Question for those who have written adventure modules professionally

[The Hound]

Here's a question for people who have sold RPG adventure modules to companies like WOC, Paizo and others:

How long does it take you in both calender time and man hours to write a typical single game-session module? Don't count time making maps. I am asking this for planning purposes as someone who may need to commission such modules in the future. Nothing immediate though, sorry.

 

[Stormonu]

Granted, I've only done one for TSR, but ... Depends on the game system. For a one-night, about four encounter 3E/4E style adventure, I'd say about 2 weeks/20 hours work for the first draft and a one week turn-around on each revision request.

 

[gamerprinter]

First of all, in recent years, nobody sells adventures to WotC nor Paizo, as all adventure material is developed internally. While various writers, developers and cartographers may get commissioned to do work on an adventure, those companies do not buy material developed by third parties. (I've done work for Paizo, so I know - I was one of the contributing authors to the Jade Regent Adventure Path.)

Smaller publishers also develop their own content, but will sometimes publish third party developed adventures and supplements. For example, I am the primary developer of the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG), which I publish as an imprint under Rite Publishing. I contacted Rite Publishing with my concept and a 1st draft version of a completed adventure. From there Steve Russell of Rite Publishing gathered some writers, developers and an editor and my setting concept has turned into a mini-adventure arc, 3 one-shot adventures and 6 supplements so far.

If memory serves it took about 3 months for me to develop, write and create maps to develop my first adventure, which was rewritten by Jonathan McAnulty of Rite Publishing once the idea was accepted. The rewrite took a further 3 months, however, 2 more adventures carrying the storyline to a true finish was written before it was finally released as a print product and PDF. Realistically, though, 3 months is a good window of time to get an adventure developed, written and edited, including doing the maps. This time frame probably varies from publisher to publisher, however.

 

[The Hound]

follow up questions

Thanks for your replies

For both of you: What was the total word count, approximately for the single session adventure?

For Gameprinter: What were the person-hours without the map preparation?

Also, you might be interested to know that Paizo still buys freelance modules for their Pathfinder Society "living game." They publish open calls every once in a while.

If anyone else wants to reply please feel free.

 

[gamerprinter]

Honestly, I'm an extremely fast cartographer, and since these were maps for my own world - I've got 8 hours in my most recent full map of the entire archipelago, but with approximately a weeks time I created a bit less than 2 dozen maps, including all the encounter scale maps for each adventure encounter. So it's not a fair comparison for most publishers, most other cartographers are simply not as fast while still maintaining a high quality end product. While I am an author, game developer and designer, first and foremost, I am a cartographer - that's how I got into the industry.

Also though, as a Paizo author, you'll be expected to create understandable maps of your sites and encounter maps, though you won't be normally expected to create high-end maps, like I create. Paizo would use their own internal cartographers for that. While I am a contributing author for the Jade Regent AP, which is a nice addition to my resume, really I prefer to publish my own stuff or work with smaller publishers rather than work for the big publishers. I have more creative control staying small.

You can explore my Map Thread here on the ENWorld boards...

 

[Stormonu]

For the "one session" adventure I self-published (The Tangle), its about 10K words and 18 encounter areas (4 main encounters). Not including map, art or graphic design, it took about 15 hours of work. Grand total with the map and other work, it took about triple that.

As a comparison, a second "one session" adventure I self-published (The Aurora Hold), is 13K and 10 encounter areas (4 main encounters). It took only about 8 hours of work, as a large portion was randomly generated, then "mopped up" as part of the module's playtest.

For a third comparison, another self-published adventure (Dragonriders of the Dark), is 19K and 54 encounter areas (7 main encounters). In play, it takes about four six-hour sessions to complete the adventure. I bring it up because while the initial draft of the adventure only took 4 hours (due to using a random dungeon generator program), it took over 20 hours to straighten up into a decent adventure - most of which came about through the playtest. I mention this because I learned from this venture that making random dungeons is a poor method of making a quality, publishable dungeon.

For the actual adventure I made back in the 90's (The Winter Tapestry, Dungeon #79), it was 19K words (it's pretty wordy - an overland adventure plus the adventure location with about 30 areas total) and probably would take about four six-hour play sessions to complete. It took me a month / about 35 hours to complete. That's not including the 3 revisions to the text, maps or art (I did a basic isometric map and two graph-paper maps and a rough of the "tapestry" adventure hook - TSR did the final maps and artwork).

One thing I that hasn't been mentioned before is playtesting. Make sure any adventure you put together gets playtested, at least twice - once after initial design and then again after revision. Preferably NOT by the author running it themselves (but on-hand to make notes).

 

[The Hound]

Dungeon maps

Gameprinter, I tried to PM you but your mailbox is full. Do you do custom maps, other than those you create for your modules? Can you give me a rough idea of your rates? Please PM me.

 

[gamerprinter]

Gameprinter, I tried to PM you but your mailbox is full. Do you do custom maps, other than those you create for your modules? Can you give me a rough idea of your rates? Please PM me.

I've cleared out my PM mailbox, so you can try again.