A challenge to the d20 publishing community

[jester47]

My challenge to the d20 publishing community:

Give us a book that will help experienced DMs prepare an adventure in the time that it takes a player new to the game to make a character.

That's the stuff that we need. Not Advanced PHBs, MMs, and DMGs. Not more templates, prestige classes, or feats. We need scenery, props, and extras and a system to coordinate them quickly into an adventure.

Aaron.

 

[der_kluge]

I was thinking about this kind of thing the other day. I mean, as a DM the thing I need the most is more time! So, it got me to thinking that what I needed were tools that I could use to reduce the amount of time it took me to write my game.

I think there is a fine-line between offering up lots of handy information, and not offering up so much that DMs get lost in all the stuff, they don't know where to turn.

I'm still waiting for the "big book of ideas", but it's been 3 years now, and I still haven't seen that one. I may have to just write that one myself, I suppose.

Magic items. That's another book that I considered doing - a big book of fully fleshed out, unique magic items. That would save me lots of time.

Maps. I can always use good, unmarked, interesting maps of a multitude of various locations. I do not need maps of Inns, or castles, or brothels, or anything like that. That stuff I can just make up. I need maps of dungeons, and caves, and sewer complexes. Big maps, small maps, everything in between. It's even better if it's drawn in three dimensions.

If I had all that stuff, I'd be all set.

One more thing, I will pay cash money for a random memorized spell lists for all kinds of characters at every level.
So, like make a bard at 1st level, and write down what his spells are. And the same bard at level 2, all the way up to 20. And provide a theme - "This bard specializes in clerical magic, and defensive spells", or "this bard focuses on illusionary spells". Clerics (of various gods, and alignments..), sorcerers - you could get creative here, with so many ways to specialize, like "ice" sorcerers, or enchantment sorcerers, or "fire" sorcerers, or any number of combinations; rangers, paladins, druids, you get the idea. I could have used that last game when I needed the spell list of a couple of mummy priests. I decided at the last minute that I would make them priests, and so I just had to kind of guess what their spell list might look like. I pulled it off.... ok..., but if I had this little puppy, I'd been all set. CMG Mark, this sounds like something right up your alley. Get cracking on this!


And while I'm thinking about it - for those publishers that put out books on templates, if you could go ahead and build a website so that I can take any MM monster, and slap on any number of templates, and get the stats for that creature, that'd be great. Yea.. *in my best Office Space voice*

So many good ideas here. I should just shut up and go write these so I can get rich!*

*as if.

 

[coyote6]

Magic items. That's another book that I considered doing - a big book of fully fleshed out, unique magic items. That would save me lots of time.

I think the reason we don't see more of this is that it's very hard to do, and make it generally useful. A bunch of unique magic items are useless if they don't fit my needs; in my experience, "uniqueness" can get in the way of "usefulness".

Maps. I can always use good, unmarked, interesting maps of a multitude of various locations. I do not need maps of Inns, or castles, or brothels, or anything like that.

I do. Caves and sewers I can fake, though maps like that would be welcome, too (especially if they had Interesting Features that I might not think of). But a simple sewer or cave complex -- it's just a network of chambers linked by passages. A castle

(The map set I want: a nicely detailed scyscraper, including all the maintenance & other spaces you don't generally see.)

 

[Darrin Drader]

Maps are things that you can download for free from a variety of locations, including the Wizards website. While I always generate my own maps for the stuff that ends up getting published, I often steal them from other sources for my home games.

One thing that would be way cool (but I wouldn't want to work on because of the sheer tediousness of it) is a book of nothing but NPC stat blocks. All the core classes in about 3 variations, level 1 to 20, 1 or 2 examples of all the perstige classes, the most commonly used monsters with levels in their favored classes, and some for templated creatures. In the same book (assuming that we haven't used up all the space available yet), have stat blocks for all the open content traps known to man. I feel that a product like this would eliminate a large amount of the usual prep work necessary for adventures.

 

[kingpaul]

Have you looked at Toolbox from AEG? Here's the quote from the product page.

TOOLBOX
SKU #8514
SRP $26.95
192 Pages, soft bound, map and graphic intensive
If you've ever been stuck for an encounter, a piece of dungeon terrain, or other details that can make a game come alive, you need this book. A compendium of useful idea generators, this book is full of lists and ideas to inject excitement and color into your game. Hundreds of tables allow you to generate all the details and texture your game needs. Whether you use them on the fly to improve your adventures or as the starting point for your creations, Toolbox is guaranteed to become a valued assistant for any DM who builds his own worlds and adventures.

