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Designing RPG Adventures With the Players And Not the GM In Mind, Part Two
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<blockquote data-quote="werecorpse" data-source="post: 7731296" data-attributes="member: 55491"><p>I don't own the book being commented on so all of this might already be in there.</p><p></p><p>I think the other way of looking at this rule is "Its no excuse to run a dull adventure now just because it sets up for a fun adventure later". It shouldn't mean you have to run your cool adventure idea against the Ancient Dragon who threatens the kingdom when the party is at 2nd level. What it means is there is no excuse to make whatever the players are doing at 2nd - 10th level some sort of exp grind just because they will then get to play in the cool 11th level adventure. </p><p>This can be a problem with the published campaigns/adventure paths and can have the nonsensical situation where in a world of tough competent NPC adventurers the 1st level PCs get tasked to do the thing that needs to be done to save them all (why doesn't Elminster or one of a hundred other powerful people do it?). Tomb of Annihilation has this issue "Wait so you're saying everyone who has ever died and been raised - all these powerful Wizards, priests, Warriors etc, will soon be destroyed and your solution to that is to hire a bunch of novices to go wander around a jungle to find out what's going on?" </p><p>In Paizo Adventure paths the set up is usually great but here is often a part around books 4-5 (sometime sooner) where it is obvious that to deal with the threat/issue set up in book 1 or 2 the players need another 8-10 levels so .... Hi ho, hi ho, Off on a exp side quest we go...</p><p>IMO the answer is smaller self contained adventure arcs, with only foreshadowing of the bigger stuff you want to use later. Yes you may never get to use the battle against the lich lord but if the party has got to battle and defeat the goblin king then thwart the assassins guild, then recover the five mighty weapons of the dwarf kings before the campaign petered out they won't mind that they never really figured out what happened to the body of that necromancer they killed in the forest that time or where those new undead that were resistant to silver and radiant damage came from. They will have stories to tell and you will have an adventure already half developped for when it's appropriate.</p><p>This is kinda how campaigns use to play when they were crafted from a bunch of modules in the old days IME. Start at Keep on the Borderlands then maybe deal with the Sentinel & The Gauntlet, battle the slave lords, loot the ghost tower of Inverness, fight some hill Giants in their Steading, then some frost Giants, then go loot a hidden trove left by Iigwilv, maybe a lost temple of TharizdunTharizdun, deal with the resurgence of Vecna etc. Each bit was fun in and of itself. Making sure to foreshadow - or seem to foreshadow ; ) made what might have been a series of adventures into a campaign. </p><p>"Wait, wasn't the cult of chaos in those humanoid caves to this tentacled God?"</p><p>"I thought those dudes with one hand we saw when we found the magic gloves were because of the gloves"</p><p>"Didn't we find some old books in the ghost tower about how this artifact of Iigwilvs works?"</p><p></p><p>but it playing out exp grinds just go get the cool big bad fight at the end is unecessary and should be avoided.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="werecorpse, post: 7731296, member: 55491"] I don't own the book being commented on so all of this might already be in there. I think the other way of looking at this rule is "Its no excuse to run a dull adventure now just because it sets up for a fun adventure later". It shouldn't mean you have to run your cool adventure idea against the Ancient Dragon who threatens the kingdom when the party is at 2nd level. What it means is there is no excuse to make whatever the players are doing at 2nd - 10th level some sort of exp grind just because they will then get to play in the cool 11th level adventure. This can be a problem with the published campaigns/adventure paths and can have the nonsensical situation where in a world of tough competent NPC adventurers the 1st level PCs get tasked to do the thing that needs to be done to save them all (why doesn't Elminster or one of a hundred other powerful people do it?). Tomb of Annihilation has this issue "Wait so you're saying everyone who has ever died and been raised - all these powerful Wizards, priests, Warriors etc, will soon be destroyed and your solution to that is to hire a bunch of novices to go wander around a jungle to find out what's going on?" In Paizo Adventure paths the set up is usually great but here is often a part around books 4-5 (sometime sooner) where it is obvious that to deal with the threat/issue set up in book 1 or 2 the players need another 8-10 levels so .... Hi ho, hi ho, Off on a exp side quest we go... IMO the answer is smaller self contained adventure arcs, with only foreshadowing of the bigger stuff you want to use later. Yes you may never get to use the battle against the lich lord but if the party has got to battle and defeat the goblin king then thwart the assassins guild, then recover the five mighty weapons of the dwarf kings before the campaign petered out they won't mind that they never really figured out what happened to the body of that necromancer they killed in the forest that time or where those new undead that were resistant to silver and radiant damage came from. They will have stories to tell and you will have an adventure already half developped for when it's appropriate. This is kinda how campaigns use to play when they were crafted from a bunch of modules in the old days IME. Start at Keep on the Borderlands then maybe deal with the Sentinel & The Gauntlet, battle the slave lords, loot the ghost tower of Inverness, fight some hill Giants in their Steading, then some frost Giants, then go loot a hidden trove left by Iigwilv, maybe a lost temple of TharizdunTharizdun, deal with the resurgence of Vecna etc. Each bit was fun in and of itself. Making sure to foreshadow - or seem to foreshadow ; ) made what might have been a series of adventures into a campaign. "Wait, wasn't the cult of chaos in those humanoid caves to this tentacled God?" "I thought those dudes with one hand we saw when we found the magic gloves were because of the gloves" "Didn't we find some old books in the ghost tower about how this artifact of Iigwilvs works?" but it playing out exp grinds just go get the cool big bad fight at the end is unecessary and should be avoided. [/QUOTE]
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