Lesenswert: Rodney Thompson über die neueste 4E "Encounters"-Serie, und was man an den Designzielen der Module ändern wollte:
More than Just Combat
One of the main pieces of feedback we’ve collected from the first two seasons of D&D Encounters was that players wanted something more like a traditional D&D adventure, with more exploration and roleplaying. As such, I’d planned on trying to make March of the Phantom Brigade one that engaged all kinds of players from the get-go: the explorers, the roleplayers, the combat junkies, and (like me) the ones who like a little bit of everything in their adventures. So putting more exploration and roleplaying into the adventure was an easy piece of feedback for me to respond to.
The first chapter is specifically designed to give players a feeling similar to the classic Oregon Trail computer game; the heroes face attacks by hostile creatures, disease, and encounters with bandits as they travel from Hammerfast to the ruins of Castle Inverness. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a way to include characters dying of dysentery in the adventure, but I did manage to include a sequence where wagons must ford a stream.
Throughout the adventure, I tried to include lots of places for exploration, places where the heroes can poke around and gain a little more information about what’s going on in the adventure. Similarly, I made sure that all of the NPCs not only got some spotlight time with the heroes, but also included extensive character notes, so that DMs who see that their players are interested in roleplaying have something more to go off of when improvising. These and other tweaks to the adventure put a lot of tools in the DM’s hands to react to any interest that the players show in these subjects—which should help each session feel a little bit more like a classic home campaign.
Jetzt mal ehrlich: wäre es ein Fehler gewesen, wenn die 4E-Abenteuerautoren das schon vor 3 Jahren registriert hätten?
Ich sage ja immer: hätte man statt "Kobold Hall" das nur 20 Seiten längere "Slaying Stones" (2010) im DMG 1 als Abenteuer abgedruckt (Platz wäre ja gewesen), um zu veranschaulichen, wie ein 4E Abenteuer in der Umsetzung aussehen kann, hätte es sehr viel weniger "edition wars" und Unmut gegeben.
Es hat offensichtlich ein Umdenken bei WotC statt gefunden. A little too late, befürchte ich. Allein dass Thompson im Zitat die Formulierung "more of a
traditional D&D adventure" benutzt , spricht da Bände. Man hat die Traditionen völlig widersinnig über Bord geworfen, und das hat sich einfach gerächt. Ich würde mir ja wünschen, WotC würde Paizo da ein bisschen stärker Konkurrenz machen.
