Setting Design vs Adventure Prep

[Ry]

Just in case that horse isn't quite dead, a set of problems, threats, resources, and rewards can make any environment "dungeonlike" -especially if there's a unifying theme to them.

 

[Imaro]

Just in case that horse isn't quite dead, a set of problems, threats, resources, and rewards can make any environment "dungeonlike" -especially if there's a unifying theme to them.

That's only if you agree, which some do not, that those are the only things you need or use to generate good adventures.

 

[Brazeku]

Adventure hooks can be sublimated by the adventure design process, and probably should be because they make them much easier to design; you don't need setting to create a hook. I'd also suggest that you've put the cart before the horse; the setting should bow to the needs of the adventure and the hooks it requires, rather than the other way around. After all, the adventure is where the PCs spend most of their time (interacting with encounters and situations), whereas the setting is mere backdrop to that action.

After the adventure and it's hook needs are decided upon, a setting can be created which integrates them even more thoroughly, because adventures generally aren't as easily made plastic as settings can be (mainly because adventures tend to have more plot structure and fiddly gamist components, making them a lot harder to design than the sweeping macro-level statements of setting design).

Let's face it: The most easily gamed and designed setting for D&D is a big dungeon with no "overworld" - PCs can be funnelled to appropriate challenges, and the areas to detail are finite. Wildernesses present problems because they are so large and cannot funnel PCs to prescribed locations and challenges commensurate with their level. Urban areas present problems because they involve hundreds to thousands of NPCs and buildings, such that they too can only really be dealt with in the abstract.

It's all far too much work, so your choices are to improvise the game off-the-cuff, restrict the setting to a small area, or railroad the campaign from one adventure to the next. Mix that with the desire for epic grandeur so heavily associated with fantasy writing, and it's no wonder that many DMs attempt to sidestep the problem entirely by designing empire and race overviews and big world maps, and hope that the nitty gritty of actually running the game takes care of itself, perhaps preparing a dungeon for the next session as an afterthought. What a waste.

I think we have a disconnect here. The setting is the hook. Setting is nothing but hooks, placed within context of one another. The context is necessary if you want the players to be able to interact with the broader world; I work on the context first so that the adventures and plots the characters can move into can make sense in a larger frame. I used to run it the way you're suggesting, (designing adventures first) but I've found that it doesn't work as well.

Without a setting, how do you make the players feel like their actions have impact? How do you determine what type of adventures to set? How do you determine why antagonists are acting a certain way, and why events are taking place? How do you play NPCs with no culture to draw upon? How do you make these elements consistent?

I would argue that in answering any of these questions, you are creating a setting- the discussion here is mostly about scale.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

This is a problem with D&D campaign design which is rarely addressed, so it's interesting to see this thread confronting it to an extent.

No, this is a problem with D&D campaign design for YOU. I have no problem with dungeons or "railroady" adventure paths. Those adventure paths which you seem to dismiss so off handly are a great resource for those of us who are not inclined to do things the exact same way that you do. I'm running one with a group right now that I'm pretty sure if they were unhappy with it they'd let me know, but they havent and they seem to be having a good time having a go at it.

 

[rounser]

I think we have a disconnect here. The setting is the hook. Setting is nothing but hooks, placed within context of one another. The context is necessary if you want the players to be able to interact with the broader world; I work on the context first so that the adventures and plots the characters can move into can make sense in a larger frame. I used to run it the way you're suggesting, (designing adventures first) but I've found that it doesn't work as well.

We can argue back and forth over whether the adventure or the setting "owns" the hook, but I'll dispute you on two counts:
1) A hook that is attached to an adventure is much more likely to be used. A hook without an adventure behind it is a backless maiden until you write the adventure. So write the adventure first, create the setting as an afterthought. I know this breaks with tradition, but this tradition of setting uber alles, IMO, is wrong.
2) The only way the PCs can really affect the world is in the context of the adventure. The PCs should affect the world through their heroics. Heroics require encounters...plots, traps, fights, twists, locations, NPCs, and these are the trappings of an adventure. The setting can theorise about lamp posts and elven migrations all it likes, but until these things are rooted in something solid, there's nothing truly there.

