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

[Celebrim]

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.

Alot of 1st edition modules are like that. In the interests of space, things which we would consider highly critical details are often left out completely. For example, most 1st edition modules either leave the hook and intro completely up to the DM, or else use such a bare bones script that an unadorned reading of it comes off really silly. Most 1st edition modules begin with something of a railroad introduction. The assumption is that either the module is being ran as a quick one off, in which case, "why bother with an introduction? Get to the good stuff", or else the DM is going to take rather elaborate pains to get his campaign from whatever point it is at currently to the starting point of the module seemlessly. And that, frankly, is alot of work and not something the designer can really help the DM with.

It's not unusual in 1st edition to get nothing on an NPC but the stats, completely leaving things like appearance, motivations, and thier role in the story out.

I was very fortunate to have a very good DM run me on 'X1: Isle of Dread' early on in my career. Talk about an eye-opener. Most everything we did was in some fashion 'in' the module, except really, it wasn't. That taught me how these adventures were supposed to be read, and thereafter ran.

 

[Andre]

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

Interesting, as your experience is the exact opposite of my own. For a couple years I ran almost exclusively converted Dungeon adventures for my 3.x group. I found the adventures to be fun, and substituting different monsters or statting up the npc's for the new rules was no more work than designing my own adventures. As for 3.x modules, the ones from WOTC are way too lethal (IMO) and not terribly interesting. Other companies' modules I tended to mine for ideas, rather than run as is.

That may be the main difference in our experiences - I never ran a single module in 3.x as written. I always changed them to greater or lesser degrees, to fit in my campaign, replacing something I didn't like, adding something I thought would be more interesting. Since I change so much anyway, having a good story (which Dungeon modules excelled at) is the most important thing to me - not the presentation or stats. I still have a lot of Dungeon adventures I haven't had a chance to try yet, and I hope I get the chance.

 

[The Little Raven]

Because monster and encounter design in 4e is summarized as "take what you want, leave the rest," it should be easier than ever to convert an adventure from any edition to 4th edition. As long as you've got the old stats to serve as a guide for what effective power level you want it to be, you should be able to make encounters balanced for that level.

I know I'll be converting a few Ravenloft adventures over.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

Because monster and encounter design in 4e is summarized as "take what you want, leave the rest," it should be easier than ever to convert an adventure from any edition to 4th edition. As long as you've got the old stats to serve as a guide for what effective power level you want it to be, you should be able to make encounters balanced for that level.

I know I'll be converting a few Ravenloft adventures over.

I also came to that conclusion...

However, my first candidate for conversion is "C3 The Lost Island of Castanamir"... it is low on combat, high on problem solving, ideal for newbies to get acquainted with roleplaying.

But, of course, I will probably also test run H1, just to catch the "spirit" of 4th edition.

 

[delericho]

What the OP is describing is really more of an information-presentation issue than anything to do with conversion as such. Over the years, the ability of adventure designers to present information in a clear, readable and usable format has improved. Which, frankly, is as it should be.

However, one thing that should be noted is that module construction has become vastly more formalised in 3e, first with the standard format introduced in "The Sunless Citadel", and used extensively and refined by Dungeon, and then with the Delve Format. This formalisation has distinct advantages, in that it makes finding information easier to find than it would be otherwise.

It also has two distinct disadvantages. The first is that adventures all too often become tedious to read, and thus prepare for. This is especially bad with the mega-dungeons (with "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil" being the worst example I read), where the module seems to just go on, and on, and on...

However, the big disadvantage, and one that is especially notable in the Delve Format, is that some encounters would be much better presented by breaking the format. If an encounter area has two traps, one on the door and another in the centre of the room, then these are really best presented seperately in the order they will be encountered, and not grouped under "Trap", as was the standard in 3e. Likewise, if you have a guard patrol who travel through several key areas, this is at best difficult to present under the Delve Format.

It remains to be seen whether 4e adventure design will be any better than was the case in 3e. Hopefully, the designers have learned from the weaknesses of the Delve Format, and have evolved it further. We shall see.

(I should note: I thought that the Delve Format was a wonderful idea. In principle, it is still a good idea. Unfortunately, in practice it has failed to live up to its promise. However, this may simple be that too many of the adventures that used it were simply not very good in the first place.)

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

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.

Care to recommend anything with half the flavor of any of the Styes modules? Shut In?

I cant think of anything. Mostly it was maps filled with nonsensical monster setups and zinger traps. The maps were interesting. The rest... not so much. I can throw out a bunch of monster stats for you to do all the work if we're going to be handing out awards for best adventure writing any time soon...

 

[sinecure]

My stack of old 2nd edition Dungeons are the best thing about 2nd edition for me. When I run it, they are what I use for almost all my adventures. 3rd edition may have easier adventures to run for 3rd edition, but I think that edition actually makes it harder for the DM to run things. It's just easier for 2nd edition DMs.

 

[S'mon]

. 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.

Funny, I agree completely about 2e scenarios and the hated read-fest, yet I find those bare-bones 1e scenarios inspiring - they do the work for me with the maps, monsters & treasure, but give me the fun of fitting them into my campaign world.