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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stormonu" data-source="post: 9214482" data-attributes="member: 52734">The issues with campaign-length adventures is one of the main reasons I prefer the old shorter adventures from 1E.  A lot of campaign-length adventures have to spend a lot of wordage on properly connecting the scenes, anticipating the player's likely course of action and explaining it all to the DM.  Most fail to do a properly adequate job.So, on that note, my criteria is a follows:0) It must be interesting and fantastical in some way.   If I as a DM can't feel energized to run it, I won't.  Besides being interesting, it should also feel magical and fantastical in some way and not just a medieval (peasant) simulator*.   Also, it should sound fun for the players - something like Tomb of Horrors sounds like great fun for the DM, but no player would agree.1) Must not be a railroad.  While the adventure should adequately detail the likely course of PC action, it should also be aware of possible branches and offer at least rudimentary detail (and maps, damn it!) for such side quests.2) Must tell the DM up front what's going to happen.  For example, no waiting until the 3rd act to tell me that the NPC that's been accompanying the PCs all along is about to betray them because they actually work for the BBEG.3) Must be logical.  Not only should the overarching adventure make sense, but NPC motivations should be believable and the locations make sense in the PCs absence.  There's a lot of art behind this, but I've seen many a case where if the PCs weren't involved, the whole thing wouldn't make a lick of sense.4) No ex machina ending.  When the final scene ends, the players must feel that it was their direct action that brought about victory.  While it can allow for some mcguffin to weaken the final enemy or set right some wrong, it was the PCs who hunted it down, wielded it and activated the victory conditions through much difficulty.   Same goes for NPC interaction - some random NPC doesn't swoop in fix the end, though the PCs may have tracked down the individual and through much difficulty (that not even the NPC could perform) set up the situation so the NPC could perform their final act.* As a side note, I personally hate character funnels partly for this reason, as well as taking away the character's feeling of being extraordinary rather than plain lucky.</blockquote>

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