Adventure Builder: Structure and Plots

[Glyfair]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ab/20060922a&dcmp=ILC-RSSDND

I'm suprised that no one has brought this up for discussion yet. I like the fact that he doesn't completely dismiss linear "railroad" adventures (while clearly considering non-linear adventures to be superior), and gives tips for making them work.

 

[Gold Roger]

At first I thought, "hey, I don't like the tone of that article". Then I remembered that this is about creating prewritten adventures, written from a professional adventure authors perspective. So those are completely different conditions than your average tailored home adventure.

However, the unclear writing style in wotc web articles and even books starts to grind on my nerves, especially this article, that is targeted on novice DMs and can easily be understand as encouragement to DMs to lead the players by the nose.

I agree with the quintessence of the article, but damn, wizards should get a grip on the writing of their D&D authors. These are all great designers and developers but they have done some really bad promotional work recently.

 

[Hussar]

Why do you say that it is unclear? Not being arguementative, but, I didn't find it unclear.

I agree with Glyfair that it's nice that he says that linear CAN be good. Not that it has to be, but that it can be. I thought his advice was pretty spot on.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

At first I thought, "hey, I don't like the tone of that article". Then I remembered that this is about creating prewritten adventures, written from a professional adventure authors perspective. So those are completely different conditions than your average tailored home adventure.

However, the unclear writing style in wotc web articles and even books starts to grind on my nerves, especially this article, that is targeted on novice DMs and can easily be understand as encouragement to DMs to lead the players by the nose.

I agree with the quintessence of the article, but damn, wizards should get a grip on the writing of their D&D authors. These are all great designers and developers but they have done some really bad promotional work recently.

Considering that the article points out the problems with linear advntures I have to disagree here. (An entire section of the article with the title 'The Trouble With Linear Plots' makes it pretty easy to find too....) It does not seem at all unclear to me.

The Auld Grump

 

[Hussar]

Then I remembered that this is about creating prewritten adventures, written from a professional adventure authors perspective. So those are completely different conditions than your average tailored home adventure.

Sorry to pick on you GoldRoger, but, this one stuck out in my mind. When I try to create adventures, I've always used modules as my guideline. Statblocks, maps, format, pretty much everything I find in modules I emulate in my homebrew adventures.

What is the difference between the design of a homebrew adventure and one for sale? Other than the obvious that a homebrew adventure is tailored to my group and one for sale is not.

 

[Glyfair]

At first I thought, "hey, I don't like the tone of that article". Then I remembered that this is about creating prewritten adventures, written from a professional adventure authors perspective. So those are completely different conditions than your average tailored home adventure.

Yes & no. That's the basic theme, after all these articles originally appeared in his patron adventure project a few months ago. However, the idea isn't just to explain "how to write a published adventure" but how to use those skill to write adventures for your home game. So, they are supposed to give tips on writing adventures for your home game.

Admittedly, he doesn't focus on tailoring the adventures to your game because of the basic theme. I think a whole series of articles could be written on writing adventures with your characters in mind and on adapting published adventures to your characters.

 

[Gold Roger]

Ok, now I need to clarify myself.

Yes, he talks about the pro and cons of railroading in one part. But it isn't that part I'm bothered with. It's excerpts like this:

The illusion of choice is just what it sounds like: no matter what decisions the players make, they wind up where you want them to wind up.

and

your design guarantees that the party does what you want

Yes, I've taken them out of context and in context they aren't as bad. But some earlier articles on the wotc side have been massively railed against because of such things and that's what bothers me.

The people that start interpreting the articles might not exactly be "in the right", but it's in the end the responsibility of the writers to make the articles look good.

I guess I've overreacted a bit, after all, like I've said, it's just a manifestation of a problem that starts to grind on my nerves a bit.


It's just, I generally agree with the article, but lines like the above can be quite damaging to a game if misinterpreted by a novice DM.

Sorry to pick on you GoldRoger, but, this one stuck out in my mind. When I try to create adventures, I've always used modules as my guideline. Statblocks, maps, format, pretty much everything I find in modules I emulate in my homebrew adventures.

What is the difference between the design of a homebrew adventure and one for sale? Other than the obvious that a homebrew adventure is tailored to my group and one for sale is not.

No offense taken (and I hope none is made either).

The difference between homegames and published adventures isn't that one has maps, statblocks, structure etc and the other hasn't.

The difference is that a published adventure can't take the personality and needs of the individual group into consideration and that it can't take all possible courses the adventure could take into consideration and is usually a bit more constrained than something done for a homegame. Like many big adventures have to be a bit railroady so they even work.