What do you Want in a Module?

[Momeeche]

Almost no scene should come down to "fight some guys in some room."

But that is a big part of the dungeon crawl, fights in one room after another.

 

[Raven Crowking]

But that is a big part of the dungeon crawl, fights in one room after another.

Not IMHO or IME. YMMV.

 

[Lanefan]

Not IMHO or IME. YMMV.

MM, in this case, DV. (my mileage does vary)

While a fight in every room need not be a staple of every dungeon crawl adventure, such adventures certainly have their place and are relatively common. All 4e adventures that I've seen are like this, but they're not limited to 4e.

Best example ever is an old 0e Judges' Guild horror named Sword of Hope (sometimes referred to as Hoard of Soap). There, it's not only a fight in (almost) every room, but repeating fights in the same rooms with more opponents every time! And some of the monsters blatantly won't fit out the door to the rooms they're in. And if you're not careful the place will kill you dead; if you are careful it'll still kill you, just more slowly. It's wonderfully gonzo and it breaks - nay, completely shatters - just about every suggestion in this thread so far, yet I've every intention of running it again once my current gang are high enough level.

Lan-"just call me sadistic"-efan

 

[ExploderWizard]

First and foremost, a good story. You might as well be cherry-picking encounters and stringing them together without it.

Since the story is the end result of player characters interacting with the scenario I do not see how a module could possibly provide this.

 

[pemerton]

EW, my guess is that by "good story" is meant something like "game elements - NPCs, situations, conflicts etc - that are thematically and narratively compelling, and that I probably wouldn't have come up with on my own".

I gave some examples above in relation to Bastion of Broken Souls: imprisoned gods, angels who are living locks, hags who learn the secrets of the univese by reading them in dreams. Not to mention the whole premise of that adventure - that babies are being born without their souls, which have been "stolen" by some supernatural force/entity.

All of these contribute to the possibility of a "good story". For me, this contrasts pretty strongly with a module like The Sunless Citadel, which (to the best of my memory - I've read it but not run it, precisely because it didn't impress me) has no comparably engaging initial premise or game elements likely to be brought into play.

 

[Celebrim]

Since the story is the end result of player characters interacting with the scenario I do not see how a module could possibly provide this.

Try this, how much story are you likely to have if you don't have a scenario to interact with?

That's what the module provides. Would it be too pedantic to say that the module should provide a scenario, which when interacted with by the PC's, seems likely or even probable to provide an engaging story? Or, would it be too pedantic to force people to write in such a stilted manner?

 

[ExploderWizard]

Try this, how much story are you likely to have if you don't have a scenario to interact with?

That's what the module provides. Would it be too pedantic to say that the module should provide a scenario, which when interacted with by the PC's, seems likely or even probable to provide an engaging story? Or, would it be too pedantic to force people to write in such a stilted manner?

Just mentioning an interesting scenario is fine. You can relate the stories that arose from interacting with that scenario at the post game wrap-up show.