Possible different types of adventures.

[Ariosto]

Chaosium's Griffin Mountain (1981) is still "the one to beat" in my mind.

Billed as "a complete wilderness campaign for RuneQuest", it also includes ready-to-run situations. Like 3e and 4e, RQ has "stat blocks" that can take up a lot of page space; it has a more detailed, and often more time-consuming, combat sub-game than old D&D; it tends to focus on smaller-scale tactical theaters than the old dungeons.

In recent years, I have seen too narrow a focus on combat scenarios. There seems a tendency to treat encounters essentially as discrete war-games, with a concern for the kind of balance that naturally lends itself to a strong plot line ordering the sequence of scenarios.

What's most useful for moderating a more flexible campaign naturally becomes more evident in the course of doing so. Drawing on a "live" process is, I think, more fruitful than sitting down to design "product" in isolation from play. One gets a feel for what sorts of material to include, how much is enough and how much too much, organization for improvisation ... all the subtle touches that can make such a difference.

In a more dungeon-centric context, Judges Guild's OD&D Caverns of Thracia by Paul Jaquays (co-author of Griffin Mountain) is at least on par with TSR's B4 The Lost City.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it until someone listens and put sit out so I can buy it, but I want short side treks. Something I can drop into my campaign and deal with in a session (or two at the most), that allows me to weave the rest of the campaign around it and doesn come to dominate the entire campaign.

Link enough of these together, and the players get the sense of a "sandbox" type campaign, even though i lack the ability to actually run one.

I detest these modules that dominate my campaigns by taking 3 - 4 levels to complete. I detest even more DUNGEONS that take more than 1 level to complete. I don't even like taking an extended rest in a dungeon.

But in a certain sense, don't H1 and H2 offer exactly that? It's not like they are just huge dungeons you crawl into. I've used several bits of H1 outside of the adventure (kobold ambush for the win!) and H2 is broken up into several dungeons so it should be easy enough to snag different bits and pieces. The hardcover Dungeon Delve is similiar in style where it's just a few encounters as well.

 

[S'mon]

When do you believe the "art of good module design" started falling to the wayside and lost?

I suspect the "art of good module design" started to fall by the wayside when the Dragonlance modules came along. I don't remember many AD&D modules being excessively railroady before Dragonlance. I felt the quality of the AD&D modules got progressively less interesting as time went on. By the time 2E came around, the "art of good module design" was probably more or less "lost" by then.

James Malizewski and others have identified Dragonlance as a turning point. Note that one of the old-school modules I praised above, B7 Rahasia, is by one of the Dragonlance authors! It has a bit of melodrama but nothing that detracts from the old-school emphasis on exploration.

I have not read the Dragonlance modules, I kinda have the impression that they are often still quite exploratory, within the overarching linear framework?

I partly understand why 4e and 3e often have less exploration, though - encounters take much longer to design and run, so the designers ofteh don't want to see anything skipped/missed due to player choice.

 

[Ariosto]

As I recall from reading, the DL modules had some pretty good dungeon design. The "overarching linear framework" and other aspects turned off my gang before we got through much actual play.

I partly understand why 4e and 3e often have less exploration, though - encounters take much longer to design and run, so the designers often don't want to see anything skipped/missed due to player choice.

As I mentioned above, some of the technical issues were present in RuneQuest (and other games) going back to the 1970s -- yet scenario designers often enough went for more open situations.

I think the key difference is one of attitude or "philosophy". I don't think the rises of linearity (in scenarios) and complexity (in mechanics) are accidental, or that one necessarily follows from the other. Designers appear to have prioritized both, based on different answers to fundamental questions as to what the RPG is or is "about".

There may be (or to me are) built-in factors that make it more difficult to do some things with 4e, and/or the audience may have less interest in doing those things. The second factor is probably more telling in the long run, unless designers are not responsive to demand.

With Griffin Mountain, one can get a lot of mileage from named NPCs (in their own rights as well as with stats serving under other names), and more from the likes of "young smilodon number three" and "broo number nine".

