Help me make WotC adventures better.

[Marx420]

While I do not play 4e I might be willing to invest in quality APs if you actually do manage to incorporate even a modicum of these constructive criticisms, as I'm always in the market for imagination fuel. Suggestions:

1) Rampant rumors and red herrings, not enough of these in the 4e modules I've played and I believe they constitute a believe they need more emphasis as sometimes they are the only role playing dedicated dungeon-bashers partake of in their resupply runs (potential comedic value too).

2) Extraneous details, the module need not detail only the delve itself and attached township of loot laundering, but areas and groups that mayhap play a role or influence the adventure without overtly entering into it's play sphere sketched out (even very cursorily) to be integrated at the DM's discretion.

3) Finally, The RANDOM, the idea that by entering these world's of fantastic adventure one should be prepared to encounter and overcome anything and everything whether plausible or not. The capricious whims of fate forge many strange things and I believe the crazy and capriciously dangerous needs to make a reappearance pronto to restore the reverence PC's once had for dungeons now relegated to the role of "loot-holes". Throw aside balance issues and put the imaginative concepts first (yes even stuff like the green demon face from the Tomb of Horrors) and slap down metagaming preconceptions and overriding dungeon "themes" with the fury of a thousand demon lords.

Generally, get in touch with your roots, kick it with an old school campy aesthetic and don't place game balance concerns on such a high pedestal they strip all variability and wonder from the infinite canvas of dungeon design.
Oh, and puzzles, I loves me some puzzles that rack the brain's of my otherwise unflappable PCs.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I would like a summary of important ties between encounters on each encounter page such as:

PCs will reach this through encounter 3 and 5.
PCs will receive the sword of cutting here.
PCs will open the vaults and enter encounter 7 here.

I think this describes what I wanted to say in a preceding post better. Figuring out the connections between the encounters and the story is sometimes (if not often) challenging due to the way they are organized.
The Dungeon Master is not running individual encounters, he is running an adventure, and a campaign. The individual building blocks like encounters or skill challenges needs a high usability, but also the story containing these encounters need to be usable.

I would like much better integration with Dungeon Tiles as others have mentioned. I didn't buy two sets of every dungeon tile release only to have to whip out the flip-mat. Design Dungeon Tiles around your adventures and vice versa.

It seems that there is some disagreement on that area, but I think one important thing is - use the dungeon tiles wisely. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to create actually maps using both dungeon tiles and "hand-drawn" parts, to show how you can best represent the map on the table. The dungeon tiles shouldn't lead to maps of a low quality that have "plot holes" in them as an aforementioned example where any good player would sidestep the default entrance, leaving the DM to guess what works.

 

[TerraDave]

This is why I love ENWorld…

I am going to try and summarize a lot of the feedback you are getting into three inter-related categories.

Put better background to better use: Shadowfell was OK in revealing the tragedy of Sir Keegan and the history of the rift. But just OK. More story, more flavor, more active villains, this is all about having that back-story and then using it in play, both through revelations but also in actions of hostile and non-hostile NPCs. Better does not mean complicated, Thunderspire is a good example of just a few too many fiendish lords, a few too many underlying elements, and a few too many a “link to these bad guys” then “links to these bad guys” which then…

And too much Torog. As noted above, 4E has overdone the common world elements and not brought enough unique flavor to, well, anything. I know why this has been done. But that doesn’t make it a good thing. This is how people (mostly DMs) use this kind of fluff: they skim over it thinking how boring it is, and then “invoked devastation, that’s cool!” This does not mean they want to then read about the invoked devastation over and over again. It actually means the opposite.

Pacing and Exploration: 4E could be characterized as building the ultimate encounters..and then playing one after another after another. Not all encounters should be equal (and the irony is that 4E gives you more flexibility in this regard then just about any edition) and they should be interspersed with stuff that doesn’t involve fighting. Pocking around dungeon corridors, solving puzzles, non-combat npc interaction, encounters that could be fights or not. Again, H1, H2, they have some of this, but not enough. Also, this is where the whole Delve format comes in, which essentially obscures the exploration parts of the adventure.

