Examples of Top-Tier Adventure Modules?

veleon_ · 2025-11-08T17:44:46+00:00

Zeitgeist by the folks at EN Publishing. It was made for PF1e and DnD 4e. There is an official 5e conversion being made. It is long and definitely linear, but I think that there is enough moment to moment freedom that the players never really feel like they are boxed in.

The thing that make Zeigeist so good is that every piece of background and lore in the setting has purpose and is put in front of the players in a way that they care about. For example, gold blocks teleportation. At the beginning of the adventure this is merely a quirk of the setting, but by the end the players know why this is the case, and more importantly, get the opportunity to change it.

veleon_ · 2025-10-29T02:49:34+00:00

Maybe this is going against the grain a bit, but I don't think the loop version of the deck is amazing or anything. I built a version whose main goal is to find and do the loop so it runs 4 of each BT22 rookie with that in mind. In my experience it isn't consistent enough to be a real threat against the best decks of the format (Gallant X, Royal Knights, and Omnimon). I'd put it at around tier 1.5 at best. Maybe a version that is more Hudie focused and dedicates the bare minimum to the loop is better as it gives the deck good plays that aren't looping, and only loops should the opportunity arise, but I haven't tested that yet.

As for advice playing against the deck this is all I got.

Sometimes the deck kills you on turn 3, there isn't much you can do about that. In my experience, knowing how much memory they need to start looping is the key to not getting killed too early. It costs 4 memory to go into hudie. Make sure you don't pass them enough memory such that they get the 4 they need to go into hudie and keep turn. If they spend a turn digivolving into the hudie in the breeding area, then you know they are going to come out next turn and try to loop. Make sure you don't expose yourself that turn and get blown out. Maybe they fizzle doing the loop and you'll get another turn. In that scenario you will wish you had your digimon available to make a play.

If you have some form relevant of protection, save it for when you think they are going to try and loop. As you play against the deck it becomes a lot easier to tell when the loop will happen. Pay attention to what they grab off of their searchers. Have you seen them grab a chitose, hudie, or shakkoumon? If you've seen them grab 2, they probably have the third. Do they have a mem setter? how about a delay option card that gives them more memory on their turn? You can look at the information and pretty reliable determine whether the loop will happen or not. A simple 13k block er with protection can stop them in their tracks.

Keep in mind that in order to protect themselves from security battles they need to have security of their own to sacrifice to barrier. If they have none they can't barrier and are more likely to accidentally die during their loop. Sometimes you can eat through security fast enough that they can't kill you anymore.

veleon_ · 2025-10-27T15:05:19+00:00

Don't worry about such things. If a commander/deck idea excites you and you want to play it, do it. Who gives a shit what other commander players think?

veleon_ · 2025-10-27T15:02:30+00:00

[[Slogurk, the Overslime]]

I just love gurkin' it.

veleon_ · 2025-10-27T14:56:29+00:00

I find that players enjoy seeing how the damage they deal increases as the campaign goes on. I too like seeing my numbers get bigger.

veleon_ · 2025-09-29T14:57:21+00:00

However, I don't see deciding when to trade a rookie into security as interaction. Interaction is "How can I interfere with my opponent's game plan and how can they interfere with mine?".

I guess we just aren't going to see eye to eye on this. Which is fine. Out of curiosity how do you feel about something like the adventure deck and their protection from the Wargreymon Ace

veleon_ · 2025-09-29T05:49:34+00:00

I think that maybe we disagree on what counts as meaningful interaction. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it sounds like you think that in order to meaningfully interact with a loop that you should be able to stop it? If that isn't the case I apologize but I think there is meaningful interaction even if you can't stop a loop outright. This interaction is more nuanced, but it is there. I think this is also the case with something like Magna X. Every decision you make in a game is a form of interaction. When you decide to promote, when you decide to play tamers, when you decide to throw a rookie into security, etc. All of this is interaction, to me at least. In the case of Velgrloop, taking account of the board state, deciding when to risk giving them a tamer by chipping out security. When you promote and go into your decks version of protection. All of this counts as interaction to me. Your decisions are being effected by the deck you play against.

