Help me make WotC adventures better.

[Dannager]

Agreed, except... If the adventure stands on its own as a solid adventure there shouldn't *be* anything lacking.

We're talking about different things here. A lot of people won't perceive anything lacking with the published adventure. There will be some people who will perceive something lacking. The latter sort of person strikes me as being more likely to want "more" from their game than your average D&D player, and that probably translates into a greater willingness to do things like go online to find more material for it. Slap a notice in the published adventure somewhere that DMs looking for additional story ideas, NPC background tidbits, bonus magic items, high-resolution maps, and so on can go to the WotC website and purchase a DDI subscription (or maybe access the first adventure's material for free).

 

[Whisper72]

You don't want your customers to feel they're not getting enough bang for their buck. A lot of the people who buy published adventures are doing so because it's easier than making their own. If every level of adventuring costs them a $15 published module, they're going to be dropping $450 on an entire 1-30 campaign. That's a steep price to pay. It's much easier to swallow in the more reasonable 9-adventure format seen in the H-P-E series.

I understand your point. Howere there are two things here, first is to make the mod cheaper, the other is, do both, have the larger adventures for those who want them en series of smaller ones for those who want those. The market is too fragmented / there are too many different types of DM to serve them all with one type of adventure. Look at what Paizo is doing. There are large AP's there are the seperate larger modules there are smaller modules. for everyone there is something there...

 

[Dannager]

I understand your point. Howere there are two things here, first is to make the mod cheaper, the other is, do both, have the larger adventures for those who want them en series of smaller ones for those who want those. The market is too fragmented / there are too many different types of DM to serve them all with one type of adventure. Look at what Paizo is doing. There are large AP's there are the seperate larger modules there are smaller modules. for everyone there is something there...

Paizo has a different model than WotC. They are able to sustain their larger adventures through a guaranteed revenue stream they derive from their subscription plans. WotC, on the other hand, has DDI. These are two different beasts, and they don't necessarily allow for the same product strategies.

That said, WotC already publishes the range of adventure lengths you describe. They have put out 2-3 level adventures like the H-P-E series, much smaller adventures through DDI, and much larger adventures in the form of products like Revenge of the Giants (and the upcoming Tomb of Horrors super adventure).

 

[Kzach]

I haven't read through this thread yet so I'm probably going to be echoing a lot of other people's comments.

Firstly, I think the module design is fairly decent, not great, but passable. The problem isn't necessarily the design, it's the blandness.

The modules put out and the Adventure Paths feel entirely disconnected. There is no feeling of continuity or story. I've played through Keep on the Shadowfell four times with four different groups, and each time despite a DM trying to 'own' it, the module felt... staged.

I've played through the first 6-8 levels of Scales of War in two different groups and again, nothing felt connected. It felt like a series of planned encounters that had little to nothing to do with each other. The encounters themselves weren't necessarily bad (more on that later), but I felt absolutely no connection to any plot whatsoever.

I've played through the first four levels of Chaos Scar in one group and again, it was just a series of disconnected combat scenarios that had virtually nothing linking them aside from some esoteric concept of some mystical meteor. It was a McGuffin that quite frankly didn't interest anyone in the group.

I'm not sure what goes on in the process of adventure path or module design, but I get the feeling that there are far too many cooks in the kitchen. It feels like every scenario has been designed by someone different, and so there's no real common thread to connect them all.

The thread needs to be powerful. It needs to motivate the players as much as the PC's. Taking a cue from War of the Burning Sky, part of what got me interested in it as a DM was that it had such an awesome hook and a very powerful thread running through it that I felt would capture the player's imaginations and have them be engaged by it.

WotBS has it's faults, I wouldn't call it a perfect example of a campaign or even of module design, however I can forgive a lot of it's shortcomings simply because it has such an awesome story behind it. I as a DM feel excited about running it every session because every session moves the plot forward in interesting and engaging ways. I've never felt that way about any of the 4e WotC modules or adventure paths.

The primary purpose behind a campaign should be to engage the players in the story of it. You have to engender a feeling of being part of something grand and magnificent and to make the characters a part of that rather than being on the sidelines. In this, I feel WotBS has succeeded where the WotC equivalents have failed.

