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What do you want in a published adventure? / Adventure design best practices?
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7164501" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>A worthy goal for certain types of adventures - most of the Encounters modules prior to Crystal Cave were like that. Just pick it up and run the chapter for that session, even if it's the middle of the season and you hadn't looked at it before, sometimes even hadn't DM'd before. (Crystal Cave, though, was easily one of the best Encounters modules, probably because it branched a little here and there and felt less rail-roady, even if it meant the DM needed a little prep, and it played better if tables stuck together and attendance was consistent.)</p><p></p><p>It'd be ideal for intro modules like LMoP to run well with little or no prep, and an intro module that ran well in the hands of a novice DM would be the Holy Grail (pregens with pre-picked spells, and extensive notes for the DM on handle spells and checks that'd likely come up might be a way to go at it).</p><p></p><p> I vaguely remember that bit of the DMG. One of the things that struck me about 4e was how bizarrely easy it was to prep & run: when I had an idea for a convention game that didn't get scheduled (it was too short for the slots at that con), so never prepped for, and then suddenly had a chance to run in open gaming, I happened to have some pregen characters (which was good, because a single character, IMX, takes longer to build than a whole 'day's worth of encounters!), so passed those out, and, in the few minutes everyone was picking out which character to play, flipped through my MM and created four 4th level encounters, re-skinning two of them in the process to match the game's elemental theme (a black dragon as a water elemental, and specters as air elementals). </p><p></p><p>I ran it a few more times over the years, with more elaborate pregens, spent more time prepping encounters, and added a 'skill challenge.' Those were better, I'm sure, but that first time was just fine, too.</p><p></p><p>5e, IMX, lends itself to minimal prep very differently. If I don't have enough time to prep a 5e game (which is typical), I'll just improv everything at the table. Works great, and if I get anything 'wrong,' well, that was a Ruling. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7164501, member: 996"] A worthy goal for certain types of adventures - most of the Encounters modules prior to Crystal Cave were like that. Just pick it up and run the chapter for that session, even if it's the middle of the season and you hadn't looked at it before, sometimes even hadn't DM'd before. (Crystal Cave, though, was easily one of the best Encounters modules, probably because it branched a little here and there and felt less rail-roady, even if it meant the DM needed a little prep, and it played better if tables stuck together and attendance was consistent.) It'd be ideal for intro modules like LMoP to run well with little or no prep, and an intro module that ran well in the hands of a novice DM would be the Holy Grail (pregens with pre-picked spells, and extensive notes for the DM on handle spells and checks that'd likely come up might be a way to go at it). I vaguely remember that bit of the DMG. One of the things that struck me about 4e was how bizarrely easy it was to prep & run: when I had an idea for a convention game that didn't get scheduled (it was too short for the slots at that con), so never prepped for, and then suddenly had a chance to run in open gaming, I happened to have some pregen characters (which was good, because a single character, IMX, takes longer to build than a whole 'day's worth of encounters!), so passed those out, and, in the few minutes everyone was picking out which character to play, flipped through my MM and created four 4th level encounters, re-skinning two of them in the process to match the game's elemental theme (a black dragon as a water elemental, and specters as air elementals). I ran it a few more times over the years, with more elaborate pregens, spent more time prepping encounters, and added a 'skill challenge.' Those were better, I'm sure, but that first time was just fine, too. 5e, IMX, lends itself to minimal prep very differently. If I don't have enough time to prep a 5e game (which is typical), I'll just improv everything at the table. Works great, and if I get anything 'wrong,' well, that was a Ruling. ;) [/QUOTE]
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