Is The Temple of Elemental Evil a well-designed adventure module?

[Melan]

I'm sorry, but this statement made me say, "Huh?"

The described inhabitants of the Keep don't even have names.

Quasqueton

They don't (give me two minutes, and they do); on the other hand, most of them have interesting hooks or serve a useful purpose in the adventure, while Joe Bumpkin in Hommlet doesn't.

 

[Hussar]

They don't (give me two minutes, and they do); on the other hand, most of them have interesting hooks or serve a useful purpose in the adventure, while Joe Bumpkin in Hommlet doesn't.

Of course, they have interesting hooks if the party rolls that 10% chance to ever meet them in the one location that they can in the Keep when they don't really ever have to go to that location. Yeah, that's a good way to hook a purpose.

It's interesting to me that Quas has done four very similar modules of late - Saltmarsh, Keep on the Borderlands, Cult of the Reptile God and now Temple of EE. All four have similar starts - small community threatened by a larger evil that lairs some distance away with a faction within the community bent of aiding the evil.

Yet, in three of the four, the faction is active within the community and guidance is given within the module on how that faction should interact with the party. In Keep on the Borderlands, the Evil Priest is stuck in his apartment and can only meet the party if they go to the tavern and then, only on a 10% chance. In Cult, the faction actively tries to do the party in, in Hommlet, they actively spy on the party and search them out to try and join, I'm not actually familiar with Saltmarsh, so I'm only going by what I read here, but, apparently, the faction will try to trick the party in to going certain ways and are placed in such a way that it is almost guaranteed that they will meet the PC's.

To me, KotB is the best way NOT to use NPC's. If I'm going to put an evil faction in the town in a module, it would be a case of good design to actually give some guidance to the DM's as to what the evil faction does and how it will react to the PC's. Just stuffing them into a one line bit in a place the party has no reason to visit is poor design IMO.

 

[Melan]

Hussar: this has been discussed in the Keep thread, but all right, once more. Every time the PCs visit the tavern, there is a 10% probability for any of the listed seven NPC types to be present. That's 70% with a possibility of overlap - multiple NPCs being there on the occasion. Moreover, on multiple visits, the chances are even higher. It is very likely that a given group will enter the tavern multiple times - to replace losses with new characters, gather rumors or any other reason. That's what adventurers usually do. There is also nothing preventing the DM from letting the evil cleric (as a specific example) seek out a group who has drawn attention in the area. Also makes sense, and it is not much of a stretch to say that even a novice DM could think of this possibility.

The problem with many of the the Hommlet NPCs, on the other hand, is that they have zero adventure potential. Unless you attack their farmsteads and steal their treasure, of course. In fact, this is the only sensible use I see for much of the Hommlet writeup.

 

[Hussar]

So, well designed to you Melan, assumes that the DM will have competence and confidence to go beyond the module text and rewrite it, despite the fact that the module in question is the first they may have ever seen AND the first time they've sat down to this completely new and unheard of hobby of role playing. To me, I would say a bit more guidance is in order.

As far as Hommlet goes, since we're going beyond the written text, I saw the PC's as hometown heroes. I linked their characters to the families that lived there. Now they had a reason to defend the town and actually interact with the NPC's in the module. Instead of a bare skeleton of about ten NPC's in the entire Keep, you have several dozen with stories and backgrounds and homes with which to create a living, breathing setting, rather than a place to sell my loot, get healed and head back into the Caves.

I find it also somewhat ironic that as I write this, there is a thread being added to for doing up a couple of hundred inhabitants for a small town right now on EnWorld. If it was a better idea to go the KotB route, I would have maybe twenty NPC's in the entire settlement. Other than, of course, nameless tower guard #13.

Moreover, on multiple visits, the chances are even higher. It is very likely that a given group will enter the tavern multiple times - to replace losses with new characters, gather rumors or any other reason.

This is mistaken. The odds are ALWAYS 10% that the priest will be in a single location whenever the party enters that location - the bar. However, since the Inn also serves food, allows for gathering rumours, allows for hiring new fodder AND allows the party a place to sleep, there is actually no real reason for them to go to the bar. The bar actually offers them nothing that the inn doesn't already.

