D&D 4E Is it me or are 4E modules just not...exciting?

[AbdulAlhazred]

I find Paizo to be opposite in their issues. They have too much useless fluff and weaker encounter designs but they do present them in a better reading as a story format and their character write-ups make it more.....natural(?) to feel more focused on the NPCs because there's a whole lot of fluff in the expected place around them.

Some times I really like a lot of NPC info, but many times I want the minimal because I'm wanting to flesh it out my way anyway and too much gets in my way.

Well, I'd be the last person to say "this way is good, this other way is bad." There can be downsides to having too extensive background info etc. if it detracts too much from other parts of the adventure.

Here's the thing though, I read that King Maker #1 and it makes sense to me. I understand what is going on. The bandits make sense as a group. The PCs have a solid motivation for what they're doing. The adventure also gains a lot in terms of different ways that it can go. The PCs could infiltrate the bandits and play one off against another, easy to do when you have a basic personality sketch of the main figures. I know for instance that the Stag Lord may just not even give a crud if the PCs off a couple of his henchmen as long as they don't bug him and keep the liquor flowing, etc.

I'm not saying I wouldn't rather have a slightly greater balance towards the encounters, but I don't actually think the background stuff detracts a lot from that. It could also be cleaned up and shrunk in size a bit without really detracting from it. A little cleverness could use 2-3 extra pages of space to fix most of the encounters, they really aren't horribly badly detailed.

However, there is another somewhat more fundamental issue. Heavyweight encounter descriptions tend to 'pin down' the module. For example the bandit lair in King Maker #1. The map given is a pretty general high level map of the lair and some surrounding terrain. This gives the DM and the party a good bit more flexibility in how they approach getting into the lair. The 'Delve Format' for encounters is IMHO often too limited, it produces very set encounters.

Between the delve encounter format pinning things down and a significant lack of both background and story in WotC modules I think what tends to happen is the DM is highly encouraged to simply run them in a rather linear fashion. You CAN do all sorts of stuff around the encounters, build up a nice story, etc, but it takes a lot of creative work and some good judgment.

Lastly look at the community reaction to the two types of modules. I think it is practically inarguable that the vast majority of players seem to appreciate Paizo's style and favor it. WotC needs to take note.

 

[Herschel]

Between the delve encounter format pinning things down and a significant lack of both background and story in WotC modules I think what tends to happen is the DM is highly encouraged to simply run them in a rather linear fashion. You CAN do all sorts of stuff around the encounters, build up a nice story, etc, but it takes a lot of creative work and some good judgment.

I'm not sure "encouraged" is the right word but yes, that's generally my feeling too. If "the creative juices are flowing", delve is great, if they're not (like when I'm very tired), then it becomes pretty linear.

Conversely, it's easier to become distracted by background if there's too much of it. This is especially true if I'm in creative or ad-lib mode or also feeling tired.

In summation: DMing while overly tired is bad.

I think there's a hard time deciding how/where to balance foirmat/information. Just look at these boards. A good chunk of people want just the basics, a good chunk wants everything. WotC and Delve format says 'here's the basics plus the general nuggets, do with it what you want, it's your game to customize and will fit anywhere (but you'll likely need to customize to flesh it out)'. Paizo's Pathfinder stuff says 'here's the kit, kaboodle AND the kitchen sink. You (may) have to disregard and/or at least filter through a bunch of stuff but it's all in there.'

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Lastly look at the community reaction to the two types of modules. I think it is practically inarguable that the vast majority of players seem to appreciate Paizo's style and favor it. WotC needs to take note.

I'm not saying you are right or wrong. I don't know. However, for that statement to make any sense, you'll have to separate out the enjoyment from reading the modules from the enjoyment from running them from the enjoyment from playing them.

Then for those running, you'll need to distinguish between what they have to spend a lot of effort adding or subtracting, versus what they use as is, versus what they change more or less effortlessly. Then for those playing, you'll have to see what got run at the actual table, versus what we guess got run at the actual table from the contents.

As one anecdote, I happen to know for a fact that my players prefer my homebrew adventures to anything published--in large part because it produces the kind of play that the Pazio adventures are claimed to produce--realized NPCs with a deep background. However, if I run from prepared material, I'm more likely to get close to this homebrew result if I get as far away from the Pazio style as possible. Like Hershel, the "extra" material is a positive impediment to be running an interesting, varied adventure.

