What Do You Expect of Published Adventures?

[gamerprinter]

In the second module of the Curse of the Golden Spear trilogy, Dim Spirit for the Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG), even though the adventure is laid out as a railroad, it's an accommodating rail road, meaning many of the encounters aren't tied to specific locations on the map, and if circumstances change (characters decide to go left instead right), elements follow the PCs, and the adventure continues unabated, no matter which direction the PCs actually go. At the end of the module the PCs end up at the right place. It's a railroad that doesn't feel like a railroad. And, the rest of the module and encounters in the third module depend on how the characters react to a village they enounter in the second module. There is a village that is being threatened with an attack by local ruffians. If the PCs stay and help the village - they will receive positive encounters in the rest and next module because of that. If they avoid the combat, it also has ramifications on future encounters.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

Adventures need to be written for players and organized for dungeon masters.

As a player, I don't want an adventure telling me a story where my character is more of a casual observer along for the ride than an active participant. Don't make the DM read me pages of backstory and setup then ask me what I want to do next. And I don't want to meet a cast of dozens more interesting and complex than the entire party.

As a DM, organize the adventure so I can run it with the least amount of flipping pages and reading ahead. Summarize it up front so I know what to expect, and tell me how the book is organized so I know where to look when I need something fast. Give me a toolbox, not a script. You don't know my players or my characters, so just give me some ideas and suggestions. But leave the rest to me with the tools needed in one place.

And if you're going to have nice maps for combat encounters, how about making them available for my table and minis, too! I will pay extra for accessories like battle maps and pawns/minis for my favorite adventures. I feel like I'm still owed for some of the later 3.5 edition mods when they introduced more tactical encounters with maps, and most if not all of 4e. The tiles don't count. They slid around too much and didn't connect.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The adventure should provide a reason for the motivation,

I honestly don't understand what this is so important, or even why some adventures bother to include it. In adventures that do include it, I never pay attention to that section.

 

[gamerprinter]

I honestly don't understand what this is so important, or even why some adventures bother to include it. In adventures that do include it, I never pay attention to that section.

I'm not saying it's important, rather it gives the DM and the party some direction from the get go - a motivation. They don't have to act on it, but I'd think someone purchasing the module might ask, why I didn't include a motivation, had I not. So I put them in. Does that make it important? I don't know, adventures (to me) feel absent without one...

 

[gamerprinter]

For example, I wrote a one-shot for my Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG), called Haiku of Horror: Autumn Moon Bath House, which, of course featured a traditional Japanese bath house. The only initial motivation is that a Japanese bath house is not just a bath house, but a restaurant/tavern and an inn - a nice place to stop on your journey. But then the place is haunted, so the party will encounter the ghost. In my DMing experience most adventure parties who encounter a ghost, destroy it, and move on, never taking the time to lay the ghost to rest. In this module, the party doesn't get a choice. The ghost comes with a curse tied it, those who encounter her make a -10 save vs. the curse. Those who fail, become the anchor for the ghost whenever it rejuvenates. So after destroying her, they go, and in 1-4 days she's going to rejuvenate and the party will meet her, again and again, until they lay her to rest - then the party has to solve a murder mystery. It's inspired by The Grudge, and the associated curse is called the Ju-on curse (which is Japanese for grudge, and the original Japanese name for the movie). Because unlike European ghosts who are trapped at one location, site of the murder, home they lived in life, but the Grudge ghost visits you across the city because it's you she's haunting, not the bath house. It's supposed to be Japanese horror. The motivation is built in.

 

[Jd Smith1]

So I looked over Princes of the Apocalypse yesterday, and while the maps were good, and they segregated the stat blocks to a separate chapter, their scenario summary at the start was lacking; if I hadn't found a 'how-to- on a blog, I would have dumped it right there.

 

[dragoner]

I had someone ask about Solis People of the Sun what do characters do? I answered to the best of my ability, giving a lot of different ideas, indeed the setting book contains a lot of adventure leads, though I almost wanted to ask them, what do characters do? Not playing a system where one level/xp grinds, I think things are different.

 

[Irlo]

So I looked over Princes of the Apocalypse yesterday, and while the maps were good, and they segregated the stat blocks to a separate chapter, their scenario summary at the start was lacking; if I hadn't found a 'how-to- on a blog, I would have dumped it right there.

Ugh, absolutely. If I hadn't played part of the PoA with a DM who made the first chapters really come to life, I never would have run it for my own group based on what I saw of the book. What that adventure book really needs is a bullet-pointed campaign overview, maybe a flow chart, individual scenario summaries at the start of each "dungeon," and better groundwork and options for bringing relevance to the cult leaders.

 

[TwoSix]

I generally expect them to be useless for my style of play, and thus far have been rarely disappointed.

 

[Greggy C]

Here's what I think a published campaign adventure should have:
1) Motivation for the characters (and their players) to go on the adventure.

I always thought this was an amusing change with modern D&D. Back on 1e/2e I never once had to "convince the players" to go on an adventure. They went on an adventure because that is what we got together to do. If their characters don't want to go on adventure, then the evenings entertainment is over lol.