Legends and Lore: March 29th
- Thread starter Zaran
- Start date
Those are two adventures well criticized for being particularly poor. You may want to look at Demon Queen's Enclave or The Slaying Stone for better offerings from Wotc.
Incidentally, Pyramid of Shadows is a typical example of Wotc trying to use old TSR design principles. There are plenty of random details and monsters in this adventure thrown in just for the purpose of being fun and interesting to explore. I was very reminded of e.g. Castle Amberville when reading it.
Incenjucar
Legend
I'm really not surprised that none of the 4E adventures didn't show up on that list... 4E is many things, but while it HAS produced a very fascinating cosmos and related historical events, I'm not aware of it producing anything new and vibrant for PLAY. 3E only had one new setting, and 4E has separated locations from settings so that they don't need settings. It's a very functional method for the home game, but it makes everything in the larger sense of the game feel like a random encounter.
Baz King
Explorer
Here's my answer taken from my blog. I stand by it still.
I've been asking a lot of questions about companies' approaches to adventure design recently, but I haven't been supplying many of my own answers. Some of that is because I don't really know the answers! However, there's a few observations I do have.
At time of writing I'm running my weekly group through WotC's Orcus modules. We're deep into E1, Death's Reach. It's been good fun so far, and we're one session into the final section, which is a dungeon called the Reliquary of Timesus. Simultaneously, my current read is part 5 of Paizo's Legacy of Fire Adventure Path. It's also a dungeon, based in a palace complex set within the City of Brass. It's called The Impossible Eye. It's a good read, full of flavour, but looks very tricky to run.
There has to be a middle ground between WotC's dry/linear adventures, and Paizo's complex/verbose ones. What would a product that took the best of both worlds look like? Let's take the Reliquary, and reformat it the Paizo way.
On the WotC side, they utilise(d) a two book format. The first book has the overview, and the extras like new monsters and treasures, and art work. The second book has the encounters all laid out in a delve format for ease of play. The folder also contains a double sided poster map of some of the big locations in the adventure. (I should say that WotC have moved away from this format in the last year or so, but only in that they bundle all this together into a single book, otherwise it's broadly the same).
Paizo are much more traditional in their formatting. It's written in a travel-guide fashion, with a brief overview at the front and then it takes the reader through the adventure, location by location. It does mean having to flick back and forth a lot to see how various parts link up. The art is sprinkled through the adventure. In the APs, they give a big chunk of the product to supplementary material, fiction, new monsters etc.
WotC try to separate the encounter information from the plot exposition. The trouble is, there's too much bleed over. There are 13 encounters in the Reliquary spread over 19 locations. All the locations are summarised over a mere two pages, with references to the combat pages in book two. The entire dungeon is presented over just 4 pages. There's a lot of story/plot elements that only appear when you get to the encounter format itself, or worse, it's duplicated. Those encounter maps are keyed with starting monster locations.
Paizo blend all the mechanics into the prose sections of their keyed entries. They have a tendency to start with some boxed text that concentrates on the architecture and the furnishings. If there are any adversaries present, they get introduced right at the end of the entry. The description can be wide ranging about histories and relationships. Adversaries can be flagged up that don't get explained until later in the book. Each entry rewards repeat reading and notetaking so that nothing gets missed, like the monsters.
My blended approach would be to stay with the single book, but to separate it into sections to facilitate play at the table, and to make the inevitable page flicking easier. I would spread the art through the book. That gives it context and the company website or a scanner allows the images to be shown to players as required. I would put the stat blocks and tactics directly into the main body of the adventure. The delve format has only one pro (to not have to flick pages in the middle of a combat) and too many cons (repeated, or discreet, story info; the keyed map which can't be printed; lots of white space; repeated environmental info and more). Fourth edition encounter design means that groups of opponents are far more likely to be encountered than solitary monsters or traps. The delve format brings all those stats to one place, but frankly, a 3e statblock for a single creature easily takes up half a full page. I don't think it's completely necessary to separate out the encounter info. At worst, the encounter info might run onto another page, but that's a small price to pay for legibility and read-flow.
Similarly, there's no need to repeat the encounter map with starting positions. These positions should be apparent from the description, either the boxed text (enabling the DM to place the monster as they read) or within the description for hidden monsters and traps. These starting positions are wasted post the initiative roll anyway. Same with environmental effects like tables, chairs, doors, fires etc. All common environmental effects can be boxed out in an appendix or at the start of the adventure.
