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Opinions: What makes a good adventure?
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<blockquote data-quote="Ziggy" data-source="post: 1754" data-attributes="member: 148"><p>As with all other questions related to quality there is no single answer to this. It depends quite a lot on the DM and the players, the theme of the campaign/setting a.s.o.</p><p></p><p>It is easier to point out the elements that makes for a bad adventure, IMHO these include:</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong> Inconsistency: </strong> This is the biggest killer. Quite often I see adventures with no internal consistency. A good adventure should make sense, and monsters/NPC should just not be placed around at random. My biggest gripe is probably traps. All too often I see dungeons with traps scattered all over. How the inhabitants manage to get in and out without triggering all the traps is left unexplained, not to mention why they put them there in the first place. This annoys me both as a DM and a player.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong> (Too much) randomness: </strong> This is mostly a player gripe. A little randomness can be quite thrilling, but if I get the feeling that my actions/plans have no actual impact on the word, I get both bored and frustrated. Actions should have consequences, and encounters should not appear out of the blue. Thus random encounters are (in general) a bad thing unless there is a specific reason for them.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong> Singular focus: </strong> The adventure should allow for several roleplaying modi. An adventure with just combat (or just NPC interaction) gets boring after a short while. The adventure should also allow for change of pace, with situations with high and low "tenseness". </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong> Linear plot: </strong> This is both a DM and a player issue. I tend to get bored if the adventure has a simple structure. The real world is never simple, and I like the adventures to have the complexity found in real world situations. Thus simple "lets kill the evil wizard" is not rated high in by book, while "let find out who the mastermind behind the evil in the village" might be a good scenario if it includes multiple threads. Note that it can be too complicated, and the players should have a reasonable change of untangling the threads, if not you are falling into the "randomness" trap (at least from the player perspective). </li> </ul><p></p><p>.Ziggy</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ziggy, post: 1754, member: 148"] As with all other questions related to quality there is no single answer to this. It depends quite a lot on the DM and the players, the theme of the campaign/setting a.s.o. It is easier to point out the elements that makes for a bad adventure, IMHO these include: [list] [*][B] Inconsistency: [/B] This is the biggest killer. Quite often I see adventures with no internal consistency. A good adventure should make sense, and monsters/NPC should just not be placed around at random. My biggest gripe is probably traps. All too often I see dungeons with traps scattered all over. How the inhabitants manage to get in and out without triggering all the traps is left unexplained, not to mention why they put them there in the first place. This annoys me both as a DM and a player. [*][B] (Too much) randomness: [/B] This is mostly a player gripe. A little randomness can be quite thrilling, but if I get the feeling that my actions/plans have no actual impact on the word, I get both bored and frustrated. Actions should have consequences, and encounters should not appear out of the blue. Thus random encounters are (in general) a bad thing unless there is a specific reason for them. [*][B] Singular focus: [/B] The adventure should allow for several roleplaying modi. An adventure with just combat (or just NPC interaction) gets boring after a short while. The adventure should also allow for change of pace, with situations with high and low "tenseness". [*][B] Linear plot: [/B] This is both a DM and a player issue. I tend to get bored if the adventure has a simple structure. The real world is never simple, and I like the adventures to have the complexity found in real world situations. Thus simple "lets kill the evil wizard" is not rated high in by book, while "let find out who the mastermind behind the evil in the village" might be a good scenario if it includes multiple threads. Note that it can be too complicated, and the players should have a reasonable change of untangling the threads, if not you are falling into the "randomness" trap (at least from the player perspective). [/list] .Ziggy [/QUOTE]
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