[FDP][MEG] Tips and Tricks releases, please???

[Heretic Apostate]

Fiery Dragon Press: You guys have an excellent addition to standard adventures in the "Alertness Factor", as I saw in The Giant's Skull.

Mystic Eye Games: You guys inherited the scaling system from Thunderhead Games ("Holier than Thou," "Spell Slingers," et cetera), as I saw in the Bluffside products.

These are two systems where I'd absolutely love to see released as a web enhancement, or even sold as a PDF on rpgnow.com. Are these strictly non-OGL, or can we hope to see general guidelines at some point? (Hopefully before I dig myself out of debt, the result of a contract ending after two months out of an expected six...)

 

[der_kluge]

I'm not familiar with what you're referring to from FDP, but the scaling boxes in THG and MEG modules are applicable to the module, and the scenario at hand. Are you asking that all of those collected boxes be culled and put into a single document? Wouldn't that kind of take them out of context?

 

[aryus]

Can someone summarize what thes two things are. I don't have any fo the boosk and my curiosity is piqued.

Thanks,
Martin

 

[der_kluge]

I can't speak for the FDP thing, but the THG/MEG thing is a box found in modules that allows the DM to tailor the particular scenario to his party. They include things like "holier than thou" for a party with multiple healers, or well, I can't think of all the names, but things for multiple rogues, or people who like to role-play, or particular strong parties, or particularly weak parties. So, for example, the box would give ideas on how to increase or decrease the encounter if the party is strong or weak, or extra ways you could make a trap more difficult for a party with multiple rogues, or things like that. It's a side-bar tool to allow some customization of the current scenario based on the DM's specific party make-up.

 

[MEG Hal]

Fiery Dragon Press: You guys have an excellent addition to standard adventures in the "Alertness Factor", as I saw in The Giant's Skull.

Mystic Eye Games: You guys inherited the scaling system from Thunderhead Games ("Holier than Thou," "Spell Slingers," et cetera), as I saw in the Bluffside products.

These are two systems where I'd absolutely love to see released as a web enhancement, or even sold as a PDF on rpgnow.com. Are these strictly non-OGL, or can we hope to see general guidelines at some point? (Hopefully before I dig myself out of debt, the result of a contract ending after two months out of an expected six...)

The "theme boxes" that I thought of but the team designed wonderfully is not a copywritten item, the term "theme box" may be considered "our IP" but as for someone else using them...I encourage people to do so, just give credit where credit is deserved and e-mail me with questions.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

Right. The theme boxes. (Geez. I bought the whole Bluffside PDF collection--quite a bargain!--and I keep calling 'em scaling rules...)

Basically, what I want to know is, are there general guidelines y'all follow in determining how to scale the different encounters? What determines which encounter gets what treatment?

**************

As for Fiery Dragon's Alertness Factor (which, I hope, I'm remembering correctly) is a table in each encounter. You look up actions the party has done nearby, and the more "noisy" stuff the party does, the more alert the other monsters are. It lists preparations the monsters do, based on how alerted they are.

I only remember seeing it in the Giant's Skull. (Since I sold off my collection awhile ago, this is one I'm planning on buying when I'm out of short-term debt...)

 

[jmucchiello]

I'm in the midst of writing an adventure and aside from borrowing the Dungeon Auras/Sight/Sound thing, I'm also doing some scaling stuff but it's all inline with the text not set in sidebars.

Right. The theme boxes. (Geez. I bought the whole Bluffside PDF collection--quite a bargain!--and I keep calling 'em scaling rules...)

The AU Siege of Ebon Ring also has these.

Basically, what I want to know is, are there general guidelines y'all follow in determining how to scale the different encounters? What determines which encounter gets what treatment?

I don't know how MEG does it, but I'm guessing it's the author who decides these things.

As for Fiery Dragon's Alertness Factor (which, I hope, I'm remembering correctly) is a table in each encounter. You look up actions the party has done nearby, and the more "noisy" stuff the party does, the more alert the other monsters are. It lists preparations the monsters do, based on how alerted they are.

Sounds interesting, never saw it. My adventure has a section in each encounter called "Raise the Alarm". In it are notes about how the creatures react based on whether they've been informed about an invading force.

Of course, it's dynamic sections such as these that have slowed release of the silly thing and I'm only writing a 10-12 page adventure. Playtest is a bear.

 

[MEG Hal]

Right. The theme boxes. (Geez. I bought the whole Bluffside PDF collection--quite a bargain!--and I keep calling 'em scaling rules...)

Basically, what I want to know is, are there general guidelines y'all follow in determining how to scale the different encounters? What determines which encounter gets what treatment?

**************

Jmucchiello is pretty spot on the writers determine what and where they go. Once we name a type we stick with that name and if an autjor wants to create a new one in most cases we say "go for it". We ususally put them in places where we feel an encounter:
May be too tough
May be too easy
A worry that if you do not have X class this may screw you
X class may not have a lot to do so here is a trap for a thief etc...

After you do a few you can feel where ones may go, and I know I oversimplified it but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Yes most of the MEG adventures will have theme boxes since we brought them over and we all like the flexibility.

 

[der_kluge]

Speaking of module innovations, MonkeyGod did something in Hellstone Deep that I really liked - in the NPC section in the back, for each major villain, they listed: motivations, traits, and a quote. The quote thing I thought was pretty interesting. One of the quotes is "I am the world's doom". So, it doesn't even have to be anything elaborate, but I thought it was a nice touch.

One thing that I've done in my own home-made modules is to list out the tactics for an opponent. I find that having a good set of tactics can make the difference between an easy, boring battle, and a really good, really challenging one.

In fact, not having a set of tactics for the BBEG in the dungeon crawl we just ran through caused me to forget that his helm allowed him to cast dimension door 2/day. If I had listed out his tactics, I would have included a line "if Siluth is near death, he will dimension door upstairs to escape from the PCs". But, since I didn't have that line, I forgot about it, and he fought to the death. Unfortunate, because I could have really had some fun with him if he had escaped.

So, I would list "tactics" as a really, really useful piece of information I really like to see in a module.

 

[Fiery James]

The Alert Factor system was designed by Mike Mearls, and is completely OGC, so can be adapted into other OGL works.

The original product was our two-sided adventure "To Stand on Hallowed Ground".

I wouldn't be surprised if this showed up in PDF form in the near future.

- James