Lets take another example: Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. This has so many cool fights and individual creatures, and some really cool non-fighting puzzle type bits inspired by the Lost Temple of Tharizdun. And yes, some opportunities for role-play. But the whole feels like less than the some of the parts, because of too many cool fights, one after another…

Variety: You are getting a bunch of people calling for this. And we both know, those cool out of box adventures often only appeal to a niche audience. But still. Something like a solid city adventure. Or an Ilse of Dread. These would have a broad appeal, though they might be a bit tougher to do. Obviously this applies in adventures as well, though it does have to be balanced with having a coherent theme, and back-story (point number one) .

Examples? The classics are full of strong variety and varied pacing. Of course they cheated: combat was shorter (pre 3E, or some versions of 2E), so by default you would spend more time on other things. But then this is something 4E has to make up for. And the best of the classics also brought the back-story. G-D, the better Ss, and of course Ravenloft and the other Is.

My favourite example is a much less illustrious 3rd party 3E module: Ne Moren’s vault. Seemingly very conventional, but with a great mix of stuff and a very good backstory that is carefully revealed through the adventure.

 

[Jack99]

I think most of what I have to say has been said already, but due to it being so true, I wanted to repeat it..

First of all, let me say that I am a huge 4e fanboy and own everything made by WotC so far, as well as everything made by all major 4e 3PP's and in my mind, there is little doubt that your adventures are by far the weakest products WotC produces. With that said, I have never been part of the camp that thought they were horrible. Some are very good, but there are some things that could definitely be improved upon.

Now, in order to do so, what you should work on is the rhythm, the pacing of the adventures. As is, there are just too many combat encounters in an adventure. This makes them slog along, feeling boring. Now, back in the good old days, there would be a lot of encounters as well. Problem is, modern day combat takes a lot longer. This means that on a game night, typically 4-5 hours or so, the story will progress very little, because the time will be spent going through 4 encounters against some kobolds/goblins/orcs etc. The players and DM will frequently leave the table with the feeling that they didn't really achieve much, at least not story-wise. Sure, they might have killed some monsters (which is certainly fun), but the story is still at more or less the same point as it was before they sat down at the table.

So, what I would like are adventures where;
1)You do not spend 8 sessions in the same dungeon.
2) You get to the meat of the adventure quickly. Don't make 5 (random) encounters before they get to the dungeon. And when I say (random), I mean encounters that does not progress the story at all. And that does not only hold true before the dungeon. Inside the dungeon as well.

3) With the space gained from removing adventures, you should add in more fluff, more RP encounters/skill challenges, more puzzles, more traps, more interesting NPC's and more story. In short more detail.

Below are a couple of examples of some notes I have taken regarding two adventures from Dungeon.
[sblock=Example - Heathen]Heathen is a fairly straightforward adventure. The PC's, who are at the edge of civilization, land by mistake in the middle of a cult war. In order to help the Light of the Sun-cult (the good guys), the PC's go on a search mission for a missing paladin, (former) leader of the Light of the Sun. Their trek takes them through the ravaged country-side, finally ending up at the Pillars of Night, an ancient site built by giants, now taken over by the Hand of Naarash (the bad guys). There they discover (first twist) that the paladin did indeed make it here, but that he has switched side and is now the leader of the Hand of Naarash. Fighting their way into the paladin's inner sanctum, the PC's discover that the paladin has been corrupted by a demon (second twist) and have to face that as well.

I like this adventure, but as many other official adventures, it could do with joining a fitness club and get the fat trimmed a bit.

