Do you want a train ticket with that?

[Sir Elton]

I'm wondering how people like their published adventures. Do you want passages filled with monologues or do you want your NPCs so detailed that the DM would be able to play their character nicely.

Perhaps a combination of the two?

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

I never count on PC's doing what the playtest group did, warranting the same forms of address or even speaking mostly with those folks given dialogue in a typical module. I'd rather just be given the whole story so I can run with it. I guess I really just want the baseline from which an author is operating before I run a module for a group. That way, I know where and why I'm deviating.

 

[nopantsyet]

Less.

When I use modules, it's within the context of my own campain and world, so I throw out most of the characterization exept the basics (though in some cases that too) and refit them into the larger scope based on the usefulness of the character or their role.

Earlier this year, I ran Last Stand at Outpost Three from Dungeon 110. One NPC (Gorgoreth) was completely reworked except that he commanded the outpost--and that includes the character sheet--and played a significant role beyond the adventure. Another (Laalarash) stayed basically the same, but stuck around a little while to torment the PCs. Finally, I filled out the persona of a very minor NPC (Halaak) who ended up recurring after the adventure, and likely will again in the future.

I'd much rather see effort put ino developing high quality, flexible adventures.

 

[Nifft]

Neither.

Gimmie a flowchart that I can customize within reason -- or without!

-- N

 

[Piratecat]

Neither.

Gimmie a flowchart that I can customize within reason -- or without!

That's why I'm in love with Badaxe's Slavelords of Cydonia. It's the least linear, most complete module I've seen; a general plot that the PCs influence, but lots of ways to achieve different goals as that plot progresses. I'm astonished they were able to pull it off, but it's dandy.

 

[Nifft]

Woah! Such a thing exists?!

This board proves its worth time and again... thanks, amigo!

-- N

 

[Virgil Sagecaster]

A WHOPPING 2 votes. My excuse is that Im completely , and honestly Insane. My PC would rather steal a horse and/or travel inside a portable hole.

 

[Starglim]

It's many times more important for an adventure to tell the DM what an NPC knows and what he wants, than what he says. That will come naturally as a response to the players' actions.

 

[Fenes]

I write my adventures like that NPCs, their goals, and their means. Then some possible locations for some events or encounters, and then I wing it.

 

[Sir Elton]

Neither.

Gimmie a flowchart that I can customize within reason -- or without!

-- N

This is a personal observation. Flowcharts just don't jive with me. I don't know why, I think it's all those boxes and circles in an organized fashion.

Now a mind map, that's something else entirely. That's pure chaos with little organization. With a mind map, I can get all my ideas on paper on how a thing works; then I can proceed to outline something. I'm afraid, though, that flowcharting is beyond me as a way to organize my ideas.