D&D 5E What do you want in a published adventure? / Adventure design best practices?

[LordEntrails]

[MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION], Well...

I don't know. I go back and forth over the months and years on this. For instance, if the hold/dungeon/etc has a divine casters, create food & water (and such variants) are easy enough to allow the exclusion of a kitchen. And what wizard wouldn't make a self-emptying chamber pot? Though in a decanter of endless water, and much of the need for these banal rooms become unneeded.

Now, that said, even if you had the spells to create food, would you always want to? Probably not, but if you had a kitchen, why would it need to be a medieval kitchen equivalent? An ice box and a flameless oven wouldn't be too far out. Make it interesting.

So, how prevalent is magic? And does it's use have drawbacks? Is there a cost to pay (Darksun, et al) or a council of wizards that restrict it's use?

 

[Lanefan]

I was looking at some dungeons recently, and it brought up the question of cellars, kitchens, storage rooms, toilets, and other rooms that tend to have a bland same-ness across dungeons.

One of my favorite cartographers Herwin Wielink did a map called The Caves of Uthiam which is beautiful and evocative as a piece of art. It also has areas like "kitchen", "sleep quarters", and "storage" which feel distinctly banal compared to more fantastic areas like "Hall of the Builders" or "Crowncave."

Another example. I'm converting an old Dungeon #63 adventure called Blood and Fire; in that adventure there's a fairly interesting dungeon called The Ivory Tower surrounded by a moat of flames... with an area called "the old cellars" (which holds a roper instead of the tried-and-true otyugh! gasp!) and a nondescript "kitchen" with some slaves.

I'm curious what you think about such areas.

Should they be given brief description and just left as bland elements in otherwise fantastic dungeons? Because their contribution to the dungeon's verisimilitude overshadows any blandness?

I think they're essential. Humanoids generally have to eat, and sleep, and store their mundane stuff - it makes no sense at all that places for such aren't present (I often find myself forgetting to put in a latrine of some sort, leading to cursing and remapping once I realize my error).

Should they be cut out of most dungeons because they don't add anything interesting? "Seen one, seen them all"?

Only in the very rare cases where they can be reasonably left out. A complex built by undead and populated by nothing except they and golems? Sure, leave 'em out. A ruined castle where people used to live? It better have a kitchen and larder somewhere.

Lan-"and if there's some bland rooms in the adventure it just makes the not-so-bland ones stand out more"-efan

 

[LordEntrails]

I think they're essential. Humanoids generally have to eat, and sleep, and store their mundane stuff - it makes no sense at all that places for such aren't present (I often find myself forgetting to put in a latrine of some sort, leading to cursing and remapping once I realize my error).

Uh, spells and magic could mean that such places aren't needed. If you can conjure meals, you only need a dining hall, not a kitchen. If you have a magical chamber pot, why do you need latrine? If you have portable holes and extra-dimensional spaces, you don't need large storerooms.

That said, not all settings have such levels of available magic, and then you would need such places...

Only in the very rare cases where they can be reasonably left out. A complex built by undead and populated by nothing except they and golems? Sure, leave 'em out. A ruined castle where people used to live? It better have a kitchen and larder somewhere.

Or most high-magic settings

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=6804070]LordEntrails[/MENTION] [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] Sounds like, even though you have varying answers, you're coming at the question from a "verisimilitude" paradigm: What belongs in this dungeon?

I'm also curious about the role such rooms have at the table, during actual play. For example, do they just feel like wasted word count, at best offering the PCs a "break" from the other fantastic elements of the dungeon? Or do they have some other purpose in your games that makes such banal spaces desirable for ACTUAL PLAY purposes? Why does it matter to the players?

One D&D trope – and this is evident in the adventure I referenced earlier, Blood and Fire by Paul Baichtal in Dungeon #63 – is a secret entry through the cellars/cistern/latrine. So, if using a cellar/cistern/latrine in that way, it has an effect for actual play: giving the players another choice of entry points into the dungeon.

One thing I've encountered in my own games is when I start laying on the fantastic elements thick and heavy, the players get more engaged and ask more questions. If they then encounter, for example, a bedroom with a 1-paragraph throw-away description, they often start searching for clues that aren't there. So, from another perspective, the inclusion of banal spaces actually works against providing an interesting dungeon with things to explore. It's like they require the players to switch out of that highly engaged mode where tensions are high, they're searching for clues/traps...and just accept "yeah, it's room #22, let's move past it."

YMMV.