IMO, a simple adventure like this should not be more than 6 encounters long.
In order to make a shorter, yet cohesive adventure, I would do the following:
Either use one of the hooks, or make one that fits your campaign. The cut the first two encounters. Blades in the Night should be first encounter. The other two serves little purpose other than fillers. While some love random encounters (I use them for myself), they are not for everyone, and it is my belief that published adventures are better off without them. Arguably the first encounter, A Timely Rescue, serves as introduction, but its a bit boring, so no need. Instead let the PC's experience the aftermath of the cult of Bane's destruction as they move through the countryside.

I would also either drop the Skill Challenges completely, or rework them from the ground and up. We have learned a lot since June 2008 when it comes to SC's, and they can definitely be better. Or you could do what we always done, roleplay the whole thing and maybe toss in a few checks here and there.

Continuing, I would definitely skip the Hunter and Hunted encounter, again, it serves little purpose.

Arriving to Adakmi, which is an interesting little village, I would expand on Glasur, the dwarven riverboat captain and his pike-driven boat, the Blacksnake, just to make the encounter with him a little more than just a: Hi, need a boat? Sure, I hate the cult too, so it won't be expensive!" thing that the original adventure has going.

You should keep Fire on the Water, to bring the doings of the cult more front and center of the adventure, and it's not a bad encounter either.

You should also keep Friend of My Friend - it advances the story. But you might need to tweak the solo, as it is way too weak as it is atm. Also, you should give anyone awake a perception check - after all, while he is invisible, he still makes sounds.

At this point, you have 3 encounters before getting to the main part.

Consider ways to get through secret arcane locked doors if no rogue present. Perhaps some arcane skill challenge to disable the magic.

There is a fairly big skill challenge that the PC's need to go through in order to acquire information about the fate of the paladin, but that can easily be achieved with good old roleplaying, but you will need to create and flesh out a lot of routines and NPC's. I would probably do it even if you should choose to run the SC as it is.

Inside the temple, keep the two encounters which are really traps, to support the idea of an ancient protected temple, and of course the final battle with the demon and/or the paladin. IMO you are better off ditching the Last Stand Encounter. [/sblock]
[sblock=Example - The Sleeper in the Tomb of Dreams]

A century after a battle between two armies and their evil generals, an evil cult is trying to bring back one of the evil generals, and if not stopped, the Far Realms creatures that follow that general.

Sleeper in teh Tomb of Dreams has several things going for it. First of all, I like the setup, but it also has a couple of interesting hooks, some nice maps and one of my Top10 favorite traps. But IMO, it suffers from too many combat encounters, especially because there is no natural break or place to take a break and get an extended rest. 9 encounters with nothing but short rests might be a tad much for most groups.

If you want to run it as is, you could "rule" that Volkanth and his posse of foulspawns are locked in the ritual/ceremony for days, so no one wanders off. This would mean that the chance of players being disturbed while taking an extend rest to be slim. Personally I would cut quite a few encounters and instead perhaps insert a time limit into the adventure.

To begin with, I would remove Brigands. The fact that Volkanth has to be able for steal the bones of the evil paladin in order for the adventure to work reeks of railroading. Therefore, in order to avoid this, I would instead start the adventure with the PC's being a bit further away, hearing the screams when the Raven Queen worshipers are attacked. So that when thePC's arrive, they find that Volkanth and his minions are gone, with a nice set of tracks made by the minions - which they can follow once they have been given the quest by Sister Naenia.

This means that Warwood Creek will be the first encounter. Although I would make a few changes to fit better. The whole notion of the chillborn zombies just happening to be asleep at the exact spot where the encounter happens is a tad far fetched, so instead, make the encounter consist of Tiefling Heretics (you could even reflavor their powers to be a bit more necromantic) and chillborn zombies. The zombies would still be hiding under the ice, waiting for the tieflings to attack.

Remove Battle of Stargazer Hill. It's more of the same, while providing nothing new.

Keep Guardians of the Descent. It's an interesting encounter/trap.

