D&D 5E Adventure Design: Backstory and History

[Celtavian]

They look, to me, like an array of random and/or largely repetitive combat encounters, occasionally interspersed with uninteresting puzzles.

Yes, I'm about to get lynched. But it's true; I've been gaming well over 30 years, and I firmly believe that a large number of the "classic" modules are considered good only because of when they came out, and really don't actually have nearly as much to offer as many people maintain.

I'm not saying that the "novel disguised as module" is the right way to go. But I think many of the shorter/classic modules go too far the other direction.

I played those modules when they came out. The reason they are considered great is all the magic in them with one caveat I will mention later for Against the Giants. Against the Giants has fairly fun and challenging combat encounters (even if they are repetitive), meaning lots of stuff to kill. Any time you wanted to outfit a character with some powerful magic, you run one of those two modules and you're set. Those items were so nice for that time. Against the Giants is one of the first modules to actually include a girdle of giant strength and hammer of thunderbolts in the module. The three named items in White Plume Mountain were awesome to have. Every Elric fan boy back in the day wanted Blackrazor. I remember those modules fondly because of the extraordinary stuff you got out of them. As a melee character, wielding a hammer of thunderbolts or Blackrazor was an awesome feeling.

The one caveat that makes Against the Giants a great classic is the surprise introduction of the drow with stats. It was quite surprising at the time when in the third module you're fighting powerful, magic resistant dark elves. Now drow are old hat and far, far, far less powerful. They were some scary bastards in that module. It went from fighting big, dumb giants to unknown dark elves that seemed to laugh at magic. If you can imagine a time when drow were completely unknown and you experienced them for the first time, then you understand why Against the Giants is a classic.

 

[dd.stevenson]

As a rule, I'm looking for two types of things when I read an adventure with my DM's eye. (As opposed to reading for pleasure.)

First, does it have a lot of descriptions/dialog ideas with interesting word choices that I probably wouldn't have hit upon myself? I never read whole sentences to the players, but I often rely on phrases given in the module, because like most humans I tend to fall into a rut with my word usage.

Second, does it have enough of a framework that I can riff comfortably and confidently? This means not too much or too little; and pithiness is a virtue here.

In general, I find Paizo adventures fantastic on the first count, and far too wordy on the second: I could have summarized everything I needed from that wall of paizo text in maybe a fifth of the word count.

 

[S'mon]

Structured Text:

• I much prefer bulleted lists over prose
• Random tables and checkbox-lists are also good
• Lists make it easier to parse out important details during game play
• Authors are less tempted to wax lyrical or write a friggin' novel when they are constrained to ugly lists
• Adventures are meant to be played, not read

Agree strongly - for me the best adventures are the ones that if necessary I can run without having read in advance. I love the BFRPG adventures from basicfantasy.org for this reason; Dyson Logos' Dyson DElves also excellent. If it will take me hours of reading before each session, not so good. I don't get much pleasure from poring for hours over Paizo wall-of-text; my AP volumes look pretty but tend to go largely unread until I 'm actually GMing them, which makes running them tough.

I'm the exact opposite of Ari Marmell - I can easily make NPCs myself, and plots emerge naturally in sandbox play; bare-bones maps, monsters & treasure to riff of of, with a few interesting twists, is perfect for me.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

To each his own, and all that, but if making the adventure more readable makes it less playable, that's a huge fail.
Entry Headers. Fifth edition gets a lot of milage out of putting bold-italic "entry headers" at the start of a paragraph. I am not sure what the proper term for this kind of header is.

I've always referred to them as inline headings, and you're right. they're very useful.

I like using lists for significant descriptive details, though I still always start with a one or two sentence base description.

Gus the Bartender: A portly, affable human who knows many things, even if nobody has ever seen him outside the bar.

• beer stains on his apron
• Polishes a chipped glass
• smells a bit like cheese
• laughs readily, even at the poorest joke

The point is that the descriptive details are meant for reference at the table. The prose is valuable, but concision is everyone's best friend.

 

[ExploderWizard]

White Plume Mountain is considered a great adventure because of the items in the module.

Not for the items alone.

They look, to me, like an array of random and/or largely repetitive combat encounters, occasionally interspersed with uninteresting puzzles.

Yes, I'm about to get lynched. But it's true; I've been gaming well over 30 years, and I firmly believe that a large number of the "classic" modules are considered good only because of when they came out, and really don't actually have nearly as much to offer as many people maintain.

I'm not saying that the "novel disguised as module" is the right way to go. But I think many of the shorter/classic modules go too far the other direction.

