What you want in a module
- Thread starter BlueMonsterKu
- Start date
BiggusGeekus
That's Latin for "cool"
* Maps (others have said this, but I'm in full agreement)
* I will give any module one (1) rules-breaking event. More than one (1) rules-breaking event and at least one of the players is going to get ticked.
* A coherent plot and story please. If a King asks a bunch of first-level squips to perform a task for him rather than send someone anyone else, I'm going to have some 'splaining to do.
* I will give any module one (1) rules-breaking event. More than one (1) rules-breaking event and at least one of the players is going to get ticked.
* A coherent plot and story please. If a King asks a bunch of first-level squips to perform a task for him rather than send someone anyone else, I'm going to have some 'splaining to do.
jasper
Rotten DM
cross reference especially if the creature could be two places.
Like the devils then baz what ever were in speaker in dreams
It could be simple like
kobolds mm 45.
maps with postions mark if important.
Ex trogs and bear in forge
I will to pay more for art work like the coin series from Kalamar.
Like the devils then baz what ever were in speaker in dreams
It could be simple like
kobolds mm 45.
maps with postions mark if important.
Ex trogs and bear in forge
I will to pay more for art work like the coin series from Kalamar.
Psion
Adventurer
This list looks more like don'ts that do's, but I think if adventure writers follow these guidelines, the average adventure would improve dramatically. If you look at my reviews, you will see that very few adventures rate a 5. There is a reason for that.
First off, I am so sick of adventures with the basic structure "PCs happen upon beleagured village, PCs are compelled to save village from threat in nearby dungeon/castle/tower". It seems like about 70% of adventures and 90% of mini adventures use this structure. C'mon, guys! Come up with something new! If you use this structre, at least put something new or interesting into it.
Adventures, unless you are marketing it as part of a campaign setting, should be very portable. Make allowances for the possibility the the DM won't have a location that fits an excrucuatingly specific pattern. A forest largely inhabited by monsters you could probabably work with. A forest east of a desert and west of a montain range and sourth of a glacier might be abit more of a task.
Other situational factors should also be flexible.
Make the important plot points exceedingly obvious. It is difficult for a DM to pick up something and run it quickly if he has to worry about whether something he wants to change will impact the adventures later. Important plot points, events, and clues should be flagged as such.
If you can't avoid railroading, don't write event based adventures (*coff*standingstone*coff*)
When it comes to site based adventures, give me some reason to run your adventure rather than use Jamis' dungeon generator. Any fool can populate a cavern complex. Try for interesting premises, events, and situations to make it more than just another dungeon crawl.
Maps should have a correct and beleivable scale (*coff*FFE*coff*) and a clear and readable key. Use a 5' grid wherever combat is the least bit likely to occur (*coff*AEG*coff*).
Whenever the PCs would have to make a choice, don't assume that they do the obvious thing. Try to think about what other things the PCs might try. If it is really necessary that the PCs follow a given path, include troubleshooting notes to give ideas to get the PCs back on the given path. Its better yet to make allowences for different options.
Finally, and this is a biggie that lots of would be reviewers brush under the rug: avoid plot bottlenecks. This is especially true for heavily event based adventures, but I have also seen it in segments on dungeons and linking events in hybrid site/event adventures. If there is a single event/occurance/puzzle/observation that the players are required to overcome, if there is any chance that they will miss it, you are setting the GM up for a headache. Worse yet, if you put several seemingly easy challenges in series, you make it much more likely that the PCs will not do/acheive one of the steps. Try putting challenges in parallel -- this increases the chance that the pcs will be successful and give the players options.
In the same vein, if you must include a really difficult puzzle or trap, don't use it to guard a key point in the adventure... use it to guard a bonus instead. That way, if they fail to overcome the obstacle, life (and the adventure) goes on.
First off, I am so sick of adventures with the basic structure "PCs happen upon beleagured village, PCs are compelled to save village from threat in nearby dungeon/castle/tower". It seems like about 70% of adventures and 90% of mini adventures use this structure. C'mon, guys! Come up with something new! If you use this structre, at least put something new or interesting into it.
Adventures, unless you are marketing it as part of a campaign setting, should be very portable. Make allowances for the possibility the the DM won't have a location that fits an excrucuatingly specific pattern. A forest largely inhabited by monsters you could probabably work with. A forest east of a desert and west of a montain range and sourth of a glacier might be abit more of a task.
Other situational factors should also be flexible.
Make the important plot points exceedingly obvious. It is difficult for a DM to pick up something and run it quickly if he has to worry about whether something he wants to change will impact the adventures later. Important plot points, events, and clues should be flagged as such.
If you can't avoid railroading, don't write event based adventures (*coff*standingstone*coff*)
When it comes to site based adventures, give me some reason to run your adventure rather than use Jamis' dungeon generator. Any fool can populate a cavern complex. Try for interesting premises, events, and situations to make it more than just another dungeon crawl.
Maps should have a correct and beleivable scale (*coff*FFE*coff*) and a clear and readable key. Use a 5' grid wherever combat is the least bit likely to occur (*coff*AEG*coff*).