Without a setting, how do you make the players feel like their actions have impact?

By concocting adventures and status quo "encounter-level" locations (i.e. status quo adventures) which players can interact with, the outcome of the PC's interaction with which affects the setting.

How do you determine what type of adventures to set?

By determining the type of adventures you want to run, an then adapting the setting to support them. If you want an adventure based on the PCs distracting elven refugees from a bugbear force, then adapt the setting to include bugbears on the march and elven refugees. This is the way it should be: horse before cart. The adventures are the place in the campaign where the rubber meets the road, so should be put first and foremost in terms priority and of meeting their needs IMO.

How do you determine why antagonists are acting a certain way, and why events are taking place?

Campaign arcs of a bunch of adventures bolted together, or in a less railroady campaign, an "adventure playground" which the players can interact with, and the results of their interaction determining the course of the campaign arc. Afterwards, once you've invented the villains and organisations which the adventures need, maybe you can invent entire cultures and towns to support these NPCs. All of this can be improvised if you've spent all your time on elven migrations set a thousand years ago, but such time is much better spent elsewhere IMO, for reasons I've detailed.

How do you play NPCs with no culture to draw upon?

Invent the NPC first, then the culture which he or she requires. Yes, you can have a single BBEG as the cause of an entire culture, because the BBEG is more important to the campaign than his culture is, in most cases.

How do you make these elements consistent?

By inventing the consistent setting as a result of the needs of the adventures. This is not a tall order; if your campaign arc requires a recurring NPC who is a gnome with a crazy uncle who invents stuff for him, you put gnomes and a crazy uncle gnome somewhere in your setting. If your adventure calls for pegasus knights, you can incorporate them somewhere into the setting.

Much more stifling is needing a pegasi knight in your adventure, and in fact an entire fortress of eyrie knights fighting dragons like that Elmore painting, but knowing that your campaign setting has nowhere for a culture with pegasus knights to come from, let alone an eyrie city on the map. You discard the idea, your adventure suffers, and the campaign is worse off for it.

I would argue that in answering any of these questions, you are creating a setting- the discussion here is mostly about scale.

Yes, it is. Too much time is spent on macro-level material of dubious usefulness because PCs cannot interact with it until it's micro-level manifestation is invented, and such material is put up as higher in priority (and has much more time spent on it) than the micro-level material that PCs actually interact with, imposing arbitrary restrictions on the actual nature of the campaign. This has it precisely backwards, IMO.

 

[rounser]

No, this is a problem with D&D campaign design for YOU. I have no problem with dungeons or "railroady" adventure paths. Those adventure paths which you seem to dismiss so off handly are a great resource for those of us who are not inclined to do things the exact same way that you do. I'm running one with a group right now that I'm pretty sure if they were unhappy with it they'd let me know, but they havent and they seem to be having a good time having a go at it.

I don't really have a problem with adventure paths or dungeons (although big dungeon crawls do generally bore me, to be more specific...they're generally not very well designed IMO, resulting in quantity over quality) - but I don't agree that they're all that D&D can be. In support of them, I think the game would benefit from claiming the wilderness and the cities in a similar fashion to these successful models, or adopting an adventure path model which is less linear and devoid of meaningful player effect upon the campaign than simply "success or TPK".

Based on what is published, dungeons and "adventure paths" are seemingly the best models that D&D is able to support, alongside improvised play, and it could be argued that they're the same thing, because adventure paths are usually little more than a string of dungeons tied together with hooks and an overarching story. The fact that you like them is fine - in fact, it probably makes my point...do you understand the idea of applying the lessons learnt from these models to other environments? I can only shrug if you see no point in doing so, because most people assume that D&D's scope extends beyond these models.