The dungeon overview provided by WotC is actually fine, it's concise and gives the DM what he needs, the story and enough to improvise on should the party enquire. This should be followed by the dungeon map. The Paizo maps are like architects drawings, they're fascinating, inspiring even, but they are extraordinarily difficult to describe or map out at the table. They also have verisimilitude, with barracks, kitchens and kennels. There are more 'empty' rooms than inhabited ones. Some of those empty rooms contain clues or history, but others are there just to fill out the map. There are lots of linked levels, and the DM has to be careful to see how inhabitants hear and see the other locations. It's very pretty, but low on utility.
On the other hand, the WotC map of the reliquary is made up of scanned dungeon tiles, and it's squeezed into the A4 page. There are no dead ends, only 3 empty rooms, and it's a largely straight sequence of chambers. There's no sense that this was designed and built by anyone but a WotC employee. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as it's eminently playable. The DM and players won't get lost and no-one needs to worry about what the surrounding locations are doing. It's almost brutally functional.
The meat of the adventure is in the keyed locations. This is where WotC have again, gone for the functional approach. They make a nod towards story by having every chamber covered in sculpted reliefs that slowly tell the story of the Dawn War between the Gods and the primordials. They even back this up with art depicting the same. There's a skill check noted on occasion to translate the carvings. This is the best part of any location description as it's almost all of it. the room will only ever have one or two more sentences of description outside of the encounter book. For example, the final room:
This is where the biggest change could be made. the locations should be able to be read as if part of a story, or at least a travel guide. Paizo go too far too often by including text that's irrelevant to the adventure at hand, and tenuous in it's relationship to anything the characters are likely to encounter. The happy medium would be for the text to be explanatory first and interesting second with inspiring a third priority. If it is only one of those three things, it's missing the key element of a role playing game scenario.
Lastly, and this isn't in Death's Reach, WotC have made strides to make the treasure placement more customisable in latter adventures. This is a great use of an appendix, and needs to help the beleaguered DM keep their game, and campaign, on track.
In summary, I'd hugely expand the first book from WotC, using the best writing from the Paizo styles, and I'd contract the delve book into the body of the adventure. At every stage I'd look to see that the book remains a gameable product, and not something to be read in lieu of a novel.
I've been asking a lot of questions about companies' approaches to adventure design recently, but I haven't been supplying many of my own answers. Some of that is because I don't really know the answers! However, there's a few observations I do have.
At time of writing I'm running my weekly group through WotC's Orcus modules. We're deep into E1, Death's Reach. It's been good fun so far, and we're one session into the final section, which is a dungeon called the Reliquary of Timesus. Simultaneously, my current read is part 5 of Paizo's Legacy of Fire Adventure Path. It's also a dungeon, based in a palace complex set within the City of Brass. It's called The Impossible Eye. It's a good read, full of flavour, but looks very tricky to run.
There has to be a middle ground between WotC's dry/linear adventures, and Paizo's complex/verbose ones. What would a product that took the best of both worlds look like? Let's take the Reliquary, and reformat it the Paizo way.
On the WotC side, they utilise(d) a two book format. The first book has the overview, and the extras like new monsters and treasures, and art work. The second book has the encounters all laid out in a delve format for ease of play. The folder also contains a double sided poster map of some of the big locations in the adventure. (I should say that WotC have moved away from this format in the last year or so, but only in that they bundle all this together into a single book, otherwise it's broadly the same).
Paizo are much more traditional in their formatting. It's written in a travel-guide fashion, with a brief overview at the front and then it takes the reader through the adventure, location by location. It does mean having to flick back and forth a lot to see how various parts link up. The art is sprinkled through the adventure. In the APs, they give a big chunk of the product to supplementary material, fiction, new monsters etc.
WotC try to separate the encounter information from the plot exposition. The trouble is, there's too much bleed over. There are 13 encounters in the Reliquary spread over 19 locations. All the locations are summarised over a mere two pages, with references to the combat pages in book two. The entire dungeon is presented over just 4 pages. There's a lot of story/plot elements that only appear when you get to the encounter format itself, or worse, it's duplicated. Those encounter maps are keyed with starting monster locations.
