Conversion's not hard, but it is..DUNGEON mag, DMing and 2nd edition scenarios

[Emirikol]

I was just glancing through a couple old copies of DUNGEON (2nd edition issues). It made me realize what a wonderful evolution 3E was for DM's. Scenario design was complete fluff in the old days. It took way too long to prep for adventures because there were no "adventure summaries" and there was no standard for design and use-ease. It was typical to have a page and a half of "adventure background" that the PC's would NEVER SEE and the DM had little to no use for. Each encounter had annoying "players take action" boxed text and the DM information below wasn't standardized well. Towards the end of 2E things improved..but I'm looking at stacks of DUNGEON mags.

Anyways, my point is, converting 3E DUNGEON scenarios to 4E won't be difficult. Converting 2E scenarios is always a miserable read-fest and most likely relegated to the "scrap heap." 1E scenario conversion...ugh. They're the opposite of 2E. No fluff at all typically. Keyed encounters and dungeon maps aren't exactly "inspiring" and yet our entire hobby formed from them.

4E supposedly represents the "ultimate" in scenario design evolution. Quick adventure summary. Decent amount of relevant background. Encounters set aside and fleshed out with NPC actions, etc.

Any of you have any thoughts on conversion of 2E scenarios to 3E/4E? Should 2E/1E scenarios pretty much be retired because their time has definately gone?

jh

 

[Celebrim]

As someone who converted a 1e module to 3e, let me say that one thing which I remain incredibly impressed by was the ability of the 1e writers to compress so much adventure into such a small number of pages.

The main advantage of modules designed by more modern standards is that they are much easier to run well for a novice, and much easier for anyone to run with minimal preparation.

But I wouldn't say that they are better. It's very difficult to capture the epic scale of some of the older adventures using modern standards, and still print a book that people can afford to buy. And it is very difficult to use the modern standards of adventure layout and design and create something that can be dropped into anyone's campaign with but minimal adaptation.

Certainly I think you'll have a hard time getting a consensus that late 3rd edition modules were better adventures than the better 1st edition ones.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Whilst you're the one with the Dungeons, and thus I'll have to take your word about the 2E scenarios sucking, I have to say, what I've seen of 3E hasn't been any more standardised. In fact, the only way I've seen 3E routinely be better than 2E, is that clearly MUCH more effort is being put into writing the adventures by generally more mature individuals. More professionalism, if you will.

As you're inevitably going to be chucking out the "stats", it seems to me that going by edition would be genuinely stupid. Instead convert adventures that deserve converting, and leave ones that don't. Some 2E adventures have awesome fluff and set-ups that are just cool, and some even worked better in 3E than 2E (Dragon Mountain, I'm looking at you), whereas others will a terrible fit, of course. I suspect some adventures (again, Dragon Mountain for example) will be a poor fit for 4E (it relied heavily on effectively "classed" kobolds and a lot of "wierd" NPCs/monsters, like trolls in plate with 2h swords), and others might fit really well.

Personally I'm inclined to drag out Curse of the Azure Bonds, which is 1E, and see if I can hammer it into shape. We had good fun with that back in the day.

 

[Voss]

Can't really speak to 2e modules or dungeons, but 1e modules have a lot of stuff to use. Not necessarily the random array of creatures in a dungeon, but for locations that you can just take and use, without being saddled by inane fluff and settings that aren't necessarily appropriate.

I'm using some material from The Secret of Bone Hill, and bits from haunted Halls of evening star (town map, mostly), Temple of Elemental Evil (just the towns) and the Fright at Tristor (mostly the town map). The last is full of a lot of completely irrelevant text and frankly bizarre stuff going on that only makes sense if you follow the storyline exactly and share the whole thing with the players.

The 1e material just seems more generally useful, even though I'm not using the pure dungeon-crawl aspects.

 

[xnosipjpqmhd]

IMHO the older Dungeon adventures are fun/interesting to read. The larger amount of story gives the DM a good understanding of plot alternatives. By contrast, I've found (again IMHO) that many 3e Dungeon adventures are a little drier and have less plot meat on their bones. I like having stats done for me, but when a module is 40-50 percent stat blocks, I feel somewhat cheated.

I grew increasingly exasperated with the higher levels of SCAP, for example, that were just one combat after another with multiple high-level NPCs with (literally) pages of statblocks.

If those types of adventures were converted to a rules-lite RPG, there'd be just a handful of pages left.

I'd love to see 4e get back to manageable statblocks again.

 

[Minicol]

As someone who converted a 1e module to 3e, let me say that one thing which I remain incredibly impressed by was the ability of the 1e writers to compress so much adventure into such a small number of pages.

quite true. i still use 1e modules a lot.

Some 2e were good to however. I particularly like Border Watch for instance.

 

[Lanefan]

We-ell, if this H1 adventure for 4e is any good I intend to convert it and run it in 1e, which if nothing else should prove an interesting experiment. Ask me later in the summer how it goes.

As for converting between 1-2e and 3e, I haven't tried yet...certainly not *to* 3e as that's not the game I run. There's one 3e adventure I'm going to try and run - as close to as-is as possible; other than monster stats, there's little that needs conversion - in 1e, once the party gets to about 3rd-4th level. That probably won't happen until at least a year from now...

Lanefan

 

[Protagonist]

I think the first adventure I'll run in 4E will be based on the 3 modules released with the maztica campaign setting. I wonder how the "conversion" process will turn out.

 

[Arnwyn]

Anyways, my point is, converting 3E DUNGEON scenarios to 4E won't be difficult. Converting 2E scenarios is always a miserable read-fest and most likely relegated to the "scrap heap." 1E scenario conversion...ugh. They're the opposite of 2E. No fluff at all typically. Keyed encounters and dungeon maps aren't exactly "inspiring" and yet our entire hobby formed from them.

Any of you have any thoughts on conversion of 2E scenarios to 3E/4E? Should 2E/1E scenarios pretty much be retired because their time has definately gone?

Sure I have thoughts (well, for 3e, since I haven't seen 4e): I've converted my entire collection of 1e and 2e Dungeon mag adventures to 3e, and it was easy-peasy. In fact, some of them convert (and run!) better in 3e than they did for the edition they were written in. Further, some of the best Dungeon adventures were from the 2e era.

I think you're completely off-base, and don't agree with you one bit.

 

[TerraDave]

As someone who converted a 1e module to 3e, let me say that one thing which I remain incredibly impressed by was the ability of the 1e writers to compress so much adventure into such a small number of pages.

A favorite example of mine is T1 The Village of Hommlet. You could skim through that and have no real idea what it was really about, or how much there was to it. I could imagine some DMs in the middle of it suddenly realizing "all these seemingly random NPCs are really part of the adventure!". Saddly, I am afraid some groups ran in it without ever really figuring this out.