 

[Libramarian]

I'm also curious about the role such rooms have at the table, during actual play. For example, do they just feel like wasted word count, at best offering the PCs a "break" from the other fantastic elements of the dungeon? Or do they have some other purpose in your games that makes such banal spaces desirable for ACTUAL PLAY purposes? Why does it matter to the players?

One D&D trope – and this is evident in the adventure I referenced earlier, Blood and Fire by Paul Baichtal in Dungeon #63 – is a secret entry through the cellars/cistern/latrine. So, if using a cellar/cistern/latrine in that way, it has an effect for actual play: giving the players another choice of entry points into the dungeon.

I think you're on the right track there. Whether mundane areas are desirable depends on the overall theme of the dungeon, whether it's more of a realistic fortress/lair or "mythic underworld". But realism is not an excuse to be boring: if they're included, there should be something interesting the players can do there.

 

[LordEntrails]

I don't mean to say that these rooms should or should not be included. As mentioned earlier, I go back and forth on the answer.

I think in general verisimilitude is important. But it doesn't mean the room has to be boring or just a rest/break place. A dungeon with monsters in every room is... often boring and almost never realistic. But, breaking engagement is a concern.

Hmm, not sure what I want to say except that I don't think there is a consistent answer or correct way. There are a lot of considerations, and I think the best answer is to just consider these things when you design an dungeon.

 

[Li Shenron]

What do you want in a published adventure?

What I would really want, is an adventure that would let me go straight from buying it from the shelf to running the game, without making preparations or reading it beforehand

 

[Quickleaf]

What I would really want, is an adventure that would let me go straight from buying it from the shelf to running the game, without making preparations or reading it beforehand

Tell me more about this hypothetical direct-to-run adventure!

You have an ongoing campaign, presumably, so do you need to know how to integrate it into your game? Or does it stand on its own merits and any necessary modification is left up to you?

Also, presumably, you come across sections where you realize you want more information to understand the big picture of the adventure (e.g. a key NPC's motives)... How does this hypothetical adventure accommodate you there?

In short, tell me about the details of this adventure that allow you to do what you say!

 

[Lanefan]

[MENTION=6804070]LordEntrails[/MENTION] [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] Sounds like, even though you have varying answers, you're coming at the question from a "verisimilitude" paradigm: What belongs in this dungeon?

Of course. How else would it make sense?

I'm also curious about the role such rooms have at the table, during actual play. For example, do they just feel like wasted word count, at best offering the PCs a "break" from the other fantastic elements of the dungeon? Or do they have some other purpose in your games that makes such banal spaces desirable for ACTUAL PLAY purposes? Why does it matter to the players?

It matters as it makes the whole thing more believable and real. Also, as I said earlier, not every room in a dungeon has to be exciting - there need to be some that are bland and boring if for no other reason than to mix it uip a little.

Think of movies. They (or at least most of them - Michael Bay hasn't figured this out yet) have rises and falls in the action level as they go along, with the less active bits both providing a sensory break and serving to make the high-action bits seem all that much more exciting when they come along.

One thing I've encountered in my own games is when I start laying on the fantastic elements thick and heavy, the players get more engaged and ask more questions. If they then encounter, for example, a bedroom with a 1-paragraph throw-away description, they often start searching for clues that aren't there.

With which there is nothing wrong whatsoever. Also, the description should never be "throwaway": unless the room is or appears to be completely empty it's on you-as-DM (or on the module writer, whichever) to describe each room in roughly the same level of detail based on its contents. Obviously, an elaborate throne room will take a bit more describing than a cloistered monk's spartan chamber, but the level of detail used for one should be used for the other. The only real exception is when a series of very similar rooms are encountered one after the other such as prison cells or inn rooms or suchlike, when it's easiest to just say "It appears much the same as the room you just left".

So, from another perspective, the inclusion of banal spaces actually works against providing an interesting dungeon with things to explore. It's like they require the players to switch out of that highly engaged mode where tensions are high, they're searching for clues/traps...and just accept "yeah, it's room #22, let's move past it."

But the players/characters shouldn't have any way of knowing it's just a bland boring room until and unless they've explored it and searched for clues/traps/treasure/secret doors/etc. - unless the DM tips them off somehow, which is a straight-up DMing error.

There doesn't need to be something to find in every room. And this can also apply to great big majestic halls with fluted pillars and a ceiling lost in the darkness above - search it all you like, but what you see is what you get 'cause there ain't anything here.

Lan-"the best place to hide an important secret door is in the 6th of 8 identical bland boring sleeping chambers, because by then everyone will have given up searching"-efan

 

[guachi]

Also, a boring, bland, unused room screams "we can rest here!!!!" and that's not a bad thing. Every movie and tv show has a trope of that one room the heroes can hide in.