• Hundreds of idea generating charts, all designed to fire a DM's imagination and ease the creative burden of building worlds, NPCs, and adventures.
• Adventure building tools all organized for easy use during a game.
• For d20 fantasy games, science fiction adventures, espionage RPGs, and a whole range of gaming genres.
• Includes vast selection of detailed NPCs with complete lists of spells, possessions, and combat statistics all ready to be used at a moment's notice.
• Designed and organized for use during play, allowing DMs to produce encounters within moments without slowing down the game.

 

[philreed]

Give us a book that will help experienced DMs prepare an adventure in the time that it takes a player new to the game to make a character.

Interesting. Reading this instantly filled my head with a burst of ideas.

 

[Flyspeck23]

My challenge to the d20 publishing community:

Give us a book that will help experienced DMs prepare an adventure in the time that it takes a player new to the game to make a character.

That's the stuff that we need. Not Advanced PHBs, MMs, and DMGs. Not more templates, prestige classes, or feats. We need scenery, props, and extras and a system to coordinate them quickly into an adventure.

I'm all with you on this count, jester47.

Take the Racial Modifiers Table (140 kb PDF) as an example - is that the kind of stuff you're looking for? (It's a fully usable preview - the finished version will add many more species, and will first appear as a bonus to On Nation Building). Similar charts and tables are planned - for example more NPC tables (previews coming soon, and the finished tables are again first published as an add-on to On Nation Building).

The Complete Spell Cards (available at RPG Now) could serve a similar purpose: looking for spells your NPC might wield? Don't search the book, just take a look at the cards, which you could then use at the gaming table (no more memorizing the spells or even copying the rules). Heck, you could even draw cards at random for each spell level... (although you're likely to redraw some, this would nevertheless cut the NPC design process short).

The SRD 3.5 Handouts could help you make the chance from 3.0 to 3.5 without explaining the rules to the players - just print out the handouts (or send them the PDFs), and they can read the rules for themselves. This of course won't help you preparing, but it can still help you manage your time

Furthermore, did I mention On Monstrous Villains? An upcoming book full of... well, monstrous villains. Background, stats, headquarter & henchmen (if any), advice on how to incorporate them into your campaign.

Hope that helped

 

[Arnwyn]

I was thinking about this kind of thing the other day. I mean, as a DM the thing I need the most is more time! So, it got me to thinking that what I needed were tools that I could use to reduce the amount of time it took me to write my game.

Heck yeah - as a DM, that's what I need the most, too. (It's one reason why I gobble up so many adventure modules...)

Maps. I can always use good, unmarked, interesting maps of a multitude of various locations. I do not need maps of Inns, or castles, or brothels, or anything like that. That stuff I can just make up. I need maps of dungeons, and caves, and sewer complexes. Big maps, small maps, everything in between. It's even better if it's drawn in three dimensions.

Definitely agree about the maps - but not about content. I'm opposite of you - I can design a cool dungeon, cave, and/or sewer complex in my sleep. Something that requires more realistic architecture, though (like inns and especially castles) is just what I need. However, I need dungeon maps just like everyone else, so I'd be happy with that too. I'd pay money for a *well done* product (Todd Gamble's Cartographica was a valiant attempt, but very poorly done on the DM utility side of things).

(The map set I want: a nicely detailed scyscraper, including all the maintenance & other spaces you don't generally see.)

Man... I would *love* that. (I'm particularly pleased with those "Global Positioning" maps in Poly, and would love more of that - especially with the details that you mentioned... along with ventilation shafts too!)

Maps are things that you can download for free from a variety of locations, including the Wizards website.

Y'know... I think all of us here are quite aware of that... and we're still asking for it. What do you think that tells you?

 

[der_kluge]

I think the thing about maps is this - yes, I *could* draw up my own sewer, cave, etc, map, but why should I when I can just pay someone for a book full of them?

And I agree on Cartographica. Nice maps, but I didn't care for the big "TODD GAMBLE" on every page, and I didn't particularly find any of them very useful. Not sure why. I don't use castles, and most of them were castles.

 

[Cergorach]

I think the thing about maps is this - yes, I *could* draw up my own sewer, cave, etc, map, but why should I when I can just pay someone for a book full of them?

And I agree on Cartographica. Nice maps, but I didn't care for the big "TODD GAMBLE" on every page, and I didn't particularly find any of them very useful. Not sure why. I don't use castles, and most of them were castles.

I didn't find it usefull because they were in a bound book, they suck to copy (far too dark). It would have been better if they were lose sheets in a folder.

I've got a question about those maps people say they want (especially that skyscraper), do you want them in color, in greys, in B&W, or all the above?

How big would that skyscraper have to be (number of floors & outside dimensions)?