Con Adventures

[chriton227]

I'm looking at running a few sessions at an upcoming convention and was wondering if anyone knew of any good sources for D&D adventures for a 4 hour time slot (non-RPGA)? Most of the pre-published adventures I know of take much longer than 4 hours to play, and I'd rather not have to create several completely new adventures at this point if I can avoid it (time is getting short).

 

[EyeontheMountain]

Why not play a piece of an adventure? I have seen lots of scenes in the Adventure paths that would make great one-shots.

No expereicne in cons for me though, so YMMV.

 

[Reynard]

I'm looking at running a few sessions at an upcoming convention and was wondering if anyone knew of any good sources for D&D adventures for a 4 hour time slot (non-RPGA)? Most of the pre-published adventures I know of take much longer than 4 hours to play, and I'd rather not have to create several completely new adventures at this point if I can avoid it (time is getting short).

Many of the free adventures on the WotC website are both well designed and playable within a 4 hour time frame. I plan on going to Origins and pretty much running games constantly, and I am going to build original adventures off some of these as a base.

 

[delericho]

Unfortunately, my one and only Con experience had me writing a custom adventure. (Good day, that. Forutnately, the Con was structured such that it was forgiving of me running way over time. The players didn't mind though... I was on fire that day.)

If you have access to it, Dragon 201 had an article "The 10 Commandments of Tournament Writing", which I found extremely useful. The commandments were:

1) Thou shalt bend the rules until thou hast broken them
2) Thou shalt create the characters first
3) Thy setting shall be unusual and interesting
4) Thy plot shall be neither too simple nor too complex
5) Thine enemies shall be worthy
6) Thou shalt have witty, reasonable and balanced encounters
7) Thy scoring shall be fair and balanced
8) Thy second round shall be worthy of its players
9) Thou shalt make it fun for the game masters
10) Thou shalt beg, borrow or kidnap a good editor

Of course, none of that's terribly helpful in this situation.

Three things spring to mind:

1) If you can find it, there was the adventure and other materials created for the most recent Gameday. That was created specifically to be run in a 4-hour slot, so might be suitable. (At that time, there was also a degree of discussion about ENWorld doing a set of their own adventures for the next Gameday. Several people have at least started on writing adventures; sadly, I don't think anyone has yet posted an adventure in playable form. My own effort needs a redraft and some maps added, and I don't have time to do that just now.)

2) Also at the Gameday, I know a lot of people used the 20th level pregens and the Icon dragons (found in the Design & Development columns) to good effect. You might consider looking those out.

3) On Wizards.com, they have a 3.5e update of the classic Tomb of Horrors. Given that the Tomb originated for use in tournament play, perhaps you could use that? I would suggest upping the difficulty level a fair bit, and then issuing an open challenge to groups to bring their optimised characters (of the appropriate ECL) to take on the classic death-trap dungeon.

Why not play a piece of an adventure? I have seen lots of scenes in the Adventure paths that would make great one-shots.

I'm afraid I must disagree with this, unless you're willing to do a significant amount of adaptation work. Ideally, a Con adventure should be a very short but complete adventure, with beginning, middle and end. Running just a part of an adventure is likely to feel incomplete and unsatisfying, IMO. It would be a bit like watching "Empire Strikes Back" without ever having seen "Star Wars" and without ever being able to see "Return of the Jedi".

 

[Whimsical]

For con games, adventures with a strong theme can be especially rewarding to play. For example:
• a team of high level rogues choosing to break into the king's treasure vault.
• Retired dwarven war buddies come out of retirement to defend their clan from destruction at the hands of the goblin empire.
• The party of psionics need to find and elimiate the hidden illithid threat that secretly dominates their society.
• Epic-level legends from around the world join forces for the first time to save the world.
• One member of your travelling circus is accused for a robbery turned murder by the town you are in. Can you and your circus buddies find the truth before it's too late?

Run something that would not normally be run in a home campaign. Showcase those D&D scenarios that are hardly experienced by most players.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Sure. Monte Cook's website (www.montecook.com) has several if you're into Arcana Evolved or Iron Heroes. (Many people aren't, but it's a good alternative to WotC adventures.)

I prefer to write my own to be honest. A good rule of thumb is three combats to a four hour slot. Keep action moving and worry about plot at the end. Have pregens.

