Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Is The Temple of Elemental Evil a well-designed adventure module?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Melan" data-source="post: 2983301" data-attributes="member: 1713"><p>Here is some concrete evidence for the posts (#23, #25) I made yesterday regarding the merits of Keep on the Borderlands. All quotes are from the module.</p><p></p><p>Dungeon Mastering Keep on the Borderlands (p 2.):</p><p></p><p></p><p>p 3.</p><p></p><p></p><p>The inn and the tavern (p 10.):</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Based on this evidence, it seems to me that</p><p>a) the module explicitely recommends the DM to modify for his own needs (there are other quotes other than the one I supplied, but I didn’t type in those...);</p><p>b) the module assumes the game will start with an exploration of the keep and that the tavern will have a crucial role;</p><p>c) contrary to claims made here and in the Keep on the Borderlands thread, the inn is by no means a replacement for the tavern. It is a place to sleep in, but doesn’t offer anything else – for rumors, hiring and NPC encounters, the PCs have to visit the tavern.</p><p></p><p>Also, the total description of the keep takes up six pages of text and two pages of maps (one of which is dedicated to the - IMHO mostly superfluous - map of the guild house in the keep. The wilderness and the dungeon take up 11.5 pages of text and three pages of maps (two on the inner cover, one inside the booklet). General and specific DMing info is cca. 5 pages. The remainig six are for charts, lists and other miscellaneous matter, for a total of 26 pages including the dungeon maps.</p><p></p><p>The Village of Hommlet, another 24 page module, spends 1.5 pages on DMing notes, a whopping 9 pages on the village, two pages of village maps, three pages of village floor plans, leaving only four pages to the actual adventure and two pages to moathouse and dungeon maps. There are also three blank pages for some inexplicable reason. In the same space, B2 introduced a „<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'">whole microcosm, a world in miniature</span>” (Gary’s words <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />) and them some!</p><p></p><p>Of course, I don’t intend to say that there should be a formula determining how much space in a module should be dedicated to certain elements, or that calculating page count can provide us with valuable insights into adventure design. However, the proportions are certainly off here. </p><p></p><p>[I have to say one good thing about T1: the cover of the mono version is one of the best TSR did, right there with the Otus Basic Set, the City of Brass DMG and Trampier’s idol cover PHB.]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Melan, post: 2983301, member: 1713"] Here is some concrete evidence for the posts (#23, #25) I made yesterday regarding the merits of Keep on the Borderlands. All quotes are from the module. Dungeon Mastering Keep on the Borderlands (p 2.): p 3. The inn and the tavern (p 10.): Based on this evidence, it seems to me that a) the module explicitely recommends the DM to modify for his own needs (there are other quotes other than the one I supplied, but I didn’t type in those...); b) the module assumes the game will start with an exploration of the keep and that the tavern will have a crucial role; c) contrary to claims made here and in the Keep on the Borderlands thread, the inn is by no means a replacement for the tavern. It is a place to sleep in, but doesn’t offer anything else – for rumors, hiring and NPC encounters, the PCs have to visit the tavern. Also, the total description of the keep takes up six pages of text and two pages of maps (one of which is dedicated to the - IMHO mostly superfluous - map of the guild house in the keep. The wilderness and the dungeon take up 11.5 pages of text and three pages of maps (two on the inner cover, one inside the booklet). General and specific DMing info is cca. 5 pages. The remainig six are for charts, lists and other miscellaneous matter, for a total of 26 pages including the dungeon maps. The Village of Hommlet, another 24 page module, spends 1.5 pages on DMing notes, a whopping 9 pages on the village, two pages of village maps, three pages of village floor plans, leaving only four pages to the actual adventure and two pages to moathouse and dungeon maps. There are also three blank pages for some inexplicable reason. In the same space, B2 introduced a „[FONT=Century Gothic]whole microcosm, a world in miniature[/FONT]” (Gary’s words ;)) and them some! Of course, I don’t intend to say that there should be a formula determining how much space in a module should be dedicated to certain elements, or that calculating page count can provide us with valuable insights into adventure design. However, the proportions are certainly off here. [I have to say one good thing about T1: the cover of the mono version is one of the best TSR did, right there with the Otus Basic Set, the City of Brass DMG and Trampier’s idol cover PHB.] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Is The Temple of Elemental Evil a well-designed adventure module?
Top