Keep The Hanged Ones. This is just an awesome trap. But if you want to be even more evil, change the minions of the encounter to ghost minions who attack while the trap is still working.

Also keep Seer sees the truth. Not only does it advance the plot, but it has that Far Realm flavor, as opposed to certain other encounters.

Remove On A Razor's Edge. It doesn't advance the plot, and while the monsters are thematically sorta in tune with the adventure, I still think it falls short.

Remove Wrecking Eye, as it is yet another filler.

Keep The Sleeper's Tomb, of course.

That gives you a nice adventure, 5 cool encounters (2 of them involving a trap) which should be doable without having to take an extended rest. As mentioned earlier, you could add a time limit to the whole thing. Maybe some of the inscriptions in F1/S1 could indicate that the ceremony needed to take place on this day, so that the players know that the ceremony is already on the way and probably will end soon.[/sblock]

Thanks for doing this.

Cheers

 

[Dausuul]

One thing that would help a lot would be a way to do skirmish combat in 4E, where the fight only lasts 10 minutes instead of close to an hour. That would make it possible to design old-school dungeons where you find a group of monsters, kill them quick, and move on; while retaining 4E's ability to have the grand set-piece battles when the major villains show up.

You could probably do this just by designing a new category of monster, with very low hit points and a front-loaded offense, built to do its damage in one quick burst before the PCs whack it... sort of a minion-plus. But that could be venturing beyond the scope of this thread.

 

[howandwhy99]

Well, the only two options I see available for you are the combat simulation minigame and the skill challenge minigame. Each can be made to vary more, but unless there are new ones I don't know of then any published adventure is only going to include those two formats.

I agree with letting adventure designers think outside the box. Do not design according to the rules. Bring in the story crew, people like the best level designers for computer games and then let the math-head game designers try and apply the rules after the fact. IMO creative thinking really needs that "I can do anything" feeling to create fresh ideas and approaches. Don't fence them in before they start.

If you really want to attract attention, bring fresh meat to the table. Bold, new ideas are going to get noticed. That's not to say you should not look at the past. Some of the most influential ideas in history were pure theft of an older idea put to prominent use. 2e Dungeon magazine had some truly amazing adventures and adventure elements that don't get to see the light of day very often. They are one of many resources available to you. As I've been told, any good artist is stealing half of the time anyways.

 

[delericho]

However, if you REALLY want to be a superstar, when you talk about something that can be improved, give me an example of a WotC adventure...

The only WotC 4e adventure I have read is "King of the Trollhaunt Warrens", and I've read it but never run it. So, I'll be confining my examples to that.

(I should note, though, that WotC's record with adventures in general hasn't been very good - of the 3e adventures only "Red Hand of Doom", "Sunless Citadel" and the "Barrow of the Forgotten King"/"Sinister Spire"/"Fortress of the Yuan-ti" trilogy really struck me as good, with a few others having good parts but not really gelling as a whole. Even the SWSE adventures in "Scum and Villainy" and "Galaxy of Intrigue" have failed to wow me.)

So, what I'd like to hear from the community is what you think would make published adventures better. What areas are WotC adventures lacking in that could be improved?

The Skill Challenge in "Trollhaunt" is very poor: succeed, and the PCs get where they're going; fail and they get an exciting combat encounter, some treasure, and then they get where they're going.

Secondly, it's a railroad. You have to go through the Skill Challenge to get to the dungeon, then you have to go through the Prime Material version of the dungeon, and then you have to go through the other-planar version of the dungeon. I know that a published adventure will always be something of a railroad, but I distinctly recall a "Design & Development" column musing about how to change it. (I believe the author was talking in relation to "Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde" at the time.)

Thirdly, it's very little more than just a sequence of combat encounters, one after another. They may well be good combat encounters, but where are the opportunities for roleplay? Where are the monster factions that clever players can turn on one another? Where is the non-combat dungeon dressing that serves no purpose but to generate that all-important sense of wonder?