 

[buzz]

Without a setting, how do you make the players feel like their actions have impact? How do you determine what type of adventures to set? How do you determine why antagonists are acting a certain way, and why events are taking place? How do you play NPCs with no culture to draw upon? How do you make these elements consistent?

I think it depends on how much your group cares about big-picture issues like this. I mean, I've played in and have run sessions using modules without any explicit setting other than the basic D&D tropes. The various adventure path series by both WotC and Paizo generally have no setting beyond the scope of what's needed for the adventures themselves: Diamond Lake, Cauldron, or whatever that little town was from Sunless Citadel.

I get the impression that we're really talking about here is scope. You could certainly argue that Cauldron is the setting for Shackled City, and some details about it needed to be fleshed out in the process of developing the adventure path. IMO, this is still in the realm of adventure design rather than setting design. You're still focused on that one area of the world that's needed to make play happen.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

I didn't really have a problem with adventure paths or dungeons (although big dungeon crawls do generally bore me, to be more specific...they're generally not very well designed IMO, resulting in quantity over quality.) In support of them, I think the game would benefit from claiming the wilderness and the cities in a similar fashion to these successful models.

For me, the way to deal with big dungeons is to have the PC's go into it for a specific reason not just ot wander around. That way if you can use that specific locale several times if need be for different purposes depending on the need.

As for Wilderness and Cities, I had a DM who ran really good wilderness and city adventures so i tend to model the way I run those types of adventures after him. But I agree that Wilderness and cities, done right would be a successful models as well.

Dungeons and "adventure paths" are seemingly the best models that D&D is able to support, alongside improvised play. The fact that you like them is fine - in fact, it probably makes my point...do you understand the idea of applying the lessons learnt from these models to other environments? I can only shrug if you see no point in doing so, because most people assume that D&D's scope extends beyond these models.

I do see the value in applying the lessons to other models. You can have site based scenarios that are Wilderness based or city based I understand this as well and to be honest some of my favorite sessions have been areas that arent really classic dungeon scenarios. Even in the adventure path that I'm running the PC's were trying to get some information about some grave robbers in the town of Diamond Lake. A big part of the fun was watching the PC's navigate the landscape of the town trying to ask investigate without trying to be noticed. When they did finally confront the robbers I thought that the situation was about to escalate into violence, but quick thinking by the PC's coupled with some really good Diplomacy rolls and they got the information that they needed.

I also look to books like FFG CITYWORKS and CITYSCAPE (which I havent read yet) for wilderness I like the various WOTC enviornment books and FFG WILDSCAPE for ideas.
Honestly, I think that our goals are very similar but we just have different methods to achieve them.

 

[buzz]

That's only if you agree, which some do not, that those are the only things you need or use to generate good adventures.

They may not be the only things, but they're the Top 4. Omit any one of them and you don't have an adventure.

 

[buzz]

In the best of all cases, when I DM a campaign (as opposed to a one-shot), the players are not aware of a "prepped scenario" and go about their business persuing their own goals and finding adventure where they may. I prefer to have a setting prepared and allow the players to explore it as they will. It's probably why I have run so few store-bought adventures over the last 30+ years and probably why, when I do, it is more along the lines of a mini setting with an adventure overlay. It might also be why the dungeon-as-adventure format proved so popular; it is actually a setting wherein, in many cases, lies adventure, rather than an adventure. I've also run one-shots where the players opted to go in directions unanticipated and to which I had to respond with adventures and challenges drawn from setting materials rather than what I had planned specifically for that game.

Again, though, you've obviously set up the expectation for your group that what you're prepping is support for their ability to pursue their own tangents. This is awesome, but I know that, in my case, I don't have enough time to prep this kind of D&D game on a regular basis.

I'd bet dollars to donuts that the more common situation (it's true for my two D&D groups 99% of the time) is the group that's agreed to play through a given product ("Let's do Expedition to Castle Ravenloft") or take on what the DM has to throw at them for the night. In that case, announcing that you're going to ignore the plot seeds in Diamond Lake (AoW) and go exploring off the map would be, IMO, dickly behavior.