Great Adventures: Concept and Execution

[MerricB]

I'm quite fond of published adventures, if not least because the amount of time I have to write my own has diminished over the years, and - to be brutally frank -it rarely comes off for me. Yes, I've run great games, but they can be very up and down.

However, as I revisit some of the classic adventures of my youth, some of them aren't quite as classic as I thought they were. Applying current standards to old adventures might not be fair, but, as I'm quite likely to convert an older adventure to a newer system - I did a lot of that during the 3e era - I do have to consider whether the adventure still holds up today and will entertain my players.

It has occurred to me that there are adventures that are striking for their concept, although the actual execution is lacking; likewise, there are those adventures that are dull but have excellent execution. And then there are those that have both - rare though they may be.

Of course, not everyone agrees on what is a good concept or good execution.

Here a few adventures and my take on them.

D3: Vault of the Drow: Great Concept; Poor Execution
A race of underground evil elves serving a demoness? Brilliant! Unfortunately, when it comes to the actual vault, there's not really that much there for the DM. A list of noble houses and the soldiers employed by each one? Are the PCs going to kill each group in turn?

Astonishingly, the Eilservs faction - who precipitated the entire mess with the giants - get a mere column of information.

This is one of those adventures that a DM with a lot of ingenuity and creativity can make into something great, but this needs a lot of work.

I3: Pharaoh: Great Concept, great execution.
It's my favourite adventure of all time. Pharaoh has it all - good set-up, encounters (and a wide variety of them all) and overall arc.

H1: Keep on the Shadowfell: Good concept, problematic execution.
The first half of Keep is as good as any adventure I've seen - then it gets to the lower level of the Keep and it turns into a slog. It isn't helped by the village encounters drying up, but the BBEG is rather boring when you get down to it... and there's not enough good leadup to really bring home his threat.

I'll let you give some examples - more from me tomorrow!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

H1 to me seems to exemplify a general problem with many current (4E) adventures. The "plot/encounter" ratio is not great or uneven.

H1 Spoiler
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o Kobolds harrass the area.
- There are basically 4 combat encounters dealing with this and a roleplaying encounter in Winterhaven. The first kobold attack, the ambush, the entrance to the kobold lair, the lair itself (with the dreaded Irontooth encounter). I think that's pretty good, maybe one encounter too much.
o Nianaran working for Kalarel, spying in Winterhaven
- A short roleplaying "encounter" in Winterhaven and the ambush in the graveyard. Pretty weak. There is no real time devoted to make her active in the story and make her "spy" activities more interesting. A good DM can probably use this to spice things up - she could lead the party astray (maybe it's her that gets them in the ambush by suggesting the wrong place to look?). It could be a real plot twist that there is a spy in Winterhaven, but it's not really.
o Kalarels minions at the Dragon Burial
- A single encounter is devoted to that. It can serve as a way to inform the party of the dangers in the Keep, but Kalarel doesn't seem to react to the player actions and whether what he's looking for is found or not is left alone.
o Kalarel trying to open the rift to the Shadow Fell
- Well, basically once you enter the Keep, stopping this is your only goal. You go through dozens or so of encounters for that, but there doesn't seem to be much more story to it. None of the Goblin/Hobgoblin activities matter much to Kalarels plot or the things happening around Winterhaven.
I think this is were the biggest improvements - or the most cuts - are necessary. If the story gave reasons for the PCs to enter the Keep repeatedly with different goals, advancing the story each time.
o Blood Reavers try to negotiatve with Kalarel and get killed
- I liked the Blue Ooze or whatever that monster was. It adds a little to the background, but it is still mostly a throwaway, except perhaps to lead the way towards H2, but Kalarels letter to Paldemar does this a lot better!

I think the sequence of events that are likely to happen needs to change, so that the encounters are better spread around the plot, so to speak. Some things might have to be cut or at least put more optionally - the encounters with rats or kruthiks for example are only interesting for "exploration" of the ruins. For the exploration part, adding a few hazards would also add to the adventure. The Keep is in ruins, there are bound to be some dangerous places that might collapse. This could lead to an alternative entrance (bypassing some guards or wardings) to the lower levels, for example.
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[Prism]

For me its the sheer amount of adventures from previous editions that allows us choice. I had great fun playing and running many modules from these editions but there were plenty more that we didn't bother with.

Tomb of horrors I would say has an ok concept but great execution for what it does best - a tournament style module

Veiled Society has a great concept but slightly lacking excecution - even the DM has to work hard to understand what is supposed to happen

Ravenloft - great concept and execution. An awesome example of great module design

Red Hand of Doom - again great concept and a very well designed mini campaign

The first three 4e adventures (before we gave up on the modules). The problem for me is very poor concept. There is little to nothing original in the story. In fact I barely remember much of a story. The execution is ok. Good in parts and silly in others.

For me it took 3e about 2 years before some decent Wotc adventures began to appear. I'm not to worried yet but hopefully at some point a 4e module with a good and interesting concept will come out. There's no reason it can't be done. Red Hand would play wonderfully in 4e I'm sure. The 4e classic adventure just hasn't happened yet. Some dungeon modules have looked good though

Having said all that, the ability for 4e to deal with quick conversions from older systems is great

 

[BigWeather]

I3: Pharaoh: Great Concept, great execution.
It's my favourite adventure of all time. Pharaoh has it all - good set-up, encounters (and a wide variety of them all) and overall arc.

