Pathfinder 1E Writing an adventure specifically for 1 party

[fagura]

I have always felt that a GM customizing an adventure to fit the characters running it, improves the quality of the adventure itself. In my experience, most groups do it -some to a lesser and others to a greater extent. I am talking about adjusting intro hooks, introducing minor sub-plots, adding depth to interactions with NPCs that for the original writer were insignificant etc. A couple of Gms I have played with customize adventures to such a large degree, that the adventure becomes more a sort of a guide for them than an actual sequence of events.
This has a few risks and drawbacks however: first of all, it requires a great deal of preparation by the GM (in some rare GM cases much preparation is not required but this is the case of very creative-on-the-spot-improvising GMs). Secondly, sometimes characters can go so out of the way that the GM has to contradict the story written. The original adventure author had so much in his mind when he wrote it: background, NPCs etc the GM though can't possible have all that knowledge so he runs the risk of reaching a dead-end story-wise which consequently means he will have to contradict the original writer. Thirdly, what GMs really do when customizing an adventure is rewrite it and let's face it, professional adventure authors are in general more capable of producing a good adventure than us, regular GMs and players.

How would it be if all this customization happened by the original author himself? If players could send the writer feedback and he would adjust the adventure for them? Even better, what if they sent feedback before the actual writing of the adventure and he would produce an adventure based on their needs (theme preferences, characters backgrounds etc) written exclusively for them?

 

[Yora]

Creating a great adventure certainly is an art that benifits greatly from having lots of experiences.
However, I think most adventures are not great. Leaving a published adventure untouched out of fear of ruining it seems unreasonable to me. Especially since even minor customization can greatly enhance any adventure.
Instead of having a messenger arrive informing the player that his master calls for adventurers for help, you could also have one of the PCs cousins arrive, telling him his uncle is in dire need of his help. Those NPCs don't need to have been previously established or altered in any way, but it still makes the whole affair much less impersonal.

Another thing is, that many adventure writers are creating their adventures for a setting that has its own particular elements. Even if it's meant to be purely generic, there are still assumptions about the landscape, the local native creature, and parts of the culture. One of the most frequent things I run into are creatures that I consider nonsensical and inappropriate for my campaign. (90% of the time it's evil clowns and traveling circuses). But if the rest of the adventure seems decent, there really isn't much harm in just changing some encounters. Pathfinder is a game that is extremely heavy in preparation (probably at the number 1 spot together with D&D 3rd Ed.), so it's quite annoying, but in many other games it's barely any work to switch out 4 trolls for 6 ogres instead.

 

[TerraDave]

How would it be if all this customization happened by the original author himself? If players could send the writer feedback and he would adjust the adventure for them? Even better, what if they sent feedback before the actual writing of the adventure and he would produce an adventure based on their needs (theme preferences, characters backgrounds etc) written exclusively for them?

this would be called DMing?

One issue I have with this, and have had--DMing--is changes in players preferences, at least at the margin. What is wanted can change, the characters can change, and some players will change. Some things will also work better, and some worse, then expected. This is all especially true over the course of a many session series of adventures.

Again, DMing.

 

[Gilladian]

How would it be if all this customization happened by the original author himself? If players could send the writer feedback and he would adjust the adventure for them? Even better, what if they sent feedback before the actual writing of the adventure and he would produce an adventure based on their needs (theme preferences, characters backgrounds etc) written exclusively for them?

Ummm... even if an author listened to a live play recording of a game to then write a follow-up adventure for a party, it would not be as good as the adventure a DM should be able to produce for his group, if he or she is a decent DM at all. I would HATE, as a DM, having someone else try to write stuff for me, as well. I mean, it's my game, I know what I like, and it is rarely what someone else would do in the same circumstances.

And if I'm running a module but altering it for my PCs, I want to alter it in ways that suit ME, not in ways the author THINKS would suit me. If we were best friends and he or she knew me really well, it might work, but it might not.

The DM is the one who is best suited to write materials for his players. If he's working from someone else's adventure outline or module, he's doing it because he wants that material as a base, but modifications can and should be his own.

In fact, rewriting adventures is FUN. I WANT to do it. I use prewritten adventures so that I don't fall into a rut, but I always reshape them to some degree or other. Don't try to take that away from me!

