Modules: Made to Read vs Made to Run?

[Neonchameleon]

I'm curious as to why? Why are these easy-to-run modules effectively absent from the broader hobby?

As an aside modules are almost absent from the "post-Forge" PbtA/FitD end of the hobby. You create your settings as a part of character, and points of the setting have conflicts with the PCs. And the adventure spirals from. the potential consequences on every roll, tied far more closely to the PCs and their themes and motivations than any third party module ever could be

 

[Retros_x]

I find reading the concise types more enjoyable. The "brief but impactful information" is sufficient to imagine the world just as richly as from long-form exposition, and more enjoyable than wading through somebody else's prose.

But you are actually a DM! You actually run games! I think most DMs with at least a bit experience would agree with you. I was speaking about the people who want to DM or want to play the game, but never do it. I have sometimes the feeling the WotC style of prose paragraphs is made for them and their market share is bigger than we think. But only WotC knows the truth of that of course.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'm one who actually prefers the longer-written style of modules and adventures because it gives me more narrative flow and more description amongst characters, locations, attitudes, atmosphere and the like. Thus when I run it and improvise my descriptions or areas and the attitudes and voices of my NPCs... I am able to draw from a deeper well of information. I also have more background material that I can slip in as needed to give the NPCs more depth, and to set up future locations and events.

Modules that are "easy-to-run" for me often just merely look like a space to have a fight or the most basic of interaction. "When the party begins a long rest, five goblins will come out to attack them. DC 15 Perception to notice them if a PC is on watch. If captured, a goblin will reveal the hobgoblin leader in the cave across the way has three people being held." To me... this is like barely an encounter-- where you could replace the entire fight with the party finding a piece of paper on the ground that served the exact same purpose. So why bother having it? Oftentimes most of the 4E modules from the online Dungeon were like that... a series of three fights that had the barest linkage between them to inspire the PCs to enter this three-encounter gauntlet and fight their way through. I mean I can come up with three fights on my own and pay the barest lip service as to why the party is going to fight through them, I don't need someone to print that on paper for me. But if the adventure tells me why these three fights are a part of a larger ecosystem of the events going on in the area, and various bits and bobs of information and objects the party could discover from them that will breadcrumb them to other locations that are driving the narratives of the various enemy NPCs... I am getting a larger world within which to improvise around.

Now admittedly, as everyone probably knows I don't really give a crap about the "game" aspect of D&D in and of itself... any "game" aspects are there only in service of driving the PCs forward in their narrative stories. So long-form adventures with a lot of detail that I can remember and sprinkle in to the game are my juice... and modules that are just pre-built combat set pieces or roleplay encounters that give you a simple Mass Effect-like "three responses to choose from" (all in the name of "simplicity") do me little to no good. I'm sure there are a number of players for whom the idea of improvising the give and take of roleplay is a large hurdle and for which a module that spells it out for them is a godsend ("Here's what the NPC will say if you knock at their door and are nice to them, here's what they say if you knock and are rude, here's what they say if you didn't knock but just broke into their house.") So for those people, that type of "easy-to-run" adventure where the bits are just flatly laid out in front of the DM and where the DM can just open it up for the first time having never even read it before and then just run it right off from the page, is great. But those kinds of adventures just don't serve a purpose for me. Because I will never not have read a module beforehand before running it, because I need to know how this encounter or event actually fits into the world and narrative I am dropping it into.

 

[Bill Zebub]

But you are actually a DM! You actually run games! I think most DMs with at least a bit experience would agree with you. I was speaking about the people who want to DM or want to play the game, but never do it. I have sometimes the feeling the WotC style of prose paragraphs is made for them and their market share is bigger than we think. But only WotC knows the truth of that of course.

Oh, maybe.

In that case maybe they should write a novel, and then release an easy-to-run module that corresponds to the novel?

