Crafting an Adventure Module Format

Module writers and users, lend me your ears.

I'm in need of a module format that I've never seen before. If it's out there, show me the way! 4e had a book about simplified encounters, which I vaguely remember. It wasn't quite what I seek, because it involved mostly direct combat, and well, was 4e.

The need arises from having recently read several unwieldy modules. Unwieldy in this case means that the encounters in the module are not accessible. Sure, they're there, but buried in the text, in the background information, in the contingencies, and in the other encounters.

I want to extract the encounter, make it fast and easy to run, and provide easy access to the peripheral information which does not belong in the encounter.

My first ideas on this are to make encounters more graphic. Like a flowchart or entity relationship diagram. I'd also like to make them more dynamic by removing the script and empowering the GM to wind up his toys, drop them in the encounter, and see what happens.

Been done? Not possible? Too crazy? Or worst of all: already posted?

Are you thinking of maybe the "Delve format"? That was a late 3.5E thing that I think carried over into early 4E. It consolidated the encounter into two facing pages that had an encounter map and relevant stats.

I actually didn't like this format because it took all the non-combat stuff (descriptions, etc) and shunted them off into another part of the adventure, so you didn't escape flipping back and forth, but it did make *combat* more streamlined. Personally, I just want all the relevant info in one spot. No references to elsewhere, no crossing page flips, no monster stats at the back of the module, no "encounter book" and "description book." But then, to each his or her own.

Flipping is the bane of modules. In Phandelver, at one point while running a fight in the Wave Echo Caves, I was flipping between a room description, a map page, the stats for 3 different monsters (on 3 different pages in the back of the book) and switching books to the rules to check on cover and invisibility and some other things. It was VERY difficult.

I think that the goal of NEVER flipping around is a fruitless one, however. The best you can do is present info in a format that is CLEAR, CONCISE and CONSISTENT. For example, if you are going to describe the condition of the room before the occupants, do so EVERY time. Always list sights, sounds and smells in the same order. Put traps and dangers in one spot, with one format for each. Put treasures and rewards in the same place in every description. Nothing is more frustrating than having to say "hmmm... well, the orcs have this... and the wizard had that... oh, and I completely forgot to tell you two rooms back that you found some other item..."

That's my only advice.

Gilladian said:

Flipping is the bane of modules. . . It was VERY difficult.

a format that is CLEAR, CONCISE and CONSISTENT.

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Heard, understood, and acknowledged. This is going at the top my my design board.
[MENTION=5868]Olgar Shiverstone[/MENTION]: yes, I'm pretty sure the Delve was it. And you're right, it was all about combat. But I'm not sure that it can't be used in other ways as well. . .

What if every encounter has its own page or two-page spread, all immediately relevant information is guaranteed (reprinted) to be on one of those pages, and all secondary information is referenced with a page number?

2. I'd like to go a step further, actually, and give each bit of information an "element number," so you can not only find your page quickly, but you can find what you need on that page (this paragraph would be element #2). In addition, an element number could facilitate some cross referencing. For example:

3. Gilladian. This ENworld member contributed to the Adventure Module Format thread in December, after Olgar Shiverstone (p.2 e.6), and submitted the Clear, Concise, Consistent rule (p.2 e.9). Carries a quarterstaff and spell book (contains the Clear and Consistent spells).

I've had a related problem that I've pondered a solution for.

I would love an application (the kind of thing I make for a living) that would streamline the building of an adventure AND the running of it at the game table.

What I've found is NOT what I am looking for is a Word document with all the rooms numbered and description text with monster stat blocks.

Nor is it an Initiative/combat tracker matrix tool.

I envision an interface with tabs perhaps for NPCs, Places, Items, Monsters, TimeLine. I might click on Places and create a Dungeon with a map attached. Then I right-click on the area with Room 1 and choose "New Room" and fill in the flavor text and contents. I might choose or randomly roll a CR2 monster and drop that in, which also links in on the Monsters tab. The monster's gear and random loot get rolled up and will appear on the Items tab as well as on the Monster itself when I look at it directly or from the Place tab when I view Room 1.

Each Item will have a checkbox that denotes if the players have taken it. that means I can flip to the Items tab, set it to show "only taken items" and deliver a list of all the loot to the players easily.

I don't know if this is the most expediant way to design the adventure or run it, but some kind of Gaming-centric easy entry and navigating tool would make GMing a lot easier.

I might use the TimeLine to define the major point of the adventure. Each NPC has a connection to this TimeLine to reflect WHERE they are. So in the Beginning node of the TimeLine, the Mayor is at his House. In the Climax node, he's in the secret evil lair. In this way, I just set where we are in the TimeLine, and the NPCs update to their correct position. Useful for things that run on a script. Might have some issues where things have changed, but no worse than me fumbling around trying to find the Mayor's stats who was listed in Chapter 1 of the PDF, and I need him for Chapter 12 at the Evil Lair. I this way, I'd just set our TimeLine to Climax, and then look at the Evil Lair on the Places tab and the Mayor would be there, ready to be a BBEG.