 

[Kzach]

On the matter of combat encounters, there are some very interesting scenarios in the AP's and modules. But again, they're interesting solely to be interesting, rather than being an organic part of the campaign. They stand out as being disconnected from the whole and very much, "Look what we did here, isn't this cool?!" Yes, it's cool, but it's also in isolation from everything else, so it really loses it's appeal when the players walk into a mushroom cavern with a bridge over it and have absolutely no reason to engage the mushroom creatures.

Why were the mushroom creatures there? What was their purpose aside from making falling off the ledge more dangerous? The PC's have no reason to interact with them, so an interesting encounter is turned into a boring one since the PC's just walk over the bridge and ignore them.

I could say that about a lot of the encounters. They're interesting to be interesting, rather than being interesting because they're a part of something that pushes the plot forward in any way, shape, or form. If the PC's have no reason to react or interact with all these 'interesting' elements, then they're pointless additions. Instead of deleting them, however, they should be included as a part of the plot.

A good for instance is an encounter in War of the Burning Sky, The Scouring of Gate Pass. Spoiler warning for anyone playing in it

In this encounter, the PC's have been harassed at every turn and are inches away from getting out of the city after three gruelling days of trials and tribulations. They're disguised as city guards and being accompanied by a city guard captain and eight city guards who are trying to sneak them out of the city before the Inquisitors arrive. A bunch of pillagers make a ruckus up ahead and the captain splits his eight guards into two groups and they run off after the thieves with the captain telling the group to stay put.

Now the group hear some noises and shouts for help and see magical lights coming from a magic shop. People in the street are noticing and calling for the 'guards' to do something. Now the PC's are put on the spot. All of a sudden the players are put into a situation where they could lose their one chance to escape the city if they're exposed as false guards.

Immediately this situation is exciting, interesting and engaging. It's not just another encounter in a string of encounters. It's forcing the players to make decisions.

On top of that, once they engage the thieves in the shop, they realise that the leader is a friend of a friend who helped them out earlier. Now what do they do? If they kill him, they'll make an enemy out of a former ally. If they let him go, the crowd will see through their disguise, or call real guards to deal with the problem.

This just upped the ante and made the entire encounter wholly relevant to everything that had happened before and forced the players to deal with the consequences of their actions. It's not just a random encounter, it moves the story forward in an interesting and engaging manner that will have future ramifications and an immediate impact on the story. I've never felt that with any of the AP's or modules.

 

[Rechan]

Adventure and Encounter Structure

1. Thinking outside the box.

I understand, again, general is often important because you want it to apply to the most tables as possible. But generality, and traditional, can really make it bland. So, again, start it fresh. Recreating the wheel is not what I mean, but merely putting a shiny hubcap on it.

Use some of the advice from the DMG2. Start it with a Vignette. Start it with the PCs dieing, and being resurrected. Start it with something interesting.

One of my favorite adventures is "Three Days to Kill", a 3.0 adventure. The premise is really simple: the PCs are hired by one group of bandits to disrupt a meeting between another bandit group and a cult. This meeting would disrupt the balance of the various bandit bands by giving one more power and - it really doesn't matter to the PCs, because it's a simple odd job. The PCs can deal with the situation in any fashion they want, at any time they want, so they are free to formulate their own plan.

I'll touch on that fact later, but simply put it's a different kind of adventure. Not only are the PCs not Fighting The Good Fight, but they're in a gray area and they're doing something small that will possibly have ramifications if they care about it (hey, it addresses cultists and doesn't give these bandits too much power; highwaymen with infernal backing could be much worse).

Paizo does this with the start of each adventure Path, by getting the players to all buy into one concept that's important for most of the whole adventure. "You all are hired to work at a casino" "You all are guards on a caravan" "You all are part of this little community". It does hurt generality, but it makes up for it in unity and tieing the PCs strongly to the plot, as well as strongly to one another, and serves the purpose of being more than "I'm an adventurer and I'm off on an adventure".

Don't be afraid to try something different.

2. Adventure Structure: Think Outside the Dungeon

I know it's called "DUNGEONS and Dragons", but every adventure doesn't need to be "fight your way through double digits worth of rooms to fight the guy at the end".

This goes back to plot, but it's also just related to the adventure structure. Return to Castle Ravenloft did some really good things here: A) It put the PCs in the middle of two villains. They had to decide who to oppose (and thus who to side with), but ALSO, B) the PCs could go about destroying shrines/sites of power. Doing so weakened one of the villains. This was completely outside of the Dungeon, but had relevance to both the plot, and the mechanics.