 

[Bill Zebub]

In short: Easy-to-run modules are rather simpler than the modern norm. Gone are the days when you have a dungeon of rooms each populated, but with minimal interactions, so that a map and key to stat blocks and trap descriptions are sufficient.

In the last published D&D adventure I ran, I had three major antagonist NPCs, each in their own area of the game space, effectively in their own "dungeon" and environs. But they are not entirely independent - they have complex interactions that are underway, with the other NPCs, and between each other, when the PCs arrive on the scene. Exactly how to put all that together, in terms of information design, is not trivial.

I have to agree with @zakael19 here. I don't think the tradeoff you see is intrinsic or necessary. Modules can be both easy to run AND have that kind of complexity.

To me it's the difference between long paragraphs explaining a faction's backstory, versus a standard template that lists a faction's key characteristics, it's relationships with other factions, and its goals.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I have to agree with @zakael19 here. I don't think the tradeoff you see is intrinsic or necessary. Modules can be both easy to run AND have that kind of complexity.

To me it's the difference between long paragraphs explaining a faction's backstory, versus a standard template that lists a faction's key characteristics, it's relationships with other factions, and its goals.

Again, it depends on why you're buying the adventure. If you're here for the lore and/or to pull elements for your own homebrew (as I am), more is better. More bang for your buck, more material for your reading enjoyment. If you're just there for an easy adventure to run, a lot of that will be unnecessary to you, but what you want may lack sufficient value for the prospective lore and homebrew buyer. As a publisher you have to decide what's the bigger audience, and if you want to dedicate your energies toward that audience. And also keep in mind (and I have a lot of personal experience with this) that audience may not be you, even if it used to be.

 

[zakael19]

Modules that are "easy-to-run" for me often just merely look like a space to have a fight or the most basic of interaction. "When the party begins a long rest, five goblins will come out to attack them. DC 15 Perception to notice them if a PC is on watch. If captured, a goblin will reveal the hobgoblin leader in the cave across the way has three people being held." To me... this is like barely an encounter-- where you could replace the entire fight with the party finding a piece of paper on the ground that served the exact same purpose. So why bother having it? Oftentimes most of the 4E modules from the online Dungeon were like that... a series of three fights that had the barest linkage between them to inspire the PCs to enter this three-encounter gauntlet and fight their way through. I mean I can come up with three fights on my own and pay the barest lip service as to why the party is going to fight through them, I don't need someone to print that on paper for me. But if the adventure tells me why these three fights are a part of a larger ecosystem of the events going on in the area, and various bits and bobs of information and objects the party could discover from them that will breadcrumb them to other locations that are driving the narratives of the various enemy NPCs... I am getting a larger world within which to improvise around.

I think you're maybe not familiar with the newer (by like a general "length of TTRPGs existing" newer) modules that I think many of us are point at when we say "Easy to Run." I'm going to use the excellent Winter's Daughter by Gavin Norman as an example (released 5 or 6 years ago?). It opens with a set of Referee's Background that tells you the story of the situation at hand (an ancient fairy prince, the war between him and mortals, forbidden love between his daughter & a mortal knight, etc). It gives some stuff lingering about how the princess and the knight's shade are stuck, various context for things within the tomb and beyond, etc.

You get a set of hooks. A bunch of Common Folklore to present the players as their background or as they desire to investigate the tales behind the tomb before making an expedition. So on.

But once you're at the tomb (or at least the forest leading up to it), you have simple clear keyed maps with super usable and concise descriptions using the BOLD (amplification) house style:

"Stairs into the Mound
Descend 20’ (into the earth). Dusty
(caked with centuries of undisturbed dust). Deathly silence (disturbed by
PCs’ footsteps). Dank smell (moist and mouldy).
▶ If examined: Scratches are discovered. Looks like something heavy was dragged up the stairs (a long time ago)."

You get random encounters that are more then "Skeletons: 6" and of course you have classic reaction rolls to make if the encounter doesnt have a custom one (Reaction: Welcome strangers to join the dance. Attack vehemently if any of the coffers are disturbed.)

