Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 5183932" data-attributes="member: 29398">On a broader note, one of the things a module designer kinda has to take into account (and thus write in anticipation of) is things turning out differently than the writer has envisioned.I've found this to be the most time-consuming part of the process, on the few occasions where I've bothered to write out a homebrew module in full - all the &quot;what ifs&quot;.&nbsp; But it has to be done!&nbsp; And yes, it can mean a much higher page count... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Perhaps the biggest beef I have with the various canned modules I've run is that things like room descriptions (almost) always assume the party is entering from a certain direction and in a certain way - which is great if there's only one possible way into the room.&nbsp; But if there's a choice, a surprisingly high amount of the time the module's description does not suit how they enter at all; and so I'm left trying to reskin the boxed description on the fly.&nbsp; Doesn't affect prep time, but it sure disrupts the flow of the game if I'm not thinking on my feet.And other &quot;what ifs&quot; need to be at least waved at.&nbsp; My current favourite example is Keep on the Shadowfell, particularly the last room where they meet Kalarel.&nbsp; It seems the writer either did not think of the following questions or deliberately ignored them:&nbsp;- What if the party take longer than a few days to get to Kalarel?* (the whole time thing is never really detailed but the impression is there's a time limit, which itself is then left undefined)&nbsp;- What if the party try to attack or shoot the Thing in the portal?* (it has no stats)&nbsp;- What if the party want to finish opening the portal?*&nbsp; And how do they?*&nbsp;- What if the party want to try closing the portal?*&nbsp; And how do they?*&nbsp;- What if the party decide to pry up the grilles where the blood drains away and see where the drains lead?Now it's of course absolutely true that while a DM can and should be able to provide the answer to all these (when I ran it I had to for all the ones marked '*', as my party did/tried all those things), if I'm using a canned module it's because I expect it to among other things do that sort of lifting for me.Lan-&quot;strength 20 but I still prefer if others do the heavy lifting&quot;-efan</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 5183932, member: 29398"] On a broader note, one of the things a module designer kinda has to take into account (and thus write in anticipation of) is things turning out differently than the writer has envisioned. I've found this to be the most time-consuming part of the process, on the few occasions where I've bothered to write out a homebrew module in full - all the "what ifs". But it has to be done! And yes, it can mean a much higher page count... :) Perhaps the biggest beef I have with the various canned modules I've run is that things like room descriptions (almost) always assume the party is entering from a certain direction and in a certain way - which is great if there's only one possible way into the room. But if there's a choice, a surprisingly high amount of the time the module's description does not suit how they enter at all; and so I'm left trying to reskin the boxed description on the fly. Doesn't affect prep time, but it sure disrupts the flow of the game if I'm not thinking on my feet. And other "what ifs" need to be at least waved at. My current favourite example is Keep on the Shadowfell, particularly the last room where they meet Kalarel. It seems the writer either did not think of the following questions or deliberately ignored them: - What if the party take longer than a few days to get to Kalarel?* (the whole time thing is never really detailed but the impression is there's a time limit, which itself is then left undefined) - What if the party try to attack or shoot the Thing in the portal?* (it has no stats) - What if the party want to finish opening the portal?* And how do they?* - What if the party want to try closing the portal?* And how do they?* - What if the party decide to pry up the grilles where the blood drains away and see where the drains lead? Now it's of course absolutely true that while a DM can and should be able to provide the answer to all these (when I ran it I had to for all the ones marked '*', as my party did/tried all those things), if I'm using a canned module it's because I expect it to among other things do that sort of lifting for me. Lan-"strength 20 but I still prefer if others do the heavy lifting"-efan [/QUOTE]

Verification