Value of pre-written adventure modules

[BowelEvacuation 5]

For those who have purchased any of the pre written modules I'd love to hear what your thoughts are. I'm trying to decide but what's holding me back is the cost for what seem to be small 30 page or so adventures. By comparison to D&D 250 page modules for only $10 more the L5R pruducts seems a bit overpriced. 

 

Yes there are some tokens but I'm not even sure how they add any value to the game.

 

I'd appreciate any thoughts.

[Alisair Longreach 221]

The tokens can used for tactical positioning and for visuals of characters in the adventure. The adventures also include a double-sided map which may be useful.

[Avatar111 553]

10 hours ago, BowelEvacuation said:

For those who have purchased any of the pre written modules I'd love to hear what your thoughts are. I'm trying to decide but what's holding me back is the cost for what seem to be small 30 page or so adventures. By comparison to D&D 250 page modules for only $10 more the L5R pruducts seems a bit overpriced. 

 

Yes there are some tokens but I'm not even sure how they add any value to the game.

 

I'd appreciate any thoughts.

I don't think it is totally fair to compare d&d to l5r...

D&D are experienced designers focused on a single product, in a long term running franchise, with much more sales.

Edited July 7, 2019 by Avatar111

[Hida Jitenno 586]

I'm adapting both modules to the game I'm running, or a game I've planned for the future. I like both of them. Takes some work off me as the GM, but also they're easily changed to fit in whatever storyline you're telling in your Rokugan.

[Avatar111 553]

7 minutes ago, Hida Jitenno said:

I'm adapting both modules to the game I'm running, or a game I've planned for the future. I like both of them. Takes some work off me as the GM, but also they're easily changed to fit in whatever storyline you're telling in your Rokugan.

Same, I take some cues and put in lots of work to readjust, expend and even modify to fit my campaigns. I do not play the modules "as is". And wouldn't really advise to do so, aside maybe for the beginner's box one.

[neilcell 252]

Depends on what you are looking for.  If you are into a straight up hack and slash, then Oni's Mask is worth the cost, but Winter's Embrace is not.  If you are into the intrigue and character interactions where you are NOT trying to kill your opponent but rather outdebate him or her in a dice-off, then Winter's Embrace and Dark die in the Dungeon Master's Screen is worth the cost while Oni's Mask is less so. 

Using my own experience, for the character intrigues, I find the adventure modules less valuable because when I adjudicate social interactions, I don't need full character stats as I tend to assume most characters are effectively on equal footing unless a player character is particularly focused on social skill (ie charisma checks), in which case I will on the fly decide if the player is dealing with a shrewd merchant or noble lord (for a more challenging interaction and hence higher success thresholds), or is simply dealing with either a dullard or a simpering lickspittle courtier for an easier challenge.

Read player reviews and feedback on the adventures to get an idea of what is in the module before you buy.  And of course, download the free online adventures.  I have found that Knotted Tails not only fits seamlessly into Oni's Mask but it also can stand alone as an adventure.  It carries similar themes without spoiling the adventure in which is nominally supplements.  The Scroll or the Blade also not only can seamlessly fit into Winter's Embrace and carries similar themes, but it can also stand alone as well, a credit to the writer.

Getting back to my main point, it is really a matter of what you are looking for.  I recommend that you download and possibly print out the free adventures "Wedding at Kyotei", "Knotted Tails", "In the Palace of the Emerald Champion", and "The Scroll or the Blade" and decide for yourself.  If you like those, then consider getting the associated adventure.

[BowelEvacuation 5]

11 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

I don't think it is totally fair to compare d&d to l5r...

D&D are experienced designers focused on a single product, in a long term running franchise, with much more sales.

I'm just observing the cost of the L5R modules and wondering if it's overpriced for what you get. Content wise its 30 pages vs 250ish but priced perportionaly quite highly. 

[Avatar111 553]

18 minutes ago, BowelEvacuation said:

I'm just observing the cost of the L5R modules and wondering if it's overpriced for what you get. Content wise its 30 pages vs 250ish but priced perportionaly quite highly. 

Compare it to video games.

Assassin's Creed 60$ vs Darkest Dungeon 30$. Obviously the 30$ you shelled out for darkest dungeon doesn't provide as much content as a triple A blockbuster in proportion for the asking price.

Just my thought about it.

 

[BowelEvacuation 5]

Just now, Avatar111 said:

Compare it to video games.

Assassin's Creed 60$ vs Darkest Dungeon 30$. Obviously the 30$ you shelled out for darkest dungeon doesn't provide as much content as a triple A blockbuster in proportion for the asking price.

Just my thought about it.

 

Fair point. I hope that larger self contained campaign modules are somewhere on the horizon.

