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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 5108899" data-attributes="member: 22424">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.)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.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.</blockquote>

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