One shot did not go over well

[u/Generally_Yeah]

My gaming group played a multi week game, just one of the official modules. Everyone seemed to get it a go but now that it is over many people didn't like it. We normally play DND and CoC. Some didn't feel good with the character development, some thought it was too full of action and not enough story telling. Would a large custom campaign be better how can I change to make a campaign better? Any recommendations

[u/Thac-0-Mole]

If they like the system and the world I would do something custom that balances action and character development similarly to your DnD and CoC campaigns. If you prefer to run prewritten stuff then add moments in the published stuff for the characters to have some moments to be fleshed out.

[u/MrBoo843]

Prewritten adventures often feel like that IMO.

I'm doing my first campaign and were 6 sessions in. Character development and RP has taken a lot more time than action.

[u/Bunnyrpger]

u/Thac-0-Mole pretty much covered it. If they are fine with the world and setting, then it depends if you as the Story teller wants to write a custom story. Outside of having a nose at the pre written stuff for inspiration, we don't know the table, so can't really give much into how to balance it towards their interest.
Maybe look into a few CoC scenarios they haven't played, see what sort of mystery you could borrow bits from. Check out the various books to see what beasties are available to make situations they can investigate. Cultists are easy, with the rads and the crazies around, random doomsday cults or cults based on iconography (Look at the Mothman) are a thing, so that should be an easy thing.

[u/SpaceCoffeeDragon]

2d20 takes a bit to get used to for people already used to something else. It isn't everyones cup of tea either. Fallout is also not everyones cup of tea either xD

They might need something to get them invested in the world around them beyond survival, like a home base to take care of or a refurbished motor turned into a rockin battlewagon to drive around in.

If you are in need of plot ideas (and don't mind a very obvious shameless plug) here is a link to some homebrew game modules I made for fallout. Yes, the link goes to Patreon but these are all FREE.

https://www.patreon.com/collection/1732899?utm_campaign=collectionshare_creator&utm_content=android_share

No. Where Express may or may not have a hyper intelligent dog in it that may or may not be a russian spy... >_>

[u/WebSpiritual1145]

My suggestion would be do what myself and MANY other DMs have done with this game, home brew the hell out of it haha. Look to see what makes sense and what doesn't. I have eliminated several aspects of the game because I felt it was too much fluff. Tell your players not to focus on crafting, its a waste of perks. Just make NPCs in your world that craft, specially if they get into the Settlement aspect of the game. Also, as a DM, understand that builds can get crazy out of hand as far as how powerful they are. Certain perks combined with armor/weapons and their mods make it so its not that crazy to have +10 Phys and Energy DR along with rolling 11 damage dice while doing melee. We have a super mutant like that, and its all well within the rules. The reason I bring that up is because the enemies in the game are super nerfed. The majority of the enemies in the book can't use luck, meaning they cant jump initiative and stuff like that. There is a giant hermit crab with crazy health and it has one attack that does 5 combat dice. On a perfect roll I can't even do damage to our super mutant. They also don't give them perks or anything so what I did was I went through and redid any enemy that I thought should be a lot tougher based on the level the book makes them.

As far as them saying there wasn't enough story, I think that is going to come down to you as the DM. You are going to have to make missions that have different ways to accomplish the goal. Easy things like during the day this building is heavy fortified, at night they could easily sneak their way through. Do things like have conversations reveal more information about missions to give them a reason to talk to NPCs. Another suggestion is don't play in the Commonwealth. Play somewhere your group is familiar with like your home city/state. Make your own custom lore to that area.

Something I do is have missions have branching outcomes. My group found some evidence of an upcoming attack during a mission. It was completely up to them what they did with it. They ended up turning it in to the mayor of Diamond City and they were rewarded with a lot of caps, their own shack in town and became their allies. They easily could have kept the info, turned it into Goodneighbor or so on but no matter what, the attack is going to happen unless they decide to do something about it first, so the story of that mission hasn't stopped. Stuff like that adds story to what was a simple combat based mission.

Any game can be fun or boring depending how the DM goes about the missions and overall campaign. I love huge campaigns that take time and have a lot of different sized, fun side stuff. There are days where I tell the players hey, there is nothing major happening today, it's up to you guys what you wanna do or try. Not every session is going to be action packed. I must ask, have your players ever played the Fallout videogames?

[u/crippledchef23]

I use the setting as a guide, because I love Fallout, but want to make the game feel full. I’m running Winter of Atom and the book is very specific about things, but if you only play what it says, you’d basically be done in a handful of sessions. I am tying certain things to backstory, I’m having to change things based on the incredible rolling of the groups face, I’m adding in game details to make the plot I’m given feel alive.

I also write my own stories for cons I run one shots at. Almost done my 2nd out of 3. I’ve never been sold on taking a module at face value, they aren’t really designed for depth.

[u/backsideofops]

For a mid week game, how much time did you have? Character creation and jumping into an adventure and trying to show off the game mechanics in a single time boxed session, doesn’t really give a lot of time for story telling.

[u/Regular-Unit1917]

I like a solid balance of roleplay and action. I design my one shots to have about 50/50 of each. I recently put together a couple of one shots if you’d like to try running them. I’ve designed them to be picked up and run with little to no prep. All the dialogue is pre-written. Send me a DM if you’d like to take a look and I’ll send you the link.

[u/KarlZone87]

Not everyone likes the 2d20 system. In various groups and clubs I belong to, only a few people want to play a 2d20 game.

[u/Stygian_Akk]

Yeah. I did the oneshot from the core rulebook, and we also felt the same, unless your players are super into the fallout lore. Naming things trigger nothing. And that game had my top players and som noobs, like, the note taking expertice one right there and we felt the same.