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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6491220" data-attributes="member: 4937">The first obviously shifts in how modules are written in the TSR cannon are probably 'X2: Castle Amber' and 'UK1: Beyond the Crystal Cave'.  Ravenloft in a lot of ways could be considered, "Return to Castle Amber", in the sense that it revisits the concepts of that module and enlarges on them.  But of the early story modules, nothing I know of compares to UK1 in terms of its modernity.   And in terms of development as a story, the first modern adventure path is probably Hickman's earlier work, I3, I4, and I5 - collectively called "Desert of Desolation".  Gygax's own adventure path in GDQ is definitely intended as an adventure path, but its almost entirely site driven.  U1, U2, U3 in my opinion represents  an intermediate stage in the growth, with the first module U1 being very modern, but U2 and U3 intending to be story driven but implemented very much like an entry from the G series and as such in my opinion end up falling flat.   Desert of Desolation on the other hand takes that site driven format and goes with it in the same direction UK1 did, trying to make the players participants in the completion of a highly literary story that began long before them.  It's I3-I5 that in my opinion lead directly to the DL series.I'm actually a big fan of the DL series, but I do see where it goes wrong and why we've never really been able to write a better story format game and share it.  The big problem with AP designs is that the are focused very highly on writing about what the PC's do and handling it, with a very narrow range of assumptions regarding PC behavior.   Often there are huge disconnects on the part of designer between what he prepares for and what he expects players to do and what players operating without his knowledge will infer from a scene or will find logical.  Ideally you would focus not on PC behavior, which the GM can't control, but on NPC behavior and motives - which the GM can.  But the big problem there that I don't think anyone has overcame is that PC's actions can influence NPC behavior and motives beyond the point where you can reasonably infer what the current game state is at any given time.  Real DMs deal with this by creating the material on the fly either in session or between it (or usually both), but there seems to be no easy way to share that material and the normal methodology of story telling doesn't provide good examples.I think DL dealt with that better than is commonly realized, but the actual advice they give you about staying on the rails is generally bad.  DL gives you an enormous amount of useful setting information, excellent structure for making a story in that setting, and great literary structure to its reoccurring bad guys.  But it makes the mistake of thinking that the job of an adventure module writer is to tell the story that is going to happen during the adventure, instead of enabling people to make their own stories.   The biggest flaw of the DL modules is that they usually give very bad advice on how to railroad.  I think they play really well with a skilled group of players, unique PC's, and a DM willing to enable the PC's to shape the story in unexpected directions.  But the flaw that no one has yet found the solution to is telling DM's how to lay new rails as opposed to yanking the train back on the expected one.  DL did however spawn a ton of modules in the 2e era that learned exactly the wrong lesson, dropping DL's strengths, and adopting its weaknesses as if those weaknesses where the strengths.  Very likely the main problem here is one of cost, but I see other flawed assumptions holding people back as well.  For example, unlike DL which explicitly advices you against making the game your own, or even early Hickman with his limited railroading, Gygaxian or Judges Guild modules do very much allow for groups to make their own stories.  A lot of people seem to believe that this proves that "that's the way to do things", especially those burned by bad railroading.  But Gygaxian don't actually empower the GM to make a story in anyway.  All they are actually doing is not explicitly getting in the way.  But since they don't generally have any elements that make for a story, any story that shows up can't be blamed on the module but is just a testimony to the skill of the GM rather than the writer.  I really think Hickman's early work in "Desert of Desolation" was on the right path, and DL1 in a lot of ways looks like it.  But the later flashes of brilliance in the design - like the 'martyrdom' bonus for a PC dying in battle at the Tower of the High Clerist - just aren't consistently there.   And as much as you can criticize DL, I'm not sure anyone has ever advanced the art of module design significantly past that point in the many years since then.   Age of Worms and Savage Tide for me showed flashes of just utter brilliance, but were marred in many ways.  I've got hope though.  One of these days, someone is going to put it all together - something that is to adventure modules what say Sandman is to comic books.Ravenloft gets something most adventures since then haven't - in an RPG, map = story.  The Ravenloft map remains to this day the best map of an adventure ever.   My only complaint is that wilderness map isn't up to the same quality, creating a 'Small World' that I'm not hugely fond of.Back in the 90's Shadow Run tried to adopt the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' design to some of its modules.  I never played them, but reading them was very interesting in terms of the layout and the detail they were trying to provide to GMs.I wasn't impressed by "Red Hand of Doom".  The over all structure of, "Save kingdom from invading army", I liked.  But compared to again - Dragon Lance - the deftness with which they played that out and the range of mini-games used to establish "No really, you are at war and you are making a difference", was lacking.</blockquote>

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