Is Slave Pits of the Undercity a well-designed adventure module?

[Storm Raven]

A well designed module will not assume the alignment of the party and would be usable for parties of all alignments.

Quite bluntly, wrong. Most modules are designed for good-aligned parties. Almost all of the older 1st edition modules assumed good-aligned parties (especially the tournament modules, which assumed you would be using the pregenerated characters, or some similar band), because the idea of an "evil" campaign was considered to be so silly that the designers didn't market for it. In point of fact, such assumptions make for a better-designed module, because they give an actual goal to accomplish for the module.

 

[Ourph]

I think Quasqueton is saying (and I agree) that a well-designed adventure would be more explicit about all these details.

IMO a "well designed" adventure module maximizes "bang for your buck". A module full of explanations about the every-day workings of the complex, the exact reasoning behind the wandering monsters table, the most-used routes for moving slaves back and forth, etc. might help provide the verisimilitude you and Quasqueton are looking for in a read through (I emphasize "read through" because in actual play the verisimilitude or lack thereof isn't going to impact on most players, IME).

However such a module would also be significantly longer (and, in turn, significantly more costly) and require a great deal more effort to absorb and use the information contained within it. It would not, however, provide significantly more play potential. All of that exposition isn't adding additional encounter areas or providing more adventuring opportunities. Yes, some of it may be useful to the DM in certain situations, but it's certainly not something a competent DM can't come up with on their own and it doesn't require any more effort to make that stuff up yourself than it does to memorize the exposition of the author (were it included) to the point where it's easily accessible to you during play.

IMO, adding that level of detail to a module increases the price and the work required to use it without a significant benefit (other than making the nitpickers happy that "verisimilitude" has been maintained through some arbirtrary explanations by the author). In other words, it reduces the module's "bang for your buck" and is actually a sign of poor design. YMMV.

 

[Arnwyn]

I think Quasqueton is saying (and I agree) that a well-designed adventure would be more explicit about all these details.

And you would both be right. The more explicit detail to aid the DM, the better.

Anything else is simply forcing the DM to make assumptions, supported or otherwise. The only question is where one draws the line in the sand when defining "well-designed".

 

[Storm Raven]

And you would both be right. The more explicit detail to aid the DM, the better.

Not necessarily. In many cases, adding a bunch of extra explicit detail is either not valuable or simply counterproductive. The more detail you provide, the more likely you are to put material in the adventure that must be backed out and redone to make it fit in the DMs campaign, and that will usually create additional problems with other areas of detail that are dependent upon the first set and so on. That sort of detail is actively harmful for an adventure, especially if that sort of detail isn't actually necessary to begin with.

In addition, a lot of detail is of no consequence. In Three Days to Kill, a bunch of documentation is put out on the background of a couple bandit leaders, and their entourages, and so on. This information is entirely useless, because those individuals never show up in the adventure. They are, explicitly, entirely offstage the entire adventure. Detailing them is wasted space. They make the adventure worse, because they take up paper that could have been put to use to provide the DM with something useful.

 

[Ourph]

And you would both be right. The more explicit detail to aid the DM, the better.

I don't understand that assertion. So a 96 page module with only 12 pages worth of actual "play" material and 84 pages of detailed site history, creature motivation, daily activity routines and trap circumvention explanations is a better adventure module than one with a full 96 pages of play oriented material (i.e. - encounters, treasure, maps, etc.)?

As a DM, all I want is a detailed blueprint with a lot of creative challenges thrown into the area. And I want it as short, sweet and cheap as possible. In the vast majority of cases any "explicit detail" you put into an adventure is either going to go unused during the actual game or is going to get changed by the DM in some way. Why not just produce a smaller, cheaper adventure and let the DM make up what "explicit detail" he needs on his own?