Paizo blend all the mechanics into the prose sections of their keyed entries. They have a tendency to start with some boxed text that concentrates on the architecture and the furnishings. If there are any adversaries present, they get introduced right at the end of the entry. The description can be wide ranging about histories and relationships. Adversaries can be flagged up that don't get explained until later in the book. Each entry rewards repeat reading and notetaking so that nothing gets missed, like the monsters.
My blended approach would be to stay with the single book, but to separate it into sections to facilitate play at the table, and to make the inevitable page flicking easier. I would spread the art through the book. That gives it context and the company website or a scanner allows the images to be shown to players as required. I would put the stat blocks and tactics directly into the main body of the adventure. The delve format has only one pro (to not have to flick pages in the middle of a combat) and too many cons (repeated, or discreet, story info; the keyed map which can't be printed; lots of white space; repeated environmental info and more). Fourth edition encounter design means that groups of opponents are far more likely to be encountered than solitary monsters or traps. The delve format brings all those stats to one place, but frankly, a 3e statblock for a single creature easily takes up half a full page. I don't think it's completely necessary to separate out the encounter info. At worst, the encounter info might run onto another page, but that's a small price to pay for legibility and read-flow.
Similarly, there's no need to repeat the encounter map with starting positions. These positions should be apparent from the description, either the boxed text (enabling the DM to place the monster as they read) or within the description for hidden monsters and traps. These starting positions are wasted post the initiative roll anyway. Same with environmental effects like tables, chairs, doors, fires etc. All common environmental effects can be boxed out in an appendix or at the start of the adventure.
The dungeon overview provided by WotC is actually fine, it's concise and gives the DM what he needs, the story and enough to improvise on should the party enquire. This should be followed by the dungeon map. The Paizo maps are like architects drawings, they're fascinating, inspiring even, but they are extraordinarily difficult to describe or map out at the table. They also have verisimilitude, with barracks, kitchens and kennels. There are more 'empty' rooms than inhabited ones. Some of those empty rooms contain clues or history, but others are there just to fill out the map. There are lots of linked levels, and the DM has to be careful to see how inhabitants hear and see the other locations. It's very pretty, but low on utility.
On the other hand, the WotC map of the reliquary is made up of scanned dungeon tiles, and it's squeezed into the A4 page. There are no dead ends, only 3 empty rooms, and it's a largely straight sequence of chambers. There's no sense that this was designed and built by anyone but a WotC employee. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as it's eminently playable. The DM and players won't get lost and no-one needs to worry about what the surrounding locations are doing. It's almost brutally functional.
The meat of the adventure is in the keyed locations. This is where WotC have again, gone for the functional approach. They make a nod towards story by having every chamber covered in sculpted reliefs that slowly tell the story of the Dawn War between the Gods and the primordials. They even back this up with art depicting the same. There's a skill check noted on occasion to translate the carvings. This is the best part of any location description as it's almost all of it. the room will only ever have one or two more sentences of description outside of the encounter book. For example, the final room:
"This chamber, the prison of Timesus, shows signs of a methodical excavation."
That would have been fine back in the days of 1st edition, but the modern audience is entitled to more. In fairness, the encounter book expands on this and gives read aloud text as well as tactics, but even then it errs on the side of sparsity.
This is where the biggest change could be made. the locations should be able to be read as if part of a story, or at least a travel guide. Paizo go too far too often by including text that's irrelevant to the adventure at hand, and tenuous in it's relationship to anything the characters are likely to encounter. The happy medium would be for the text to be explanatory first and interesting second with inspiring a third priority. If it is only one of those three things, it's missing the key element of a role playing game scenario.
Lastly, and this isn't in Death's Reach, WotC have made strides to make the treasure placement more customisable in latter adventures. This is a great use of an appendix, and needs to help the beleaguered DM keep their game, and campaign, on track.
In summary, I'd hugely expand the first book from WotC, using the best writing from the Paizo styles, and I'd contract the delve book into the body of the adventure. At every stage I'd look to see that the book remains a gameable product, and not something to be read in lieu of a novel.
I am a fan of the delve format because it allows for limited prep play and it wworks very well with mini adventures like the Keep on the Chaos Scar stuff.
