Wizards and Adventures

One of the things that caught my attention about the Design Contest from Wizards is that it is to design an adventure. Oh, and it had the fateful words, "Wizards of the Coast, Inc. is searching for talented freelance writers to help design roleplaying game (RPG) supplements and adventures.". (emphasis mine).

So, do you think we'll be seeing a lot more adventures from Wizards? Will they be releasing them at the rate of one a month?

For comparison, they've got 6 adventures in the current 8 months (last third of 2005, first third of 2006). Three Fantastic Locations; Sons of Gruumsh; Voyage of the Golden Dragon; and The Red Hand of Doom.

Sure, the Fantastic Locations are really more three or four set pieces than a full-blown adventure, but they will engage your players for a session.

We've heard that Wizards were moving back into adventures. The lag time has meant that it's only now we're seeing the effect, but they are already producing more adventures than I expected. When you add that to the output of Dungeon magazine (and I'm well aware that I'm ignoring a number of d20 System and OGL publishers here), there seems to be quite a lot of options.

I'm happy!

Of course, Wizards have to get past the belief that "adventures don't sell". It's one that they've helped sow, and has caused problems for them. Did you know that "Heroes of Battle" was originally called "Battlefield Adventures" but had to be renamed because the distributors weren't interested in adventures? That's what they have to deal with now.

Fantastic Locations are an oddity - they're really a map product, but the Fane of the Drow adventure, though hardly deep and engaging, is simple enough to give me happy memories of some of the 1e adventures. I think that line can be improved upon, to give more adventure than just those of the set pieces, but I'm eagerly awaiting Hellspike Prison.

Returning to what prompted this muse, we have what I must assume are several people submitting adventures to Wizards. Does that mean that all the good ones will be published? Will there be an adventure anthology? Will they be passed off to Dungeon magazine?

More fun in store!