I always wonder and am curious - what are people's criteria for whether an adventure is "good" or "bad"?
Very simple and yet complicated question... I must say that my perspective has likely changed over the course of 30 years of RPGing. Consider also that since 5e the only long-term campaign I've been running is a family game that is mostly seasonal (i.e. played a lot more during summer and winter vacations than during school periods) and therefore is more like a series of adventures, different from my ideal campaign (sandbox with a "web" of interconnected quests around one or more epic storylines).
There's definitely a difference between content and presentation values.
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As for content, my main concerns are the
story and the
challenges.
I have always had troubles writing stories that truly surprise the players, offer enough intrigues and twists to keep them on their toes, without feeling artificial or using too many cliches. It is hard to tell, but if the
story gives me somewhat feelings of surprise as I read it, then there's a chance it will do the same to my players. Even when not particularly surprising, a story can still be great thanks to other elements, such as evoking particular atmospheres, feelings and emotions. It is obviously subjective.
I am generally much better at designing
challenges, but still an adventure has good value for me when it comes up with specific ideas that haven't come to my mind before: it doesn't matter to which pillar of the game it applies to, it could be a particular combat scenario with non-obvious elements, locations for explorations with unusual features that require special considerations, and so on... it could even be a mini-game or ad-hoc rule that makes the adventure different from others (e.g. Tomb of Annihilation's countdown - not saying this one is specifically good, I know many hated it and I haven't played the adventure myself, it's just an example of an adventure-specific rule that is meant to differentiate it from others). In terms of content I don't really care much for new monsters or magic items.
I like adventures to be fully designed, by the way. I hate the old "here's a blank room for you to fill with whatever you want" idea. Because if I want something different, it's just the same work to swap an existing room content with my own, but at least I can choose.
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As for presentation, this is nowadays more important to me than before, mainly because I don't really want to spend the same amount of time in preparations that I used to in the past. I want as much work done for me by the adventure designers.
Summaries are greatly appreciated, and this may include any of the following:
- adventure synopsis: 1-2 pages maximum to summarize the whole thing for me
- chapter recaps and/or introductions: same idea on a smaller scale, when the adventure is meant to last longer
- players' short "read-aloud" sections for each location: very useful for me, as it takes off the pressure of remembering or having to check ahead during play
- quick tables for NPCs (not stats, just things such as motivations, purposes, attitudes, allegiances etc.)
The absolute dream published adventure for me would be one that I don't need to prepare for but that I could just read on the fly as we play. It's not gonna happen, but at least these kinds of summaries can help me prepare more quickly.
Even though I am a great fan of DIY stuff, I'd rather the adventure come with
maps, possibly easy to photocopy so that I can show a blank version to the player while keeping my own DM's version with all the hidden stuff and notes marked by me on it. With regards to maps, also temporal maps of events (as in cause-effects charts) are also appreciated, but only if the result is handy to use.
If the adventure comes with unique
stats, even though I said I don't particularly need new monsters and items but generally I can expect at least unique NPCs, then I prefer the layout to keep all stats at the end of the book, or even better in an easy-to-photocopy format (e.g. one column or page per NPC) so that I can make them into separate sheets instead of looking back and forth.
Art is only a bonus, even though I usually have high demands for arts in manuals and supplements, that's mainly for long-term inspiration, and also just because it encourages me to read those books more, and learn them better or find more ideas. But in adventures I absolutely do not require it, even a zero-art published adventure is ok for me at this point (not counting maps, those are tools and not just art).
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Final words.
Nowadays I am actually quite positive on the idea that almost every adventure can be a good adventure. When it's not, I rather think the reasons are more likely with the DM and the players as well, either not being in the right gaming spirit when they play it. Maybe someone at the table starts being bored or annoyed by something specific or even just 'bad rolls', blames the adventure and starts playing/running the game lousily, instead of participating in the collective effort to make it work. And when one starts to do that, they are likely to drag the others into the same negative mood.
You might have noticed I didn't mention
balance. Nowadays I don't even care about it that much, when it is intended as the supposed level of challenges. I don't care because I think way too many gamers are fixated with the idea that the game should have the exact level of difficulty at all times, to make players believe they can fail and be punished (by death usually) but ultimately make sure they will win "unless they do something stupid" (trite expression that means nothing to me). I don't care if some parts of the adventure are too easy and others are too hard, for me this is just part of the variety of the game. I trust that my smart and good-spirited players can figure out how to solve challenges and beat encounters, or maybe sometimes not being able to (which is also part of the variety of the game); otherwise they can trust me as a DM to not let them pay too much when something turns out to be effectively a bit too hard or even impossible (as long as I don't throw them into a "Kobayashi Maru", even impossible challenges have a place in the game sometimes). On the long term, I want my players one day to look back at our games and think "that adventure was easy and relaxing, but that other one was a hard as hell, and that other one we just didn't make it, but we had fun nonetheless" rather than think "we had 50 years of gaming together, all perfectly balanced by the book". Incidentally, it's the same reason why I do NOT want all adventures to give the same focus to all pillars. Variety and diversity for me are much bigger values to me than asserting control and predictability.