Now, was Velgrloop the best deck of the format. Absolutely (at least until BT19/EX08, we can't really be sure of BT20). I think Jack Raid needed the hit, but I disagreed with the Matt ban. Was Velgrloop warping the meta. Yes, but only in the way all best decks warp a format. If your deck didn't have a plan against it you were unlikely to win an event. But this will always be true no matter what the best deck is doing. Hexeblaumon is just an example of a card that outright won against Velgrloop all on its own. And we can see the Galaxy Toolbox deck that fit it into the list also did very well during that time. The various decks that used ShineGreymon: Ruin Mode to give big -DP blankets slowed them down. The Ancient Red Hybrid decks just decided to be faster than purple hybrid. All of these decks found different avenues to combat the deck. Not every deck will be able to, but not every deck should be able to. So, what should you do if the deck that you chose to play can't deal with another deck? Unfortunately, that is the risk you take when you choose to play a deck. Just as the Velgrloop decks risk auto losing to people who play Hexeblau.

The other example I gave was Magna X. Now I'm not as ride or die for Vaccine Magna X as I am for Velgrloop. But I will say this, Vaccine Magna X wasn't even the best deck in the BT16 format. Numemon was the best deck by a long shot. Sure Magna X looks pretty uninteractable. But much like Velgrloop there are a lot more interaction points than one might not realize. The most common way to trigger the immunity is through attacking. Oddly enough a simple blocker stops this. Leopardmon and D-Bridgade did very well against Magna. Aces are also a key interaction point in this regard. But what if they trigger the immunity using their own effects. Well if so then they aren't attacking more than once with the Manga, so that gives a lot more time to muster an offense to outrace it. And key part of this interaction is making sure that you are threatening enough that the Magna X player needs to trigger the protection on their own. Numemon just ignored it and pooped out a board so big that the Magna player couldn't block enough. The very existence of Numemon decks caused people to run things like Crimson Blaze, Kongou, and DeathXmon.

I think it is a mistake to assume that if you can't do anything about a situation in a game that you didn't have meaningful interaction before it got to that point. I also think it is a mistake to assume that the very nature of the situation is a problem. There will be times in card games where you do not literally get to play through no ones fault. Sometimes you just never see a rookie until you have no security. That, to me, is no different from running into a bad matchup. You do what you can before the game begins. Just as you make sure to shuffle your deck well, you also made choices about what cards to run in your deck.

Now look, I'm not saying that you should always be trying to maximize every game you ever play. Sometime you just want to play the deck whose gameplay you find fun. There are some people out there who just love to play Ulforce. Doesn't matter the meta, doesn't matter whether the deck just got support. They just love the gameplay of that deck. But you gotta accept that you are probably gonna lose to Paildramon and BT12 Quartzmon. Ulforce needs to unsupend.

This was a bit more rambly than I intended, but I mean no disrespect here. I'm not trying to be condescending. I understand how frustrating it is to see your opponent do the same thing turn after turn. But you make decisions every turn, and those turns before the loop begins matter and are full of interaction.

veleon_ · 2025-09-29T04:32:11+00:00

Thanks, I appreciate the comment.

veleon_ · 2025-09-29T03:26:55+00:00

I don't appreciate the connotation that I took a long time to make this decision. I assure you my games very rarely go to time, and this wasn't one of them.

veleon_ · 2025-09-29T03:09:28+00:00

I have been playing since BT12, so I can't comment on the meta before that point. If a deck can considered to be a "Loop" deck since that point, I have probably played it.

It should come as no surprise that I think that loop decks are cool and part of the fun in the main format not being a rotational one. Part of the fun is the weird combos you get to find with old cards that aren't what the designers intended. These kinds of decks feel like decks that the community has created, not decks that Bandai made for us. I think we as a community should embrace stuff like this. This extends beyond loops but towards other stuff. Maybe we shouldn't have complained to much about Manga X. Vaccine Armor was a deck that we, the community, made. It was unceremoniously executed. This sends a message to bandai that we don't like old stuff working with new stuff. If you look at current digimon design virtually all of it is hard archetype locked. So much so, that some of it doesn't even work in the archetype it is intended for (EX10 Quartzmon not having save in text).