But, that's neither here nor there. The fact is, the enemy faction in the Keep has only a very small chance of interacting with the party if the module is used as written. The party has to enter that location, (possible, but not required) and the dice have to smile. That I can change the text is not the point. The module AS WRITTEN has a faction in it that has very little chance of seeing the light of day whereas the enemy factions in the other three modules WILL ALWAYS be used.

Which is better design? A major interaction that quite possibly never happens or a major interaction that ALWAYS happens? To me, I would think that if you are going to add something like this to the module, perhaps it might actually should be used.

 

[Melan]

So, well designed to you Melan, assumes that the DM will have competence and confidence to go beyond the module text and rewrite it, despite the fact that the module in question is the first they may have ever seen AND the first time they've sat down to this completely new and unheard of hobby of role playing. To me, I would say a bit more guidance is in order.

A DM has to go beyond the text of the module. If he is incapable of that, he will proverbially bleed to death on his first session. A module may provide helpful advice to run the game. Keep has a lot of it - including, IIRC, a recommendation that the DM should go beyond the text if necessary. I will try to check this at home.

As far as Hommlet goes, since we're going beyond the written text, I saw the PC's as hometown heroes. I linked their characters to the families that lived there. Now they had a reason to defend the town and actually interact with the NPC's in the module. Instead of a bare skeleton of about ten NPC's in the entire Keep, you have several dozen with stories and backgrounds and homes with which to create a living, breathing setting, rather than a place to sell my loot, get healed and head back into the Caves.

I accept this is an approach which may work well. Even so, do we need so many pages in such a small module to describe farmers and small craftsmen? If Hommlet had been 32 or 64 pages, sure, it would have been acceptable. But Hommlet is much smaller than that.

I find it also somewhat ironic that as I write this, there is a thread being added to for doing up a couple of hundred inhabitants for a small town right now on EnWorld. If it was a better idea to go the KotB route, I would have maybe twenty NPC's in the entire settlement. Other than, of course, nameless tower guard #13.

If the project describes hundreds of mundane candlemakers, clothiers and haberdashers, it is still pretty much wasted space from the perspective of a game revolving around adventuring.

This is mistaken. The odds are ALWAYS 10% that the priest will be in a single location whenever the party enters that location - the bar. However, since the Inn also serves food, allows for gathering rumours, allows for hiring new fodder AND allows the party a place to sleep, there is actually no real reason for them to go to the bar. The bar actually offers them nothing that the inn doesn't already.

I see the inn as a place to relax and the bar as a place to go out to and meet people, but you are right in that some groups may see the inn and never bother to check what else is there. On the other hand, both times I ran the adventure and presented the possible places the characters could visit (not including those which would not be apparent on first sight), they checked each to see "what is there to do". One of these groups was made up of newbies to gaming (university students who were interested in D&D with no previous experience except CRPGs and Fighting Fantasy gamebooks). Unfortunately, like everyone else, anecdotal evidence is all I have. Make no mistake, I don't consider the 10% probability an example of B2's excellent design. But I most definitely don't see it as a game breaking deal in any case.

But, that's neither here nor there. The fact is, the enemy faction in the Keep has only a very small chance of interacting with the party if the module is used as written. The party has to enter that location, (possible, but not required) and the dice have to smile. That I can change the text is not the point. The module AS WRITTEN has a faction in it that has very little chance of seeing the light of day whereas the enemy factions in the other three modules WILL ALWAYS be used.

Which is better design? A major interaction that quite possibly never happens or a major interaction that ALWAYS happens? To me, I would think that if you are going to add something like this to the module, perhaps it might actually should be used.

Eh. Keep is mostly about seeking out danger and defeating it for personal gain. That's the main theme - the enemy faction's presence in the keep is treated as a side issue. It is there but it isn't dominant. Hommlet is more about countering a growing threat by dealing the evil in the Moathouse a preventive strike. The higher activity of the evildoers is more appropriate here - just like it is in Reptile God.

The evil cleric is not a "major interaction" in Keep on the Borderlands - it is fun to meet, but the module will run great without the PCs encountering him. The cult is, however, the focus of the whole adventure in Reptile God. That's a big difference, and for this reason, I consider your comparison inappropriate. The equivalent would be not finding the Caves of Chaos - that would indeed radically alter the whole game.

