What makes a good module?

[Sholari]

My thoughts in 1997 on what makes a good module...

"I buy modules because they save me time that I don't have to properly
construct an adventure myself. Honestly, I can only spend maybe five
hours a week planning the next adventure. In that time I think of a plot,
several plot twists, the basic feel of the area, the villians, etc. What
I don't have time for are all the little details and intricacies of each
room. Generally, I look for a module with a lot of well-thought out
details and a flavor to it that brings it to life. I don't want just your
run of the mill dungeon. I can think of the run-of-them-mill dungeon in
my head in an hour. What I can't do is create something unique in an
hour.

The second thing I look for in a module is something that fits easily into
my campaign. Something that isn't going to irrevocably change my
campaign. Something that isn't going to send the Avatars crashing down to
Earth changed forever not unless that is something I want in my campaign.
A module that has some structure and plot twists but doesn't pigeonhole
characters into a chain of events is ideal.

Successful examples of modules that I feel do this is the Sinister Secret
of Saltmarsh, In the Dungeon of the Slavelords, Castle Amber, the Lost
Tomb of Martek. None of this stuff I could do on my own without weeks of
work... and also if characters wander off the expected plot I have enough
details to know how that might affect them. They all have a unique flair
to them that makes them unlike any other adventure of their type. For
example the Dungeon of the Slavelords isn't just about escaping prison.
Its about escaping prison on an island about to be destroyed with throngs
of people competing for a way off the island. It tells a story without
pigeon-holing players to specific courses of action besides their overall
goal."

That is my definition of a good module. What is yours?

 

[Sunderstone]

As you stated above, well thought out NPCs, towns, a good backstory etc. are great but I want to add more "atmosphere".

Monsters are well enough but how about more natural hazards, weather, underdark traveling dangers, element survival etc.

Also insidious traps, not instakill but somewhat lethal. Desert of Desolation like traps comes to mind as well as certain clever Tomb of Horrors type traps.

A good adventure should also incorporate many opportunities for various classes to strut their stuff, especially during a good mystery-like adventure.

Epic (world or region altering) adventures arent that bad if done well, but alot of work will be required on the part of the DM to really drive it home.
The "Incursion" thing from Dungeon comes to mind. I DM FR campaigns, and If I were willing to make some crazy adjustments to the FR world, the Incursion story would be excellent and very memorable.

Im in a rush to get out the door right now, but Ill see if I can get some more thoughts later.

 

[scourger]

Portability. It's especially important now. A module for an offshoot/variant of d20 D&D is only useful to me if I'm palying that offshoot/variant game. Otherwise, I may as well convert a cool 2e or othe source module if I'm going to have to do conversion work at all.

 

[Stone Angel]

What I look for in a module. A good core idea. A good plot twist. I do a lot of work on adventures. What I would like to see that I have yet to.

Why is it when giving a text for the DM to read to the players it will describe the temprature the smell, a dresser, a bed a couch, some books in the corner and then two trolls in the room. C'mon a room at a glance would tell you that you see two 7' green stinking, slobbering humanoids. That is just something that irks me.

I would also like a "deeper into" section in the back. Perhaps just a little blurb that could include a few things about a location not essential to the adventure. Something that could provide continuity, but not detract and send the DM and players on a goose chase. Just a couple of thoughts


The Seraph of Earth and Stone

 

[Gilladian]

One reason that descriptions of rooms leave the monsters til the last is this scenario:

DM: "you open the door and before you stand two slavering trolls. Behind them, you can see a 20x20' room. The smell of mold-"

PC 1: "I got a 17!"

DM: "What?!"

PC 2: "I start to cast fireball."

DM: "What about the books in the corner? You'll burn them up."

PC 1: "Initiative!"
DM: "Whoa! I haven't finished describing things!"
PC 2: "Who cares? I fireball 'em."

DM: Okay....

By postponing the monsters to the tail of the description, you keep the PCs attention on the room, not then encounter, until they have enough info to accurately evaluate their environment.

 

[Gnarlo]

Blackjack. And hookers.

 

[Stone Angel]

OK I can buy that is why most don't bust out with the monsters. But I mean for a sense of realism what are you going to notice first. The two humongous baddies are a water basin in the corner. Just a personal preference of my own.

The Seraph of Earth and Stone

 

[Faraer]

The sensibility: what things are likely to happen, who builds dungeons and how they're laid out, how things are described. I like the fantastic elements to be in the vein of the great 20th-century swords and sorcery.

An intriguing dynamic situation that the PCs can tip one way or another, and ideally make meaningful decisions in. Enemies and factions with enough motivation and detail for the DM to improvise their actions.

Very compact writing like the earlier modules, or bulkier writing tying the adventure in heavily to the campaign world and expanding that world, are both fine approaches.

Characters and situations that are interesting but don't go crazy in their rush for novelty, moving away from what's good and satisfying. However conventional it looks from the outside, do it as if for the first time and that will communicate itself to the DM and players. Don't succumb to gimmicks.

A dungeon environment that's fun to explore.

Rooting the adventure meaningfully in the past without requiring a new complex backstory for the whole kingdom or region where it's set.

Some attention to believable ecology, but not to excess or at the expense of fun.

I like an open-ended situation where the story is what the players do rather than being written in advance, but an amount of 'railroading' is fine and not something that should be a taboo.

It's not possible to write an adventure that's 'generic' and universally applicable, and the effort to do so too often leads to flavourless greyness or, as often, unexamined preferences of the author that are actually potentially awkward. The best you can do is to understand what the envelope of expectation is, and write without big sharp edges that stick outside that but have confidence in your style and the world in your head.


Some of these sound simple but are very hard to do in a relatively small wordcount. People have tried to duplicate the magic of the Gygax adventures, for instance, and almost always failed.

 

[philreed]

I think a problem with open adventure design in D20 is that the system is so rigid and many, many players of the game expect everything to fit perfectly in the rules as written. It restricts creativity a little when EL cannot be changed on the fly. This requires a lot of options to be written in and, no matter who the author is, really cool options will be missed.

It's unfortunate. I prefer a bit more flexibility in adventure design -- more like the 1e days -- but 3e is so rules-intensive that's hard to manage successfully.

 

[Crothian]

What I like with modules varies from campaigns to campoaigns. Now my campaign is very open ended allowing the PCs extensive freedoms on what they want to do. Modules are tough to fit into that as its really the PCs deciding what to do, and not so much the DM. Before I ran a more adventure oriented game and modules worked very well. THen I looked for ones that hada cool backstory and interesting encounters. One of my favorites was the Magic Dump by Monkeygod. It wa sa fuin, creative module that did not take its self too seriously.