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Keep on the Shadowfell vs Reavers of Harkenwold
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7491447" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>The problem with most Dungeon modules is that adventure design has focused for ages on subdividing the whole thing up into 'encounters' and 4e is of course really focused on this at first blush. The thing is, its a STORY focused game, and so what happens is the adventure designer comes up with a series of 'rooms and corridors' (notionally) and then plops encounters into each 'room'. This is a poor fit for the skill challenge paradigm, which actually works much better at a more 'operational' level (either with or without embedded encounters). So you end up with some very limited SCs that just fundamentally lack the situational fictional scope to allow for much plot. </p><p></p><p>I recall the Dark Heart of Mithrendain adventure. It isn't a BAD adventure in a conceptual sense. Some sort of 'cosmic power' (exact details are left open) thrusts the PCs into the city in such a way that they will almost surely become entangled in a plot. The problem is that the next scene is an elaborate SC wherein most of the plot has to be basically 'resolved' (because its stuck in encounter design paradigm, so you can't simply start down the path of resolving things by a long-running SC or something). This makes for an awkward and barely workable SC that will blow up and derail the whole adventure if the PCs don't play along exactly how it is envisaged. From there its all nothing but combat encounters which work out elements of this plot which BEG to include social and other similar interactions, but don't. </p><p></p><p>There are a lot of elements you can extract from these adventures, but usually there's a certain degree of reformulation that is required if you want to create something that is really high quality.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7491447, member: 82106"] The problem with most Dungeon modules is that adventure design has focused for ages on subdividing the whole thing up into 'encounters' and 4e is of course really focused on this at first blush. The thing is, its a STORY focused game, and so what happens is the adventure designer comes up with a series of 'rooms and corridors' (notionally) and then plops encounters into each 'room'. This is a poor fit for the skill challenge paradigm, which actually works much better at a more 'operational' level (either with or without embedded encounters). So you end up with some very limited SCs that just fundamentally lack the situational fictional scope to allow for much plot. I recall the Dark Heart of Mithrendain adventure. It isn't a BAD adventure in a conceptual sense. Some sort of 'cosmic power' (exact details are left open) thrusts the PCs into the city in such a way that they will almost surely become entangled in a plot. The problem is that the next scene is an elaborate SC wherein most of the plot has to be basically 'resolved' (because its stuck in encounter design paradigm, so you can't simply start down the path of resolving things by a long-running SC or something). This makes for an awkward and barely workable SC that will blow up and derail the whole adventure if the PCs don't play along exactly how it is envisaged. From there its all nothing but combat encounters which work out elements of this plot which BEG to include social and other similar interactions, but don't. There are a lot of elements you can extract from these adventures, but usually there's a certain degree of reformulation that is required if you want to create something that is really high quality. [/QUOTE]
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