It gave the players Plot Options. Just like "Three Days to Kill" was very open ended, the players could debate on those choices. The DMG2 talks about offering players meaningful choices, and even something as simple as "Right or left" needs to have some baring on relevance (Right goes into the Volcano of Burning, and Left goes into the Swamp of Despair, but either will get us to the other side).

So an adventure that is built like a flow chart would be much better than an adventure that is "Grind through these rooms til you get to the end."

3. When In the Dungeon, Don't Torture Variety

One of my biggest beefs with WotC's modules is the monster monotony. In KotS, you have:

4 consecutive combats with kobolds
4 consecutive combats with goblins.
3 consecutive combats with hobgoblins.

In Thunderspire Mountain, you had the same thing happening in the Duergar area. Wall To Wall Duergar with little variation. Scepter Tower of Spellguard was no different; constant undead in the lower levels, constant dark creepers/spiders in the upper levels.

If I'm going to fight the same type of enemy multiple times, each encounter better be different. The biggest sin (imo) was that in KotS, encounter 1 and 2 are not different![/b]. The only difference is that the 2nd has kobold skirmishers. They are on the same map for Thor's sake!

More importantly, instead of fighting the same monsters consecutively, at least toss in different encounters between them. The Interludes were a good attempt, but PCs jumped by kobolds (twice) weren't going to pull away and go to the Camp site. I also had a hard time giving PCs a reason to go back to town for the second interlude - they wanted to stay in the dungeon and slog through it, resting just outside/in cleared areas instead of returning for any reason. So back up your interludes with incentives to have them.

Pyramid of Shadows and the Well of Demons in Thunderspire Labyrinth are great examples of mixing up monsters/encounters. Now, Pyramid of Shadows has its issues (I'll get to later), but man, every room (except for the plant guys) is different! Vastly different! It's got variety in spades, I'll give it that! I also absolutely adore H2's the Well of Demons. Every room, while thematically, and plot-wise, are linked, each room is vastly different and offers different issues. It's a great thing, that you could rip out and drop into any adventure as a cool and intriguing site. Trollhaunt was also awesome here - sure, you fought those damn trolls many times, but they were paired different things each time.

I love monsters. And I love using them. So the monotony issue is big for me. I had to go back and re-populate those encounters with non-goblin, non-kobold, non-hobgoblin helper monsters (drakes, giant bugs, traps etc) just each encounter stood out from "just another fight with goblins".

4. Dungeons Shouldn't Torture Players

This goes back a little to point 3, but simply put, the dungeons in the majority of the modules are too long. Pyramid of Shadows locked people in a dungeon for 3 levels! Even if it's variety, the PCs just can't roam, can't go get a beer at a tavern, buy/sell equpment, can't do anything but move forwards!. Scepter Tower of Spellguard was nothing but a dungeon crawl. Same with P3. The players should not feel like the seasons changed between going in and coming out of teh dungeon, because they have spent so many sessions in there. This is I believe the biggest sin of the SoW aside from plot linkage (see next post).

This is one thing that made the non-Duergar areas of H2 very enjoyable. They were, if nothing else, short.

My personal rule of thumb is that a dungeon's welcome has been overstayed after the 6th encounter.

On the topic of monotony and encounters, I loved Trollhaunt. The various random encounter suggestions, the encounter ideas for exploring the Feywild, I loved those. They were rife for ideas for other products, and again, let you inject it to break up the monotony. It also let you address the issue if your players would prefer to explore, rather than battle.

I understand that in a module, you are trying to level the PCs up so the encounters later are balanced for the levelled up PCs. Thus, the more encounters they skip, the worse they are. Sure. But, break those encounters up in terms of location, in terms of pacing and in-game time, break them up with other things to do like social encounters and skill challenges.

5. Encounter Structure

Just as I don't want to fight the same monsters consecutively, I also don't want to fight in the same room multiple times. KotS tried to vary it up in the first level of the Keep, but really, there's not a lot of difference from room to room; a little difficult terrain here, maybe a platform there, but not exciting. Use all that fantastic terrain you publish. Put the encounters in exciting locations - logs on a river, a decaying bridge that will fall apart soon, a battle on a tower that's on fire/crumbling beneath you. Paizo had a battle in a tower that was rolling down a cliff into the ocean - it's hard to not sit back and go "Wow". Not to mention the DMG2 and the many fiddly bits - terrain powers, or other interactive material (Mike Mearls posted how he'd improve the Dragon encounter in Kobold Hall; this is an example of interactive terrain/hazards that make a simple slugfest more remarkable).

