Mike Mearls: Build your Adventures in OD&D

[TerraDave]

I have had my own slow revalation in this area, and B1 has been the adventure that I have increasingly seen as a model.

But ya, I wish he was thinking more like this before doing the Hs*.





*(H1 does have sir keegan, the trap room, a torture chamber, a lair behind a waterfall, streams of blood...and a lot of hack&slash with very limited room for exploration).

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I'm fully behind a "build your adventures in OD&D" philosophy. Of course, then I run them with OD&D, too.

 

[Insight]

Setting is a very solid way to start with an adventure design project. I'm not sure you want to do 100% of the design without even considering the occupants, however; you could end up with creatures that don't belong in a certain environment (or conversely, limiting yourself because of the environmental choices), you could end up with no place to put a large creature (such as a dragon), and so forth.

 

[rogueattorney]

I'm fully behind a "build your adventures in OD&D" philosophy. Of course, then I run them with OD&D, too.

Yeah, that was my first thought... "Or you could just, y'know, play OD&D instead."

 

[ferratus]

Yeah, that was my first thought... "Or you could just, y'know, play OD&D instead."

Yeah, but then you'd be playing OD&D.

I think 4e's skill at tactical gameplay works well, but you have to add in other styles of encounters as well. Aside from puzzles and diplomatic encounters, it is important to have rooms that simply are there for exploring. Secret doors, descriptive text of art and architecture that illuminates the culture of those who built the dungeon, exotic wonders, and odd items and hidden treasure are also part of the dungeon experience.

I think there was, for a time, the idea that if you weren't challenging the PC's with an amazing battle during an encounter, you were wasting their time with trivial things. Sometimes though, having a moment to stop and look around and wonder where to go next is important. Unpleasant surprises too, like a trap door that has a single character fall into a pit with a monster he can defeat.

Of course, Mearls doesn't really need this advice. H2: Thunderspire Labyrinth has all of the features I'm talking about. A few too many hard encounters in a row as well though can make it a bit of a slog just the same.

 

[Drkfathr1]

Shame you can't, I don't know, maybe buy a pdf of one of those old school adventures to use as inspiration. Wish there was some way of downloading some of those OD&D modules.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Interesting stuff.

I recently mapped out a 4E dungeon and wondered "so what?" when I looked at it. It had monsters, traps & treasure all balanced carefully to provide the full variety of (combat) challenges, but it struck me as very boring.

Right, so I looked at the known world map and added treasure maps, tomes & monster dialogue to point the heroes towards the interesting sites I’ve developed elsewhere. Then I gave the rooms & halls a bit of ambient character. Then put in exploration interactions. I then created a few more pathways from area to area to break up excessive linearity. Finally I made a few creatures more dynamic by having them move around or giving potential non combat agendas.

Then I went full circle through it all again to polish it up and added to my world notes.

Put simply, I made every part of the dungeon have some interesting interaction, and made the dungeon & inhabitants imbedded in the world.

 

[JeffB]

I cannot say I've been "on board totally" with any WOTC designer/developer/creator of things since late 2E. In fact nearly all of them totally rubbed me the wrong way (design/theory-wise). But Mearls is the ONE guy I find myself nodding my head in agreement with most of the time. He also seems to be about the only D&D designer (at least vocalizing it) that is constantly analyzing ideas/theories from "the past" and applying it to the current version of the game.

The guy runs a pre-WARS 4E Greyhawk campaign. Totally cool in my book!

 

[catsclaw227]

"Reading the adventure, even without monsters and treasures, is fun." I guess one of my points is a counterpoint to that. What's most important is not how a dungeon reads, but how it plays. Those can be very different experiences.

This I totally agree with.

I read through the Drow War series (a three book AP by Mongoose in the early 3.5 days) and it was awful. the maps sucked, the intro was weak and the encounter hooks (for an AP) were incomplete.

But it played AWESOME. The NPCs were flavorful, the initial 10 levels were really fun and fast paced, but with room for lots of side treks (though sandboxing would be tough, as any AP would be). I got in contact with the writer, Adrian Bott, who cleared up some of the details and it was one of the best games I ever ran.

Read like crap, played awesome.

And I had the reverse experience as well. Read like it was thorough, but played poorly.

 

[The Shaman]

He's almost there.

Seriously.

"Dungeon environments should be interesting? Wow! Who knew?!?"