Personalities bring perhaps the most to play, yet are least relevant to design based on the premise that creatures exist only to get slaughtered the first time players encounter them.

That touches perhaps on a more general disdain for anything that's not game-mechanical. "Fluff" is where the real chewy bits of an RPG come in, IMO.

 

[MerricB]

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it until someone listens and put sit out so I can buy it, but I want short side treks. Something I can drop into my campaign and deal with in a session (or two at the most), that allows me to weave the rest of the campaign around it and doesn come to dominate the entire campaign.

Link enough of these together, and the players get the sense of a "sandbox" type campaign, even though i lack the ability to actually run one.

I detest these modules that dominate my campaigns by taking 3 - 4 levels to complete. I detest even more DUNGEONS that take more than 1 level to complete. I don't even like taking an extended rest in a dungeon.

Have you bought Wizards' "Dungeon Delves" product? It sounds perfect for you.

Cheers!

 

[ggroy]

I think the key difference is one of attitude or "philosophy". I don't think the rises of linearity (in scenarios) and complexity (in mechanics) are accidental, or that one necessarily follows from the other. Designers appear to have prioritized both, based on different answers to fundamental questions as to what the RPG is or is "about".

Where do you believe the simultaneous rise of linearity and complexity have come from over the years?

If I had to guess, my first thought would be the influence of many video games being "linear". Don't know where complexity comes from. But if complexity is preferred, then why haven't rpgs become something like Rolemaster on steroids?

 

[MerricB]

There are generally short railroaded bits in the DL modules, but mostly they're some outstanding examples of adventure design. What makes them less palatable is the railroaded connections between them, but, honestly, there are some adventures there that no other AD&D adventure comes close to. Some require really experienced DMs and players to get the most out of them - try DL3, where you're guiding a group of refugees to Thorbardin, and you have to not only deal with the threats but deal with a balky refugee council!

Personally, I feel that Tracy Hickman's work as an adventure designer is the highlight of the AD&D 1e age, far outstripping any other adventure designer, except that of Gary Gygax.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

Interesting. A murder mystery in D&D form.

I never picked up module L2, back in the day.

Heh. I just picked it up in hardcopy.

Cheers!

 

[Ariosto]

But if complexity is preferred, then why haven't rpgs become something like Rolemaster on steroids?

They have, and are likely to do so again.

The hobby-game industry seems to go through cycles in which A is all the rage until B comes along ... which in turn gives way to C ... until people get tired of G (or Q) and turn again toward A for the next fad. Steampunk, for instance, seems to be having another day in the sun. The same could be said of RPGs on a whole, relative to the deluge of collectible card games some years ago. Board war-games have not recovered since the Hasborg scooped up most of that endangered species, but historical miniatures may somewhat have expanded back into their old habitat. That Napoleonics are at all on the RPG radar is interesting, given the dominance of fantasy since D&D made the scene (and some popular notions about "kids these days").

In the D&D segment, I figure that 3e designers mostly cut their teeth on 1e and reacted against (some aspects of) 2e; and then 4e people mostly started with 2e and reacted against (some aspects of) 3e.

Even as the big RPG publishers seem wedded to the view that "history has left behind" rules sets with an order of magnitude fewer pages, the "indy" scene often goes pretty light (but tight) on "crunch". (Some might note that, unlike computer hardware, the memory and processing speed of human beings has not been growing by leaps and bounds.)

The shift from "beer and pretzels" to "monster games" is also (I think) normally cyclical, going back and around again like hemlines. I worry, though, that there's a tipping point at which too much complexity is both cause and symptom of a moribund market. I'm pretty sure more gamers who stuck with the hobby started with Victory in the Pacific than with Pacific War, with The Russian Campaign than with Drang Nach Osten. Past that point, even too much may simply be too late ...

... until the wheel turns, and what's old is new again.

 

[MerricB]

Board war-games have not recovered since the Hasborg scooped up most of that endangered species...

Well, AH were doing terribly before that. Board wargames were at their peak in the 60s-70s, but were in terrible decline after that. At present, there are a few companies doing pretty well out of wargames (MMP, GMT being two of the ones I follow).

Cheers!