 

[gamerprinter]

Some adventure modules include aspects adapted to different parties and party decisions, for example, The Curse of the Golden Spear 2: Dark Path, the second module of this introductory trilogy of modules set the in Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG), includes gray box text in case adventure parties choose not to follow the specific routes through the wilderness - which much of that adventure is built around. How to move encounters from one place to another, how to find important items if characters miss a certain building in a ruined village, etc. So there is some modifications available, built into the adventure. All the adventures in that trilogy were playtested by multiple groups before release - so there is some level of feedback provided before a product is released.

However, some groups have 1 player, some groups have 8 players. It would be considerable extra work by the author/designer to accomodate every possible variant group that might be campaigning in the modules. Extra work equates extra word count, which might significantly increase the page count. Note that 64 page module/supplements is an important price break for many printing companies. So many publishers try to avoid crossing a 64 page count in most module releases. If the page count is hard-coded, then the only way to add extra content, is to remove existing content to make room for it. Neither solution is optimal for everyone, and nobody wants to pay too much for a cover price than it ought to be.

As TerraDave states, adjusting a given adventure for a specific group and their idiosyncracies is the GM's job - it has always been so. I don't think it would be worth it to have to pay more money, or to lose content to accomodate every nuance on every possible table.

Aside from the costs of cover design, illustrations, cartography and page layout, writing/designing and editing are the 2 most expensive costs in creating RPG products. Anything you do to increase the workload for author/designer greatly increases the cost of production and everything created by the author needs to be checked by the editor for an equal amount of cost. Your quest for a possible solution in this matter is impractical for everyone.

 

[Slippery_Chicken]

So what happens if the characters you wrote the adventure for get killed? That recently happened to my group, and it seems to have demoralized the GM and (probably) killed the campaign.

 

[Storminator]

I tell people stories about my campaign. I've found that if I spend half an hour describing the characters and the story so far, I leave out enormous swathes of gaming history. I'm hard pressed to imagine the adventure author listening to me drone on FOREVER to grok the PCs enough to do a better job adapting an adventure than I would.

PS

 

[gamerprinter]

So what happens if the characters you wrote the adventure for get killed? That recently happened to my group, and it seems to have demoralized the GM and (probably) killed the campaign.

What happens if the characters for a homebrew game get killed? If for a singular death, you roll up a new character or convert local existing NPCs... what the difference whether an adventure is published or not? Answer: nothing. If a TPK occurred, that might be the end of an adventure possibly, however.

As far as overly powerful encounters in a published adventure, either the author has prepped the PCs with backstories and found objects able to take on the over-powered opponent, or the adventure wasn't playtested enough, which could be the case, in which case you should research if a given publisher uses playtesters at all. Rite Publishing for example playtests everything with multiple groups, so if a TPK was accidentally written into the adventure, it would be found in playtesting, and tweaked to work. I cannot say that for every publisher.

When I ran The Curse of the Golden Spear trilogy mini-arc of adventures for Kaidan, by Rite Publishing. One of the PCs died in the middle of module one, and another died in the tunnels of the third adventure which required the PCs to exit the underdark passages before finding a replacement character outside. This was for an adventure with four pre-gen characters. While challenging, I didn't find the possibility of losing a PC a campaign ending experience. If nobody died or there were no close calls, I might believe the adventure was under-powered.

 

[gamerprinter]

Another option that more adventure writers might do, last year I wrote Haiku of Horror: Autumn Moon Bath House for the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror. It was designed to be an encounter location at a bath house serving as a local tavern/gaming house, a respite for passing pilgrims, with a ghost, several haunts and a curse. The included ghost comes pre-stated at CR 6, 10, 14, 18 and 22 to serve as a drop down encounter site for ready use by multiple levels of adventuring parties, thus is somewhat variable for different gaming groups. I've imagined including stats for 3 different CR levels to accomodate varying adventure parties on full modules I might create. That is about as much variance as I might include in a product.

 

[Quentin3212]

There's also the issue of the amount of work it would require for an adventure's author to tailor the adventure to every party. There are a lot of people who play these adventures, reading over character backgrounds and making alterations for every party would be a nightmare.