Some of the classic modules can be a random assortment of repetitive combat encounters IF you choose to play them that way. Not every encounter needs to lead to combat. If a group of players is determined to simply fight any and every thing that they come into contact with then ANY adventure turns into a string of repetitive combat encounters. If that is how a group plays, might as well use adventures with just meat & potatoes.

 

[Fishing_Minigame]

While I like prose, since most of my prep for published modules involves boiling them down to bulleted lists anyway, it would be simpler for them to start out in that format.

I think what I would like more than anything else for WotC's modules would be if there was more of a focus on summaries, or "this is the bare minimum you need to know to run this section". Stuff like:

* Brief NPC list
* Which rooms are the most important (leaders hang out in Room M3, most mooks are spread between M8 and M14)
* Breakdown of encounters by location

I always make opposition lists in particular because it immediately helps me realize how densely populated an area is and where potential encounters are likely to be moving as they go about their day.

 

[Celtavian]

Not for the items alone.

Too bad we couldn't go back into time and prove this. I'd bet a substantial amount of money that White Plume Mountain would not be on the all time classics list without those three items. They were some amazing, standout magic items. If you removed them, White Plume Mountain] would fall far down or off the list of classics.

 

[MerricB]

Too bad we couldn't go back into time and prove this. I'd bet a substantial amount of money that White Plume Mountain would not be on the all time classics list without those three items. They were some amazing, standout magic items. If you removed them, White Plume Mountain] would fall far down or off the list of classics.

I think they help tremendously, but White Plume Mountain is also one of the few D&D adventures which really exists just to have fun with. It's a romp, and one that delights with its mad invention.

One of the really important thing to realise about the original adventures is that they were forging new ground *and* were coming into an environment when there were very few adventures to compete with. There was a list of the published D&D adventures on the back of these original releases. How many adventures *after* that list are considered classic? The answer: damned few.

One of the fascinating things about this history of D&D adventures is the competing threads of the style of adventure. You also get hybrids - Pharaoh is the beginning of the movement towards strongly-plotted adventures, but maintains a lot of the funhouse feel that is present in White Plume Mountain. (This combination of the funhouse and the mythic story probably characterises the type of adventure I enjoy most, and why Pharaoh is my #1 adventure). Compare to Village of Hommlet, which is a much more sober affair.

I delight in Hoard of the Dragon Queen - especially the sixth and eighth chapters, where the writers lay forth the situation at these locations (with a lot of NPC notes) and then describe the contents of the areas without overwhelming the later areas with text. Most of the relevant NPC material is easily located, and the rest allows the DM the freedom to adjust things (especially NPC movements) according to play. I think in those times Hoard demonstrates the best method of presenting a reactive environment with interesting NPCs; I certainly find it far, far more accessible than a lot of the Pathfinder adventures.

Cheers!

 

[Imaculata]

While we are on this subject, what I can't stand is when modules have maps that label all the rooms with numbers and letters, and then have the legend on a different page. It drives me nuts! And they do this for very simple maps too. You could just as easily fit the legend on the map itself, or simply replace the numbers with actual names of the rooms.

If the campaign module is such that the map is on the left page, and the legend on the right page, then this obviously not a problem. But I rarely see them do this. I always have to flip the page to the other side to see what "Room A" is supposed to be. And thus I find myself constantly flipping back and forth, back and forth, between the pages.

I realize that some DM's like to print these maps out, and for that reason might not want all the rooms labeled. But personally I cover unvisited rooms up anyway. If a room is a throneroom, don't call it "Room A", just call it "THRONEROOM".

 

[Lanefan]

I don't buy modules for maps (I can whip those up myself) nor for normal monster encounters (again - I can flip to a page in the MM and throw a fight together with ease)...

...In short, I want some of the really time consuming stuff done for me.

Maps and basic encounters ARE the time-consuming stuff! Special encounters and-or boss fights aren't that hard to design, and there's usually only one or two or three per adventure. If I need backstory (often unlikely) I'll have it in place beforehand if it's relevant to anything ongoing or I'll dream it up on the fly if it isn't.

I realize that some DM's like to print these maps out, and for that reason might not want all the rooms labeled. But personally I cover unvisited rooms up anyway. If a room is a throneroom, don't call it "Room A", just call it "THRONEROOM".

Give it a number also, so you know where to find it in the room write-ups (assuming, of course, they're in numerical order).

Lan-"I've learned the hard way that while I can dream up most things on the fly I can't do TotM dungeon design, unless I want rooms that are supposed to be separate not be"-efan