However, I have been reflecting on the comments make here and on other threads on this topic and the big advantage of the devle format is that the location map and the monster stat blocks are on the same page. Why not publish the monster statblocks as punchable cards in an appendix? or even as a separate page in the appendix. One page per encounter.
However, I have been reflecting on the comments make here and on other threads on this topic and the big advantage of the devle format is that the location map and the monster stat blocks are on the same page. Why not publish the monster statblocks as punchable cards in an appendix? or even as a separate page in the appendix. One page per encounter.
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
What seems like only yesterday, but was actually 6 years ago...I did some polls on best adventures. It was done to allow for something other then the 1E stalwarts. But the top ten were the 1E stalwarts, plus B2 and X1:
G1-2-3 Against the Giants
T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil
B2 Keep on the Borderlands
I6 Ravenloft
D3 Vault of the Drow
T1 Village of Hommlet
D1-2 Descent Into the Depths
S1 Tomb of Horrors
X1 Isle of Dread
S2 White Plume Mountain
I don't know if updating it would make a huge difference or not.
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=134397&page=2
G1-2-3 Against the Giants
T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil
B2 Keep on the Borderlands
I6 Ravenloft
D3 Vault of the Drow
T1 Village of Hommlet
D1-2 Descent Into the Depths
S1 Tomb of Horrors
X1 Isle of Dread
S2 White Plume Mountain
I don't know if updating it would make a huge difference or not.
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=134397&page=2
Tony Vargas
Legend
Yep, that question almost exclues recent offerings. It doesn't quite, explicitly, but it's certainly slanted towards the classic/influencial. Thing is, and wonderful as classics are, they're not always a great thing to try to do, again. A while back, a writer shopped around a treatment of Casa Blanca to producers, it was rejected as dull and plodding. The old Keep on the Borderlands or Ravenloft modules were cool in their day, are well-remembered, and infuenced future adventures (Ravenloft spawned a popular setting, and, most recently, a board game). But a modern adventure simply done in their style would be derivative.
Based on the polls and the way he's spinning them, I'm guessing Mr. Mearls has an agenda, and it's some sort of retro-nostalgic 'we should be more like classic AD&D' angle.
I don't think that's a good idea. While you don't want to forget the lessons of the past, you do need to move forward. 4e did that (actually innovated), and the vague Points of Light setting and Delve format supported it, making adventures easier to run and more flexible to incorporate into campaigns.
Yes, there was a time when D&D had a much more prominent position in the industry, but, no producing the kind of stuff they did back then won't restore that position.
There is an old saying in Argentina about a Tango singer, Gardel. The longer he's dead, the better he sings (hope that makes sense in english ^^).
Same goes for those adventures.
occam
Hero
Shoot, now you're making me want to buy the DM's Kit.
Balesir
Adventurer
I think the question of adventure design has to start with a clear view on two things:
1) Who is the adventure written to please - the DM, the players, or both?
2) What is the main focus of attention during actual play expected to be?
For the first of these, I would say that the content of the adventure should be aimed at the players, and the format should be aimed at the DM. In this respect I somewhat disagree that area descriptions etc. should be artistic masterpieces - although it does depend on question (2) to some extent - because that will be detail the DM would like, not (in my experience) the players. The concern over the format of the overall adventure structure, and its ease of understanding and use, however, I think is a critical one, and the people to please, here, are the DMs.
For the group I run, the main focus of attention in play is the tactical/game challenge to be beaten. From that perspective, the 'Delve format' for encounters works really well. The full details of the "encounter mini-game" are all in one place and the encounters themselves are often interesting and fun (although I do think that Keep on the Shadowfell did encounter scope better than anything I have seen since - there is nothing wrong with spreading an encounter through several 'rooms' - and it sounds like this is something Pathfinder could learn from, too, if there are 'empty rooms' doing nothing).
The main problem, as I see it, though, with the current WotC format, is at the level "above" the encounter. The booklets or sections that are supposed to give the adventure overview and structure are frequently half taken up with art (often art that does not really give a good feel for the characters' perspective on the scenes, to boot) and, as others have noted, misses out important information because it is in the encounter notes (and vice versa - the encounter notes miss important details that were in the "overview").
I think, therefore, that what is needed is a radical overhaul of the "overview" or "adventure structure" section. Some ideas:
- Flowcharts, maps (both physical and conceptual) and character profiles (with mapped relationships) for the key personalities involved. A picture here really can be worth a thousand words.