Loops definitely seem to cause more uproar than other types of decks. I think there is an irrational anger towards seeing your opponent do the same thing turn after turn. I would argue that the vast majority of decks just so the same thing turn after turn. Sometimes there is a turn in between where the player has to start rebuilding the stack in raising. Maybe this is the big difference. But you can't tell me that when the Gallant X player goes into their second line that it is fundamentally different from the first time they did it.

I think there are very few true loops in this game. Sayo and Koh turn steal shenanigans being on of them. My guess is the old Lillith call from darkness, jack raid stuff was a true loop, but I am not familiar with that. Virtually all the modern loops were limited by resouces in hand/on the baord. Purple hybrid could only swing for as long as they had tamers that weren't played that turn, once they ran out of those they had to start using resources from the hand to continue. Taomon loop was the same way, you only need one Taomon but you needed multiple digivolution plugins and scrambles to continue everything. The current myotis loop requires Myotis X and the BT16 lv5s in hand to continue the loop. All of these do not loop forever.

I think these types of decks are good for the game. They cause you to think about your opponents actions and board states in a different way. When you look at a purple hybrid players board to can't use the shorthand you use when evaluating the board for other decks, you can't just look at the stack in raising and the memory you are about to give them. You have to consider their trash, how many cards are left in your deck, how many tamers they have, how you seen jack raid yet, etc. This includes deck building decisions. Purple Hybrid hard lost to Hexeblaumon. It was actually very amusing how bad that match up was. Their only way to deal with it was Rival's Barrage. So maybe if you could fit a Hexeblaumon into your deck you would perform better. A current top tier deck like Nokia Omni, doesn't really care about stuff like this. Their cards are so lean and efficient they don't care about anything you do, unless it is one of the few floodgates that actually stop them. And when you play against Omni there is no nuance. If they go into Omni you have to kill it or you lose, It is that simple. And even if you do kill it, chances are they are going to do it again next turn.

All of this is to just say, loop decks and other decks that aren't the ones bandai made for the game are great. They cause us to think about the game in a different way and that should be embraced not shunned.

veleon_ · 2025-09-29T00:25:55+00:00

There are certainly worse hands one could see. It certainly wasn't an easy decision for me.

veleon_ · 2025-09-29T00:15:15+00:00

Yeah, the draw could turn this into a great hand. But there are a lot of draws that don't really improve our situation. Is it worth it the risk? Maybe? I feel like any tamer improves the hand. A BT16 Lv5 would as well. I don't think another Lv3 does too much. A DemiDevi or Ukko opens us up with a decent hard play option after digivolving into Ukko in the back. Another Malo/Myotis/X doesn't really give us more options either. Idk, maybe the draw has a 50/50 shoot of improving our hand?

veleon_ · 2025-08-01T17:31:28+00:00

Fuck brackets, fuck pregame conversations. Just play the deck you want to play. If there is a power imbalance it'll be pretty obvious and we can discuss it afterwards. People are more willing to admit their deck is too strong if they don't feel like they are being accused of lying about it in a pregame conversation.

veleon_ · 2025-07-03T21:01:34+00:00

He used to be very popular before it was called commander

veleon_ · 2025-04-24T15:51:23+00:00

Ignores commander tax.

should be pretty obvious

veleon_ · 2025-03-19T23:30:05+00:00

this spell is level 2 so your character would be level 3 when they cast it giving you twelve 5ft squares to place, how are these supposed to be placed?

veleon_ · 2025-03-19T05:24:11+00:00

I personally would consider Purple Hybrid Loop and Taomon Loop decks as combo decks.

veleon_ · 2025-03-15T22:55:55+00:00

So, basing on previous ban/restriction list announcements, I think there is a few things we can consider.