Beyond the trappings of the area, I again point to DMG2. Use those Encounters as Story, and more importantly, the Encounter Objectives. Objective encounters are great, and I want to see examples of them, I want to see them integrated into the story, I want to see them work good. I love them so hard, but I never see them.

If I don't sit back after an encounter and go "That was different from the lsat two I just had", then I think it's a wasted encounter, in terms of excitement and variability.

6. Mixing It Up

In Trollhaunt, mid-way through going through the Warrens, the PCs encounter a dragon that's willing to parlay. This is great. It's someone to talk to, to get information from, and to possibly NOT FIGHT. KotS tried this with Sir Keegan, but I felt it fell flat.

Compare this to Pyramid of Shadows. Every Single Guy in there, even if they weren't trying to eat your face, were going to just stab you in the back. There were no friendly NPCs, no "take a breather" zone. I believe very firmly that Pyramid of Shadows would have been much better off had the Pyramid had a shopkeeper in there somewhere, or a bar.

Now, some adventures in Dungeon do mix it up, they toss in skill challenges left and right. But I haven't seen those in the Published adventures.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This is a great idea and I hope you gather a lot of useful information.

Here are my 2 cents:

One fundamental issue I have with several adventures is that there are too many combat encounters following each others, without any elements that really advance the plot in some way. The only advancement seems to be having one less combat encounter before the conclusion of the adventure, but story-wise, not much happened.

If you have a more or less defined plot going on like "stop Kalarel from opening the portal to the Shadowfell", the plot should be more involved. There should be more "stages" in the story, more twists, more surprises, more color. Looking at KotS (spoilers to follow)
[sblock]
- The Kobolds are working for Kalarel. Why? Is it just Irontooth? Is there a way to persuade them "rebelling" against him. When I DMed KotS, I probably didn't do enough, but one thing I was using were "cut scenes"- the PCs getting visions of the past, and seeing how Sir Keegan fought a Dragon (the Dragon buried at the Burial Site), and later offered his Kobold aides survival if they accepted his rule and would never fight against the humans here again. The Kobolds broke this promise. In my game, this was mostly a good justification to bring the full PCs wrath against them, but maybe one could do more with that.

- The Dragon Burial Site. What was the item that Kalarel was looking for? What did he need it for. How does withholding the item from him change his plans? How does he react to that?

- The Goblin and Hogboblin in the Keep? Could they be in some kind of conflict? Maybe the Goblins have always been there, and now the Hobgoblins are taking over? Bring some politics into it, and give hooks how to use them. Maybe Splug could describe this. He was probably well-liked in his role by many, but maybe he could also advance the plot a little more, like describing the politics of the situation?

- The Undead. Tie them stronger to the history of the Keep. In my game, the visions described Keegan's "career", starting with his initial fight of the Dragon, over his family moving in with him in the Keep, to his eventual turning and murdering his own family. So some of the undead could be his family or people from the vision. Even if you'd eschew the visions, seing several child skeletons or spirits. "Daddy, why are you looking so angry? Father, what are you doing with the sword! No aaaahh...". This could also make the final meeting with Keegan a lot more tense - how do the PCs react to his fall, after seeing more "personal" consequences of his actions?

- Nianaran. She should take a more active role in the plot. As it is, the Pcs have seen her once, did not make anything of it, and later she attacks them at the cemetery. Her betrayal could be a lot more powerful if the PCs already had a connection with her - for example, she could come to their aid when they are fending off the Kobolds (she only appears when the fight is essentially won), and seems to give useful tips (that only lead them into the Kobold ambush maybe?).
[/sblock]

Probably at least every 2 encounters something "plotty" or "roleplayingy" should happen. A new information unveiled. A clue found. A betrayal. A misinformation. Meeting an important or useful figure. A decision that has to be made (beyond the usual "turn left or right?" or "extended rest or go on"). A puzzle to be solved.

