I found over 200 campaign settings and over 100 adventure paths

Up until our current campaign (ENWorld's War of the Burning Sky) we had been playing WotC adventures or converting old Pathfinder adventure paths. So when I first started looking for the next adventure path for my group, I wasn’t sure what I would see out in the wild. I was looking for third party stuff mostly because everyone in my group had already ran or played the WotC ones. And nobody was up for a conversion. So far I've found over 100 (and I keep finding more).

I later expanded that search to include campaign settings and games based on 5e. Shockingly, I've found over 200 so far (with more that I haven't had time to add). This is way more than 3e's infamous 3PP glut. At least now everything is mostly PDF.

I hope these lists help you find your next one... and that this can spark some conversation around the sheer amount of material available for 5e. Let me know if I missed any.

https://www.lalato.com/blog/3pp-camp...ttings-for-5e/

https://www.lalato.com/blog/3pp-adve...ths-for-5e-dd/

Thanks for doing the leg work. A useful resource. :smallsmile:

In terms of the quantity of material- I wasn’t involved in the hobby before 5e, so I’m not in a position to comment on whether there’s more or less than previous editions.

I will say though, that even just for the homebrew settings I’ve made and played, it’s always struck me how amenable 5e is as a system to having things bolted on to it. As an amateur it feels reasonably easy to take a concept and give it a shape that fits the D20/system assumptions that 5e is built on.

I think that, plus 5e’s popularity, is going to drive a higher quantity of stuff than otherwise.

That's a great point regarding the malleability of 5e. It's the second iteration of D&D that fell under the OGL (and now Creative Commons). I think that helped propel it too.

I first started playing around 1980/81. While there were published modules from TSR, most everything we did back then was homebrew. And there weren't that many 3rd party options. They existed, but were relatively rare. Your best bet for published alternatives was actually in magazines like Dragon or White Dwarf (back when White Dwarf published more than just Warhammer material).

By the time 2nd edition rolled around, TSR was publishing so much official material that it kinda drowned out anything else. There were still a few 3rd party products, but again, they were rare.

3rd edition's move to publish under the OGL changed everything. Lots of companies got their start during this time. The main difference though... all of the material was physically published. The concept of publishing a PDF, while not entirely new, was not mature enough yet. Besides, back then PDF was a proprietary format, not an open standard as it is today. This resulted in a lot of small companies publishing a lot of official looking material that local gaming stores brought in as inventory. Lots of stores overbought and these books stayed on shelves a long time. Thus the glut. Eventually the cream rose to the top and a few of those companies are still around today.

4th edition did not use the OGL. That famously resulted in Paizo splitting off to create Pathfinder from the bones of 3e. As a result 4e received very limited 3rd party support. There were some adventures published, but for the most part it was really all official materials during those years.

We are now at 270 campaign settings.

I'm a little surprised that you found more campaign settings than adventures. I'd have expected the reverse.

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Originally Posted by Chronos

I'm a little surprised that you found more campaign settings than adventures. I'd have expected the reverse.

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I started with the Adventure Path list, and I thought I would find half as many campaign settings.

Now at 277 campaign settings and 116 adventure paths.

Neat. I noticed you don't have stuff like the sequels to campaign settings, even though they are supposed to be standalone. At least, I bought 'Under the Seas of Vodari' on the promise that it's stand alone. That one's aquatic. Do you want some help tagging them?

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Originally Posted by Spriteless

Neat. I noticed you don't have stuff like the sequels to campaign settings, even though they are supposed to be standalone. At least, I bought 'Under the Seas of Vodari' on the promise that it's stand alone. That one's aquatic.

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I view sequels as expansions of the existing setting. I hadn't really considered the idea of adding all of the related books. I suppose though, as a setting expands, it would be useful to add any additional tags/keywords it has acquired. Even if the link doesn't go directly to that supplemental material.

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Do you want some help tagging them?

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Would love help tagging. I'm certain I missed some tags.

Now at 289 campaign settings and 122 adventure paths.

Ran across a bunch of homebrew settings that are available on gmbinder.com. I've decided that I won't be including them on the list. That said, there are a few settings based on Magic: The Gathering there that are well done.

Oh... and we're at 296 campaign settings and 129 Adventure Paths.

I revisited this recently and added a bunch more stuff. Now we are at 324 Campaign Settings and 142 Adventure Paths.

Adventure Lookup lists 376 adventures for 5e with at least 32 pages. I don't know how messy this list is, or what you consider an Adventure Path, but it might be useful.

https://adventurelookup.com/adventur...es=%E2%89%A532

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Originally Posted by Marcloure

Adventure Lookup lists 376 adventures for 5e with at least 32 pages. I don't know how messy this list is, or what you consider an Adventure Path, but it might be useful.

https://adventurelookup.com/adventur...es=%E2%89%A532

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Definitely a useful resource. When I first started compiling my list I checked out what I could find there... but it's not quite so straightforward to find Adventure Paths there.

My rules for Adventure Paths are...

1. Must be 5e compatible. Lots of great Pathfinder options... but they require conversion.
2. Must have significant level progression. I list Adventure Paths with at least 7 levels of character progression. But my personal preference is 10 levels.
3. Must be somewhat widely available. PDFs are easiest to link to, so I tend to provide those over book links. One caveat here is that I do list Kickstarters that have successfully funded on the assumption that they will be available eventually. One other note... I generally avoid random homebrew stuff.
4. Must be a third party product. This list started as a way for my regular group to have a ready list of Adventure Paths that we hadn't played yet. We've played all the WotC ones... so it's more focused on other publishers.

Been a while since I updated these lists, but I found some time over the weekend to see what cool new stuff has popped up.

We are now up to 360 campaign settings. And 160 adventure paths.

And I have a few more that I stumbled upon today that I need to check out.

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Closed for Necromancy.