At present I have two D&D groups. One is halfway through Savage Tide, the other is moving towards the conclusion of my homebrewed County of Ulek campaign. Most of us are very interested in 4th edition.
One “advantage” that I have is that the groups meet every fortnight. Why is this an advantage? Well, if I use published adventures, it gives them a chance to be released before we finish the last one in the series.
At present, I’m becoming very fond of published adventures. This is mainly because I’m feeling somewhat “burned out” for plot ideas. This isn’t a new feeling for me; unfortunately I’m not a font of new ideas and most of my good games generally come from adapting other ideas to my uses. I also tend to be more of an overview person when it comes to game plots: I can come up with the goals and long-term story, but the actual details elude me or are disappointing.
So, when the Ulek game ends in another few months, I’m going to dive into the first of the Wizards adventures: Keep on the Shadowfell. There seem to be a series of D&D 4e adventures coming out relatively close together, so given the advantage my group has, we shouldn’t have to wait long stretches before the next adventure is out. As I recall (checking with the EN World info page and Amazon.com), the schedule is:
May 2008: H1: Keep on the Shadowfell (1-3)
June 2008: H2: Thunderspire Labyrinth (4-6)
August 2008: H3: Pyramid of Shadows
October 2008: P1: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens (11+)
So, if each adventure can keep us busy for about 4 sessions, everything should be fine.
Exactly what will happen with the Savage Tide group, I’m not quite sure. We began the campaign in April 2007, so I expect it will conclude about December 2008 (or thereabouts). It’s taken us 19 sessions to reach the end of part 6 of the adventure, or half-way. Another 10 months would take us up to December or early 2009.
At that point, I’d really like to play a Pathfinder AP. Of course, this assumes that Paizo has begun producing their first 4e AP at that stage. (I think it’s likely). I haven’t bought any of the current Pathfinder adventures for a variety of reasons – most of which boil down to not having a credit card and being enticed by a lot of boardgames whenever I’m in Melbourne. (To be fair, given the approach of 4e, I have enough 3.5e adventure material to take me through the last days of 3.5e and then there should be quite a bit of 4e material as well).
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Dungeon AP as well once 4e comes along. Honestly, which one I use will depend on how it connects with my sensibilities. I’m utterly sick of undead and cthulhu/horror style APs, which underpins both Age of Worms and Savage Tide. I’ve enjoyed the Paizo APs, but I need a change.
Why APs instead of individual adventures? Mostly because they give a structure that I find very useful with my gaming groups.
It is nice to let someone else do the heavy lifting. Among the advantages I found by using the Dungeon APs: it was a different style, by a different creator, so it might include something I normally wouldn’t; at least in the past, my group tended to jump around between games and DMs. Sometimes by the time we got back to a certain game, I’d have forgotten where I planned for it to go and it died. With the APs, it was pretty easy to pick things up.
Disadvantages… well, I’ve posted a bit on those already.
I already have a pre-order for Keep on the Shadowfell. I’ve made plans to set up an alternate gaming night- most likely a bi-weekly game that alternates to our boardgame night. On that night, I’ll run the WotC adventures, while on the regular nights, I’ll run my own stuff. I passed on most of the 3E adventures (in part because I was still off at college for 9 months of the year), but I’m intrigued by these. Partly, I feel pretty confident in the guys working on them, and partly because I want the connection with other gamers- just as the great AD&D modules were played by and created a connection between gamers (think of how many people have a Temple of Elemental Evil story, or have played Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh), I think these new adventures will serve a similar role to create a shared experience.
As for Pathfinder, you might have a wait. Second AP was always going to be 3.5, and I think they passed their deadline for the third AP, so that’s going to be 3.5 as well because they’ve locked themselves into these six month blocks.