That players want NPCs to have a deep background is something you can ask in a poll. The best way for the players to get that in play is a separate question.

 

[Dannager]

While on average the 90%* is probably right. I think different groups would use different parts of the "stuffing". So what to cut. And those little extras I'll use to had some extra to the scenes, even if I just tell the players outright after or whatever.

Right, they typically amount to window-dressing. And they take up significant space, sometimes. So sure, 10% of groups will use them, but those 10% would probably manage just fine without. Meanwhile, the other 90% (actually, the entire 100%) would probably benefit significantly from some added notes on cartography, terrain, monster tactics, etc.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Right, they typically amount to window-dressing. And they take up significant space, sometimes. So sure, 10% of groups will use them, but those 10% would probably manage just fine without. Meanwhile, the other 90% (actually, the entire 100%) would probably benefit significantly from some added notes on cartography, terrain, monster tactics, etc.

Eh, I am not convinced you're correct. I think there are a lot of DMs who get sparked by a good story.

I'm not saying you are right or wrong. I don't know. However, for that statement to make any sense, you'll have to separate out the enjoyment from reading the modules from the enjoyment from running them from the enjoyment from playing them.

Then for those running, you'll need to distinguish between what they have to spend a lot of effort adding or subtracting, versus what they use as is, versus what they change more or less effortlessly. Then for those playing, you'll have to see what got run at the actual table, versus what we guess got run at the actual table from the contents.

As one anecdote, I happen to know for a fact that my players prefer my homebrew adventures to anything published--in large part because it produces the kind of play that the Pazio adventures are claimed to produce--realized NPCs with a deep background. However, if I run from prepared material, I'm more likely to get close to this homebrew result if I get as far away from the Pazio style as possible. Like Hershel, the "extra" material is a positive impediment to be running an interesting, varied adventure.

That players want NPCs to have a deep background is something you can ask in a poll. The best way for the players to get that in play is a separate question.

Yeah, I know what you mean, and it is always hazardous to make such definitive statements, especially around here .

Personally I haven't run a pre-written module in years with the exception of one Dungeon module I ran a few months ago. It went OK, but the interesting parts were definitely my own, at least plot-wise. Some of the encounters were decent, but I also made some hefty modifications to several of them. Before that I think I'd have to actually go back a few decades to the last time I ran a module full up. I do steal from one now and then though.

I don't think module story-lines would get in my way though, I just don't need them that much. OTOH I have played in games were DMs got a huge amount out of a good story.

Still, lots of people seem to feel that the WotC modules are boring or dull. Maybe it is a matter of the way they read, I don't know. I hear people saying they chopped out tons of the encounters, rewrote a lot of the module, etc. I don't really hang out with a lot of people running PF so I am not sure entirely what the score is there, but if it is anything like the old days I suspect there are quite a few APs that are well-liked and people have good luck running them.

Now, there could be a bunch of ways that stuff could be injected. WotC could provide a lot of fluff and story material in products like Gloomwrought and then put out modules that contain the bare bones of a story and some encounters and rely on the more general material to fill in the blanks.

 

[Dannager]

Eh, I am not convinced you're correct. I think there are a lot of DMs who get sparked by a good story.

I'm not talking about cutting out the good story. I'm talking about cutting out the two goblins in the tower munching on stolen pickles while the party approaches the fort - the only sign of which the party ever sees is a few tiny green things being tossed out the window into the briars. We probably don't need the three inches of text the adventure dedicates to this when we could have other, more useful information instead.

It's simply a matter of priorities. I believe that adventures ought to be written to be played, and that the structure of the adventure ought to facilitate this first and foremost. Once that's taken care of to sufficiency, you can start to mull over the window-dressing, like how a pair of goblins disposes of their pickles before raising the alarm.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm not talking about cutting out the good story. I'm talking about cutting out the two goblins in the tower munching on stolen pickles while the party approaches the fort - the only sign of which the party ever sees is a few tiny green things being tossed out the window into the briars. We probably don't need the three inches of text the adventure dedicates to this when we could have other, more useful information instead.

It's simply a matter of priorities. I believe that adventures ought to be written to be played, and that the structure of the adventure ought to facilitate this first and foremost. Once that's taken care of to sufficiency, you can start to mull over the window-dressing, like how a pair of goblins disposes of their pickles before raising the alarm.

