Help me make WotC adventures better.

[Jonathan Walton]

So I'm not a regular 4E player anymore but I think I'm right in the target market for what you're trying to do with 4E, at least among the older generation, not the kids. I grew up playing Robotech, have been playing mostly indie games for the past few years, but was really excited about the possibilities of 4E (having never played D&D before), bought the core books and ran it for a while before getting really frustrated creating adventures that were not very fun and not having any good examples to help me know how to make better ones. Here are some bullet points from my frustrating experiences:

1. All adventures need to include all the maps needed to play at full size, so I can photocopy them, or at least include a link where I can download them and print them out. Otherwise they are useless to me. Why have your map artists create beautiful maps if I can't use them in play?

2. Likewise, I want tokens for all monsters and interactive objects on the map. You should make it really, really easy for me to run this, not force me to use chess pawns or whatever else I have lying around.

3. You need to make the players and the characters care about the adventure. If the bad guys have kidnapped somebody I've never heard of, I don't care. If we're descending into a mysterious dungeon that we know nothing about, we don't care. It's hard to tell writers how to make something interesting if they don't know how, but clearly a lot of the adventure writers don't really know how to do this, or they're trying to make the stories so general -- so they can fit into any campaign -- that there's nothing gripping to sink your teeth into.

We have to both know about what's going on (mysteries are not interesting in and of themselves) and have some immediate, personal connection to it. The example early in this thread of adding a burning house to the beginning of Keep on the Shadowfell is a great example. Boom, we're saving people from being burned alive or at least taking revenge. Suddenly it's more personal. Or set up situations right off the bat. Have you seen John Harper's free indie scenario, "Lady Blackbird"? It starts with the characters in the brig of a ship, having been captured for flying a false flag. And the first question the GM asks is "How do you escape?" Boom, everything's off to a flying start. Starting in media res is one great way to do this, but not the only one.

4. The encounters themselves seemed really repetitive in all the published adventures I played. We'd go to a room, fight a bit, never really be in danger, heal some hitpoints, and then move on and do it again. If the characters are never really in danger in 4E, they don't really get to make interesting questions. PC death is not really that scary; making new characters in 4E is fun! Or at least there need to be more dynamic choices to make, choices that actually matter. Like, you can do A or B but not both! Or you can do two of A, B, and C (or maybe only one of those if you mess it up)!

5. The NPCs need to want something from the players. Not something concrete necessary, but they need to have a clear agenda and guidelines for how they are going to pursue it, both if the PCs intervene and if they don't (or if they assist them!). They shouldn't simply be standing around waiting for the PCs get there, so the encounter can finally start. The world should feel like it's alive, not static. Like, if the PCs delay and decide to rest, the NPCs keep pursuing their agenda. Forget earning Action Points; that's where the true consequences of spending time healing should come from.

6. Published adventures should do more than be solid adventures, of the kind I could make myself given time and experience. They should be SUPER INSPIRATIONAL THINGS that push forward the boundaries of what D&D can do. You should have players saying to each other in game stores: "Dude, have you played 'Curse of the Midnight Marauder,' yet? Holy Crap, there's this amazing part where you fight vampire bats on this magical moving staircase that wraps around the outside of an ancient tower that's falling apart as you climb it." Published adventures have the freedom to prep more than any reasonable GM will have time to do in their week. They should be the equivalent of the coolest video game you can imagine, not just the standard stuff.

7. In general, things need to be both super accessible / easy to run and utterly fearless and mindblowing. Right now, they're both opaque and weaksauce, which is what I found so disappointing. I want to run a fight inside the stomach of a dragon and I want everything I need to run it, right at my fingertips. Seems like D&D should be able to do that.

 

[metaDM]

I'm going to talk about my experience with WotC publiushed adventures in the first paragraph and my ideas for improving them in the second paragraph. The WotC adventures I have run my players through and read have been lacking. The number one issue I have with them is they quickly devolve into a grind of back to back encounters with little to differentiate between them. When I started a Forgotten Realms campaign soon after the release of 4E, I started running my players through Specter Tower of Spellgard. The adventure started out interesting enough. The players were above ground in the ruins of Spellguard. The interacted with several groups, explored the area and fought off ambushes from kobolds, etc. As soon as the PCs made it to the wall, the game turned into 3 months of back to back lackluster encounters. The adventure was very linear - especially once the PCs reached the Scepter Tower. At the time, I had the distinct impression I was putting my players through a grind - like we were playing WoW or EQ. When my players were about halfway up the tower, I couldn't take it anymore. I just through the adventure in my box in digust and said, "You see the Lady Saharel. She doesn't have much to say. The end." I went home and started writing my first adventure that very night. I read through the other WotC adventures and didn't see much I liked. Thunderspire Labyrinth had some intersting parts though. I like adventures that have more story to them and have surprises and shocking reveals. If the PCs know what is coming next, I'm not doing my job. I think an adventure that shows the types of adventures I like is DCC #53 Sellswords of Punjar.

I have a few ideas for improving WotC adventures. First off, the gaming population is mature. I wish WotC adventures dealt with more adult themes. I'm not talking about centerfold handouts, but adult themes - the equivalent of an HBO series - would be greatly appreciated. I'm an adult. I can handle adult themes like torture, rape, homosexual characters and sexuality. Think Dragon Age. We don't see these types of subjects broached due to the terms of the GSL. If a 3PP could have their license revoked at any time, they aren't going to push the boundaries. I'm sure Hasbro has WotC's hands tied behind its back on this one, but you could spin off a new arm (akin to the what Vertigo is to DC comics) and use that to release new creative content. My other idea is to restructure the rules to award more experience for out of combat encounters. Skill challenges were a good start, but they fall short. I don't know any DMs who run SCs as written. The good ones use a more freeform, collective story-telling style. Assume that as the starting point for "Skill Challenges 2.0." Work on some mechanics for rewarding more experience out of combat. Here is a rant about skill challenges on my blog. Combat in 4E just takes too long. So incentivise players to not spend the entire gaming session in combat. That means award more experience out of combat and maybe even award more experience in combat for skill checks, etc. I played with my group every week for ten months -starting at level 1 - and they ended up at level 7.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I have a few ideas for improving WotC adventures. First off, the gaming population is mature. I wish WotC adventures dealt with more adult themes. I'm not talking about centerfold handouts, but adult themes - the equivalent of an HBO series - would be greatly appreciated. I'm an adult. I can handle adult themes like torture, rape, homosexual characters and sexuality.

