D&D 5E (2014) Read-along, zero preparation adventures: do they exist?

[pukunui]

I found that I was able to run Lost Mine of Phandelver from the 5e starter set with little-to-no advance prep.

 

[Xaelvaen]

Hi there,

Monte Cook has tried to tackle this very problem with his Weird Discoveries book for Numenera. There is also a similar book called Strange Revelations for The Strange. Each adventure is six pages and is designed to be run with only a few minutes prep. I’ve not run any of the adventures but the way they are presented is very cool. Pretty sure you can download a preview that demonstrates the format.

Cheers


Rich

To be fair, everything about Numenera makes life easier for the GM. I backed it in a heartbeat when I discovered you can make a monster with a single near-arbitrary number. If it wasn't for the very limited level progression (6 tiers), I'd likely be playing that instead of 5E even today. I've tried for for a couple of years now to find a way to take that simple approach in other systems, but nothing ever has that same elegance.

 

[BookBarbarian]

I find the AL Adventures pretty easy to do without prep.

I also think it has as much to do with DM attitude than with the adventures themselves.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Is it really impossible to write a short adventure with a fairly straight-forward story (I wouldn't expect it to be an Agatha Christie's level of intrigue!), and design it in a format that requires ZERO preparation? Has there ever been an attempt at presenting an adventure that the DM could just crack it open and start reading it aloud to the players at the table, hearing the story herself for the first time? What is really the reason preventing such design?

Fairly early in the Encounter's program, 2010 & 11, the modules rose (or sank?) to that level. Crystal Cave was a turning point, you did have to prep that one, a bit, and keep track of what happened last time - it was also just a better adventure in many ways, a trade-off.
Prior to that I could walk into Encounters, find we had too many players, agree to DM for a table of folks that hadn't necessarily played together last week (or some might be brand-new), and just pick up and run that week's 'chapter,' cold, no problem, and be finished w/in 2 hrs of walking through the door. /Some/ (not much) of that is on the DM - just being /willing/ to run something simple and railroady and not embellish it ways that might have repercussions next week - but, IMX, yeah, it's possible to write adventures like that. They'r'e not likely to be great/inspiring/memorable adventures, but it's possible they'll be fun for a session.

 

[hastur_nz]

Most of the truly old-school i.e. pre-2E days, adventures had so little plot detail, that they could indeed be run "out of the box" with minimal if any prep... as long as the DM was prepared to ad-lib as necessary. Descriptions of everything were very small, little if any read-aloud text, and so it was up to the DM to flesh out the smaller details as and when required. The level of "plot" achieved, often depended heavily not just on the DM but also on the Players.

For example, Against the Giants (G1) contained a very small preamble, about how the PC's have been send to "do or die" vs the Hill Giant Steading, then it's off into describing the Steading, Dungeon etc. It's not especially important for the DM to understand the larger plot immediately, in fact the meta-plot only slowly reveals itself as you go along in G1-3. If the PC's get themselves in trouble and alert the whole complex, then some level of preparedness is useful, but to be honest even that could be ad-libed as required. I've skimmed the version in Tales from the Awning Portal, and it's pretty much the same - I reckon is could be run with minimal prep, as long as you are an experienced ad-lib type of DM. Nb: i was a long time back when I ran it (using 3.5 rules), so my memory might be murky.

Similarly, this year I ran an old Basic adventure, B5 (c. 1983), and while it had a couple of pages of exposition at the beginning, that was pretty much rubbish and I discarded it. It was a pretty big wilderness and multi-level dungeon adventure, but on the whole the level of "plot" was minimal, so the amount of pre-reading required wasn't too big. That said, I did spend some time trying to enhance its verisimilitude, so it made more logical sense in places rather than a hodge-podge of monsters waiting for PC's to arrive. Most of that was done as we went along, however, the main prep I did in advance was simply skimming through and making notes on what 5e monsters to use in various places where conversion wasn't obvious.

 

[Yaarel]

To be fair, everything about Numenera makes life easier for the GM. I backed it in a heartbeat when I discovered you can make a monster with a single near-arbitrary number. If it wasn't for the very limited level progression (6 tiers), I'd likely be playing that instead of 5E even today. I've tried for for a couple of years now to find a way to take that simple approach in other systems, but nothing ever has that same elegance.

