wotc intro adventures conflict with their own advice

[Wik]

I think we all noticed this when 4e first came out. In the 4e DMG, there was a lot of advice on how to stage and run a good adventure. A lot of that advice amounted to simple concepts like "Don't railroad", "encourage PC choice", and all those other great nuggets that we hear every day on this website.

And yet? The first intro adventure in the DMG is a string of combat encounters, one after the other.

This happens a few more times - Keep on the Shadowfell, for example, or the new Gamma World adventure (there's some nice GM advice, and then the sample adventure ignores a good chunk of it).

I understand why this might be done - to ensure that a limited page count is put to best use, that the designers think fun encounters are the most important part of the game, and so on - but it seems to me a case of "do as I say, not as I do".

In other words, new players reading all this handy advice (and I do believe the 4e DMG to be one of the best DMGs ever written) then get shown a sample adventure "written by the pros". Not really having any idea what is "proper" gaming, which would you follow?

The reason I bring it up is because this wasn't always the case with D&D. The famous 1e sample dungeon (the ruined monastery) wasn't a great adventure, but it had choices (and let the GM fill in blanks! Great idea!). Every BECMI intro I can think of was far from great, but they at least had non-linear exploration options (and also allowed the GM to expand upon the dungeon, even going so far as to provide advice on how to do so). I don't recall the 3e intro adventure, and I know there wasn't one for 2e (in my mind, a mistake).

In my mind, the intro adventure should have contained:

1. Three encounters - one easy one with a few minions, one "average strength" one that could be made easier if the PCs took advantage of a "trick", and one "hard" encounter, possibly against an elite boss. One of these encounters should contain a trap that a character with thievery can bypass (and maybe even use to his advantage!).
2. A Skill Challenge.
3. Light Exploration.
4. Possibility for expansion.
5. The ability to come at encounters from different angles due to PC choices (and maybe even ways for the PCs to catch enemies by surprise through clever play!).
6. A riddle or a puzzle.

These, by the way, are all things suggested in the DMG's advice. And for those worried about page count, the Draconomicon offers mini-adventures like this, and they take up a relatively small page count ("the ruins of Castle Korvald", a level 5th adventure, takes 8 pages, and this number could easily be reduced by maybe a page or two with some clever editing).

It's a general opinion on these boards that, regardless of your views on 4e (I happen to like the basic gist of the system but am annoyed by a few quirks of gameplay), the adventures are generally the weakest link. So the fact that the intro adventures are weak should come as no surprise. However, I've always been of the opinion that an intro adventure really needs to showcase your game and display how the game should ideally be run - and it has to do so in an easy to run fashion to allow beginners to run it.

And the recent intro adventures fail in that regard.

My two cents, of course.

 

[Wik]

My "perfect intro adventure", by the way, would be the adventure found in the original West End Games' d6 Star Wars supplement. In that book, they give plenty of advice for gamemasters, including a piece of advice that is basically (and I paraphrase, here) "Every adventure should have the following scenes at least once: a shoot out scene, a roleplaying scene, a chase scene, and a big dramatic 'oh wow!' scene". And in the introductary adventure the PCs meet one another and then have to escape an underground mine while stormtroopers flood the place.

It has some great (and simple) role-playing scenes (the stormtrooper commander taunts them over the intercom and the PCs can talk back), more than a few awesome shoot-outs, a great dramatic scene (I believe it's a mineshaft with lava at the bottom), and a really awesome chase scene (flying a Y-Wing fighter out the way you came, with stormtroopers pulling off shots as you speed by them!)*

Compare that to.... kobolds in a room, more kobolds in a room, and then a baby white dragon in a mostly featureless room.









* (For what it's worth, this adventure does have some problems with it. For example, it tells the GM to strip the PCs of all their starting gear, which usually doesn't mean much in Star Wars, but means a helluva lot if your character starts off with, say, a Stock Light Freighter).

 

[zoroaster100]

The Reavers of Harkenwold adventures that come with the new Essentials DM Guide box set are much better in that sense. They offer a lot more advice and support for roleplaying encounters and provide various encounters that can be done in varying order or skipped altogether and replaced with alternate player actions.

 

[Wik]

The Reavers of Harkenwold adventures that come with the new Essentials DM Guide box set are much better in that sense. They offer a lot more advice and support for roleplaying encounters and provide various encounters that can be done in varying order or skipped altogether and replaced with alternate player actions.

I haven't looked through essentials yet, so I'll take your word for it.

To be honest, this has bugged me since 4e came out (not that the adventure sucks, but that the adventure flagrantly ignores advice in the same book!). I thought it was a once-off, but after seeing the exact same thing in Gamma World, I didn't have much hope for Essentials.

 

[Votan]

* (For what it's worth, this adventure does have some problems with it. For example, it tells the GM to strip the PCs of all their starting gear, which usually doesn't mean much in Star Wars, but means a helluva lot if your character starts off with, say, a Stock Light Freighter).

Yeah, that can be an issue for Traveller as well. The virtue of some classes is that they have the possiblity of getting cool things like starships; classic adventure concepts that remove all gear are really hard to execute fairly.

On the other hand, it might actually be worse in a high level 3.X/Pathfinder game. Imagine the wizard losing their spellbook . . .

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

On the other hand, it might actually be worse in a high level 3.X/Pathfinder game. Imagine the wizard losing their spellbook . . .

The same issue arises with every pre-4Ed edition of the game.

...which didn't stop me from running an adventure called "Quest for Firepower," in which the main plot is a red herring, and the REAL adventure is to find the mighty mage's spellbook, stolen from him in combat.

You know...after he had cast a few spells.

 

[Votan]

The same issue arises with every pre-4Ed edition of the game.

...which didn't stop me from running an adventure called "Quest for Firepower," in which the main plot is a red herring, and the REAL adventure is to find the mighty mage's spellbook, stolen from him in combat.

You know...after he had cast a few spells.

I think that this isn't a bad thing -- using a feature of a character (like a spellbook) to drive an adventure is a time-honored tradition. The key is that you can get the missing item (the book) back. It's less cool if the starship that was a major feature of the smuggler character is destroyed while the Jedi keeps his cool force powers . . .

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

When (notice I didn't say "if I were to") I screw with a PC like that, there is ALWAYS a payoff.

 

[ERIN6]

Yeah, that can be an issue for Traveller as well. The virtue of some classes is that they have the possiblity of getting cool things like starships; classic adventure concepts that remove all gear are really hard to execute fairly.

On the other hand, it might actually be worse in a high level 3.X/Pathfinder game. Imagine the wizard losing their spellbook . . .

I have the same issue

 

[Klaus]

The Slaying Stone (HS1) is a pretty good 1st-level adventure.