I think its more likely that "the >majority of< gaming population is mature." (edited by me).

To that end, a series of PG-17/R/Rated M or whatever you want to call it adventure paths might actually be a good idea.

 

[MerricB]

For those criticising the Wizards adventures, have you yet played the Paragon adventures?

 

[Zinovia]

I haven't had the chance to play through any of the paragon adventures from WotC yet, although I do have a copy of P1: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens.

Upon initial read, it seems to provide more in the way of advice for groups that get creative and use a novel approach to the entrance to the big warren. There are answers to what the trolls may do if adventurers try to talk or trick their way in, as mine are won't to do; answers beyond "they see through any disguise or ruse and attack immediately". At least a bit - once the troll king gets there, he "attacks the moment he sees the party".

Unfortunately it still suffers from the breakup of the room descriptions among multiple pages, requiring page flipping. For instance, the Great Warren is described in general on pages 6 and 7 (book 2), the map is a two page spread on pp 8-9, and is nicely illustrated. When the players enter the room, you need the picture from page 26 of Book 1, the block text from Encounter W1 on page 10, and the description of the room on page 6 including info such as the DC to force or squeeze through the gate. The Features of the Area section is better than many from previous adventures in that it answers stuff my group is always asking, such as which way the door is hinged. They *always* want to know that. .

There seem to be a number of rooms that don't contain encounters; again a big improvement over the H series. The descriptions of these areas are better and more detailed, including a bit of treasure the PC's may stumble across.

I have't read the whole thing, so I can't comment on how well integrated the plot is, or whether the group knows or cares about the BBEG. There seems to be an attack on the town partway through the dungeon crawl portion, much like in H1, and like that mod, the PC's will only hear about it if they head back to town. Many groups are stubborn about returning to town in the middle of assaulting a dungeon, and with good reason. If you leave, they can build up defenses and bring in reinforcements.

From what I have heard, many of the fights in this mod are grindy, without presenting a good challenge for characters of this level. Some of this is intrinsic with trolls being the main enemy. I do note that WotC doesn't believe in having easy encounters. Most are level 11-13 with one at level 10, and as you progress, they go up in difficulty a little bit.

I certainly haven't given this module a proper evaluation, but I would say that while descriptive text has been expanded and improved, there are still some issues. There are many many encounters, most of which are fights. The skill challenges are far less stupid than the ones in the early modules, and might be usable without extensive rewriting. I would have to reduce the number of encounters, and make some easier by using minions, while making sure the tough fights were memorable in some way. Otherwise my group would get bored with months of slogging through fight after fight with the trolls.

What they need to do is to make a good first level module that doesn't suck and can be run by a new DM without modification. It's good to see some of the problems being addressed in the paragon modules, but where you most need modules to be well-designed and easy to run is at the starting levels. Make them fun with an engaging story, and cut down the number of combats. Reduce the number of levels covered by each module so a group can finish a story and move onto something new in less than six months of play time. Many groups can't play on a weekly basis, and it gets old doing the same old thing over and over, against the same foes.

 

[Rechan]

Instead of just providing a single hook between one adventure to the next, how about a few paragraphs about how one might link the adventure to the rest of the adventures? If you want a cohesive campaign where you run all of the published modules, it shouldn't be a chore to link them together. Some advice on how to do that would be nice. (especially early on).

 

[Bedrockgames]

I already responded but it occurred to me that mentioning the kinds of modules that I enjoyed would be helpful.

I really started playing D&D with 2e, and my first experience with modules were the 1E and 2E modules that came out in the 80s and 90s. For me, the quality of TSR modules seemed to hit a peak between late 80s to mid 90s. The crowning gem, in my opinion, being Feast of Goblyns. That is just me. I don't know how many would agree or disagree. However I did perceive a serious drop in module quality when 3E came out (and I loved the 3E system, just not the modules made by wizards of the coast). I found Paizo's material during that period to be pretty high quality stuff (though I still missed the 2E modules).

 

[pneumatik]

I've read part of the thread. I've notice a few times when people mention columns or books that WotC has published on how to be a better DM. They apparently give advice on making good villains, not railroading PCs, making locations come alive, etc. I don't get the impression it's anything groundbreaking, but it's all good stuff.

So it's obvious people at WotC know a lot of rules and advice on writing good adventures. Collect that advice someone and give it to an editor. Not a grammar and layout editor, an adventure editor. The adventure editor will go through the draft adventure and check it against each piece of advice. Compelling villain? Check. Not a complete railroad? Check. I'm not saying the adventure needs to follow every single piece of advice, but the author should have a good reason why they ignore any of it. I think that would solve a lot of the problems, or at least get all the low-hanging fruit.

 

[Jeffrey]

This thread deserves to be stickied.

TONS of good input here. This is the most valuable thread I have read on ENworld to date

 

[Jeffrey]

Rodney, if you are still reading, here is my thought.

Let loose of your designers.

Let them do more then just design encounters and string them together.

These are creative people. Let them write something *dangerous*.