Whenever the PCs would have to make a choice, don't assume that they do the obvious thing. Try to think about what other things the PCs might try. If it is really necessary that the PCs follow a given path, include troubleshooting notes to give ideas to get the PCs back on the given path. Its better yet to make allowences for different options.
Finally, and this is a biggie that lots of would be reviewers brush under the rug: avoid plot bottlenecks. This is especially true for heavily event based adventures, but I have also seen it in segments on dungeons and linking events in hybrid site/event adventures. If there is a single event/occurance/puzzle/observation that the players are required to overcome, if there is any chance that they will miss it, you are setting the GM up for a headache. Worse yet, if you put several seemingly easy challenges in series, you make it much more likely that the PCs will not do/acheive one of the steps. Try putting challenges in parallel -- this increases the chance that the pcs will be successful and give the players options.
In the same vein, if you must include a really difficult puzzle or trap, don't use it to guard a key point in the adventure... use it to guard a bonus instead. That way, if they fail to overcome the obstacle, life (and the adventure) goes on.
Kalendraf
Explorer
I agree with most of the great comments above. These are a few I want to add to, and some that I didn't see brought up that I think are important:
- If the module is going to be large (for example, a long event based or large dungeon crawl) please provide easy methods to take breaks in the action. Some play groups like my own may only be able to get in 2 to 3 hours in a single session, and it's much easier to handle this if such considerations are written into the module. Most large dungeon crawls tend to take far longer than this to complete. Related to this, it may be that the same cast of characters can't arrive for each session, so having a method to explain characters sudden absense or arrival is incredibly useful as well.
- Give the party a very good reason for tackling this adventure. Involve them somehow or offer a decent enough reward. Don't just assume that a party will simply be motivated to help those in need and jump right into your adventure. Not everyone plays good characters, and in many cases they may not care about the events unless they are effected directly by them.
- Truly flesh out the NPC's. IMHO, the strength of an adventure is most limited by 2 factors - the plot and its NPC's. Strongly developed NPC's can make up for some weakness in the plot, and the converse is also true to some degree. However, I find it much easier to run well-developed NPC's as the DM, rather than try to keep a story interesting when the NPC's are bland or not even developed at all. If the NPC is going to talk to the party, then provide a list of suggested responses for various questions. This can greatly help to lessen the burden on the DM, as well as provide more clues as to their personality.
- Include commonly used skill check info results related to the adventure. Examples would include Gather Information rumors that can be found (have a list of infos with a DC and the appropriate fact or rumor).
- Keep the adventure as modular as possible. This often requires you to keep certain pieces of information rather simple or basic. For example, which god you choose should likely be listed as generically as possible. Any location history should be written to make it easy to drop into any world. If you keep a history to a much more local basis and avoid grand events such as wide-sweeping events it helps to allow the module to be dropped in anywhere. For example, a history that mentions a local baron's past is ok, as is a localized disaster such as a forest fire or a drought - each of those can usually be worked in fairly easy to any campaign setting. But histories that require past or present events like continental wars may not be very easy to shoehorn into a campaign.
- Keep the EL's reasonable. Too many of the modules I've seen have unrealistic EL's that are often way too high for the suggested party level. So don't go throwing an EL12 finale into your module suggested for characters level 5.
- Along that same line, don't classify the suggested character level with a broad range. There's a major difference between even a couple levels of characters, especially at lower levels. So instead of classifying an adventure as being suggested for levels 3 to 6, be more specific and say the level you really intend it for (for, example level 5). Obviously, different parties will handle it differently, but if you are consistent in your suggested levels, DM's will learn to adjust this. The broad range method makes this much harder to diagnose.
- Assume that characters are going to do unexpected things, and take unexpected paths in the environment. If your map has 1 primary and intended way in, but also has a secret back way in that is only intended for the villains, assume that a smart party may uncover this and use this path instead. Also, assume that a party may find yet another alternate path using magical spells such as stoneshape to entirely bypass the expected route.
- Remember there are 3-dimensions and many spells allow you to act in them. Spells like Spiderclimb, Levitate or Flying, or druid shapechange abilities may totally foil a well-planned 2-dimensional trap or pursuit.
- Avoid "Save the World" styles of adventures. It's fun to run these once in a while, but after you've done it once, they tend to lose their appeal. A much better style is just to have the group "Save their own hides", which tends to be a lot more interesting.
- Finally, balance the risk with the rewards. Try to follow the suggested tables in the DMG. If the adventure is rather easy, don't give out an over-abundance of treasure. On the other hand, if the party will need to overcome tremendous odds to survive, then by all means, award them well. Such rewards can include magic, but even large sums of gold or other mundane items (property deeds, a few crates full of masterwork tools, etc) can be just as rewarding, and often more believeable.
- If the module is going to be large (for example, a long event based or large dungeon crawl) please provide easy methods to take breaks in the action. Some play groups like my own may only be able to get in 2 to 3 hours in a single session, and it's much easier to handle this if such considerations are written into the module. Most large dungeon crawls tend to take far longer than this to complete. Related to this, it may be that the same cast of characters can't arrive for each session, so having a method to explain characters sudden absense or arrival is incredibly useful as well.