- Consider PDF/digital versions. This is not just for the ease of distribution, but for the exploitable features of the medium. Firstly, repeating information (even verbatim) can be helpful and there is no size limitation on a PDF. Secondly, PDFs can handle layers, and maps with layers can be fantastically useful tools. Keléstia have been doing this for their Hârn products for a while, now, and the resulting maps are stunning. Imagine dungeon maps with layers for monster "start positions", secret passages and openings, lighting and trap areas of effect. You can turn layers on and off to see the map with and without each layer, individually or collectively. You can even add layers to block out sections of the map so that you can show players parts as the characters 'discover' them.
- Have more and clearer policy/advice about adventure structure. How should adventure "flowcharts" be designed to give players meaningful choices? This goes right up to having the whole scenario resemble a "giant skill challenge", where each encounter has "success" and "fail" conditions that allow or disallow choices for future direction. All this has to be combined in such a way as to retain the experience/level curve and gp resource expectations, but there are several "levers" available, here. Mixing combats, traps, skill challenges and quests can allow for "easy routes" and "hard routes" that have the same xp value; add in holding back xp for encounters where the objective was failed (even if all the monsters were killed) and there is plenty of scope for added interest for the players, here.
TLDR version - the 'Delve' encounter format works fine - but the adventure overview/structure area (both format and content) need work. Lots of work.
1) Who is the adventure written to please - the DM, the players, or both?
2) What is the main focus of attention during actual play expected to be?
For the first of these, I would say that the content of the adventure should be aimed at the players, and the format should be aimed at the DM. In this respect I somewhat disagree that area descriptions etc. should be artistic masterpieces - although it does depend on question (2) to some extent - because that will be detail the DM would like, not (in my experience) the players. The concern over the format of the overall adventure structure, and its ease of understanding and use, however, I think is a critical one, and the people to please, here, are the DMs.
For the group I run, the main focus of attention in play is the tactical/game challenge to be beaten. From that perspective, the 'Delve format' for encounters works really well. The full details of the "encounter mini-game" are all in one place and the encounters themselves are often interesting and fun (although I do think that Keep on the Shadowfell did encounter scope better than anything I have seen since - there is nothing wrong with spreading an encounter through several 'rooms' - and it sounds like this is something Pathfinder could learn from, too, if there are 'empty rooms' doing nothing).
The main problem, as I see it, though, with the current WotC format, is at the level "above" the encounter. The booklets or sections that are supposed to give the adventure overview and structure are frequently half taken up with art (often art that does not really give a good feel for the characters' perspective on the scenes, to boot) and, as others have noted, misses out important information because it is in the encounter notes (and vice versa - the encounter notes miss important details that were in the "overview").
I think, therefore, that what is needed is a radical overhaul of the "overview" or "adventure structure" section. Some ideas:
- Flowcharts, maps (both physical and conceptual) and character profiles (with mapped relationships) for the key personalities involved. A picture here really can be worth a thousand words.
- Consider PDF/digital versions. This is not just for the ease of distribution, but for the exploitable features of the medium. Firstly, repeating information (even verbatim) can be helpful and there is no size limitation on a PDF. Secondly, PDFs can handle layers, and maps with layers can be fantastically useful tools. Keléstia have been doing this for their Hârn products for a while, now, and the resulting maps are stunning. Imagine dungeon maps with layers for monster "start positions", secret passages and openings, lighting and trap areas of effect. You can turn layers on and off to see the map with and without each layer, individually or collectively. You can even add layers to block out sections of the map so that you can show players parts as the characters 'discover' them.
- Have more and clearer policy/advice about adventure structure. How should adventure "flowcharts" be designed to give players meaningful choices? This goes right up to having the whole scenario resemble a "giant skill challenge", where each encounter has "success" and "fail" conditions that allow or disallow choices for future direction. All this has to be combined in such a way as to retain the experience/level curve and gp resource expectations, but there are several "levers" available, here. Mixing combats, traps, skill challenges and quests can allow for "easy routes" and "hard routes" that have the same xp value; add in holding back xp for encounters where the objective was failed (even if all the monsters were killed) and there is plenty of scope for added interest for the players, here.
TLDR version - the 'Delve' encounter format works fine - but the adventure overview/structure area (both format and content) need work. Lots of work.
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