If you look at the next adventure, Thunderspire Labrynth:
[sblock]
Fighting the Blood Reavers (?) in their fortress. What plot advancement is going on there? I see no puzzles, no surprises, no new revelations, except at the end when you are lead by your nose to the next dungeon.
[/sblock]

Or Pyramid of Shadows:
[sblock]
Essentially, the entire pyramid is a dungeon where you just kill a lot of monsters and occassionally fight a "mini-boss". You can play it differently. You can try to make allies. But it seems every one of them will betray you anyway. Also, the pyramid is way too static. What happens if the PCs attack those plant creatures in one room and then retreat? How do they reinforce their troops? Do they go after the PCs? How?

That's the adventure I am currently running and I am looking forward to coming to its end. The players seem to have fun, but my group is generally not really that story-focused and more "tactical roleplayers". But I am sure they wouldn't mind more story, more "dungeon politics".
[/sblock]

D&D 4 is great with encounters as set pieces. But there is a danger to make them too static. How do I handle the villains reorganizing their defenses? Monsters from the inner areas might move to the outer areas to intercept the PCs. How can I ensure that these encounters stay interesting if I did that? I can do this mostly on the fly, but it might help if the adventures considered this more and had more advice in that regard.

The delve encounter format is, BTW, great for the "set piece" style of encounters. But once you diverge from it, it becomes less helpful. Also, it is harder to connect the dots in the adventure when you break out encounters. The general structure of the adventure should be written in a way that I still have all crucial information without having to open the encounter parts - and it should contain enough "meat" so that all the encounters are well connected with plot elements.
What monsters are there in the encounter later (important: Which monster is which NPC? Sometimes I couldn't figure this out from the stat blocks!) What do I find for treasure? How do I describe the area? Some information will need repetition. That might increase the page and word count, which might increase the price, too. But I guess that's something we'll have to live with.

Generally speaking, 25 encounters / 3 levels for relatively simple plot as in Keep of the Shadowfell or Pyramid of Shadows is too much.

I haven't looked at the Chaos Scar adventures much (I generally hesitate from reading adventures unless I absolutely want to DM them, since I might play in them), but basically these seem to go more in the direction of a "sandbox". What I said above might not entirely apply to them. A more or less fixed plot doesn't seem to fix the, as the PCs have probably too much freedom to go into any direction and have less pressure to follow a certain plotline.
But you should probably ensure there are enough things connecting otherwise individual adventures together, and avoid making the individual one too long. Maybe two villains in different "lairs" are exchanging letters, or several adventures involve the thieve's guild. There doesn't need to be a plot in the sense of "the guild wants to take over the country, by using X, Y, Z, and you have to do A, B C to stop them", but there might be a "plot" developing naturally like "the PCs hate these guys and want to go against them. Which adventure did describe the Thief guilds hideout again?" or "The PCs cooperate with these guys so often, how can they become a member again?"
These connections are needed to spice up string of encounters. Every 2 or 3 encounters might create a new connection (or create a twist or reveal information within the current events).

 

[Rechan]

The Small Things

1. The Plot Links: A Web, not a Rope

The biggest sin I think that the Scales of War adventure path had was that the adventures (at least in the early levels) were not very strongly linked. Which is what makes an AP important, the linked plot!

In KotS, the plots/areas were linked only by letters. It makes you think the villains just like to write diaries. If the PCs didn't read the letters, they would basically miss any involvement of the villains beforehand. In Thunderspire you have the only thing linking the Duergar to the Hobgoblins to the Well of Demons is the slave shuffle. There should be more incentives, and more plot relevance, to go there.

This is also a source of frustration for folks running the published modules consecutively: they need help simply to link them all together, to weave the modules together. Nothing links Thunderspire to the PoS. Nothing links Thunderspire to P2. KotS is only tangentally related to Thunderspire by the slaves, but that almost feel stacked on.

I realize that you may not want every adventure to be so tightly woven that you can't pick one up and run it alone, or be missing context clues. But even so, they should have stronger relationships. A good example is a trio of adventures in Dungeon - "Touch of Madness" "Depth of Madness" "Brink of Madness". Each one can be a stand alone, self contained plot, but each builds on the plot of the last. This is strong, awesome, and rewarding to do consecutively.

2. Victory. Make it Matter, Never Undercut it

One of the most offensive things, to me, about Thunderspire is that the hook to get into the adventure is "Slaves were taken, we gotta rescue them". But as soon as the PCs bust into the first dungeon, the slaves are gone. Then they go to the next, and only some are there, and they've been shuffled off to a third dungeon. A player who's been slogging through this dungeon, only to find out "Your Princess Is In Another Castle" will feel cheated of his victory over the dungeon. This should never happen.

