Mad Zagyg
Explorer
I respect your right to be wrong.
D&D 5E Adventure Design: Backstory and History
- Thread starter MerricB
- Start date
I respect your right to be wrong.
pming
Legend
Hiya!
Most of the time I like very short and sweet, with little "absolutes" unless it is one of the key things about the area/encounter/NPC. For major NPC's and areas, I like a bit more wordage, but I still like some things to be open to interpretation.
For example, a minor encounter might be:
Sometime during the night a small group of Rat-Men try and sneak into the camp. They are mainly interested in theft.
That's all I need and want. I don't need to be told the exact number of Rat-Men. I don't need to be told the PC's have to make "Check X" to wake up, or if a PC on watch needs to make some Perception check. I don't need info about what exactly the Rat-Men will do if caught (re: fight, flee, surrender, etc). The general motivations of the core bad guys in the adventure should have been touched on at the beginning of the adventure under "Running the Adventure", where there would be a couple of paragraphs describing the general story backdrop. I, as DM, should have more than enough information to decide what checks need to be made, how many Rat-Men is a "small group", and how they will react if caught.
A more prominent NPC should get a bit more...
Skeeg, the Rat-Man leader, is confident (for a Rat-Man) and considered very brave by other Rat-Men. He is strong and intelligent, with a devious mind, but this causes him to be rather prideful (if not outright conceited, with a distinct air of superiority in his words). He feels his position as leader is is natural, and reacts negatively and violently against those who question his leadership too much. He sees any failures of his plans as being caused because of others, never his own miscalculations. Skeeg does, however, have a soft spot for animals (especially rats), and this can influence his decisions. [...insert basic stat block...]
That should do it. Enough info about his personality so that he can be run as an individual, but not so much background info that he becomes confusing to run. It's easy to gather that "Skeeg; leader, crafty, arrogant, violent, blames others for failures, likes animals". One sentence worth of words that can be jotted down on note paper for when the PC's encounter him. I don't have to have a bookmark to the page with his write up.
As for "story" stuff... again, short and sweet is my preference. I'd rather have "The Purple Cabal (evil clerics) are running a kidnapping ring to fuel their sacrificial rites. The mayors son is the high-priest of the cult, and has many followers who hold positions of power and influence in the city"... than have two pages or more about all the details of the Purple Cabal, how the mayors son got involved, a list of every single follower and why they joined, who and how they choose their targets, etc. Too much info that is almost never used.
That's not to say I don't like good background info...I do. I just want my background info to be "vague" over "specific". I want "some guys", and not "Philbert, Konrad, Suzaan and Mandy". I'll take "a group of" over "sixteen". And I most definitely want "dank, wet grey stone room with dripping water" over half a page of detailed description with four different ability/skill checks PC's can make if they do "this, that or the other thing".
In short, I want an adventure to HELP me DM... I don't want/need an adventure to TELL me how to DM. If that makes any sense...
PS: Nigh-perfect adventure format as far as I'm concerned? Check out Dyson's Delve. It's a 'basic D&D' based mini-mega-dungeon (12 small levels). I LOVE how much use I've gotten out of this little gem! All because it didn't hold my hand and tell me what was what...I got to fill in the blanks, shape it, and paint it my way.
https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/maps/dysons-delve/ ...download the "Dyson's Delve Delux PDF".
^_^
Paul L. Ming
Most of the time I like very short and sweet, with little "absolutes" unless it is one of the key things about the area/encounter/NPC. For major NPC's and areas, I like a bit more wordage, but I still like some things to be open to interpretation.
For example, a minor encounter might be:
Sometime during the night a small group of Rat-Men try and sneak into the camp. They are mainly interested in theft.
That's all I need and want. I don't need to be told the exact number of Rat-Men. I don't need to be told the PC's have to make "Check X" to wake up, or if a PC on watch needs to make some Perception check. I don't need info about what exactly the Rat-Men will do if caught (re: fight, flee, surrender, etc). The general motivations of the core bad guys in the adventure should have been touched on at the beginning of the adventure under "Running the Adventure", where there would be a couple of paragraphs describing the general story backdrop. I, as DM, should have more than enough information to decide what checks need to be made, how many Rat-Men is a "small group", and how they will react if caught.
A more prominent NPC should get a bit more...