Janx said:

I envision an interface with tabs perhaps for NPCs, Places, Items, Monsters, TimeLine. I might click on Places and create a Dungeon with a map attached. Then I right-click on the area with Room 1 and choose "New Room" and fill in the flavor text and contents. I might choose or randomly roll a CR2 monster and drop that in, which also links in on the Monsters tab. The monster's gear and random loot get rolled up and will appear on the Items tab as well as on the Monster itself when I look at it directly or from the Place tab when I view Room 1.

I don't know if this is the most expediant way to design the adventure or run it, but some kind of Gaming-centric easy entry and navigating tool would make GMing a lot easier.

I might use the TimeLine to define the major point of the adventure. Each NPC has a connection to this TimeLine to reflect WHERE they are.

Click to expand...

I'd be surprised if Roll20 didn't do a lot of this already.

The tabs feature is already handled by web browsers, especially with an html adventure module. Take an adventure wiki. If you open your encounter page in one tab, which has links to each of your encounter elements, then you can open a new tab for each element, and the result is a list of all the tabs you need for your encounter.

Regarding the timeline, you want to talk to Bethesda Softworks. Their games (at least Oblivion and Skyrim) have been using an engine that updates all entities based on time passing and their scripts. It doesn't sound hard in principle, but I suspect that BS designed their own software for the task or licensed it. So some effort was probably involved.

Back on track: the type of adventure planning you propose sounds very railroad, if at any given point in time you know exactly where X number of entities are. I'm going for more of a blend between sandbox and railroad: some encounters get laid out as guidance for the GM, but he's not just able, but encouraged, to fill in the gaps.

I'm all for indexing and cross-referencing, but I'm a librarian! It goes with the mindset.

But yes, I think you are on the right track. Just remember the concise part, too.


And lol! I always wanted my own spell book!

Bear in mind I write web applications for a living. so my depth of knowledge on how to do all this is pretty deep.

DMMike said:

I'd be surprised if Roll20 didn't do a lot of this already.

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Roll 20, last I checked is more about being a web-based battle-mat and is the antithesis of entering in all the info before you begin.

I'm thinking of something that holds all the elements of the adventure/module, and displays the parts I need when I need them in the context that I need them.

DMMike said:

The tabs feature is already handled by web browsers, especially with an html adventure module. Take an adventure wiki. If you open your encounter page in one tab, which has links to each of your encounter elements, then you can open a new tab for each element, and the result is a list of all the tabs you need for your encounter.

Click to expand...

You're thinking browser tabs. Those aren't what I'm talking about. I am talking about navigation tabs inside the web page itself. Check this demo page from DevExpress (a UI toolset I use in ASP.NET):
http://demos.devexpress.com/ASPxNavigationAndLayoutDemos/TabControl/Features.aspx

The idea is that once you load the campaign/adventure up, these tabs are always present, so I can jump to view all the NPCs (and look for a specific one) or jump to Places and pick a place and then see the NPC or whatever that is at that place.

From Gilladian's Librarian perspective, we're providing a catalog feature to find what you need to find in the adventure, by a couple different means.

Tabs may or may not be the best UI element. They are omnipresent, and if the # is low, they'll fit well on a screen, making it easy to switch views.

Technically, all this data forms a Tree. A chain of Places with NPCs and Items attached. But I am not wholly confident that a treeview is appropriate for the entire structure (though it might be handy for the Places).

That is part of the challenge of the design, coming up with a UI that actually helps streamline the management of the materials in an adventure.

DMMike said:

Regarding the timeline, you want to talk to Bethesda Softworks. Their games (at least Oblivion and Skyrim) have been using an engine that updates all entities based on time passing and their scripts. It doesn't sound hard in principle, but I suspect that BS designed their own software for the task or licensed it. So some effort was probably involved.

Click to expand...

It's not really that hard. All entities default to their starting place for any point on the time line (also handy for when the timeline is new and only has one point because the GM isn't using it).

The GM can open any NPC and see the TimeLine for that NPC and adjust it if needed (add another point, change the location the NPC is at).

It's not that hard from a database or coding standpoint. the trick is to make it easy to use (or it won't get used).

DMMike said:

Back on track: the type of adventure planning you propose sounds very railroad, if at any given point in time you know exactly where X number of entities are. I'm going for more of a blend between sandbox and railroad: some encounters get laid out as guidance for the GM, but he's not just able, but encouraged, to fill in the gaps.

Click to expand...