My favorite adventure as well. I got my copy signed by Tracy Hickman waaay back in the late '80s. Still my most treasured AD&D item. Oasis of the White Palm I wasn't as enamored with but Lost Tomb of Martek really seemed to finish it out in grand style -- but Pharoah was still the best of the lot.

 

[MerricB]

My favorite adventure as well. I got my copy signed by Tracy Hickman waaay back in the late '80s. Still my most treasured AD&D item. Oasis of the White Palm I wasn't as enamored with but Lost Tomb of Martek really seemed to finish it out in grand style -- but Pharoah was still the best of the lot.

It's interesting to compare my experiences when I actually ran the modules. Pharoah was as stunning to play as to read, but Oasis was actually a really good adventure to run and play: there's a lot of NPC interaction that only really works when you've got players.

Lost Tomb, however, was a failure. It's got some good ideas, but relies a lot on chasing NPCs through the areas, and that's very, very difficult to pull off.

Cheers!

 

[Jan van Leyden]

It's interesting to compare my experiences when I actually ran the modules. Pharoah was as stunning to play as to read, but Oasis was actually a really good adventure to run and play: there's a lot of NPC interaction that only really works when you've got players.

I've had the same experience when I ran those two adventures using GURPS rules 15 years (?) ago. The critical point would have been the labyrinth in the pyramid, which I inadvertently run similar to 4e's skill challenge.

Lost Tomb, however, was a failure. It's got some good ideas, but relies a lot on chasing NPCs through the areas, and that's very, very difficult to pull off.

Same here. I didn't manage to maintain a sense of urgency, so the players stumbled around and experienced Martek's tomb like a carnival's freak or curiosity show.

Still the campaign was a very satisfying experience.

 

[samursus]

Temple of Death and Master of the Desert Nomads from BECMI

X4 & X5 I think.

Loved those 2...

Epic, exotic, perfect mix of crawling, wilderness adventures and political intrigue....

 

[Freakohollik]

Guess I'll keep it going.

I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City: Great Concept, great execution.
One of my all time favorites. Cool concept, exciting encounters, and lots of room to add your own stuff. At the end it even gives you some awesome ideas on how to expand the adventure. Oh and thats all in 23 pages plus a few more for maps and new monsters. I don't know if there is any other adventure that has this much awesome content in so few pages.

Return to the Tomb of Horrors: Great Concept, poor execution.
The idea of going back to the tomb and into its even deadlier areas is a winner. Moil is a great idea, and the fortress of conclusion is supposed to be like the original tomb, but even deadlier. All that said, this adventure is around 250 pages, and there is a lot of crap. It takes a long time to get back to the tomb. You need to fight some giants (why?), travel across a swamp (not bad), and infiltrate a necromancer city (decent) just to get to the tomb. Moil has some cool stuff there, but is too long. The fortress just doesn't hold up at all to the original tomb.

Doomgrinder: Great Concept, poor execution.
An ancient moving fortress rises from the earth and starts charging towards the City of Greyhawk. Awesome. It reminds me of the Technodrome from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The rest of the adventure goes on to detail how you should warn everyone in it's path. Then when it's time to actually get inside the fortress and take it down, the adventure just gives you some rules for randomly generating rooms and layouts. Completely devoid of any originality or excitement. I'm going to consider this the pinnacle of great concept, poor execution until someone one-ups me here.

I3: Pharaoh: Great Concept, great execution.
It's my favourite adventure of all time. Pharaoh has it all - good set-up, encounters (and a wide variety of them all) and overall arc.

I don't know about great execution on this one. It contains a first person maze. It suggests running it as "Do you go left, right or forward?". Please spare me. Did you just rip that part out entirely?

 

[MerricB]

I don't know about great execution on this one. It contains a first person maze. It suggests running it as "Do you go left, right or forward?". Please spare me. Did you just rip that part out entirely?

Nope. It's a great part of the adventure. It's a maze that actually works, because the directions get scrambled for the party. They think they're going north - but the mists have confused them and they're coming back the way they came.

Once they start hitting the same landmarks again and again, then they begin to realise that something is wrong...

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

Going through the 4E adventures I've run:

H2: Thunderspire Labyrinth: Ok concept, mediocre execution

The idea for the labyrinth is great, but it is seriously undermined by the lack of actual random encounter tables - there's a problem when all encounters are designed. It becomes "DM wants an encounter here", which I dislike. Some of the areas are nice, but the links between them are too forced. More to the point, chasing down slaves works well, but there need to be more of a foreshadowing of the final encounter than there is.

H3: Pyramid of Shadows: Brilliant concept, lousy execution.

A dimensional prison? Great idea! So is Karavakos and his shards, along with his erstwhile consort. Unfortunately, then everything falls down with the selection of the other groups to inhabit the pyramid. Quite simply, there aren't any groups the PCs can make common cause with. They're all evil, deranged or both. The pyramid, which should actually give a lot of exploration material along with backstory on the history of the 4E world, turns into an overlong slogfest of one combat after another.

P1: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens: Great concept, not bad execution.

I enjoyed running this, although the Warrens were a bit too big. (They'd actually play really well as a AD&D dungeon; the longer 4E combats make it drag a bit, although this is the adventure I ran 6 combats in 3 hours in...) The town is unmemorable; there's not enough going on in it by virtue of the adventure, especially if the PCs need to care about its fate. (Best home base so far remains Winterhaven in H1).

The final act on the Feywild works well, although it needs DM input to bring out its best.