You get Referee's Notes with little extra bits right in the keyed room where they apply.

Everything is organized so you can look and speak at the table without needing to "prep." NPCs have Wants and Knows. They may have some boxes of Pleas or similar. The keyed maps have even more concise descriptions of the rooms along with their names so you can run just off it and look to notes as needed (eg: 11. Statues with weapons: Mould-patched walls. Partially concealed mural.)

When I read this module for the first time about 3 years ago, it broke my mind. I was in the middle of running Curse of Strahd and a stitched together Eberron campaign, off of pages of long form text I had to extract useful stuff out of, and often never gave me the important to play items at all. I discovered you didn't need all that, you can fold narrative things at the start of a chapter or module and then focus down on moment to moment play in a well keyed and written map. And doing this actually gave me more space to respond to player ideation in a rigorous and smooth way.

 

[zakael19]

Again, it depends on why you're buying the adventure. If you're here for the lore and/or to pull elements for your own homebrew (as I am), more is better. More bang for your buck, more material for your reading enjoyment. If you're just there for an easy adventure to run, a lot of that will be unnecessary to you, but what you want may lack sufficient value for the prospective lore and homebrew buyer. As a publisher you have to decide what's the bigger audience, and if you want to dedicate your energies toward that audience. And also keep in mind (and I have a lot of personal experience with this) that audience may not be you, even if it used to be.

I think that WOTC's house style just sucks, frankly? I'm assuming Pathfinder is similar. I think we should be able to expect better.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think you're maybe not familiar with the newer (by like a general "length of TTRPGs existing" newer) modules that I think many of us are point at when we say "Easy to Run." I'm going to use the excellent Winter's Daughter by Gavin Norman as an example (released 5 or 6 years ago?). It opens with a set of Referee's Background that tells you the story of the situation at hand (an ancient fairy prince, the war between him and mortals, forbidden love between his daughter & a mortal knight, etc). It gives some stuff lingering about how the princess and the knight's shade are stuck, various context for things within the tomb and beyond, etc.

You get a set of hooks. A bunch of Common Folklore to present the players as their background or as they desire to investigate the tales behind the tomb before making an expedition. So on.

But once you're at the tomb (or at least the forest leading up to it), you have simple clear keyed maps with super usable and concise descriptions using the BOLD (amplification) house style:

"Stairs into the Mound
Descend 20’ (into the earth). Dusty
(caked with centuries of undisturbed dust). Deathly silence (disturbed by
PCs’ footsteps). Dank smell (moist and mouldy).
▶ If examined: Scratches are discovered. Looks like something heavy was dragged up the stairs (a long time ago)."

You get random encounters that are more then "Skeletons: 6" and of course you have classic reaction rolls to make if the encounter doesnt have a custom one (Reaction: Welcome strangers to join the dance. Attack vehemently if any of the coffers are disturbed.)

You get Referee's Notes with little extra bits right in the keyed room where they apply.

Everything is organized so you can look and speak at the table without needing to "prep." NPCs have Wants and Knows. They may have some boxes of Pleas or similar. The keyed maps have even more concise descriptions of the rooms along with their names so you can run just off it and look to notes as needed (eg: 11. Statues with weapons: Mould-patched walls. Partially concealed mural.)

When I read this module for the first time about 3 years ago, it broke my mind. I was in the middle of running Curse of Strahd and a stitched together Eberron campaign, off of pages of long form text I had to extract useful stuff out of, and often never gave me the important to play items at all. I discovered you didn't need all that, you can fold narrative things at the start of a chapter or module and then focus down on moment to moment play in a well keyed and written map. And doing this actually gave me more space to respond to player ideation in a rigorous and smooth way.

For what game is your example designed?

 

[zakael19]

For what game is your example designed?

OSE originally, I ran the excellent 5e conversion. Or more generally: "D&D."