, and you like intrigue, and you dont like dungeon crawls, why play through Kots to begin with when it tells you that its a dungeon crawl? You didnt enjoy the pace and fluff of the adventure, that has nothing to do with the 4th edition mechanics. If you usually play homebrew, then you are right to say that homebrew is the best way for you to go if you want to properly evaluate whether 4th edition is right for you. To you Kots sucked, to me it doesnt. I hope your next go at 4th edition is more enjoyable.
would you pay $100+ just to try out a system?
KotS was used by us to see what the system was like. Most of the people playing agreed the system was ok but the adventure was so dull it turned us off the system. We'll give it another shot just not anytime soon is all.
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5 years ago ::
Jul 17, 2008 - 9:08AM
#14
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would you pay $100+ just to try out a system?
KotS was used by us to see what the system was like. Most of the people playing agreed the system was ok but the adventure was so dull it turned us off the system. We'll give it another shot just not anytime soon is all.
We didnt pay $100 (by the way hopefully if you you choose to jump into 4th edition amazon will still have the set at $66) to try the system, we played parts of Kots. For my group i told them from the get go, this is a dungeon crawl through and through especially when it says it in the first few pages. I also told them not to expect an epic story because thats not what Kots was about, it was about putting the mechanics to the test. None of my players had a problem with that, they all agree that the mechanics are far cleaner and allow us to play however we want without all the clutter which was great, they also understood that the story wasnt meant to be anything out of the ordinary or even good for that matter.
Granted I did spice it up by placing it in Eberron with the Dungeon Article. Either way a dull story doesnt equal game mechanics, if your group thought the story was dull then maybe spicing it up a bit would have helped as many of us did. Kots' story wasnt great or even good for that matter, but that wasnt the point of the adventure, it tells you that from the get go. If your players evaluate a game mechanics based on the story (even though they are unrelated) then i'm sure when you run that homebrew they will enjoy it. Otherwise you are totally right, why play something you dont enjoy.
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5 years ago ::
Jul 17, 2008 - 9:16AM
#15
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Date Joined:
Oct 12, 2005
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Wow, my group is having the exact opposite response. We have all been playing more 10 or more years with two of us gaming for more than 20 each. We are having so much fun. As DM, I throw a lot of extras into the adventure so it keeps their interest. As players they like to be inventive. Some things that I do:
1) Keep running total of the party treasure which they receive at the start of the next session (this is to compare what they have written down).
2) Keep track of the "quests" they are on and who to report back to when the quest is done along with the potential rewards.
3) Each NPC has his or her own mini bio with a picture. I give a list of the information they have learned from each person and the general demeanor.
4) I give the party a list of things they have learned about the various monsters they have encountered.
The players have done things like:
1) Scout ahead and set an ambush for the enemy using the gear they have acquired.
2) Work as a team to set each other up for successful combat. They pay close attention to who is marked and attempt to maximize that potential.
3) They customized their characters when they leveled up. They dropped feats or powers they didn't like and picked up new ones. They didn't follow the sample character progression unless they liked it.
We are having a blast getting used to the new rules. We decided from the beginning that we would focus more on mechanics right now since roleplaying is something we can do at any time.
Of course, if you are having fun playing another game, then you should be playing that game. Mutants and Masterminds is a ton of fun and I wish I could find a group with someone who wants to run it. I am so itching to build me a superhero.
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5 years ago ::
Jul 17, 2008 - 9:23AM
#16
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They don't mention anything about it being a dungeon crawl until after you buy it and open it up. But like i said i am a fan of 4th edition. I do expect there to be better adventures in the future. Are there any reviews on thunderspire yet?
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5 years ago ::
Jul 17, 2008 - 11:13AM
#17
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Date Joined:
Dec 15, 2003
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I wouldn't say it sucked, but it could have used a little help. Many of the encounters were too similar and I think that is what resulted in some boredom. For example, two Kobold encounters on the same map back-to-back to start the game.
But there are also some neat encounters like the terror runes and the endless supply of skeletons in the sarcophagi. Since then, I've also spiced things up with ideas from page 42 of the DMG by having people flip tables for cover, throw torches, and other mayhem. I've also tried to bring in elements of terrain to make it more interesting.
