Real tale of Old School feel?

[ThirdWizard]

Ease of use falls into the organization category, mostly. But, yes, it also comes with the fact that the reader did not write the module. This is an important thing from a design standpoint and it is the main thing that separates a home brew adventure from one that someone wishes to publish. A module that assumes that the reader knows what to do with an NPC has poor ease of use relative to that NPC. Lacking to stat out an NPC's alignment is poor ease of use as well as poor mechanical construction. In any case where, through normal play, the module doesn't say what to do next, that would be an example of poor ease of use. It is very objective, I would say.

EDIT: I would also say an imaginative plot is not an aspect of good module design. Coherance of plot (internally) can be assessed objectively. Now, we could get into things like slanted ladder of specificity, but that goes away from good module design and into good creative writing that is an important distinction to me.

 

[Andre]

mywell, i suppose that, for quasqueton thatlack of background made the module difficult to DM.
i don't agree with him, but maybe he doesn't have ANY time to do some preparation work, and his improvisation skills are not good enough to wig it.
but maybe i'm reading in his posts something that wasn't there.

Ok, that makes sense to me. Still, depending on how the consumer is going to use the module, the amount of detail will be a strength or a weakness.

3. nice presentation of the crunchy bits (even if they are somewhat "wrong", like monsters with the "wrong" skills, or the "wrong hit die")

Yeah, I don't mind a review pointing out any mistakes, but I think we've gone overboard in expecting all the crunch to be perfect, even if it has no effect on the product. I wonder if this is a holdover from all the truly horrendous stuff that published early on - the stuff that made you wonder if the authors even read the core books.

4. an overal good balance of the adventure (if one puts a 44 HD half-demon orc, 3 mundane kobolds, 1 fire elemental, 2 liches and 6 rust moster as fighting opponents in a first level adventure, even if the gaming math is good, the adventure will be difficult to run as is)

I've noticed a tendency in many WOTC products and Dungeon modules to include high-EL encounters. An adventure for 2nd level characters will have a number of encounters in the 4-7 range. Supposedly these products have been playtested, but if so, then the EL system is completely out of whack. (Which it probably is... )

 

[gizmo33]

if you took that as any kind of attack, i'm sorry, but that's not what i was meaning.

I wasn't personally offended at all, so that's cool with me, although the word (to me) is used in similar situations as "stupid" and carries some emotional connotations with it. I was interested in your reasoning and I can see from the later posts that you provide it.

in your example of kobolds and bugbears, you could say that it's absurd because in your campaign the two races can't stand each other. it's a perfect logic to me. as long as you are not trying to bully anybody for having the cohoperation idea, i have no problem whatsoever with it.

Maybe it is a language thing - "absurd" usually to me suggests something more universal. If I was buying a car and I didn't see a color I liked, I wouldn't call the other cars "absurd" - the salesman could be expected to take offense. Since it's a case of the cars not suiting my preference, I would probably rather say "inappropriate".

 

[Endur]

I read the thread that is linked to in the first post.

It sounded like a neat story of one group's play of X2.

Unfortunately, the author/GM's negativetivity turns off the reader. I don't know whether he GMs this way, but his cynicial nature didn't come across well through his writing.

If the author had just written the story of what his players did and dropped all of the cynical negative side comments, it would have been a much better story, 100% better.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Maybe it is a language thing - "absurd" usually to me suggests something more universal. If I was buying a car and I didn't see a color I liked, I wouldn't call the other cars "absurd" - the salesman could be expected to take offense. Since it's a case of the cars not suiting my preference, I would probably rather say "inappropriate".

Absurd in the litterary sense might fit, I think, though I doubt that was the intention of use. Absurd poetry and writing is one of my favorite forms, though I probably wouldn't like it myself in a roleplaying module. So, next time just say thanks, you try to emulate to the plays of Samuel Beckett (say, Waiting for Godot). That should confuse them enough that they give up any further argument.

 

[Spell]

In any case where, through normal play, the module doesn't say what to do next, that would be an example of poor ease of use. It is very objective, I would say.

you might be right, but it's difficult for me to say... if the module doesn't say what to do next, but i still understand the basic plot, i will come up with my agenda with no problem. on the other hand, if i don't know what the basic plot is, i would say that problem derives from the general writing skill of the author... but it might be just the way i see it.

EDIT: I would also say an imaginative plot is not an aspect of good module design.

if you mean that it's not a universal and objective thing, i agree wholeheartedly. still, if a module is lacking in the area, i would be likely not to buy it, even if the rest of the design was pristine... so, in a way, orginality, plot coherence and similar things, are part of the design of a selling product

 

[Spell]

I would probably rather say "inappropriate".

i take notice...

 

[Spell]

I read the thread that is linked to in the first post.

i couldn't go beyond the first three posts... if the author states that the adventure doesn't make any sense to him and he still running it, he is the one with the problem...
everybody is free to waste his time as he want, but if he wants to prove some wacky point by doing it, well, good luck!