The PCs victories should matter, and advance the story, and possibly "change the game" of the plot (The villain has to change his plans because he's lost this resource over here, etc).

3. Value of Reading and Personality

One of the reasons folks cite Paizo as so great at making adventures is because Paizo puts things in the adventures to make them an enjoyable read. Now, I know that you are writing adventures to be run as adventures, but to have enjoyable ideas pouring out of the pages (rather than encounters set up on the framework fo plot) is going to make the adventure better.

One thing that makes it better are NPCs, and things the players can enjoy. Rise of the Runelords set the PCs in a town, and really fleshed that town out. Second Darkness had the PCs invested heavily in the business they worked for during the first adventure. Legacy of Fire had the PCs tightly associated with the caravan they were guarding. This not only fed back to "Thinking Outside the Box", but it made the NPCs involved really important.

Compare this to Winterhaven, which felt utterly flat. No one felt unique, nothing felt personable. Splug was a good try, but there needs to be more than just Splug.

4. Not everything needs to revolve around Stopping the Villain

This gets back to encounters and plot, but one thing that almost seems to be missing is an element of Exploration. Just "There's something there that we don't know, let's go poke it with a stick and see what's there". Thunderspire had the potential for this. But there was always the pressure to "Go beat the villain, go save the slaves", rather than any offered freedom.

5. The Magic of the Location

One thing I feel that truly, truly is lacking is a Mythical/Fantastical feeling. No sites that are merely mythical or truly Strange and Special. A forest made of crystal? A well castle/village/whatnot that only appears during the full moon? A cave that rises up out of the ground when the command words are spoken (ala Aladdin or Ali Baba)?

Please put locales in there, and make the locales interesting purely because of the spectacle of them. A unique thing, rather than 'Just another kingdome/valley/castle/swamp'. What makes that place different from all the others aside from the monsters inside of it?

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I echo alot of the above, specifically:

- Don't always go for 3 level increases and the ton of combat encounters needed to get there
- Use more non-combat encounters and scenes
- 'Webify' the plot lines, create options and flesh out ending scenarios
- Add 'how to adjust' sidebars for encounters
- Memorable locations to explore that have a history
- Highlight authors {I buy pretty much anything by Ari Marimel* or Piratecat...}

For me the modules that are the cream of the crop are Ravenloft I, Ravenloft II, 'Of Sound Mind', and the Deserts of Desolation supermodule.

Each of these felt like the story fit into the world, had solid reasons for the players to continue, and were fleshed out for exploring off the main plotlines.

How to do this is a 32 page module while remaining setting generic? That is the trick. But I think removing the assumption of leveling up in a module would give some creative room. Moving the Delve formated pages either into the DDI or as additional pages would also help.


Lastly, thanks for coming to my favorite board to ask the fans what our opinions are. As you can tell from many of the above, the fans here are very well educated in what it takes to get a module out the door.


{My aplogies to Ari for forgetting how to spell either his real name or screen name!}

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Looking at your post count, a "warm welcome" isn't appropriate, but nevertheless: nice to have you here, eliciting requirements. (Oops, just had a meeting about our development processes).

I can't see a clear criterion for an adventure's quality. Looking back, you find very different adventures being lauded as exceptional. People mention free adventures without tightly defined plot (Keep on the Borderlands, Temple of Elemental Evil) as well more scripted ones (Red Hand of Doom) when asked for exceptional material.

The first question is what you want an adventure to be. Should it revolve around a story (and/or NSCs) so that encounters and combats have to fit the theme? Or do you see it more like a kit which the DM is expected to disassemble and modify, exchange and re-arrange as he sees fit?

In the first case, you need a strong theme, an engaging plot, villains the players love to hate. Each encounter has to drive the story forward.

In the second case, the encounter or super-encounter (Delve) is the most important part. Each encounter has to have the potential to shine on its own. The plot becomes something to tie the encounters together with.

Or, to put it in other words: in a type 1 adventure you can exchange an encounter without changing the experience, in type 2 you can mangle or exchange plot without changing the experience.

What is your goal?

I'll discuss the more technical aspects when I'm home in the evening.