What makes an adventure great?

[NewJeffCT]

My take – interesting NPCs make for a memorable adventure, even if it is a simple story.

Imagine replacing Han Solo from the original Star Wars movie with Jar Jar Binks? Or, imagine if Andy Dick did the voice for Darth Vader instead of James Earl Jones? Not quite the same, eh?

It is a relatively simple story – young innocent (Luke) with aid of wise old master (Ben Kenobi) uncovers hidden inner strength (the Force) to defeat a Dark Lord in his quest for ultimate power – made memorable by the interesting by the smaller characters. Frankly, Luke is a bit whiny and Leia is not exactly nice. But, add in Han Solo, Chewie, the droids, Ben Kenobi, the jawas & sand people, and a great villain, and you have a classic movie.

Imagine the wisecracking Hudson (Bill Paxton) from ‘Aliens’ or Tom Arnold’s obnoxious sidekick from ‘True Lies’? They helped make those movies more interesting.

I think a simple story with one or two twists works out great if you can pull off some interesting NPCs.

Edited to add - try to think of this as the first part of a movie, building to an early climactic point - a showdown with a minion of your eventual BBEG or just a goblin champion or both.

 

[mhensley]

As a player, what makes an adventure great is: freedom of action. Nothing sucks more than an adventure that railroads the players along a preset path.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

Wow! Some good advice here from everyone.

I would recommend the first thing to do is read: pick up anything and evrything you can and read. I have no doubt that some material willl stick with you, and present possible jumping-off points for your own adventures.

In this respect, I would highly recommend the works of Joseph Campbell. A tad bit scholarly, but otherwise great reading/ reference material. In particular, the whole idea of the "Hero's Journey" is essential for a DM, fledgling or otherwise.

A list of his available works are here.

 

[VoiceOfReason?]

Ok...on another note, if you were going to learn from someone else's adventures, who would you pick as an example. In other words, who do you guys think are the best D20 publishers out there.

You.
Don't waste your time buying modules, as has been stated before, customization plays a huge role in a good adventure. I haven't found a module yet that could stand up to the mental runoff I come up with on the toilet. Keep with the original intent of this post, it'll work a thousandfold better with practice and won't cost a dime.

my opinion on what makes a great game is a combination of things. Customization is big.
Novelty is big; if you give your players something new, it will stand out in their minds and they'll ask you to run another game.
The main thing though, is the attitude toward the game. If the players are cooperative, and the DM is cooperative, the game goes smoothly and everyone has a good time. I'm assuming this isn't a problem.


plenty of people on this thread have gone over customization and as a veteran DM I very much agree with all of their opinions.
Novelty on the other hand is tougher at first, but like any cranial excercise, it gets tremendously easier with practice. Note that above I said 'give your players' not 'player characters'-big diff. Handing out 'stuff' to buy the players' attention works for a while but gets old.

What I do mean by novelty can be found in webster's. Something new. As a guideline, try to come up with something completely new to you that you can throw into every adventure. This might be a cinematic fight scene roving across the rooftops of the merchant quarter, or it might be a unique landmark; or a magical crayon that writes on any surface, can never be erased or marred, but can only write or draw childish scrawlings regardless of its wielder's skill.
It doesn't matter what this novelty is, so long as it's completely new. Even if you're subconciously recalling something youv'e seen or heard of or someone else has already published your idea, chances are your players won't know the difference, or won't care if they do. The more outlandish, shocking, beautiful, or intense your (descriptions of) novelties are, the more the players will just eat it up.
The crayon idea I mentioned above, for instance, had all 8 players and 3 innocent bystanders hysterically amused for a good 10 minutes after the identify spell succeeded and they all got to choose what color crayon their character got to keep from the box. The crayons didn't really do anything a quill and ink couldn't accomplish, but the novelty appealed to them enough that 6 of 8 players still had their crayons 12 levels and a few character sheets later when the game ended. In fact, the only time they got used was to mark dungeon walls in place of chalk, and for a practical joke when the paladin tricked the barbarian into drawing a teddy bear on his forearm in pink (the best part was the barb's player legitimately forgot that the crayon didn't come off)

Constantly including the novelties will sharpen your mind toward coming up with ever newer, more interesting, and more complex elements to add to your adventures. It will also keep your players wanting more, giving you more practice as DM. It will also develop your ability to build a vivid description from scratch. Obviously I don't know you-I'm not saying you're lacking in any of these qualities, but it's easy to see how all of these things are of great advantage to a DM, but that's 3 orcs with 1 magic missile-tell me that's not good math.


As for MAS (mundane adventure syndrome) don't obssess over it. Your group knows you're new at this (either that or they're in for a suprise), and as your friends they'll cut you some slack for a while. My advice for this is to run a few mundane missions and see what develops. A sweeping storyline will hit you like a rotten tuna during one of the 'novel' brainstorming sessions, or when you least expect it. Don't get overly attatched to this storyline, you'll get a chance to recycle it if the players decide to do something else-and they will from time to time, don't take it personally and above all don't railroad them-2 of the easiest ways to turn a good game into a waste of time.