 

[ThirdWizard]

you might be right, but it's difficult for me to say... if the module doesn't say what to do next, but i still understand the basic plot, i will come up with my agenda with no problem. on the other hand, if i don't know what the basic plot is, i would say that problem derives from the general writing skill of the author... but it might be just the way i see it.

Basically, if a DM would be lost even if the PCs follow the path that the writer expects, then that would be a failure on the part of ease of use. This could be done many ways: a simple layout of a dungeon, by explaining motivations and reactions on the part of NPCs, or something else entirely.

General writing skill of the author, to me, is part of the design. You can be the best adventure designer in the world, but if you don't have the capability of expressing those thoughts to others, your module will be poor.

if you mean that it's not a universal and objective thing, i agree wholeheartedly.

Sadly, no, that's not what I mean. I can't really go into a lot of detail, as I'm not a literary expert. There's a big difference between Poe and gothboy117 on deadjournal. One is critically acclaimed, and one would make English teachers gouge out their eyes. This isn't to say gothgirl298 doesn't love gothboy117's poetry and if she does, that's perfectly fine. But, it does mean that it isn't literarily sound. I am speaking from an academic stance, as I said earlier.

In essence, there is such a thing as bad writing. In literature and in module writing.

But, I think that discussion goes way beyond the relevance of this thread, and I'd hate to get off on a tangent, because I care much more about playability of a module than the literary acceptance of the module. Fantasy is built on things that don't go over in the literary world, especially in this frantically postmodern one that abounds. It's built on archetypes, cliches, and good versus evil, so in a critical sense what makes good writing could very well make a bad module. (That last point being the most important thing in this rambling, by the way.)

I hope I make at least some sense...

 

[Geron Raveneye]

But, I think that discussion goes way beyond the relevance of this thread, and I'd hate to get off on a tangent, because I care much more about playability of a module than the literary acceptance of the module. Fantasy is built on things that don't go over in the literary world, especially in this frantically postmodern one that abounds. It's built on archetypes, cliches, and good versus evil, so in a critical sense what makes good writing could very well make a bad module. (That last point being the most important thing in this rambling, by the way.)

I hope I make at least some sense...

You do. You also touch an important point, at least in my opinion, that should be mentioned before the quality of a module's design is discussed, namely what the module was designed to do. See, as far as I can see, adventures can be as diverse as literary genres can be, or tools in a toolbox, or computer programs. Simply lumping them all together as "roleplaying adventures" and comparing them on that premise is about as effective lumping all books together and then go and compare, say, the biography of Otto von Bismarck with the latest horror novel from Stephen King. Of course, the focus in roleplaying adventures is much tighter than in books, and I agree that there are mechanistic and layout factors that faciliate an ease of use, and a smoothness of play with an adventure, like the important stats of NPCs where they are needed, clear floorplans of the important locations being identical to what is described in the textboxes, etc.

But as far as I read that Castle Amber thread (and I have to agree to Spell, it made me wonder, too, why the heck they played that adventure in the first place, if something is so obviously not your taste, don't try it, and don't blame the bad taste in your mouth on the adventure afterwards), the general design wasn't what was criticized most, it were the whacky storyline, the weird events, and at a lot of points the author showed clearly that he simply wanted to trash the module from the first minute. He even put a monk in the group especially to break the boxing scene as fast as possible. He went through the module with a certain kind of arrogance, and it showed in most of his descriptions. I mean, come on...emphasizing that some interactions were not written out in the module, but came from him, because he improvised? I don't want to sound like a "grumpy old roleplayer", but as far as I see it, that was pretty much standard back then, and still is today...if you get the rooms, the monsters, and the backstory of the setting, you either play it as a straight hackfest, or you make the story your own. That was part of the fun, that a module looked different with each DM, that you wrote your own adventure each time, and didn't have a predestined storyline rolling along with the help of the characters.

As far as I can judge it, Castle Amber doesn't have too many flaws, design-wise, especially for a Basic D&D module, which didn't require half as much rules information as today's adventures do, and is consistent with its own story premises. The weirdness of the module might not be to everybody's taste, but that's what taste is all about.

And considering the title of this thread here, I guess a lot of the negative feedback stem from the fact that the adventure presented in the link might be "old school" indeed, but the whole tone of how the game session is described is so far off from how playing it felt if you liked it, that it sounds like Quasqueton was out to mock those who really enjoyed playing modules like Castle Amber by calling this a "real tale of old school feel", while it comes over as the description of somebody who didn't understand what he saw, didn't bother to get behind it, and decided to trash it where possible with a certain "old stuff is nonsense" mindset. I think something like "old school module meets 3E" would have been more appropriate, and even then it wouldn't really be appropriate...and probably would have caused claims of another "Edition Wars" thread. *shrug*