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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 6668475" data-attributes="member: 97077">Also, since you discuss D&D 4e's Dungeon Delve book, I have some thoughts on that as well. When I was only playing D&D 4e (2008 to 2010), I'd run my campaign on Saturday and inevitably after we were done some people would hang out afterward jonesing for more D&D. So oftentimes we'd pull out Dungeon Delve and just do a scenario. We called this "The Graveyard Shift" game because it was usually late as heck.While it was something to do and we had fun, I never liked the scenarios. First, they were based on pre-MM3 math, so they weren't much of a challenge as written. As well, they were very linear. I also didn't like that they used dungeon tiles to create the maps for those scenarios - dungeon tiles look chintzy to me. (But, whatever, I was redrawing it on the battlemat at the time anyway.)When I started running a lot of pickup groups on Roll20 starting in 2012 or so, I wanted to create a format for adventures that could be done with 5 players in four hours. I also wanted them to be very replayable - if you played it today, you could play it tomorrow, still be challenged, and see a different story created as a result of play. I ended up creating something pretty cool that was very popular on Roll20, an adventure format I called The Delve.The Delve consisted of three scenes on 18 x 18 square maps. These scenes could be played in any order as the players liked which dealt to some extent with the linearity of Dungeon Delve. These challenges generally had specific objectives that didn't require a fight to the death. Before each scene there would be a short skill challenge which connected the scenes and could net the party some advantages to use in the upcoming scene or would cost them something (usually healing surges) if they failed it. After we did character bonds before action began, each character would declare a magical item they're interested in finding. In two of the scenes and in one of the skill challenges, there would be a chance to win or find an item. (Players would roll a d20 and the highest would know their item was in play for that scene.) After all three skill challenges and scenes were done, we'd do a collaborative montage for the denouement, describing the aftermath.I'd run these delves in a very tight fashion, great pacing, with the drama turned up to 11. Scenarios included seeking soul fragments of an archmage in a dungeon overrun by an orcish army, survival in the wastes of Dark Sun, saving a town from three hags on the night of the blood moon, and dealing with a horde of zombies in a swamp full of hillbillies. (Plus a bunch more.) These were very fun, created some excellent stories, and as expected were quite replayable. This format could easily be used in D&D 5e as well, so hopefully this long-winded post is useful to someone!</blockquote>

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