Who Actually Has Time for Bloated Adventures?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The Arcane Library, probably best known right now for the Shadowdark Kickstarter that wrapped up last month, has made their reputation on incredibly lean adventures that tell DMs only what they need to run an adventure, with the promise that they can run an adventure cold, if necessary. I've run three of their adventures, I think, maybe four, and I can attest that they run wonderfully.

Adventure writers should absolutely be looking to adapt the format for themselves.

 

[Autumnal]

Oh yes. They’re great works that way.

 

[Lanefan]

If inebriation is part of your gaming life, well, I left that behavior back in the 1980's...

I'm not quite a teatotaller, but with age, mixing booze and TT games lost its appeal not long after I was legal to drink.

Quite the opposite progression here.

My 80s and 90s gaming was pretty sober (with a few memorable exceptions). My 20s gaming, not so much...

 

[payn]

Okay. But do you think they are actually done well for this purpose? I'm far from one of the nay-sayers, in that I generally enjoy the WotC and Paizo-published adventures that I've read. But I wouldn't say that they are organized well for DMs.

I use PDFs for quick search and reading. Again., I see them as a kit I need to read and prep before running. I suppose using the physical copies would be a nightmare so maybe that is where the complaint is coming from? The GMs I have seen get flustered are the ones that are just not prepared.

Sure, yeah. But again I ask: Can't it be both? Can't they be broken down into bite-sized chunks AND add up to a big story? Are we sure that they can't be better? And by better, I mean A LOT better.

I am sure there is room for improvement, but I dont think they are anywhere close to THAT BAAAAAAAD. Sorry im just not in that group I think the Paizo APs are a great product. Less sure of WOTC stuff.

Well, I guess the general idea is less prep-time than we currently need to do. Obviously, some are better than others.

This is philosophical for me. I dont think a good campaign should be break open book and run easy. I think adventure modules of the type that are like advanced HeroQuest are the type of thing for this. I am glad APs are nothing like that though.

Does anyone do that though? (I mean, I guess someone probably does, there are ALL KINDS here). I think the complaint usually boils down to: Have the adventure give the players meaningful choices. Don't assume that the PCs will do the seemingly obvious thing. Give at least a little guidance for when they don't bite the hook. (IMO this is actually easiest when you give two or three possible directions at any given fork-in-the-road. If there's forks, you can't call it much of a railroad, and if you give multiple directions, you're less likely to have the players say "nope, we're going THIS way" and leave the DM stuck if the adventure only goes THAT way.

PCs might not take the most obvious route, but if they're not purposefully trying to cause their DM problems (and most are not), then a couple of alternate choices will usually do. They'll pick one of them.

Personally, I don't like sandboxes. But I'd LOVE for every adventure to make sure that there's more than one way to go whenever it presents a possible fork.

Three choices at every fork and yet easy peasy to run with little prep? I think these things are contradictory by nature. Old school modules didnt really give much choice about where or why to adventure, the choices came up when you got to the neon signed dungeon to explore. It's easier to run because its all just skill play and all the story stuff is left out. It's a totally valid style of play, and again, one I think is underserved. I do not believe this style is the realm of APs.

 

[Xamnam]

The Arcane Library, probably best known right now for the Shadowdark Kickstarter that wrapped up last month, has made their reputation on incredibly lean adventures that tell DMs only what they need to run an adventure, with the promise that they can run an adventure cold, if necessary. I've run three of their adventures, I think, maybe four, and I can attest that they run wonderfully.

Adventure writers should absolutely be looking to adapt the format for themselves.

I think we may have talked about this before, but while I think there are definitely great organizational lessons to be learned by how they present the material, I think they lean too far into lean. The reason I personally use and like adventures/modules is more for the scaffolding, not the bare ideas. Skyhorn went to the other side of the horseshoe, where I felt spent more time prepping than I would have with something with a bit more meat.

But they're definitely popular for a reason.

 

[kenada]

For me, I think the white space is helpful. I get easily overwhelmed with uninterrupted blocks of text.
But what I appreciate the most are bullet points to tell me the key features, sidebars to remind me of important story beats, maps and stats on the same page, etc.
I want good notes to run an adventure, not a novella.

Something else I like about the format Necrotic Gnome uses is the monsters are also labeled on the map. If the PCs are making too much noise or doing something that should draw attention, you can see at a glance what is nearby and have them react accordingly.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Something else I like about the format Necrotic Gnome uses is the monsters are also labeled on the map. If the PCs are making too much noise or doing something that should draw attention, you can see at a glance what is nearby and have them react accordingly.

VTTs do the same.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Three choices at every fork and yet easy peasy to run with little prep? I think these things are contradictory by nature. Old school modules didnt really give much choice about where or why to adventure, the choices came up when you got to the neon signed dungeon to explore. It's easier to run because its all just skill play and all the story stuff is left out. It's a totally valid style of play, and again, one I think is underserved. I do not believe this style is the realm of APs.

A lot of that was probably because a number, maybe the majority of them, were originally written for convention play. For most people, in that environment, keeping out anything that will derail progress is a priority that's going to trump almost anything else.

 

[payn]

A lot of that was probably because a number, maybe the majority of them, were originally written for convention play. For most people, in that environment, keeping out anything that will derail progress is a priority that's going to trump almost anything else.

Thats fine. Plenty of people want that play at home too. I think a lot of these "APs suck and need to be different" arises from their dominance in the adventure market. Its the same with folks saying "D&D sucks and needs to be less D&D." Its the dominant game so everyone fights for how its written.

I think what we need is less discussion on making APs, not APs, and more on additional adventure lines so there is variety in the offerings.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think we may have talked about this before, but while I think there are definitely great organizational lessons to be learned by how they present the material, I think they lean too far into lean. The reason I personally use and like adventures/modules is more for the scaffolding, not the bare ideas. Skyhorn went to the other side of the horseshoe, where I felt spent more time prepping than I would have with something with a bit more meat.

But they're definitely popular for a reason.

I think the adventures ought to be read through ahead of time. While I'm a very good improviser, just knowing what's coming helps me flesh things out on the fly.

I think these adventures could comfortably get 25% more words without compromising the design goals, for sure.