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

[diaglo]

Hells No.

 

[Arnwyn]

Wow.

So fun isnt enough for an adventure to be well designed? And here I thought adventure modules for role playing games were meant to be forms of entertainment, not deep, brooding philosophical ponderings in "the forge" of ideas.

Sorry, d00d. I was playing along with these threads, and following exactly what was said by the OP in the very first post of these threads.

As multiple other posters have already mentioned (and I'll mention right along with them), "fun" isn't a particularly objective quality. And in any case, I had to do a lot of tweaking (read: work) to make T1-4 "fun". Doing so, by definition, makes it not a well-designed module.

"Wow" indeed.

 

[Vigilance]

"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.

Yes it is subjective. And?

When you start to look at the THOUSANDS of groups that have gone through ToEE, and I personally met hundreds when I was in college, and have personally ran it numerous times, do you notice any sort of a trend when you talk to them about it?

The vast majority of gamers I have talked to speak of it fondly, talking out various encounters, asking each what they did in the moat house, how they handled the spies in town and so forth.

It's a great module.

Now let's step back to another level:

What "design criteria" is totally objective? I really want to see your list of totally objective design critera.

What you call a "railroad" I might not. And even if we agree the module is "railroady", many groups could enjoy it anyway (I'm thinking Dragonlance here) so I'm not even sure "railroady" is a valid criteria either.

There's no such thing as an "objectively" good module.

So fun is as fine a way to judge it as any other criteria.

 

[Vigilance]

Sorry, d00d. I was playing along with these threads, and following exactly what was said by the OP in the very first post of these threads.

As multiple other posters have already mentioned (and I'll mention right along with them), "fun" isn't a particularly objective quality. And in any case, I had to do a lot of tweaking (read: work) to make T1-4 "fun". Doing so, by definition, makes it not a well-designed module.

"Wow" indeed.

Uhhuh.

I wait with baited breath for a design criteria that is NOT subjective.

There isn't some toolkit of design tricks that makes Monte's adventures better or worse than EGGs

It's alllllll subjective boys and girls.

Sorry to burst the bubble for anyone looking for that ultimate platonic truth for OD&D, 1st, 2nd or 3rd edition. Aint comin down the pike anytime soon.

 

[Arnwyn]

That much I agree with.

We won't be getting any ultimate truths here, that's for sure. But I'm willing to play along with the original poster - these threads are interesting. Like I said in one of these previous threads (and I paraphrase myself): where we draw the line on "well-designed" will differ for everyone.

But "fun" isn't where I draw the line, contrary to your "wow" post above.

 

[Vigilance]

That much I agree with.

We won't be getting any ultimate truths here, that's for sure. But I'm willing to play along with the original poster - these threads are interesting. Like I said in one of these previous threads (and I paraphrase myself): where we draw the line on "well-designed" will differ for everyone.

But "fun" isn't where I draw the line, contrary to your "wow" post above.

Let me revise my point then: I have seen and met personally hundreds of gamers who have played through Temple of Elemental Evil and loved it. Gaming groups that had novice GMs and gaming groups that had very experienced GMs.

In fact, novice GMs running the module almost do better, since the module itself, being a dungeon, gives them plenty of time to "level up" and become proficient with more complex spells and higher level characters all within the confines of a finite area they know well.

It's an excellent dungeon for a new DM to learn his craft.

That, to me, is a well-designed adventure.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Let me revise my point then: I have seen and met personally hundreds of gamers who have played through Temple of Elemental Evil and loved it. Gaming groups that had novice GMs and gaming groups that had very experienced GMs.

Is Army of Darkness a well written, directed, and produced movie? Probably not. Is it a fun movie that I love? Definately. You can say this about many many books and movies. Just because something is fun doesn't mean its good under scrutiny. A friend of mine loves B movies, and he watches every movie that the sci-fi channel shows. Does he think they're good movies? No way! But, he loves them, and apprently enough other people do that they can keep making money off of them. Still doesn't make them good movies.

 

[Vigilance]

Is Army of Darkness a well written, directed, and produced movie? Probably not. Is it a fun movie that I love? Definately. You can say this about many many books and movies. Just because something is fun doesn't mean its good under scrutiny. A friend of mine loves B movies, and he watches every movie that the sci-fi channel shows. Does he think they're good movies? No way! But, he loves them, and apprently enough other people do that they can keep making money off of them. Still doesn't make them good movies.

I disagree. Army of Darkness is a brilliant movie in my opinion.

Which is subjective. You can say it's cheesy, I can say it's so cheesy it's amazing.

I can also say the camera work in Army of Darkness lays the groundwork for some of the things Raimi blew folks away with in Spiderman.

Look, I said "fun" was a valid way to judge a module and everyone jumped on me saying "subjective!"

Well folks, that's what a judgement of whether something is good or bad is.

You can point out all the design "flaws" you want. A module could be railroady, munchkiny and riddled with statblock errors.

But if *I* enjoy running it and my players enjoy playing it, then it's well designed for ME.

There is no "objective" criteria by which to judge a module, or a movie, or any other work of art.

If it works AS A WHOLE, not as the sum of its parts, then it's good.

In the subjective viewpoints of the people who find it good.

If there was this magical "objective" criteria, wouldn't there by more uniformity of opinion? Wouldn't it be harder to have one person say "worst adventure ever" and another say "best module of all time" if there was this objective criteria?

Nope.

And you know why, because even though we can all point to the strengths and weakness of a module (like "dragonlance is railroady" or "ToEE is just a dungeon crawl") those strengths and weakness matter differently to different people.

Some people like a car that goes fast, others like a car that gets great gas mileage, others like a car that never breaks down, others like a car that's cheap, others one that protects them in collisions.

There's no way to tell someone who love VW Bugs that their car is "objectively" bad anymore than there's a way to tell me ToEE is "objectively" good.

For every person who says "it's just a dungeon crawl, therefore I didn't enjoy it" there's someone saying "it's a dungeon crawl! yes! thank you!"

Chuck

 

[SWBaxter]

When you start to look at the THOUSANDS of groups that have gone through ToEE, and I personally met hundreds when I was in college, and have personally ran it numerous times, do you notice any sort of a trend when you talk to them about it?

Yes. Most of the people I know were pretty disappointed in the sequel. They fondly remember T1, and think T1-4 is a bit of a mess that didn't come anywhere close to living up to T1's legacy. See, my personal experience differs wildly from yours. This is why personal experience is not a good gauge for figuring out if something is well-designed.

What "design criteria" is totally objective? I really want to see your list of totally objective design critera.

Nice strawman. I never said design criteria had to be "totally objective", merely that "I had fun" is not at all objective. This might come as a shock to you, but I think there might actually be a continuum at work here, and while totally objective is impossible, folks who are looking for more objective criteria than "I had fun" will probably come up with more interesting and useful design commentary.

As to what those more objective criteria could be, just read the thread - folks have commented on the layout, artwork, map structure, encounter setup, roleplaying opportunities, non-combat details, type of adventure, etc. These are all criteria that can be discussed, to a greater or lesser degree, in an objective fashion, whereas my impression of whether I had fun 20 years ago cannot.

So fun is as fine a way to judge it as any other criteria.

In the end, the difference between your approach and mine is that mine fosters discussion, yours shuts it down. I contend that makes my approach objectively better.

 

[MerricB]

I think I once said that "Necropolis" is that "Temple of Elemental Evil" should have been. Or if I didn't, I have now.

I'm not that fond of ToEE. I played it when I was young, and I thought is was "ok", but upon reading it I wasn't that impressed.

I guess I really need to run it and see what happens.

Cheers!