I am curious about the Cypher System (both Numenera and The Strange use this gaming engine).

Some of the critiques about it suggested it indulged the ‘Linear Fighter / Quadratic Wizard’ problem that plagues earlier editions of D&D. Is this a fair critique? If so, is there a simple way to fix it?

I care about balance, and prefer to hesitate before investing my time in a system unless I am confident about its balance. No matter how cool it looks. And it looks cool!

 

[Xaelvaen]

I am curious about the Cypher System (both Numenera and The Strange use this gaming engine).

Some of the critiques about it suggested it indulged the ‘Linear Fighter / Quadratic Wizard’ problem that plagues earlier editions of D&D. Is this a fair critique? If so, is there a simple way to fix it?

I care about balance, and prefer to hesitate before investing my time in a system unless I am confident about its balance. No matter how cool it looks. And it looks cool!

That's a tough post to tackle - I'll do what I can.

The critiques are fairly accurate in that the 'Types' (classes) are fairly linear without a lot of choice or diversity. However, the Type almost takes second place to the character's Focus, which is sort of like another class in and of itself, in many respects. I've found that I fairly often have to 'tweak' the Types so they aren't so formulaic and, honestly, boring. That being said, as far as customization goes, the game is fairly broad and interesting. It's like combining a fantasy setting with super hero flavor.

You could make an "Intelligent Warrior who Bears a Halo of Fire" and now he is a combination of a smart fighter that also uses 'Flame on!' powers.

The game isn't crunch in a traditional sense since the game really isn't even focused around combat (you don't get XP for it unless the fight brings you some interesting new discovery). Enemies are just there to 'stop you' from the real point of playing the game. For a lot of players, this is a real interesting notion. Story definitely comes first. That being said, there is some tweaking that can be done to create more streamlined combat machines.

Speaking more on the lines of Linear Types, they've introduced a lot of rule adjustments since the first release. They've made different 'Type' alternatives, where you can forego a class ability to take 'flavor' from another ability. Want your fighter to use some sort of stealth maneuvers? You can 'dip' into it. Honestly, it feels quite a bit like multiclassing in other systems.

Balance is honestly beyond reproach - if balance is your big concern, Numenera does fairly well here. Monsters are a derivative of a single number - quick and easy, and can be adjusted based on party strengths and weaknesses.

Things never really get out of hand because there's a clear-cut limit to just how far a character can go. Training, Specialization, a couple of sources of assets - an untrained character and a trained character is enough difference to please the trained character, but not enough to make the untrained character feel like its a waste of effort.

I believe I backed the original for the 390 USD mark (limited edition leather-bound cover and all that), and even when I'm not playing Numenera, it's one of the greatest inspirations (for me) out there. In all, I'm not so much trying to sell you on the system as say for me, it was worth the money. At the least, just grabbing the core rulebook (or the players guide if they still sell that) gives you a very quick and easy grasp of characters and the rules (though the world of Numenera is easily my favorite part).

 

[tardigrade]

Sorry to sidetrack this thread but I notice there's a Kickstarter at the moment for Numenera - do we know if that's the same basic engine?

 

[Xaelvaen]

Sorry to sidetrack this thread but I notice there's a Kickstarter at the moment for Numenera - do we know if that's the same basic engine?

Numenera 2 claims to be backwards compatible, and the mechanics aren't changing - it's more about streamlining options, or so I've been lead to believe. They sent me an email since I backed the first one. I didn't back this one because of owning so many of the other books. I'll probably buy them in pdf after the Kickstarter - just had too many already going at the same time to back Numenera a second time. A shame, because I do appreciate Mr. Cook's efforts.

 

[Uller]

I find the AL Adventures pretty easy to do without prep.

I also think it has as much to do with DM attitude than with the adventures themselves.

I second this. I've picked up a couple AL adventures from dmsguild. I cant say the take no prep but a quick skimming of the material is usualky enough if your party fits within the strength intended for the adventure.