Legends and Lore: March 29th

[Zaran]

Notice how none of the 4e adventures made it into the top 10? Let's hope they can get some talent back to put out gems like the Ravenloft adventure.

As for the poll, I voted that I hated the current adventure make up. Especially for the Dungeon Mag adventures it's very hard for me to go from the adventure outline to the encounter and back again. I would rather everything for the encounter be in the same place including the description stuff. Now, I must admit that I am a couple years behind on Dungeon and they may have updated their adventure layout but as of Feb of 09, it's difficult to go through the outline then skip ahead to the encounter then check out the treasure chart at the beginning and then back to the outline.

 

[Arksorn]

It would be interesting to set up an identical poll on ENworld for each poll in these articles and see how the answers compare here and there.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Notice how none of the 4e adventures made it into the top 10? Let's hope they can get some talent back to put out gems like the Ravenloft adventure.

As for the poll, I voted that I hated the current adventure make up. Especially for the Dungeon Mag adventures it's very hard for me to go from the adventure outline to the encounter and back again. I would rather everything for the encounter be in the same place including the description stuff. Now, I must admit that I am a couple years behind on Dungeon and they may have updated their adventure layout but as of Feb of 09, it's difficult to go through the outline then skip ahead to the encounter then check out the treasure chart at the beginning and then back to the outline.

I like the delves when we are in combat, but I'd like if the whole thing were far more readable, with a short blurb on the monsters in the description of what is going on and then the combat stats later.

I jsut find 4E adventures so hard to read and comprehend.

 

[delericho]

It might be interesting to compare the "Top 10" list here with the list done in Dungeon a few years back. I recall that back then, Ravenloft came second; I believe GDQ1-7 came top.

In general, the 4e adventures I've seen have been quite poor. Although WotC seem to be good at creating a good encounter, just putting together a sequence of good encounters is not enough to make a good adventure. Too often, they've just been soulless railroads. (Yes, of course, IMO.)

As for the Delve format - it's a tool, nothing more. There are times when it is the ideal tool for the job, and times when it is completely inappropriate. Unfortunately, WotC seemed to latch onto it as "the one true way" for adventure design, and use it for all encounters for all adventures.

IMO, the Delve format is ideally suited for short, zero-prep adventures for the DM to run on the night. So, a single five-encounter lair for a night's gaming, that he can just pick up and run. Such an adventure definitely has a place: how often do we find ourselves needing a game for that night, with nothing prepared?

But for larger adventures, and particularly for adventures where the denizens of the dungeon are likely to be fairly mobile (and where we can assume the DM has more time to prepare), the Delve format is probably counter-productive.

If you will, the Delve is like the fast food of adventures: there's nothing wrong with fast food, but you wouldn't live on it.

It's perhaps also worth noting that the Delve format can lead to poor adventure designs. If an encounter is just a few paragraphs, then if the PCs miss one, it's no big deal. However, if each encounter is 1-2 pages, then a missed encounter represents a much bigger percentage of the adventure that is 'wasted'. In order to maximise the utility of the product, the designers may therefore want to force groups to go through all the encounters - which probably means they've designed a railroad.

 

[delericho]

One other thing WotC should maybe consider looking at: levelling points in adventures.

If an adventure is intended to take a party through several levels (say 1-4 in "Keep on the Shadowfell"), then the party must necessarily gain a certain amount of XP (and treasure) from Part One of the adventure, or they'll find that Part Two is too lethal. This means that they have to tackle a certain number of encounters.

But if the group are bored with Part One, and want to move to Part Two early, what to do then?

(Incidentally, this problem is by no means unique to 4e. Pretty much any large 3e or Pathfinder adventure has much the same problem.)

It may well be better for them to ditch "XP by encounter" for such large, published modules entirely (or just make them optional), and just put in hard-coded "levelling points" - once the party have found the five clues required to move from Part One to Part Two, they should automatically gain a level to represent this increase.

Or something like that.

 

[Zaran]

Could someone actually relate to us what exactly consists of the Delve type format to make sure we are all on the same page as to what we are talking about?

My impression of a Delve-type layout is that the entire encounter along with all monsters and traps involved are all in the same location but that encounter is grouped with the other encounters after the adventure is outlined and mapped out. Am I correct in this impression?

 

[KidSnide]

It's perhaps also worth noting that the Delve format can lead to poor adventure designs. If an encounter is just a few paragraphs, then if the PCs miss one, it's no big deal. However, if each encounter is 1-2 pages, then a missed encounter represents a much bigger percentage of the adventure that is 'wasted'. In order to maximise the utility of the product, the designers may therefore want to force groups to go through all the encounters - which probably means they've designed a railroad.

The issue of wasted space is a real one, but there is a second way in which the delve format can hurt adventure design. Because it forces the writer to think about writing encounters, it can distract the writer from thinking about the overall situation or how the NPCs will react outside of the context of a particular encounter.

As a scenario reader, I know it is much harder to understand a non-linear delve-formatted module. The author essentially faces a choice between (a) putting all the relevant information about the encounter into the delve write-up or (b) breaking the information into tactical and non-tactical sections with the tactical information going into the delve part and the non-tactical information written into the adventure body.

Choice (a) makes it very hard to read -- or write! -- a module where there are major decisions or important information outside the encounter. Choice (b) makes it harder to run an encounter or keep the module organized.

The delve format also has a weird side effect in that it provides a powerful incentive to write precisely 2-page encounters. There's nothing wrong with an encounter that takes 2-pages to write up. It's probably a good default size: complex enough to be interesting, but simple enough for most GMs to run. However, it discourages the module writer from creating a variety of complexity levels. I occasionally wonder if some "grind feel" comes from running a sequence of encounters of approximately equal complexity.

-KS

 

[delericho]

Could someone actually relate to us what exactly consists of the Delve type format to make sure we are all on the same page as to what we are talking about?

The "Delve format" is the adventure format currently used by WotC. You can find it in any of their 4e adventures, any of the eDungeon adventures, or any WotC 3e adventure since it's debut in "Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde". (Note that the current format has been significantly refined from it's earliest uses.)

The format is so-called because it was developed for use in the "Dungeon Delve" events at Gen Con (and other conventions?) where the DMs were likely to have to run the adventures more or less cold, with minimal preparation.

The key feature of the Delve format is the (usually) two-page spread given over to each encounter, with all the stat-blocks reprinted on those pages, a sidebar for environmental conditions, and a detailed mini-map showing the starting positions of everything needed.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

My impression of a Delve-type layout is that the entire encounter along with all monsters and traps involved are all in the same location but that encounter is grouped with the other encounters after the adventure is outlined and mapped out. Am I correct in this impression?

This sounds like a good description of the delve format to me.

The format that I am partial to (which I've been using for my published adventures) is a sort of hybrid. It uses the delves spread for encounters, but includes them in amongst the adventure instead of pushing them into the back.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I support the opinion, that a delve format by itself is not problematic. It can help, especially as a sidetrack to a bigger adventure:

Need to have an orc lair. Use the orc lair delve adventure. The whole chaos scar thing is a good idea: many dungeons with 5 encounters, ready to be used at will.

But only as ready to be used sidetracks. But you can´t lay them all out. Maybe a good idea is having statblocks of all creatures unique to the adventure in a booklet and the story just points to them with guidelines how to use them.