Well, that's taking things to extremes. Nobody AFAICT has suggested detailing the snacking and garbage disposal habits of random mooks. Nor am I aware of any product which is relevant and has that kind of thing in it.

I agree, they should be played, and getting into the story and interacting in potentially complex ways with the NPCs is a rich part of that play. So again, going back to my example of KM #1, the PCs arrive at an outpost, the proprietor and his wife are fairly detailed NPCs. The party will likely interact with them quite a bit over time and their personalities have some bearing on how the next section is handled, where some bandits show up to 'tax' them. Depending on how the players interact with the bandits (a couple of which have a bit of detail beyond stat blocks) will determine whether for instance they might pursue a strategy of infiltration into the bandit group, turn or at least intimidate some of the bandits, wipe them out, etc.

Given that the leader of this particular group has a enough detail to define her relationship to the larger bandit group, and several of its members that are detailed, this can lead in several interesting directions. I don't see where any of this is either excess detail or wasted. I could think of a couple ways some of it might actually have been improved and made even more interesting with little extra effort, but it is good solid writing and the adventure has several dimensions added to it. Without any of that it becomes nothing but a hexcrawl and several hack-n-slashes.

So, nobody is talking about pickles here. I think you might actually find it well worth reading this adventure in particular. I don't know if there are others that are more effective in this way, but this particular adventure was both pretty classic D&D fare and yet still illustrated nicely what a bit of actual writing could do for a module.

 

[jbear]

Perhaps it's due my general attitude to the use of modules that I haven't noticed that 4e modules are particularly dull or lacking zing.

I don't run entire modules as the adventure itself unless I have serious time constraints, or in the case of Escape from Sembia and Keep of the Shadowfell, because I was learning the system and so I wasn't comfortable making up my own stuff from the word go.

I read modules, actually, I skim read modules. And then I gut them, skin them, bone them and take out what I consider to be the finest cuts of meat. And then the seasoning and cooking begins to give it the taste, flavour and feeling that I desire to have it fit in with the adventure going on. The rest gets tossed like a salad ... actually ... no, it gets tossed in the bin. I got a bit carried away with the culinary metaphor.

But I know when something is sucking eggs when it's going on. The totally unnecessary and highly boring and grindy encounter with a group of random hobgoblins when the group escapes from town (3rd encounter from Escape from Sembia, which was the first trial adventure released free for 4e if I'm not mistaken, and hence all I had available at the time to run). Hobgoblin soldiers ... with Phalanx trait to boost thier AC to something like 21 ... yawn! So I realised that was crap and never let it happen again. The previous Skill Challenge escaping from town ...pfft ... player with the lowest score in Stealth should roll?! Seriously? And all those options ... how are you meant to feed that to your players? It felt ... wrong. How the hell do you know what your players are going to do anyway? Shrug ... so Icame to Enworld and started readingadvice from DMs more experienced than me and ... got cooking.

Thanks to Lost Souls ideas KotS was awesome. Thanks to Pirate Cat I started getting creative. Thanks to Stalker0 I began to get my head around Skill Challenges. I could thank countless people here on the boards. Andwith all those great ideas used as spice and seasoning, and with, ehem, my own dash of pinache, that dead raw meat really comes to life.

I've read some intros into Paizo adventures. I'm sure they can be brilliant. But my eyes blur with the wall of text. And really what I'm looking for are jems to get my own brain going. The more immeadiatley evident those jems, the better. That's all I need. That's what I'm looking for.

 

[Dannager]

Well, that's taking things to extremes. Nobody AFAICT has suggested detailing the snacking and garbage disposal habits of random mooks. Nor am I aware of any product which is relevant and has that kind of thing in it.

That scenario is taken straight out of the very first Pathfinder AP adventure, Burnt Offerings.

So, uh, relevant and has exactly that kind of thing in it.

 

[S'mon]

That scenario is taken straight out of the very first Pathfinder AP adventure, Burnt Offerings.

So, uh, relevant and has exactly that kind of thing in it.

Personally I find that little bits of colour like that can add a lot to an adventure, if used in moderation as seasoning. I find it can really bring an adventure to life if I know what the goblins are doing when they're *not* fighting the PCs. Descriptions need to be kept brief though, and Paizo if anything tends to too much detail; in particular too much text to wade through before the actual adventure starts. Much better to start with action and drop in background info as needed, this makes both reading & DMing much easier.