D&D (2024) DMG adventure design advice - a bit contradictory?

[Ruin Explorer]

Adventures need structure.

Nah. 35+ years of writing and running adventures tells me this isn't really true.

Need is just flatly the wrong word. One way to build adventures is with a strong structured progression. That can be very effective. It can also very easily start feeling bad if the DM mishandles it or the adventure isn't well-written.

I mean, I'd say what I usually run are more "scenarios" than adventures, with various dramatis personae with goals and likely timeline and so on, and then the players go forth and interact with that - I may well plan out specific scenes or combats that or the like that I think are likely, but I barely ever structure my adventures, it's just not necessary. It's definitely optional.

This absolutely applies for new DMs as well as old hands. In fact, if you always structure your adventures heavily, you'll never learn how not to. I'm lucky because when my cousin taught me to DM, her demo adventure she'd written was largely unstructured. Even at 11 I didn't have problems writing adventures with a similar lack of structure.

 

[TwoSix]

Oh, I don't know - long-range planning e.g. "by 11th level you'll be fighting the arch-devil" can IMO and IME be a useful tool, in that a) it gives you an overarching plot to fall back on if-when other plots dry up and b) it allows you to sprinkle fore-shadowy and seemingly-disconnected (but in hindsight logical) clues in to earlier adventures.

To my mind, there's a difference between "planning" and "seeding".

Like, in one of my groups I'm running a site-based module (The Dark of Hot Springs Island). There's an efreeti at the center of a lot of the various factions and plots the group might encounter on the island. But I never had any "plans" for the efreeti, or how the PCs would encounter him. Other than detailing the surroundings and introducing NPCs, the PCs went wherever the heck they wanted.

 

[Iosue]

I mean, I'd say what I usually run are more "scenarios" than adventures, with various dramatis personae with goals and likely timeline and so on, and then the players go forth and interact with that - I may well plan out specific scenes or combats that or the like that I think are likely, but I barely ever structure my adventures, it's just not necessary. It's definitely optional.

That is absolutely structure. It’s not plot, it’s not a story, but it’s the very definition of structure.

Even a West March campaign has structure. The map with locations to visit, keyed dungeon maps and wilderness encounters. Timekeeping and recorded progression. That’s all structure on which play is built.

 

[bloodtide]

(1) How does the adventure play out? Determine the encounters or events that take the characters from the beginning of the adventure to the end.​

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(2) the events of the story shouldn't be pre-determined​

(1) and (2) - which are both direct quotes - seem like conflicting instructions to me. How can I determine in advance without pre-determining?

The problem here is the writer is being to nice. they are trying to keep the random game snadbox people happy....or more to the point, make sure they buy the book.

The writer should be saying "plan out encounter events that advance the adventure...but don't determine the way and order things must be done.

Now the random sandbox people, and it's a lot of gamers, don't like that idea. If a DM makes even one encounter they will be unhappy. They only want a game of pure chaos that is shaped only by the actions of their character. And that is fine if you have a great experienced amazing DM that can run that type of game. However, the DMG has to be for everyone....and more so for DMs with little experience and even more so for new DMs. And throwing a new DM into the deep end of "oh, just make up random stuff on the fly and make a great game" is not helpful to them.

This is where details come in, and making up encounter events ahead of time. And giving the game structure. The pure random sandbox is an empty space, the DM just makes stuff up right in front of the players. And that type of sandbox is hard to have any consistency, continuity or details....after all everything is made up and re made up every couple of minutes.

 

[Azzy]

This is why we Enworlders should take new DMs as apprentices si we can teach them how it's really done!

Oh, heavens no!

 

[Manbearcat]

I was looking at the preview page from the DMG on adventure design, on this website - The new D&D core books feature nearly 400 spells and over 500 monsters, but disappointingly few new ideas - and to me it seemed a bit contradictory.

Here's what I mean:

Follow these steps to create an adventure: . . .​

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Step 3. Plan Encounters. How does the adventure play out? Determine the encounters or events that take the characters from the beginning of the adventure to the end.​

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Step 4. Bring It to an End. How do you expect the adventure will end? Think about possible endings as well as rewards for the characters. . . . .​

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[W]hile it's worthwhile to compare an adventure to these other forms of storytelling [novels, movies, comics, TV], remember that an adventure isn't a complete story until you play. . . . the events of the story shouldn't be pre-determined: the actions of the players' characters have to matter. For example, if a major villain shows up before the end of the adventure, the adventure should allow for the possibility that the heroes defeat that villain. Otherwise, players can feel as if they've been railroaded - set onto a course that has only one destination, no matter how hard they try to change it.​

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You might find it helpful to think about an adventure not as a narrative that arcs from beginning to end with little chance for deviation, but more in terms of situations that you are presenting to the characters. The adventure unfolds organically from the players' responses to the situations you present.​

The stuff about not railroading, and about presenting situations (to the players, really, even though they say "characters"), seems at odds with the advice to plan how the adventure will play out and end, and what the encounters/events will be that take the characters from the beginning to the end.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Not really. And it's not as if the writing is coy: "How do you expect the adventure will end? Think about possible endings as well as rewards for the characters."

How on earth are you reading the above text as contradictory to the other text?

You could literally combine the two with a “however,” in between, and it works perfectly well. Like…if the adventure has a premise, it has a series of likely endings. So think about those, as well as what they mean for the characters and the world and about how to reward the PCs when they complete the adventure, with ideas for different potential endings.

I do tend to read instructional texts literally. I mean, there are some exceptions in the RPG world - some instructional texts that are also written with flair and allusion - but I don't think WotC is writing those!

And I'm not "searching for problems". I saw a link to this preview, I had a read of it, and I was struck by the contradiction.

“Literal” and “literalistic” don’t quite mean the same thing.

That aside, I don’t think most people are going to read that text and think that it’s telling them to map out all the events of the adventure.

 

[pemerton]

I don’t think most people are going to read that text and think that it’s telling them to map out all the events of the adventure.

If I did not want people to map out all the events of an adventure, I would not ask them "How does the adventure play out?" - which is to say, invite them to map out all the events of the adventure. Nor would I tell them to "Determine the encounters or events that take the characters from the beginning of the adventure to the end", which is an instruction to map out the events of the adventure, in a sequence from the beginning of the adventure to its end.

 

[Parmandur]

If I did not want people to map out all the events of an adventure, I would not ask them "How does the adventure play out?" - which is to say, invite them to map out all the events of the adventure. Nor would I tell them to "Determine the encounters or events that take the characters from the beginning of the adventure to the end", which is an instruction to map out the events of the adventure, in a sequence from the beginning of the adventure to its end.

Yet that ia how Adventure books are laid out. It is hardly an unusual approach to game prep, even though the end result will likely go off-rails.

 

[Parmandur]

If I did not want people to map out all the events of an adventure, I would not ask them "How does the adventure play out?" - which is to say, invite them to map out all the events of the adventure. Nor would I tell them to "Determine the encounters or events that take the characters from the beginning of the adventure to the end", which is an instruction to map out the events of the adventure, in a sequence from the beginning of the adventure to its end.

One data point yoy may want to consider here ro see how there is no contradiction is how the author himself preps games (in a way that Indo not find unusual or alien). This can be seen in the Dice Camera Action series where Chris Perkins runs a group of players through Curse of Strahd, a book which he wrote first: