Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dragonblade" data-source="post: 5111796" data-attributes="member: 2804">I've been playing and DMing 4e for almost two years now. I've played through Keep on the Shadowfell and Thunderspire Labyrinth and DMed Scepter Tower of Spellgard, Pyramid of Shadows, and numerous Dungeon adventures.Here are my critiques and recommendations:Adventures should be fun to read - When I read 4e adventures, I feel like I'm reading a collection of tactical encounters for a miniatures game. Thats boring. All 4e adventure writers should go read 1st and 2nd edition adventures. Particularly those written by Gygax, Monte Cook and others. These adventures told a story and reading these adventures was almost as fun as DMing them. 4e adventures should read more like these.The world should feel old and mysterious - Add lots of backstory and interesting little tidbits. Historical references and so on. Gygax was a master at throwing in little bits in his dungeons that had nothing to do with the current adventure but allowed the DM to hint to his players that the world was a far older, more mysterious and dangerous place than they knew. I believe this contributed strongly to the elusive "sense of wonder" that 1e is so famous for. For example, a secret door that might lead an older more ancient section of dungeon that the current inhabitants don't know about. Or the players might come across a wall carving that tells the story of an ancient battle that the original inhabitants of the dungeon wanted to memorialize. That story may have nothing to do with the current reason the PCs are there but it makes the world seem alive, that it doesn't just exist for the PCs to stand on.Exploration should be encouraged - Don't just fill rooms with endless combat encounters. But don't just throw in a ton of empty rooms either. Have areas of interest that are just neat to explore.Consider pacing - After four encounters or so, the players are about ready to need an extended rest. The adventure design should provide a natural break at this point. Players need a mental break from all that combat as well. Provide a place to take an extended rest along with a social encounter, or just some fascinating area to explore without an imminent fight.Less combat - Pyramid of shadows does a good job and providing interesting combats but the sheer number of them is just mind numbing. Sure there is a token effort made in some of the encounters to provide some RPing, but ultimately every NPC betrays you. More friendly NPCs, less combat and more quest XP. If it takes 10 encounters to level up, only 6 or 7 of those should be combat. Quest and story XP should make up the difference. Scepter Tower is also bad in this respect. You're just grinding through different levels of the tower. It gets old. The best encounters in that dungeon was the illithid haunt that replayed its death by trap and the magic curtain that made it look like your gear was teleported away. Those encounters were fun and really had that old school feel to them. Also it was annoying the boss fight came in the middle of the tower. The PCs still had to grind through several levels of tower but there was no sense they were building to a climax any more. It seemed like grinding for the sake of XP to get that level.About the Delve Format - I like the Delve format in the sense that all the monster stats are right there along with the tactical layout of the room. But I dislike how I don't get to read more detailed backstory and plot about these particular monsters and why they are in this room doing what they are doing. Also I strongly dislike how part of the room description is written in one section but the rest in another. Scepter Tower of Spellgard was really bad. I had to flip between different pages to get the full description of one room. I shouldn't have to do that. Its ok to break the two page Delve format and not try to squeeze everything into those two pages. I don't mind if it means I don't have to hunt down the rest of the room description because it wouldn't fit on the two page delve format spread.</blockquote>

Verification