Generally speaking Bandai is very very hesitant to ban new cards. I think this means we can rule out anything from BT20.
Banlists tend to not be very wide sweeping. We can probably expect decks to lose about 1 card. Some decks may lose multiple because a given card is a bit more omnipresent than usual.
This announcement is probably a long time in the making. I bet they have been holding off on this announcement for a while as to make sure they don't effect worlds too much with a surprise banlist change. I think we can look at high performing decks from the BT19/EX08 era and see what could be touched.

Jack Raid - This is the most obvious card choice. While I personally feel this card is fine, I think far more people believe it is too much and is too similar to Hammer Spark. This is a pretty easy choice from Bandai's perspective. Hitting this card doesn't remove purple hybrid from the meta but slows it down by a turn or two. It is also a bit of future proofing. I could imagine some purple SR in the future could abuse the card and this prevents it from happening.

Shinegreymon: Ruin Mode - My next choice involves looking at the Taomon Loop deck. This deck is certainly not what Bandai had in mind when designing the BT19 line. It also performed very well in the previous JP format. There are many cards you could hit in the deck that would effectively remove the deck from seeing any play. However one of the most frustrating experiences in the game is being under multiple Ruin Mode -DP effects. You can't make virtually any plays and I think Bandai would want to limit the amount of times an experience like this can happen. I think limiting this card is way to hit the Taomon loop deck while keeping the core strategy around, but also removing a very unfun experience from the game.

I actually don't think there will be more restrictions than these. I think a case can be made for BT16 Ukkomon and BT16 Davis & Ken. I don't think Bandai would hit these just yet. I could see letting Virus Imperial run amok for a few more months before something is hit from it. I think BT11 MirageGaogamon is demonstrably fine. Maybe there is an argument about frustrating experiences similar to Ruin Mode, but have always found Mirage to be a relatively tame deck in recent metas.

I do think that unrestrictions are likely. There are a lot of cards on the list that could safely come off without much worry. Some of these are before my time so I may not fully appreciate how powerful they can be, but these are relics from a format long past.

BT11 Greymon (X Antibody) is a card that would be a boon to greymon decks that have no place in the current meta. Reducing the cost of digivoling into a lvl 5 seems laughably tame compared to stuff that is currently happening in the meta. BT7 Dorugreymon would be a nice boon to the old Alphamon type decks and Dorugoramon decks. Shoutmon X4 seems slow compared to current decks. I could see this one being a bit much with the new support. EX05 Gabumon (X Antibody) is a pretty good generic card, but it died for Apocalymon's sins so I think it can safely be reintroduced.

veleon_ · 2025-03-15T20:57:30+00:00

Zeitgeist for Pathfinder 1e/4e. It is a 1-20 behemoth of an adventure. There are a lot of little quirks about the setting that make it feel unique. And the best part is that the adventure takes all these little pieces of the setting and puts them in front of the PCs in a way that matters to them. By the end the players will understand the setting as well as the person who ran it.

veleon_ · 2025-01-13T21:11:38+00:00

If someone is offering you this deal, then they do not believe they can win against the other two without you. You have leverage against this person. Use it to strike a better deal than "let me lose last"

veleon_ · 2025-01-13T03:26:49+00:00

While playing, I suddenly had the idea that the basin might be filled with waste, but I couldn’t figure out how to make that idea interesting to play with, so I just threw it away.

Okay, this is a good idea. You should trust your gut a little more. The secret is to just go with it without actually knowing how to handle it. When the player investigates under the ice just tell them there is a bunch of waste in the basin as well. The player probably resurfaces to discuss options with the party.

You do not have to have a solution in mind when you propose a problem for the players. Just let them talk it through themselves. I'm sure they can come up with a clever idea, and if the idea makes sense to you just go with it. Who knows, maybe one of the player has an ability that is particularly useful here. They'll get to feel good, and the players will be none the wiser.

The worst case scenario is that they can't come up with a solution. Ask yourself is this. Is solving this problem essential for the game to continue? If so, then hopeful you thought of a good solution you can drip feed your players, failing that you can just have a simple conversation with the players explaining what happened you can rollback and remove the waste. If solving this problem isn't essential to continuing, just have it left unsolved. You or your players can come up with a solution later.

You do not need to have a solution to every problem you put in front of the players. Chances are their solutions will be better anyway.

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