There's just nothing in that adventure that makes me want to run that adventure, rather than a conversion of "Against the Giants", or "Howl of the Carrion King", or a Goodman Games/EN Publishing module, or just an adventure of my own making.

I would also strongly advocate taking another good look at the "Delve" format. The 4e version is much better than the 3e version, it's true, but I still find that it makes the adventures too rigid in construction - encounters all have a certain pattern to them, monsters never move from one location to another (and, worse, always remain in the same space until encountered), and so on. In theory, I'm a fan of the format; in practice, I have grown to loathe it.

What makes a good adventure for you, and why are the published adventures so far not doing that for you?

Meaningful choices. Rather than force the PCs through the one-size-fits-all Skill Challenge, offer a choice: do they risk the swamp to try to 'sneak up' on the dungeon (Skill Challenge), or do they take the road, knowing they'll have to fight through the agents of the King (combat encounter)?

Role-play opportunities. Include different factions. Include NPCs who might be opponents to kill, or might be sources of information, or might be possible allies. Also, try to be a bit more inventive with BBEG motivations: is the King out to lay waste to the town because he's Eeeevil... or is he a deluded follower of an otherwise benign god, intent on bringing a cleansing fire to the people?

Thematic elements. Too often, it feels like encounters are built from a stance of "these sets of abilities would go together to create an interesting fight", without consideration of why those monsters would work together in the first place. The monsters in a given encounter should share a theme (gnolls with hyenas, for example), or have a clear reason for working together against type. (Added bonus: if there's a reason why the Dwarf is working with the Vampire, it provides scope for the PCs to break up that alliance...)

Similarly, the encounters in the adventure as a whole should share a theme, although this need not be tied together nearly as tightly. But you wouldn't want an adventure set in the desert where fully 50% of the monsters are more suited to the Frostfell...

Oh, and please, let's have better names! "Trollhaunt Warrens" is actually quite good, but I'm afraid there are too many that just aren't. Names like the Bloodspike Behemoth make the game feel like it's written for children, and while there's no shame in writing for children, I'd much rather play a game for adults, thanks.

 

[Nikosandros]

I say this because the low pay may (and I do mean may) help explain why those who do author better adventures prefer to do that work outside of WotC. .

I thought that WotC pays more than anyone else in the industry. Is that actually not the case?

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Some general comments (sorry, too busy to break out a module to give specific commentary right now):

- Lose the current two-book format. It is very frustrating to have half of the encounter information in one book, and the other half of the encounter information in the second book, requiring flipping back and forth to run the adventure.

- I want meaningful choices for PCs in the way an adventrue progresses. Too many of WotC's adventures are linear -- room/encounter A, followed by B, followed by C. Even if the individual encounters can be solved with different methods, the PCs still face them in the same order. Btter adventures, in my opinion, provide multiple paths to the end goal. That can just be different routes through the dungeon, that cross over and intersect from time to time, but it is enough that the party choosing to go left has a different experience than a party choosing to to right.

- Skill challenges aren't working as written. I've yet to see one in a published adventure for 4E that wasn't really more than "play a guessing game with skill checks until you get the right one."

- More Sandbox. Sometimes it's nice to have encounters or encounter areas (and they don't have to be combat ones) that are not, or only tangentially related to the main adventure. That provides the DM much more opportunity to freelance, come up with different motivations, and tie in to a specific campaign. Think of the various wilderness encounters in the original Keep on the Borderlands. They weren't essentially, and had a few hints thrown their way, but offered the DM a lot of creative flexibility. Sometimes, the adventurers just need to be handed a blank map labeled "Here Be There Monsters."

Of recent adventures, only Trollhaunt Warrens stands out to me as something I wanted to run (still a choo-choo, though). The 3E/3.5E era were better on average -- excellent designs such as Red Hand of Doom, Forge of Fury ... but Paizo (particularly when they were running Dungeon) beats the pants off of you.