Is The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh a well-designed adventure module?

[gizmo33]

Experienced D&Ders would probably be more surprised (and entertained) by discovering there weren't really any undead in the house (other than the skeletons in the secret room in the basement), than if they encountered zombies and ghouls as they expected.

I agree. I gave U1 a pass on the "scooby doo device" because it was the first one that I was aware of to use it in a fantasy RPG and it was a surprise at the time. After that, though, several adventures in early Dragon and Dungeon made use of the device IIRC, and now I wouldn't look as favorably on it. A "haunted house being an actual thieves guild" got to be a cliche.

 

[gizmo33]

Then you have the "crafted to the players" issue. I can't think of any supernatural monsters that might cause "ghostly lights" at 1st level.

Is this really an issue? Most modules had some sort of new monsters in the back. And besides, the idea that a dungeon's elements had to be rule defined is not something that IMO was a strong philosophy in the early DnD days. Oriental Adventures had a ghost-light spell - I believe it was 1st level, but I'm pretty sure that was after this module. In any case, I ran this module twice as written and the players never had any suspicion that the ghostly lights weren't supernatural.

 

[el-remmen]

Then you have the "crafted to the players" issue. I can't think of any supernatural monsters that might cause "ghostly lights" at 1st level. Therefore it's decent assumption, or at least ruins the suspention of disbelief, that the house is not haunted from the begining. It would be a much better module if you could convince the PCs that it was haunted with something more level appropriate. For that, it would supposedly be a fairly known monster. 1E was still pretty ad hoc, but the idea of a generic "haunting" never really played into it. There was always a specific monster associated with it. It probably would have been better if instead of being "haunted" it was threatened by some other 1st level appropriate monster.

I think any player who makes assumptions based on "what is 1st level" and/or "what low level monsters exist that can do X" would be in for a shock in any decent DM's game. Nothing is set in stone - and there is nothing to say that you can't give a skeleton a level in sorcerer - and all of a sudden dancing lights! There is nothing to say the opponent can't be a low-level creature with the ghost template (or some variation of the ghost template) with a variety of possible abilities. . . etc

Another design questions comes up with the secret room containing the philosophers stone and other hidden treasures. Should such treasures be part of the standard money per level guidleines, or above and beyond it. If players miss such hidden treasure (and I had one party miss it), should they be shorted or should they be rewarded if they find it?

Well, this is a matter of the difference in design philosophy in 1E vs. 3E. I don't know that that can be called "bad design" because there was a different set of assumptions about challenge and reward in that game (and in 2E).

 

[Crothian]

Should such treasures be part of the standard money per level guidleines, or above and beyond it. If players miss such hidden treasure (and I had one party miss it), should they be shorted or should they be rewarded if they find it?

I don't think there were such standards in first edition. But to answer your question, you reward the folks that find it with the treasue that is why it is there.

 

[gizmo33]

I don't think there were such standards in first edition. But to answer your question, you reward the folks that find it with the treasue that is why it is there.

But isn't it good design to actually have the treasure chase you out the door if you leave without finding it? What if I purposefully don't pick up the sack of gold - I should go outside the dungeon and find that some kobold has already tied it to my horse - for the sake of game balance. (Unless the kobold's CR is too low for me to encounter, cause that would be bad design too)

 

[painandgreed]

I don't think there were such standards in first edition. But to answer your question, you reward the folks that find it with the treasue that is why it is there.

True, but the OP brought up the idea of its relevance to design for current dungeons. Should such hidden treasures be they in secert rooms, hidden behind bricks in the chimley, in a monsters intestines, or under floorboards count towards PC monetary wealth guidelines? If it is, then if they miss it, the players can fall short of the guidelines and have a rougher time later. If it is not, and they discover it, then they can fall above it. If they do one of the other consistantly, then they can come out consistantly above or below the guideline. If this happens, do you fix it or not? If constantly "fixing" the issue or just never putting such treasures in, you reduce the incentive for players to even try. Is there an overall good design strategy?

Editted to add: Similar issues have been brought up in threads about adventure paths. If the characters miss part, or suffer a loss from beign brought back form the dead, then they are at a serious disadvantage for the rest of the adventure path. How should modern design deal with this? (Perhaps this should be a different thread at this point?)