Good luck! Glad to see someone else thinking about it.

 

[chriton227]

Aha! I knew I had seen someone with a mention of convention games in their sig, but I couldn't remember who! I just joined you group Varianor.

Sounds like I'll be doing some adventure writing. I had considered running an updated version of Keep on the Borderlands to go with the con theme (Heroes of the Frontier), but I don't think it could be kept to a 4 hours slot, and the con is currently a little short on GMs, so I would rather run 3 shorter games instead of 1 or 2 long games to maximize the number of people who will be able to play.

I've got a couple ideas bouncing around in my head, including some adventures that I ran completely off the cuff in my normal home game that only took a single session. I might hit the Wizards site to see what I can find, but I'll probably end up customizing a lot if I use something from there just to minimize the chance of some players knowing the adventure ahead of time.

If I get really ambitious, I might try putting together some 3D terrain for the major encounters (I'm a big fan of the WorldWorks Games stuff), but I'll save that for last and do it if I have time. Knowing my addiction to City of Heroes, I don't know that I'll have time.

 

[Kafkonia]

You might want to check out The Transmuter's Last Touch from Goodman Games. It's short, it's $2.00, and it has superpowered kobolds!

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Aha! I knew I had seen someone with a mention of convention games in their sig, but I couldn't remember who! I just joined you group Varianor.

Cool! (I need to update it a little. Heh.)

Sounds like I'll be doing some adventure writing. I had considered running an updated version of Keep on the Borderlands to go with the con theme (Heroes of the Frontier), but I don't think it could be kept to a 4 hours slot, and the con is currently a little short on GMs, so I would rather run 3 shorter games instead of 1 or 2 long games to maximize the number of people who will be able to play.

I concur with this logic. One of my most successful games is a two hour long scenario. I never prep for it beyond character creation and map-making because it runs itself. The fun of the game in fact is what the PCs do when presented with the scenario. In fact, I usually run it at 3-4 different occasions for a year, then update to a sequel. Each con I wind up running it twice, which does indeed double the options for players. (Though occasionally I get players who want to repeat to see how it plays differently.)

I've got a couple ideas bouncing around in my head, including some adventures that I ran completely off the cuff in my normal home game that only took a single session. I might hit the Wizards site to see what I can find, but I'll probably end up customizing a lot if I use something from there just to minimize the chance of some players knowing the adventure ahead of time.

Write 'em down, plan 'em out. Stuff you've already DMed saves you time. You can tweak it to your hearts content and fix the holes that showed up the first time around!

If I get really ambitious, I might try putting together some 3D terrain for the major encounters (I'm a big fan of the WorldWorks Games stuff), but I'll save that for last and do it if I have time. Knowing my addiction to City of Heroes, I don't know that I'll have time.

Done this. It's a major time hog. Well worth it, but still a big investment. It takes a while to get good at making the terrain. Some easy interim steps include:

*pre-drawing maps on the big sheets of Staples newspaper
*buying Dwarven Forge*
*buying aquarium terrain that you can pack easily
*making individual terrain pieces to plop onto Tact-tiles or a Flip-Mat

*If you're independantly wealthy and have money for the fuel allowance.

 

[grodog]

If you have access to it, Dragon 201 had an article "The 10 Commandments of Tournament Writing", which I found extremely useful. The commandments were:

All good advice. Other Dragon articles on tourney design will be equally helpful, if you have the Dragon CD Archive, in particular:

Tournament play

"How Many Ettins Is a Fire Giant Worth?" Bob Blake 19(6) OD&D
"How To Make the Most Out Of FRP Tournaments" Ken Rolston 70(48) --
"Tournament Success In Six Steps" Jon Pickens 30(26) --
Adventure design "10 Commandments of Tournament Writing, The" Jonathan Evans 201(76) --
"Different Design, A" Lisa R. Cohen 108(30) D&D1

Judging fairly

"In the Interest of Fairness..." Dr. Allen Barwick 49(6) D&D1

Scoring

"Tournament Tabulation Formula..." Jon Mattson 34(28) D&D1

Some excellent articles from GenCon reports from the early years may also be of interest, and I seem to recall that Roger E. Moore had a tourney article too, though it's not in the above list.