Skeeg, the Rat-Man leader, is confident (for a Rat-Man) and considered very brave by other Rat-Men. He is strong and intelligent, with a devious mind, but this causes him to be rather prideful (if not outright conceited, with a distinct air of superiority in his words). He feels his position as leader is is natural, and reacts negatively and violently against those who question his leadership too much. He sees any failures of his plans as being caused because of others, never his own miscalculations. Skeeg does, however, have a soft spot for animals (especially rats), and this can influence his decisions. [...insert basic stat block...]
That should do it. Enough info about his personality so that he can be run as an individual, but not so much background info that he becomes confusing to run. It's easy to gather that "Skeeg; leader, crafty, arrogant, violent, blames others for failures, likes animals". One sentence worth of words that can be jotted down on note paper for when the PC's encounter him. I don't have to have a bookmark to the page with his write up.
As for "story" stuff... again, short and sweet is my preference. I'd rather have "The Purple Cabal (evil clerics) are running a kidnapping ring to fuel their sacrificial rites. The mayors son is the high-priest of the cult, and has many followers who hold positions of power and influence in the city"... than have two pages or more about all the details of the Purple Cabal, how the mayors son got involved, a list of every single follower and why they joined, who and how they choose their targets, etc. Too much info that is almost never used.
That's not to say I don't like good background info...I do. I just want my background info to be "vague" over "specific". I want "some guys", and not "Philbert, Konrad, Suzaan and Mandy". I'll take "a group of" over "sixteen". And I most definitely want "dank, wet grey stone room with dripping water" over half a page of detailed description with four different ability/skill checks PC's can make if they do "this, that or the other thing".
In short, I want an adventure to HELP me DM... I don't want/need an adventure to TELL me how to DM. If that makes any sense...
PS: Nigh-perfect adventure format as far as I'm concerned? Check out Dyson's Delve. It's a 'basic D&D' based mini-mega-dungeon (12 small levels). I LOVE how much use I've gotten out of this little gem! All because it didn't hold my hand and tell me what was what...I got to fill in the blanks, shape it, and paint it my way.
https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/maps/dysons-delve/ ...download the "Dyson's Delve Delux PDF".^_^
Paul L. Ming
BookBarbarian
Expert Long Rester
I've found I really like the style in the AL adventures that were released in Dragon+. Harried in Hillsfar and Shackles of Blood both have just enough detail for me to build upon without getting too bogged down with irrelevant details or intimidated by walls of text.
halfling rogue
Explorer
I don't really care about the amount of text as long as I can do something with it--and here's the key--on the fly. If I can't look over it and in a few moments discover the things I need then it fails me as an aid. Bolded texts or boxed texts or something that indicates the primary info needed to be conveyed always helps if there's lots of text.
Hiya!
Most of the time I like very short and sweet, with little "absolutes" unless it is one of the key things about the area/encounter/NPC. For major NPC's and areas, I like a bit more wordage, but I still like some things to be open to interpretation.
For example, a minor encounter might be:
Sometime during the night a small group of Rat-Men try and sneak into the camp. They are mainly interested in theft.
That's all I need and want. I don't need to be told the exact number of Rat-Men. I don't need to be told the PC's have to make "Check X" to wake up, or if a PC on watch needs to make some Perception check. I don't need info about what exactly the Rat-Men will do if caught (re: fight, flee, surrender, etc). The general motivations of the core bad guys in the adventure should have been touched on at the beginning of the adventure under "Running the Adventure", where there would be a couple of paragraphs describing the general story backdrop. I, as DM, should have more than enough information to decide what checks need to be made, how many Rat-Men is a "small group", and how they will react if caught.
A more prominent NPC should get a bit more...
Skeeg, the Rat-Man leader, is confident (for a Rat-Man) and considered very brave by other Rat-Men. He is strong and intelligent, with a devious mind, but this causes him to be rather prideful (if not outright conceited, with a distinct air of superiority in his words). He feels his position as leader is is natural, and reacts negatively and violently against those who question his leadership too much. He sees any failures of his plans as being caused because of others, never his own miscalculations. Skeeg does, however, have a soft spot for animals (especially rats), and this can influence his decisions. [...insert basic stat block...]
That should do it. Enough info about his personality so that he can be run as an individual, but not so much background info that he becomes confusing to run. It's easy to gather that "Skeeg; leader, crafty, arrogant, violent, blames others for failures, likes animals". One sentence worth of words that can be jotted down on note paper for when the PC's encounter him. I don't have to have a bookmark to the page with his write up.