 

[Raven Crowking]

True, but the OP brought up the idea of its relevance to design for current dungeons. Should such hidden treasures be they in secert rooms, hidden behind bricks in the chimley, in a monsters intestines, or under floorboards count towards PC monetary wealth guidelines? If it is, then if they miss it, the players can fall short of the guidelines and have a rougher time later. If it is not, and they discover it, then they can fall above it. If they do one of the other consistantly, then they can come out consistantly above or below the guideline. If this happens, do you fix it or not? If constantly "fixing" the issue or just never putting such treasures in, you reduce the incentive for players to even try. Is there an overall good design strategy?

Editted to add: Similar issues have been brought up in threads about adventure paths. If the characters miss part, or suffer a loss from beign brought back form the dead, then they are at a serious disadvantage for the rest of the adventure path. How should modern design deal with this? (Perhaps this should be a different thread at this point?)

My answer is: PCs don't have to meet the wealth-per-level guidelines. Although these are benchmarks, they should meet (or exceed) them based on merit, not game balance.

RC

 

[Crothian]

But isn't it good design to actually have the treasure chase you out the door if you leave without finding it?

No, it isn't.

 

[Storm Raven]

True, but the OP brought up the idea of its relevance to design for current dungeons. Should such hidden treasures be they in secert rooms, hidden behind bricks in the chimley, in a monsters intestines, or under floorboards count towards PC monetary wealth guidelines? If it is, then if they miss it, the players can fall short of the guidelines and have a rougher time later. If it is not, and they discover it, then they can fall above it. If they do one of the other consistantly, then they can come out consistantly above or below the guideline. If this happens, do you fix it or not? If constantly "fixing" the issue or just never putting such treasures in, you reduce the incentive for players to even try. Is there an overall good design strategy?

No, the only treasure you include in character wealth is treasure they actually find and take home with them. If they miss something they miss something. The wealth per level guidelines are only guidelines as to what a typical character at a particular level is expected to have when facing CR appropriate encounters. If the PCs have less than that, then the DM should expect that they will have a harder time with their foes, if they have more, then they will have an easier time. How much treasure is in the adventure, or how much treasure they don't find is an entirely irrelevant question.

Editted to add: Similar issues have been brought up in threads about adventure paths. If the characters miss part, or suffer a loss from beign brought back form the dead, then they are at a serious disadvantage for the rest of the adventure path. How should modern design deal with this? (Perhaps this should be a different thread at this point?)

An adventure path should not be so inflexible as to make this a problem to begin with. But the current experience point system, which rewards lower-level PCs more than higher level ones should mitigate any problems this sort of thing might cause.

 

[Joshua Randall]

OK, I've been thinking about why I consider U1 a well-designed adventure. Here goes.

* It's a "peel back the layers of the onion" adventure. The PCs hear about the haunted house. They go there, explore, and realize the house is not haunted. They discover it is in fact the base for some smugglers. They assault the smugglers' ship and realize they are running weapons to some lizardfolk. But, the lizardfolk appear to be arming themselves against a greater threat (this is actually not fully spelled out until U2). Plus, there is the information Oceanus has discovered that hints that the lizardfolk are not the real enemy.

So, from a simple haunted house / kill the monsters & take their stuff adventure, it has turned into a much more complex adventure. (Plus there's plenty of monsters to kill and stuff to take.)

* It includes nifty side-elements that don't really impact the overall adventure, but are still fun. Such as the alchemist's hidden room with the skeletons and the (fake) philospher's stone.

* As I mentioned before, it includes numerous iconic D&D monsters: stirges, green slime, gnolls, skeletons.

* It features villains who are reasonably clever and proactive. They are not just waiting around for the PCs to find them; they are actively pursuing their own agenda.

* It gives the PCs a base of operations (Saltmarsh) that can be as much or as little fleshed out as the DM desires. In today's game, Saltmarsh in U1 would be considered too sketchy, so I will count this is a weak point of adventure design. The town needs more detail to really come alive for the players and to make them care about saving it from the sahaugin (in U3).

* It features interesting encounter areas: the house, the sea cave, and especially the ship. No endless corridors of 20x20 rooms here!

* It has some puzzles for the PCs to solve (the coded signal lights). Actually, this is potentially a weak point because it's a partial bottleneck -- if the PCs can't figure out the lights system, they can't signal the Sea Ghost and it won't stop to unload its cargo.

* I do think Ned is a poor adventure design element because, as others have said, he potentially teaches newbie players not to trust anyone.

* It's just a really well put together adventure. There are no "WTF?" areas that don't make sense.