What do you look for when you purchase an Adventure Module?
- Thread starter Herremann the Wise
- Start date
Henrix
Explorer
I'll just chime in and say that what I'm looking for in a d20 adventure these days is (apart from stuff that has already been mentioned):
a) A good coherent intrigue. No railroading, no handwaving.
b) Not a big dungeon. We've seen enough of those, and, aptly named, Dungeon comes out with three new one every month. Make it roam around various locales, cities and wilderness.
a) A good coherent intrigue. No railroading, no handwaving.
b) Not a big dungeon. We've seen enough of those, and, aptly named, Dungeon comes out with three new one every month. Make it roam around various locales, cities and wilderness.
Little things mean a lot as well. I flipped through a Kingdoms of Kalamar adventure, and found that one sequence took place in a library. The module had a complete list of books to be found in the library. Very cool!
Kalamar adventures also contain artwork handouts featuring key scenes of the adventure.
A very nice thing as well.
I would also add that a brief summary containing what is supposed to happen and in what sequence of events, should be included.
Alternatives for when things go unexepectedly or players go wild should also be included. Also remember that many dm's will adjust elements for their game, so keep things open and offer suggestions.
New monsters and or items never hurt, as long as they are portable to the campaign and not just "this adv only" items or critters.
Finally, NO RAILROADING, unless you sell TICKETS!!! The secret is making the pc's think they have chosen their path, as opposed to you making them go somewhere/do something. VERY fine line to cross here...
Kalamar adventures also contain artwork handouts featuring key scenes of the adventure.
A very nice thing as well.
I would also add that a brief summary containing what is supposed to happen and in what sequence of events, should be included.
Alternatives for when things go unexepectedly or players go wild should also be included. Also remember that many dm's will adjust elements for their game, so keep things open and offer suggestions.
New monsters and or items never hurt, as long as they are portable to the campaign and not just "this adv only" items or critters.
Finally, NO RAILROADING, unless you sell TICKETS!!! The secret is making the pc's think they have chosen their path, as opposed to you making them go somewhere/do something. VERY fine line to cross here...
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John Morrow
First Post
Herremann the Wise said:
Locations, encounters, and NPCs that I can rip out and use in my own adventures. Clever ideas for traps and puzzles. Detailed lists of interesting treasure (e.g., that list of library books mentioned earlier in the replies). Evocative artwork. As someone else also mentioned, reusable areas like villages, inns, keeps, etc. Basically, make your adventure useful to someone who wants to loot it for ideas rather than running it as intended.
Psion
Adventurer
- Brevity - Okay, there are lots of great long adventures out there. But I am mega-adventured out, and often feel "trapped" if I start one and find out I don't like it (or I simply want to try something different.) That being the case, I am more in the market for shorter adventures.
- Adaptability - Though it's not impossible, most likely I simply am NOT going to scrap my existing campaign assumptions (much less whole campaign) to use your adventure. That being the case, I need your adventure to be adaptable. That means such things as a variety of different hooks to get me involved, as well as clearly flagging and outlining power groups in your adventure and possibilites to replace them (Banewarrens set the standard here.)
- Fault tolerant - This point caused more contention between me and adventure writers than any other issue, as I was merciless on this point. Why is simple. I've seen it too many times: if you create places that they adventure can run off the tracks, they will. Don't do things like create conflicts that have a significant chance of killing the adventure if they don't turn out the way you expect.
Example 1: 1 PDF adventure I reviewed required the PCs to save an NPC from an attack in order for the adventure to go on. But run by the rules, if the PCs aren't fast, the NPC is likely to die.
Example 2: One adventure required the PCs to solve a relatively obscure puzzle to get to the end of the adventure. A well loved adventure that I was roundly criticized for panning. And to be fair, it was a nice, moody adventure that had a lot going for it. But I consider what I call "plot bottlenecks" to be one of the cardinal sins of adventure writing.
Bonus points here for handling many common cases, but providing troubleshooting notes for common trouble spots. Most often, these will address points come up during playtest. (You are playtesting, right?)
- Use the bleedin' rules - Fortunately, I don't see this much anymore. If you need to create a variant to realize what you want, fine. But say so, and don't just do it on the sly and assume a GM won't catch you. But don't circumvent or ignore existing rules. For example, one adventure totally ignored the existance of a climb skill in the characters and simply assumes a flat percentage chance that characters would fall off a narrow path, and ignored the possibility of search or disable device checks with a trap.
- Good reusable, interesting, and correct components - Despite your best efforts, I really might not give a darn about your scenario, or it's simply not a match for my current games. But good maps, interesting and complete (and correctly statted) npcs, monsters, and magic items are probably the single biggest actual value point of an adventure.
- Anticipate PC abilities; be logical, not lazy - This is a subtle point, but enough would-be adventure writers are guilty of it that it deserves mentioning. Don't just throw in a lazy clause like "no teleportation or scrying works on this plane" or "the walls are made of teleport proof rock." Anticipate what capabilities PCs might have, but don't simply snuff them out. Consider what countermeasures your villain would logically take against such efforts. Another approach is, if you see a place where divination magic, travel magic might be helpful, think of ways that they can reward the PCs for their efforts (to make them feel it is not for naught) but does not become an anti-climactic one-spell solution to the adventure.
The easiest way to do the latter is to have the villain have some tricks up his sleeve...
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For a 3e adventure, I want it fresh, exciting, plausible, ***flavourful*** - that flavour can be gothic horror, swords & sorcery, Tolkienesque high fantasy, gritty low fantasy, but there MUST be flavour - and not dominated by stat blocks. I don't care how accurate a stat block is, I do care if half the damn module is taken up by them - *ugh*.
Example of module I liked - Lost City of Gaxmoor. Loopy Roman-esque ruined city = flavour. Stat blocks sparse (& horribly inaccurate, but I don't care).
Module I hated - Bastion of Broken Souls - if it had any flavour it was Diablo with all the dark horrible fun taken out. Endless hideous stat blocks full of templates and other crap.
Example of module I liked - Lost City of Gaxmoor. Loopy Roman-esque ruined city = flavour. Stat blocks sparse (& horribly inaccurate, but I don't care).
Module I hated - Bastion of Broken Souls - if it had any flavour it was Diablo with all the dark horrible fun taken out. Endless hideous stat blocks full of templates and other crap.
Treebore
First Post
Henrix said:
Then you need to check out Ed Cha's Whitehorn modules. I believe he is the lead for Indie Press, now.
The biggest things for me in a module:
Maps, good maps. Not great (necessarily), but good, readable maps.
Fleshed out "base" locations.
Lots of NPC's, including craftsmen/tradesmen/merchants/etc...
I don't care for "new" spells, feats, or monsters, I already have at least 200,000 of each as it is.
Cool plot, even a new twist on an old idea. Which are most stories anyway.
They must be tough. Characters should have a very real chance of going down in flames or blowing apart in a spray of blood!
Workable Ecology is nice, but not manadatory.
Encounters where monsters can use the terrain to be extra deadly. Such as in the "Grey Citadel" where you run into a Shambling Mound (HUGE!) that is in the middle of a pool of water. I loved the looks on my players faces when the shambling mound grappled them and held them under water!
trancejeremy
Adventurer
Generally speaking, I like interesting NPCs and my favorite adventures are based around a small town or village.
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