Roadblocks in adventure design

[MerricB]

During the early part of the Shackled City adventure path, tension is high. The rains have come, and the city is in real danger of being flooded. The party has to travel to a dungeon and recover the items that will save the city...

...only the dungeon is huge. 56 areas, of which 20+ must have dangerous encounters in them. The party is forced to rest (and again) after inflicting serious damage, and the DM starts wondering why on Oerth the rest of the cult doesn't just flee...

That's the example that comes most readily to my mind when I think about a good adventure that has its flow broken by elements that weren't properly thought through: in this case, the size of the dungeon. One of the true curses of the professional adventure writer is that you do need to put some heft into the adventures you write, so that the customers get value for money, but there are times when it is detrimental to the end product. Especially in an Adventure Path where there's a necessity to give out a certain amount of XP by its end.

One of the other aspects of that situation that is very tricky to write for is the idea of a dynamic dungeon. If the party rests is there any reason the cult doesn't just run for it?

Can you think of other adventures which have been derailed by inappropriate elements or things that just didn't quite make sense when you came to run them?

Cheers!

 

[El Mahdi]

Yeah, The Haunting of Kincep Mansion in Dungeon 156. There's no need to actually go through the mansion when you can simply set the house on fire. End of adventure.

 

[Starbuck_II]

Yeah, The Haunting of Kincep Mansion in Dungeon 156. There's no need to actually go through the mansion when you can simply set the house on fire. End of adventure.

But what about all the treasure!?

 

[El Mahdi]

But what about all the treasure!?

Treasure, Smeasure! You still get the XP!



edit: Besides coins, gems and most magic items shouldn't be affected by a mundane fire. Even melted, precious metals are still precious.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Any adventure that turns on the PCs being stuck in a certain location is ripe for failure. Players are incredibly persistent and incredibly creative about getting their PCs out of somewhere that they're supposed to be stuck.

Adventures that involve the PCs' patron being not what he seems or betraying the PCs later have become so cliche that most players intuit this from the get-go. Then the DM is faced with either changing the adventure on the fly ("Okay, so the patron doesn't betray the party... uh, now what do I do?") or not letting the PCs' efforts to uncover the betrayal work until the adventure says they're allowed to work.

Basically any adventure that relies on the PCs acting a certain way is built on a house of cards. Player can be very contrary, either purposefully or accidentally.

 

[MerricB]

Any adventure that turns on the PCs being stuck in a certain location is ripe for failure. Players are incredibly persistent and incredibly creative about getting their PCs out of somewhere that they're supposed to be stuck.

Adventures that involve the PCs' patron being not what he seems or betraying the PCs later have become so cliche that most players intuit this from the get-go. Then the DM is faced with either changing the adventure on the fly ("Okay, so the patron doesn't betray the party... uh, now what do I do?") or not letting the PCs' efforts to uncover the betrayal work until the adventure says they're allowed to work.

Basically any adventure that relies on the PCs acting a certain way is built on a house of cards. Player can be very contrary, either purposefully or accidentally.

Oh, yes. "The patron wants you to do this incredibly suspicious task - but he's a good guy. Really. No, you can't see my notes!"

That's the sort of thing you can do very effectively in a home campaign, but is a recipe for disaster in a published adventure.

Cheers!

 

[Glyfair]

Oh, yes. "The patron wants you to do this incredibly suspicious task - but he's a good guy. Really. No, you can't see my notes!"

I remember friends of mine playtesting a Champions adventure that was to be run at GenCon. Everyone got to be villains and were sent on a mission by the BBEG. They expected a betrayal and set up an ambush as they were finishing the adventure. The designers were apparently upset and believed that no one would do that.

 

[Delta]

Just rambling... that actually presents an interesting solution to the "10-minute adventuring day problem". I'm accustomed to (a) wandering monsters (classic), and (b) time limit on adventure before villains complete master plot (usually seems contrived to me)... but the inverse of (b) might be (c) time limit before villains catch on and escape from hiding place. So you need to push through; resting lets the bad guys & stuff away.

Of course now I'm just back to examples from the 1E DMG (between forays, undead do nothing, humanoids bolster defenses, fortress counterattacks, bandit camps up and disappear).

 

[ExploderWizard]

I think that while the focus of the campaign should be on the PC's and thier actions, the world at large needs to keep moving with or without them. Its logical to want to tackle every challenge possible at full strength and a party that is able to do so certainly will.

As an adventure designer, its the DM's job to make sure there are reasons why this is not possible, and those reasons should make sense. I am a big fan of adventures that feature dynamic timelines. The events that unfold when no action is taken and how different actions by the PC's shape future events are a big help in making the adventure feel more alive and less static.

One of my favorite old school adventures L2 The Assassins Knot, was set up like this. If the players took thier time with the investigation, people continued to get killed. The Bad Guys took steps to eliminate the PC's if they started causing trouble.

The players at the table know that the game is all about thier characters. If the game world treats thier characters in the same fashion then nothing in the world is going to make any sense.

As far as adventure features go, the GURPS guidelines on adventure design work well for D&D and other games. The general list:

1) situations where roleplaying/ negotiations can avoid combat
2) situations where combat is inevitable.
3) situations that allow PC's to use trained skills effectively
4) situations that force the PC's to attempt things at which they are unskilled.

Its not really a strict formula, but rather a simple checklist of interesting features.

As far as "heft" is concerned, as a consumer I am more impressed with the quality of an adventure than how much "stuff" is in it. Designing adventures with a pre-defined amount of combat xp or a set number of encounters is a bad idea. The only exception to this being tournament adventures which must be constructed with more rigid guidelines.

 

[RodneyThompson]

Oh, yes. "The patron wants you to do this incredibly suspicious task - but he's a good guy. Really. No, you can't see my notes!"

That's the sort of thing you can do very effectively in a home campaign, but is a recipe for disaster in a published adventure.

Cheers!

Oh, I don't know about that. Test of the Smoking Eye is one of my favorite adventures because the players are suspicious, and it's not a matter of whether things will go badly for them but how and why. Also, please have some more italics.