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What makes an adventure great?
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<blockquote data-quote="jollyninja" data-source="post: 1920628" data-attributes="member: 3208"><p>my main advice would be don't try to make every adventure a great adventure, you will fail, just try to keep them good enough that everyone will enjoy themselves.</p><p></p><p>for each adventure though, i have a few pointers.</p><p>have something for each player, not just each character.</p><p>if one player likes combats above all else</p><p>one likes logic puzzles</p><p>one likes political intrigue</p><p>one just wants coin/items</p><p>and one is a woman (who knows what they want really, he he)</p><p>put something into each adventure you design for each player. the combat guy will sit through anything he has to to get to the battle with the invisible lev 5 hobgoblin fighters led by a beholder using it's antimagic cone to deactivate the party's magical capabilities. if you need riddles for the puzzle guy, you have the internet at your fingertips if it's not your thing to make them up or steal stuff from video games. every good game setting (including good homebrews) have enough background info to leash the intrigue guy. the game is full of items and everything has coin, just ignore rolls that get you none. and i'm sure there are stats somewhere for the crystal bunny sword that turns agressive meanies into gushing poets with every swing (just kidding ladies).</p><p></p><p>but the key is that most if not every week, each player gets his fix of the particular aspect of RPG's that they like most. i mean you can't throw a puzzle in every week but make the group figure out a mystery or something that requires the puzzle guy to flex his cranial muscle even for just a moment and he'll probably be o.k. with that. how to find out what each person likes is easy: ask or just talk to them about their favorite adventures of past and why they liked them. this should give you the idea of what they like as gamers. </p><p></p><p>write it down and check your prepared notes for the week, or the published adventure, to make sure everyone is getting a bit of what they want, if it's not there, add it.</p><p></p><p>people love my campaigns because i do this, and it's so simple. munchkin powergamers and centaur mystics (dragonlance's least useful race/class combo) have sat side by side at my table both with ear to ear grins at the end of the night because the centaur met an enchanting elven driud who praised him above the rest of the party for his oneness with nature after a long discussion with the party about the finer points of homesteading and goblin killing while the munchkin got his +3 rapier of wounding/dragonbane/fate bending upgraded to +4 because he discovered the druid was actually a diety of some kind and wrestled it into submisison.</p><p></p><p>just give the mob what it wants.</p><p></p><p>just so i make more then one point like i said i would, if you are going to have a recurring villian, it works well to pattern it after someone many of the people in the group really do not like. this works better if you don't mind the person because you can keep it from becoming a parody of the person. ie. if your players are a bit left of center politically, having the villian behave like george bush - the good intentions X10, might work out for you but if you are also not a bush fan, it's hard not to just make fun of him through the villian's behavior and no good villian gets laughed by your players, ever. the moment one of the players laughs at your villian, have them defeat him in a siutably memorable way and have his boss start to take notice of them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jollyninja, post: 1920628, member: 3208"] my main advice would be don't try to make every adventure a great adventure, you will fail, just try to keep them good enough that everyone will enjoy themselves. for each adventure though, i have a few pointers. have something for each player, not just each character. if one player likes combats above all else one likes logic puzzles one likes political intrigue one just wants coin/items and one is a woman (who knows what they want really, he he) put something into each adventure you design for each player. the combat guy will sit through anything he has to to get to the battle with the invisible lev 5 hobgoblin fighters led by a beholder using it's antimagic cone to deactivate the party's magical capabilities. if you need riddles for the puzzle guy, you have the internet at your fingertips if it's not your thing to make them up or steal stuff from video games. every good game setting (including good homebrews) have enough background info to leash the intrigue guy. the game is full of items and everything has coin, just ignore rolls that get you none. and i'm sure there are stats somewhere for the crystal bunny sword that turns agressive meanies into gushing poets with every swing (just kidding ladies). but the key is that most if not every week, each player gets his fix of the particular aspect of RPG's that they like most. i mean you can't throw a puzzle in every week but make the group figure out a mystery or something that requires the puzzle guy to flex his cranial muscle even for just a moment and he'll probably be o.k. with that. how to find out what each person likes is easy: ask or just talk to them about their favorite adventures of past and why they liked them. this should give you the idea of what they like as gamers. write it down and check your prepared notes for the week, or the published adventure, to make sure everyone is getting a bit of what they want, if it's not there, add it. people love my campaigns because i do this, and it's so simple. munchkin powergamers and centaur mystics (dragonlance's least useful race/class combo) have sat side by side at my table both with ear to ear grins at the end of the night because the centaur met an enchanting elven driud who praised him above the rest of the party for his oneness with nature after a long discussion with the party about the finer points of homesteading and goblin killing while the munchkin got his +3 rapier of wounding/dragonbane/fate bending upgraded to +4 because he discovered the druid was actually a diety of some kind and wrestled it into submisison. just give the mob what it wants. just so i make more then one point like i said i would, if you are going to have a recurring villian, it works well to pattern it after someone many of the people in the group really do not like. this works better if you don't mind the person because you can keep it from becoming a parody of the person. ie. if your players are a bit left of center politically, having the villian behave like george bush - the good intentions X10, might work out for you but if you are also not a bush fan, it's hard not to just make fun of him through the villian's behavior and no good villian gets laughed by your players, ever. the moment one of the players laughs at your villian, have them defeat him in a siutably memorable way and have his boss start to take notice of them. [/QUOTE]
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