[neilcell 252]

I will addendum to my earlier post and say that I have purchased all of the L5R RPG products from Fantasy Flight.  I am reasonably satisfied with all of them though I am disappointed when they recommended using generic character stats from the core rule book when I would have preferred that they created custom stats for the characters.  Not an issue for Oni's Mask, but I was disappointed that they did that with Kakita Toshimoko in Winter's Embrace.  His stats were not needed in Topaz Champion, but having players possibly face him in Winter's Embrace and leaving out his stats was a foul in my view.  Palace of the Emerald Champion mostly reprinted the stats from the beginner game for many of the NPCs so I was comfortable with that.  Disappointed with Dark Tide also referring back to the core rulebook NPC section.

Sorry if this confuses you more.  Here is how I would rank them in value base on my criteria from best to worst.  I have left out the downloadable for free modules.  If you or others disagree with how I rank them, I will not be insulted; we each have our own preferences.
Topaz Championship(Beginner Game), Oni's Mask, Winter's Embrace, Dark Tide (Game Master's Screen)

[Kaiju 129]

Funny enough, my adapted version of Dark Tide was really good.

[Avatar111 553]

12 minutes ago, Kaiju said:

Funny enough, my adapted version of Dark Tide was really good.

Adapted is the keyword here.

L5R modules are a far stretch from a d&d tomb of annihilation...

It really depend if the original poster takes it at "out of the box value" or "possible value if heavily adapted" or "I just see them as an extension of the sourcebooks with goodies". 

A good GM which heavily adapts even the worst module ever created will be able to make it good.

[Kaiju 129]

Yes and no. The Slow Tide Harbor adventure has a LOT of material in it that you can just run as written. I think its actually quite good out of the book IF, and thats the big IF, you want to play samurai in a mos eisley-like setting, with crime, gangsters, drugs and so on. It sets up the choices nicely, and does a better job than most adventures I have read to try and sketch out a complicated network of relations between a large cast of characters.

Tomb of Annihilation does this much worse. MUCH worse. Why? because its not that kind of adventure.

For classic high-fantasy samurai romance, Dark Tide is simply the wrong kind of adventure. But in comparison to, for example, Mask of the Oni, it does what it sets out to do pretty well.

For what its worth, DnD adventures are generally very low quality (Red Hand of Doom being MAYBE an exception) that rely on flashy combat scenes and a couple of overtuned boss fights for effect. They are as railroady and dungeon-crawly as they come, which is why I stopped running them. City of the Spider Queen had a lot of potential though - sadly, it was utterly wasted in the second half of the adventure.

For good pre-made adventures by FFG, I find Chronicles of the Gatekeeper for their Star Wars line to be good. Lure of the Expanse from the abandoned Rogue Trader was also really good.

[Scrivener Spills 122]

the adventures seem smaller , but they are much more information dense.  less flavor text, less long scripts, and more, here are some things that COULD happen, here are some stats, go with it.  So if you want the tools to run an adventure, its just as much, if not more, than the d and d modules.  If you want a full script that guides you each step, then yeah, teh d and d modules have more of what you want. 

[neilcell 252]

4 hours ago, Kaiju said:

For what its worth, DnD adventures are generally very low quality (Red Hand of Doom being MAYBE an exception) that rely on flashy combat scenes and a couple of overtuned boss fights for effect. They are as railroady and dungeon-crawly as they come, which is why I stopped running them. City of the Spider Queen had a lot of potential though - sadly, it was utterly wasted in the second half of the adventure.

I loved City of the Spider Queen and I agree with you that more could have been done with the ruined city of Maerimydra.  Particularly with Hamadh the Unseen's ragtag group "The Hidden".  Even after the downfall of Irae T'Sarran, there was potential to rebuild the city with their help into something other than a typical Lloth dominated Drow city.  That was a lost opportunity.

Edited July 8, 2019 by neilcell

[phillos 1,516]

Agreed L5R adventures are very information dense and they add alot to the setting since they all do a deep dive into whatever subject matter they are exploring.  That information usually isn't available anywhere else.  Even if you never run the actual adventure you get a ton of adventure hooks out of the material.  Also to a certain extent these adventures are pushing forward the meta narrative so if you think you'll never play in these adventure then they do make for a good read if you are just excited about the lore.

I'd download some of the free adventures on the website and judge for yourself.  They are smaller than the printed products, but they are a reasonable sample of what to expect from the bigger adventures.

Yeah they are expensive but FFG stuff is usually expensive compared to Wizard or another big publisher mostly because the print runs are much smaller.  The audience is more niche and FFG keeps the production value high usually with lots of art all over these books.  All the printed materials so far have been ridiculously beautiful.  They certainly have no shortage of good L5R art.

On 7/8/2019 at 10:10 AM, Kaiju said:

For good pre-made adventures by FFG, I find Chronicles of the Gatekeeper for their Star Wars line to be good. Lure of the Expanse from the abandoned Rogue Trader was also really good.

Rogue Trader was my favorite of the FFG RPGs.  It was certainly the best of the 40K roleplaying family of products IMO.  It had some really fun adventures published.  Too bad all of that is OOP now.

Edited July 10, 2019 by phillos