After all, no one is saying that making up those details can't be done. All I'm reading from Quasqueton is that he thinks the blueprint is so nonsensical that it's not possible to create "explicit details" which make rational sense. I disagree with that assessment, but I understand it a lot more than the idea that the adventure would have been better if the author had included explanations that (to me) seem relatively straightforward and which seem to be implied by the adventure already.

 

[Quasqueton]

A module full of explanations about the every-day workings of the complex, the exact reasoning behind the wandering monsters table, the most-used routes for moving slaves back and forth, etc. might help provide the verisimilitude you and Quasqueton are looking for

I have said nothing like this, at all. Why is it people can’t discuss this module without stretching my points out of proportion? Are y’all trying to “win” the discussion? Do you think making absurd arguments and then attributing them to me is going to fool others into thinking my opinion is wrong?

Everyone can read my statements, and they can see for themselves that I’ve not asked for or suggested a need for “explanations about the every-day workings of the complex,” nor, “exact reasoning behind the wandering monsters table,” nor, “the most-used routes for moving slaves back and forth”. I don’t think the module text needs this information, at all. Never said so, never thought so.

Quasqueton

 

[Vanye]

I think my biggest problems (Re: the basiliks) is that if they occur as wandering monsters, and you're supposed to take them off the total number held in their pen, shouldn't the module have stated "Remember, if the party encountered any basiliks in the area as a wandering monster, remove them from this area, and make note of fresh construction (new mortar, half built wall, etc).

It's that kind of detail that makes something well designed, where details reinforce each other. Something that has no application to something else,e xcept as a vague footnote, really detracts from the ease of running the adventure.

 

[Ourph]

I have said nothing like this, at all. Why is it people can’t discuss this module without stretching my points out of proportion? Are y’all trying to “win” the discussion?

No, I'm not.

Do you think making absurd arguments and then attributing them to me is going to fool others into thinking my opinion is wrong?

No, I don't and that wasn't my intention.

Everyone can read my statements, and they can see for themselves that I’ve not asked for or suggested a need for “explanations about the every-day workings of the complex,” nor, “exact reasoning behind the wandering monsters table,” nor, “the most-used routes for moving slaves back and forth”. I don’t think the module text needs this information, at all. Never said so, never thought so.

El-remmen suggested that you would have liked to see more details spelled out in the module and on several occasions you seemed to be suggesting that some of the "problems" would have ceased to be problems if the explanations offered by other posters were included in the module rather than left to the individual DM to decipher. The fact that you failed to contradict El-remmen's suggestion implied, to me, that he was correct in asserting that more detailed explanations would have improved the module in your mind. I accept full responsibility for crafting my post around an assumption rather than a concrete statement of fact, but my intent was NOT to obfuscate your position or throw the discussion off track. Sorry if it came across that way.

 

[Storm Raven]

I think my biggest problems (Re: the basiliks) is that if they occur as wandering monsters, and you're supposed to take them off the total number held in their pen, shouldn't the module have stated "Remember, if the party encountered any basiliks in the area as a wandering monster, remove them from this area, and make note of fresh construction (new mortar, half built wall, etc).

Do you really need to have this though? Like all of TSRs early modules, it directs the DM to read it thoroughly before play. Do you really need someone to tell you that if the sealed in basilisks get out as wandering monsters then they had to get out by some means?

 

[el-remmen]

Do you really need to have this though? Like all of TSRs early modules, it directs the DM to read it thoroughly before play. Do you really need someone to tell you that if the sealed in basilisks get out as wandering monsters then they had to get out by some means?

As I see it a well-designed module will concisely cover a good cross-section of possibilites and explanations as to make it as easy as possible for the DM to run the module, and to remember some of the details that aid in verisimilitude.

Do I need it? Obviously not, since I have run the module in my own way and enjoyed it - but would it have made the experience of conversion and play easier? Yes. And does that ease translates as an element of good design.

Another element of good design is a clear and consistant and concises description of each room and the encounters there in that help me as DM present it the players as they come across it.

Not all good modules are well-designed. Not all well-designed modules are good.