In my opinion, Keep is well designed because much of the text is dedicated to describing the places the party will likely explore - places where adventure can take place. This is supplemented by a few additional encounters that can happen - the cleric, the wilderness, the NPCs of the keep - plus advice to the novice Dungeon Master, pregenerated PCs, etc. Not all of the side elements will come into play, but some will, and it will make for a more varied experience than, say, a fixed encounter chain along the lines of "if more than two caves are cleared, the evil cleric will try to infiltrate the group or hire the bandits to kill them".

In Hommlet, too much is dedicated to exposition and not enough to the action - moreover, I maintain that the content itself is pretty weak. YMMV, IMHO, OMGWTFBBQ and other fancy acronyms may apply.

 

[JoeGKushner]

No.

After the town and the moathouse, the Temple itself is a fairly boring grind.

 

[SWBaxter]

I disagree. I think fun modules are well-designed.

I think since modules are forms of entertainment, fun is the ONLY design criteria.

"Fun" is not an objective quality, and thus makes a pretty lousy example of a design criteria. I think it's pretty safe to assume that for any given module, someone somewhere thought it was fun. What a decent set of design criteria will do is increase the likelihood that the target market will find the module fun, but too much of what translates to fun at the table is completely out of the author's hands for that to make a good design criteria by itself.

 

[Dr Simon]

As SW Baxter says, it's kind of hard to judge if this module is well-designed without knowing what the original design criteria were, but we can probably assume that the most detailed areas - Hommlet and the Temple itself - are supposed to give a detailed 'small village home-base' and a large-scale dungeon crawl respectively.

Although the level of detail in Hommlet is admirable, I'm not sure it works as a home-base, simply because the *main* dungeon area (Temple, not Moathouse) is not so well set up for quick in-and-out missions as, say, Caves of Chaos, and is closer to Nulb than Hommlet anyway. If several areas were set up, whereby the PCs could return to Hommlet between adventures, I think it would succeed more in its aim, if its aim is the one that I have speculated upon.

It's been a *long* time since I owned the module, but I can't recall many of the NPCs in Hommlet except for the mage and his lover - er, fighter buddy (one of the called Rufus?) building a castle. Compare to other settings - Gimpy's Tavern, Governer Sor-Eel the Short in Pavis, Gringle and Quackjohn in Apple Lane - probably means it doesn't work (for me).

As for the Temple - I was very disappointed at the time when T1-4 eventually came out as it is a pretty uninspired dungeon crawl. Solid, I think, and there is fun to be had with Zuggtomy and something involving unwittingly freeing her, but for the most part it seems to consist of zones of humanoids. As a dungeon crawl it feels less illogical than, say, Caverns of Tsojcanth (Why is this Gorgimera here?), but it also lacks much in the way of innovation.

So, in essence, I'd have to say it was well designed, but dull, like a VW Passat.

 

[Hussar]

To be fair, and to jump on the other side of the fence for a moment, I would like to say that I do agree with Melan that Keep is a well designed module. I disagree with some elements, but, as I said in the other thread, I thought it was well designed overall.

Heck, when you think about it, Keep serves as a template for pretty much every low level (and a few mid level) module that comes after it. Small community is threatened by an evil lairing in an area a short distance away. The small community is mostly friendly, and serves as a resting place for the party with some interesting side bits.

From that point of view, Keep is a rousing success. I don't know if its the first one to use such a format, but it's certainly the most well known. To me, the difference between Hommlet and the Keep is one of scale rather than substance. The Keep only details a small handful of individuals in the Keep while Hommlet attempts to give an entire town.

I would say that Hommlet is well designed in that the town looks like it would work. There are no glaring inconsistencies, nor are there any large gaping holes as to how the town works. It's a much more simulationist setting than Keep, so comparisons are somewhat problematic. If simulationism isn't your bag, then Hommlet is going to blow chunks. If it is, then Keep is going to have some serious problems.

It isn't that Keep is well designed and Hommlet is bad, IMO, but that the goals of the two are very different. Both succeed at their goals very admirably. Again, IMO.

 

[Rhun]

I voted "Other" as I believe it takes a good DM to run it well. But one thing I think a lot of people miss is that the Temple itself is not just your typical huge dungeon crawl. There is a lot of role-playing goodness wrapped up in there. The ability to turn the factions of the Temple against one another, or to work with one against another...the ability to infiltrate the Temple by joining one of the factions. Lots and lots of good stuff there.