As for "story" stuff... again, short and sweet is my preference. I'd rather have "The Purple Cabal (evil clerics) are running a kidnapping ring to fuel their sacrificial rites. The mayors son is the high-priest of the cult, and has many followers who hold positions of power and influence in the city"... than have two pages or more about all the details of the Purple Cabal, how the mayors son got involved, a list of every single follower and why they joined, who and how they choose their targets, etc. Too much info that is almost never used.
That's not to say I don't like good background info...I do. I just want my background info to be "vague" over "specific". I want "some guys", and not "Philbert, Konrad, Suzaan and Mandy". I'll take "a group of" over "sixteen". And I most definitely want "dank, wet grey stone room with dripping water" over half a page of detailed description with four different ability/skill checks PC's can make if they do "this, that or the other thing".
In short, I want an adventure to HELP me DM... I don't want/need an adventure to TELL me how to DM. If that makes any sense...
PS: Nigh-perfect adventure format as far as I'm concerned? Check out Dyson's Delve. It's a 'basic D&D' based mini-mega-dungeon (12 small levels). I LOVE how much use I've gotten out of this little gem! All because it didn't hold my hand and tell me what was what...I got to fill in the blanks, shape it, and paint it my way.
^_^
Paul L. Ming
Yes, you're exactly right IMO. And spot on about Dyson's Delve; its keyed dungeons are the
primary resource in my 5e campaign. Dyson hits exactly the sweet spot in terms of detail, #
creating fun adventures with interesting twists that I can run with almost no prep as part of a
far-ranging sandbox. A lot of the BFRPG adventures on basicfantasy.org are also very good (obviously
the art is not as good as Dyson's wonderful maps), again they have lots of interesting bits
while being so clearly presented I can run them with zero prep.
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Saeviomagy
Adventurer
Unless Skeeg is the adventure's mastermind, then this would be a fail for me. It needs to list what he knows about his superior's plans, and what he knows about any strongholds, prisoners or treasure in the adventure, because that is the information my players will be interested in if he is captured. Similarly for his henchmen.
Jeff Carlsen
Adventurer
That's an interesting point, and perhaps an encounter could have a couple useful subsections:
What they know: The rat-men believe that all their orders come directly from Skeeg, and Skeeg likes it that way. But Skeeg takes his orders from the Hobgoblin warlord Mog. He meets with an agent of Mog once a week by a bend in the river.
Spicing it up: Perhaps, if Skeeg dies, the rat-men decide someone in the party is their new master.
S
Sunseeker
Guest
I find them largely irrelevant. But it makes for good material to tell the players when they roll history checks on the area. I find very few people actually make general knowledge checks about an area, or even ask people about the place.
I think the amount of information given is usually fitting for the status the character holds in the game, but it isn't consistent and I'd like more consistency.
I think the amount of information given is usually fitting for the status the character holds in the game, but it isn't consistent and I'd like more consistency.
redrick
First Post
Adventures that I've had the most fun running tend to have fairly terse NPC descriptions. I'd definitely say brevity is a major plus for an adventure — if something is in an adventure write-up, I want it to be something that will help me answer questions at the table. So, for minor NPCs, not a lot. For major NPCs — what they are doing here and some interesting physical and behavioral description (do not need to know that a character has auburn hair or similar.)
On the other hand, an adventure that had too little NPC information was Castle Amber. NPCs with keyed locations were just right, but there are also several major NPC members of the d'Amberville family who simply exist as a name, class and inventory on a random encounter sheet. Trying to figure out who those characters were and what they wanted was less fun for me as a DM.
On the other hand, an adventure that had too little NPC information was Castle Amber. NPCs with keyed locations were just right, but there are also several major NPC members of the d'Amberville family who simply exist as a name, class and inventory on a random encounter sheet. Trying to figure out who those characters were and what they wanted was less fun for me as a DM.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
I'd say that the wordy descriptions, though they could be better organized, give me more fodder for encounter developments and motivations. Context is useful if things go off-script, as they are wont to do. Knowing who those cultists are, for instance, and why they've decided to take up with the Cult of the Dragon, and what they'll do if the Cult here is decimated...all of that can be useful in actual play. But that stuff needs a good format to get out of the way when they're just used as combat fodder.
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