The point is to supply a GM with tools he can use to manage the mess. A GM cannot manage 500 NPCs in a list and figure out which 4 are RIGHT HERE on the fly because it's a PITA just to find those 4 guys. Printed adventures don't do it either. They place those 4 guys in Room 12 and show their stats under Room 12's description.

So most GMs very likely, place the NPCs somewhere, and then mentally adjust for the exceptions (NPC 15 heard a noise and is now walking the perimeter instead of sleeping in Room 8).

If we make the interface easy, the GM would just go to Room 8, grab NPC 15 and change his location to "the perimeter" and now when the PCs get to "the perimeter", he'll see NPC 15 is there and run the encounter accordingly.

Janx said:

The point is to supply a GM with tools he can use to manage the mess. A GM cannot manage 500 NPCs in a list and figure out which 4 are RIGHT HERE on the fly because it's a PITA just to find those 4 guys. Printed adventures don't do it either. They place those 4 guys in Room 12 and show their stats under Room 12's description.

So most GMs very likely, place the NPCs somewhere, and then mentally adjust for the exceptions (NPC 15 heard a noise and is now walking the perimeter instead of sleeping in Room 8).

If we make the interface easy, the GM would just go to Room 8, grab NPC 15 and change his location to "the perimeter" and now when the PCs get to "the perimeter", he'll see NPC 15 is there and run the encounter accordingly.

Click to expand...

Mess-managing is definitely a focus for me. I want point-and-click encounters, drag-and-drop. The way encounters are written, though, is to weave all the elements together. If a room has two ogres in it, then those two ogres are referred to over and over throughout the encounter, making it fairly hard to pull one out, or add a rust monster.

To me, the encounter should consist of several elements interacting: the room, an ogre, another ogre, the treasure box, and the secret door. Another element for adding interest would be the Dynamics element, which says how certain elements interact. The Meta element adds purpose to the encounter: "Meeting Grock the Ogre here provides Grock with the knowledge of the PCs' whereabouts in encounter BA (p.10, e.48)."

So, reading this, the GM doesn't say "did I follow the script correctly?" Instead, he says "I think I'd like the ogres to invite the PCs to tea. They can earn the treasure by impressing the ogres with their etiquette. And, I'll throw in the rust monster, element 23, to dissuade my PCs from flashing weapons."

What would be cool in an app is a tab for each element in the encounter, and say, mousing-over the tabs reveals the reference information. Having an entry for 500 NPCs sounds like the persistence (?) level of an MMORPG, maybe not modular adventures. (I've thought on occasion that a database with certain limitations on user-alterations would indeed make for an awesome MMORPG, one that would support GMs as well as PCs.)

For an adventure, 500 NPCs is probably an exageration. Though for a town, location, it might be spot on.

In my imaginary version of this, the GM would login, select a World, and then opt to work at the World level, or drill in to work on an Adventure, that has access to all the World elements, but by default, filters down to "just what's needed in this adventure"

In a published adventure, the standard mess to be managed seems to be:
NPCs (who are they, where are they, what do they have)
monsters (who are they, where are they, what do they have)
Places (towns, dungeons, rooms)
Items (all the goodies on NPCs, monsters and lying in Rooms)

A simple 1 level dungeon with 12 rooms, 50% occupied with 4 monsters per encounter and 2 items per monster is at:
13 Places (dungeon + 12 rooms)
24 monsters
48 items

A Tab interface gets pretty sloppy at 10+ tabs, which is why I imagined using Tabs for category of information.

Bear in mind, that when you go to the Places tab, select Room 4, I'll show you the room description and the 4 monsters in that room, and each monster's 2 items. So what the user sees is a concise bundling of all the relevant information that goes together.

If you go to the Monsters tab, and select Monster 5, I'll show you he's in Room 4 (and the description), with a note that there's 4 monsters in that room.

So the GM should be able to see the "full encounter" regardless of what direction he takes to get there.

In theory, the Encounter is the combined info of Monster, NPC, Items at a specific Place.

This concept may be sufficient for a basic dungeon crawl (which is location based, so the GM is navigating the Places tab pretty regularly).

Not sure how it would help for event driven (hence my TimeLine idea) or your Dynamic Elements concept.

I'd probably also have to figure out how to handle random encounters (stuff that wasn't already statically placed in the Adventure).

This is basically the challenge of why there hasn't really been a solid "Adventure running" application. Some folks are managing games with One Note, which seems like it would help with the capturing of data elements.

One concept I've had for making my imaginary app game-agnostic, is that the NPCs, monsters etc would be defined by generic text boxes, that I'd supply HTML templates for. The user would use a WYSIWYG box to fill in the stat block, but the stat block itself is just rich text. The app wouldn't really know or care if it said Bob the Wizard or was a fancy 3e stat block.