The one good thing about keeping it straight forward is it makes the rules easier to learn and practice. Now that my group has them down and I'm more comfortable DMing, it is time spice things up.
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5 years ago ::
Jul 17, 2008 - 11:17AM
#18
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sigh... yes of course, because we did not fall instantly in love with 4E my group is obviously a bunch of dull players with a lousy GM. All Praise 4E, yada yada yada.
We just aren't big fans of the beat up the monsters and take their stuff style of game. The encounters were entertaining little board games but the premade characters and the adventure itself were dull and boring. Dungeon Crawls are quite frankly the style of adventure we find least fun. KotS was a Dungeon Crawl, it got dull really fast so we stopped playing it and moved on to more interesting games.
Like I said KotS is not the kind of adventure that is made with long time players in mind. It is meant for new players. My group has been playing since 1st edition we got sick of dungeon crawls a long long time ago.
That is why I am taking the time to write an adventure that is more the style my group plays to give the system a better chance of being interesting to my group. Eventually we will try playing 4E again.
But I am not going to go up to them and say "Hey guys lets stop playing the M&M game that we have been enjoying for the last few weeks to give that game we didn't enjoy a 2nd chance".
When one of our other games wraps up we'll give it another go, but not before that.
For KotS we actually worked on the characters from the premade adventure, like the fighter was a dwarf, he was a human fighter, and was from Winterhaven. He was a former bodyguard, who's charge was killed by Irontooth (thats the goblins name right?). It made going out to find Irontooth much more engaging for the party, and I did similiar things with each member of the party so that they'd actually enjoy playing it.
Don't patronize me because you've played since 1st edition; or that your group as been. Its not like I've not played for a long time too. I wasn't like 4e ZOMG must buy. Most of the campaigns I DM'd were wilderness adventures, because Dungeon Crawl are actually counter intuitive to me (with a few exceptions). I spent a week with KotS, setting up all sorts of things within to make it more interesting for the players I knew would be in it.
Yes, it is pretty combat heavy, but there was plenty of opportunity to spice up Winterhaven too.
KotS run stock, like any adventure I've run, would be pretty bad, they're usually not engaging enough, so its not surprising that it seemed boring.
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5 years ago ::
Jul 17, 2008 - 1:06PM
#19
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Date Joined:
Aug 24, 2007
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Right. On it's own KotS is not a great mission.
That is pretty much what we are talking about in this thread.
Spicing it up, changing the premade characters, etc... would kind of require having the Core 4E books, which my group did not have. We ran KotS with nothing but KotS and a bit of spice from the Forgotten Realms version on line.
KotS exists to introduce people to the most basic version of the game. That is why I said it was a bad choice to introduce my group to the game. Even you have said you had to make changes to the Premade characters to get people more invested in them.
For people new to the game I think it will be fine. It just wasn't for my group and it kind of soured us on 4e for the short term. I still think the system is good enough that if we try it again with a homebrew mission it'll go over better plus Today a couple of guys heard Earthdawn is being remade as a 4E setting so their interest has been peaked again
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5 years ago ::
Jul 17, 2008 - 2:24PM
#20
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Date Joined:
Apr 17, 2008
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Right. On it's own KotS is not a great mission.
That is pretty much what we are talking about in this thread.
Spicing it up, changing the premade characters, etc... would kind of require having the Core 4E books, which my group did not have. We ran KotS with nothing but KotS and a bit of spice from the Forgotten Realms version on line.
KotS exists to introduce people to the most basic version of the game. That is why I said it was a bad choice to introduce my group to the game. Even you have said you had to make changes to the Premade characters to get people more invested in them.
For people new to the game I think it will be fine. It just wasn't for my group and it kind of soured us on 4e for the short term. I still think the system is good enough that if we try it again with a homebrew mission it'll go over better plus Today a couple of guys heard Earthdawn is being remade as a 4E setting so their interest has been peaked again
Having 1 been there in the KOTS lolwatzors ran we did not actually have the Player's handbook. We played it before release. It wasn't like the info for the races wasn't already floating around out there by the time we got to playing KOTS.
It's meant to get people familiar with the rules, as well as give a taste of how the system plays out. On that note I think KoTs was designed pretty well.
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