"Back to the Dungeon" aiming for the wrong target?

[rounser]

Andy Collins mentioned it on his boards - no more modules from WotC for forseeable future (can't find link, but it's out there). Suggests you look to 3rd parties, Dungeon mag, or join the RPGA and use their adventure library.

 

[rounser]

Role playing is the interaction; if "negotiation" doesn't count I am not sure what does. I hope you're not looking down on negotation in CotSQ or RttToEE because there's a blunt hammer waiting to smack you in the face if you fail as opposed to a cutting rejoinder from the Duke's assistant. :-/

Name a module where you couldn't negotiate with the enemy or disguise yourself to get past them. There's no design required to include this "support for roleplay" except have one or more groups of enemies sitting around (which near every adventure does), and saying that these modules support roleplay because they "include" these options is truly scraping the bottom of the barrel in their defense.

I could say that a peaceful town I've designed actively supports hack n slash because you could pick a fight with the town guards; same deal, it's a no-brainer, I did nothing as a designer to include that option, and I'd chuckle if you called it actively supportive of hack n slash play as a result.

 

[spacecrime.com]

All true, rounser, but I think that just points out the flexibility of roleplaying in general and (possibly) the futility of trying to firmly classify any module as a particular fish or fowl. A module may lean towards interaction or towards rock'em sock'em action, but there's always more than one way to deal with a situation.

Which suggests to me that it may not matter whether the tone of the main rules leans towards dungeons or diplomacy. Ultimately the players will make what they want of it, and if they want to talk to the dragon they're probably going to just go ahead and do it. If you want some more rules to tilt the tone back towards interaction, though, I have this lovely book about politics in D&D that I can sell you...

cheers,

 

[Ranger REG]

I wonder, is it necessary for adventure modules to be fully scripted so that it restrict GMs to deviate from instructions, or should it be enough so that individual GM can decide if this NPC creature should be more open to parlee, negotiation, or not?

 

[d12]

Mainly CotSQ and RttToEE. "Negotiate with the factions" and "you could disguise yourself" don't constitute roleplaying opportunities beyond anything which you could do in Keep on the Borderlands. i.e. They're no-brainers. Not RttToEE's fault, because it was emulating the original, and that didn't offer much outside that vein either.

Case in point of excellent roleplaying in RttToEE:

Slight spoilers
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The PCs find an insane cultist at the bottom of a pit and begin to question him but he starts talking to himself, "Musn't tell them anything! They don't serve the eye! The Dark one comes for me! Hail the Elemental Eye! Yes, he is good to us!" Typically insane split personality stuff, right? So, the party takes him back to town to interrogate him more. They get more of the same babble of him talking to himself - "Tell them nothing! Okay, I won't!" Finally, the rogue goes outside, drinks a potion of alter self and makes herself look like - the insane cultist.

She goes back inside and says hello to him. Insane cultist says "Hey! You're me!" The Rogue says, "That's right, I am you. Praise the Elemental Eye!" What proceeded was a 20 minute conversation IN CHARACTER that was one of the most hillarious and entertaining moments in all my years of playing D&D as the player in question roleplayed a rogue pretending to be half of a mad-man's split personality. He spilled all the beans to himself eventually.

If that's not roleplaying then I quit.


Also - Monte Cook included notes on intrigue and negotiation in the module - therefore specifically supporting those elements in the module.

 

[rounser]

I wonder, is it necessary for adventure modules to be fully scripted so that it restrict GMs to deviate from instructions, or should it be enough so that individual GM can decide if this NPC creature should be more open to parlee, negotiation, or not?

Yeah, that's exactly what they should be.

Reductio ad absurdum on your part. Do you really think that "more support for roleplaying elements" means "more railroading and less options"? I figure that you've either you've got a very skewed view of how modules can support such elements, or you're attempting to score a few cheap points via rhetoric.

 

[Ranger REG]

Maybe I'm just babbling. I just haven't used any published pregenerated adventure scenario for a long time. I just create my own.

Still, I'm looking for more tips and advice on how to make them more enjoyable for my players as well as advance to a more complex non-linear style of storytelling.

 

[Numion]

This isn't a shot at anyone, but I think that people who don't think a tabletop can compete with a CRPG dungeoncrawl due to the lack of visual flash need to excercise thier imagination some more.

I agree!

Another thing is that CRPG's aren't, at least for me, as exciting. If I miss a roll in one of those games, no biggie, no matter how important that one action would've been. Thats not true of all people, since I remember my big brother pounding his fist on the screen of our amiga 14 years ago .. while playing pinball . But I usually remain calm when playing computer games.

Not so in our DnD group. You can almost feel the tension when it's that deciding roll between TPK and victory over the BBEG. You just don't get those groans of desperation in CRPG when the dice rolls (and falls of the table a couple of times ) and turns up 1.

CRPGs don't come even close to PnP games even in hack'n'slash, neither in visuals nor excitement. Maybe in ease of play because unlike a human DM the computer doesn't need snacks, refreshment and breaks

 

[MerricB]

I just try to remember context.

"Back to the Dungeon!" was the cry for 3E, because 2E had gone so far away from the dungeon. Convoluted storylines, NPCs more important than the players, and settings that had forgotten they even used the AD&D system...

"Back to the Dungeon" was the cry of sanity, at that point.

Is it still the cry of WotC? Dungeons are still important, surely, but is that all?

What's this I see? Expanded rules for wilderness and urban adventures in the DMG?

Cheers!

 

[spacecrime.com]

FWIW, the official slogan on the marketing materials seems to be "Play more!"

Which is a sentiment I heartily agree with.

cheers,