Adventures as a series of discrete encounters

[blargney the second]

I've recently acquired a couple of adventures that permit extremely broad timelines, and I'd like to find more!

1) Wizards' free adventure, Thicker Than Water, has 6 events that can be introduced every couple of levels between 3rd and 12th level. It's about half-elementals who want to gain power with the aid of a PC.

2) Eden Odyssey's module, Wonders Out Of Time, has a set of "vignettes", mini-encounters suitable for PCs from level 1 to 12. Each one is a ruin of an ancient culture called the Merithians.

I like the sense of continuity these long-term adventures will provide to my campaign. Can you recommend anything along these lines?
-blarg

 

[arwink]

The old 2e Modeul, A Heroes Tale was built along the same premise. One drop in adventure for every two levels, all building towards a long arc.

It's a nice idea, and one that's easy to use in a game.

 

[CyberSpyder]

I'm afraid I don't have much to contribute, but I wanted to say that using 'discreet' as opposed to 'discrete' evokes an image of a very different kind of 'adventure.'

 

[blargney the second]

I'm afraid I don't have much to contribute, but I wanted to say that using 'discreet' as opposed to 'discrete' evokes an image of a very different kind of 'adventure.'

Bloody hell, I even thought about that before I chose the title. *change*
-blarg

 

[blargney the second]

The old 2e Modeul, A Heroes Tale was built along the same premise. One drop in adventure for every two levels, all building towards a long arc.

It's a nice idea, and one that's easy to use in a game.

Thanks! I'll thumb through the second-hand stacks at the local gaming stores for that.

-blarg

 

[Jon Potter]

I've recently acquired a couple of adventures that permit extremely broad timelines, and I'd like to find more!

I like the sense of continuity these long-term adventures will provide to my campaign. Can you recommend anything along these lines?

I too like the sense of continuity something like this ads to a campaign with minimal DM intervention.

Eden has a couple of others that I think follow a similar format: "Akrasia, Thief of Time" and "Secrets of the Ancients". Of those, I own SotA and it works well with "Wonders Out of Time". The former actually offers info on how to integrate the two into the same campaign.

Another likely option could be "Dungeon Crawl Classics #14: Dungeon Interludes". I've alread pre-ordered it from my FLGS and you can read about it here.

 

[philreed]

Mystic Eye Games has a series of "Interludes" products, some of which can be found here in PDF.

http://www.rpgnow.com/search.php?query=interludes&x=8&y=8

 

[blargney the second]

Mystic Eye Games has a series of "Interludes" products, some of which can be found here in PDF.

http://www.rpgnow.com/search.php?query=interludes&x=8&y=8

That's funny, I actually have the Brief Expeditions Interlude.

These are great, please keep the suggestions coming!
-blarg

 

[Ry]

Interesting - sounds like these modules start out with the kind of concept I end up with. You can do this for practically any module:

Whenever I import material from an outside module, I break it down to its absolute minimum elements: Towns get broken into their individual shops, inns, and NPCs, and these are converted into "encounters", which get one-sentence descriptions and go on my list. Plots get broken up the same way, as do dungeons. Ends up with me having lists like "The Conspiracy to Kill the King" "Underdark Encounters" "Town Encounters" and "Found Treasure" If encounters have to happen in a particular order, I just sprinkle them in that order along the appropriate list.

The upside is that my campaign feels very dynamic and rich to the players - they are always poking their heads into different directions to check if the world holds up, and it always has something interesting, because nothing depends on location.

The downside is that I end up DMing enemies and monsters based on a chart of levelled averages, because I never know what level they're going to be when they encounter anythying. NPC spellcasters are my bane.

Oh, one other benefit is my entire campaign fits on 20 pages, which makes me feel like I'm often going from a DM screen, rather than a real booklet.