- Give the party a very good reason for tackling this adventure. Involve them somehow or offer a decent enough reward. Don't just assume that a party will simply be motivated to help those in need and jump right into your adventure. Not everyone plays good characters, and in many cases they may not care about the events unless they are effected directly by them.
- Truly flesh out the NPC's. IMHO, the strength of an adventure is most limited by 2 factors - the plot and its NPC's. Strongly developed NPC's can make up for some weakness in the plot, and the converse is also true to some degree. However, I find it much easier to run well-developed NPC's as the DM, rather than try to keep a story interesting when the NPC's are bland or not even developed at all. If the NPC is going to talk to the party, then provide a list of suggested responses for various questions. This can greatly help to lessen the burden on the DM, as well as provide more clues as to their personality.
- Include commonly used skill check info results related to the adventure. Examples would include Gather Information rumors that can be found (have a list of infos with a DC and the appropriate fact or rumor).
- Keep the adventure as modular as possible. This often requires you to keep certain pieces of information rather simple or basic. For example, which god you choose should likely be listed as generically as possible. Any location history should be written to make it easy to drop into any world. If you keep a history to a much more local basis and avoid grand events such as wide-sweeping events it helps to allow the module to be dropped in anywhere. For example, a history that mentions a local baron's past is ok, as is a localized disaster such as a forest fire or a drought - each of those can usually be worked in fairly easy to any campaign setting. But histories that require past or present events like continental wars may not be very easy to shoehorn into a campaign.
- Keep the EL's reasonable. Too many of the modules I've seen have unrealistic EL's that are often way too high for the suggested party level. So don't go throwing an EL12 finale into your module suggested for characters level 5.
- Along that same line, don't classify the suggested character level with a broad range. There's a major difference between even a couple levels of characters, especially at lower levels. So instead of classifying an adventure as being suggested for levels 3 to 6, be more specific and say the level you really intend it for (for, example level 5). Obviously, different parties will handle it differently, but if you are consistent in your suggested levels, DM's will learn to adjust this. The broad range method makes this much harder to diagnose.
- Assume that characters are going to do unexpected things, and take unexpected paths in the environment. If your map has 1 primary and intended way in, but also has a secret back way in that is only intended for the villains, assume that a smart party may uncover this and use this path instead. Also, assume that a party may find yet another alternate path using magical spells such as stoneshape to entirely bypass the expected route.
- Remember there are 3-dimensions and many spells allow you to act in them. Spells like Spiderclimb, Levitate or Flying, or druid shapechange abilities may totally foil a well-planned 2-dimensional trap or pursuit.
- Avoid "Save the World" styles of adventures. It's fun to run these once in a while, but after you've done it once, they tend to lose their appeal. A much better style is just to have the group "Save their own hides", which tends to be a lot more interesting.
- Finally, balance the risk with the rewards. Try to follow the suggested tables in the DMG. If the adventure is rather easy, don't give out an over-abundance of treasure. On the other hand, if the party will need to overcome tremendous odds to survive, then by all means, award them well. Such rewards can include magic, but even large sums of gold or other mundane items (property deeds, a few crates full of masterwork tools, etc) can be just as rewarding, and often more believeable.
Frostmarrow
First Post
At least one well prepared role-playing opportunity such as any of the following:
* Peace talks
* Auction
* Who gets to be mayor negotiations
* Who's who in town party?
* Stuck in an elevator with a stranger scene
At least one well prepared battle with tactical and strategic considerations such as one of the following:
* Help out the border keep's defenses against the orcish hord that arrives tomorrow
* Get the kid out of here!
* Kobolds, damned kobolds
* Win the tournament to win the favors of the fair maiden in the know
* Coordinate the local peasants fight against the evil robber baron's manse
At least one of the following hand-outs:
* Full color map
* A diary or journal
* A battle mat
* A collection of hand written letters, charters or other documents
* $200
* Peace talks
* Auction
* Who gets to be mayor negotiations
* Who's who in town party?
* Stuck in an elevator with a stranger scene
At least one well prepared battle with tactical and strategic considerations such as one of the following:
* Help out the border keep's defenses against the orcish hord that arrives tomorrow
* Get the kid out of here!
* Kobolds, damned kobolds
* Win the tournament to win the favors of the fair maiden in the know
* Coordinate the local peasants fight against the evil robber baron's manse
At least one of the following hand-outs:
* Full color map
* A diary or journal
* A battle mat
* A collection of hand written letters, charters or other documents
* $200
Voadam
Legend
Provide hooks for the interesting background information on NPC, item or event history to come out in game.
Consistency editing. An island marked as 3 miles long on the map should not have multiple cities one of which is described in the text as stetching on for miles (see web of illusions).
Avoid Deus ex Machina.
Do provide an outline in the beginning of important plot events. Feast of goblyns is good in this way.
I prefer competent to incompetent npcs.
Consistency editing. An island marked as 3 miles long on the map should not have multiple cities one of which is described in the text as stetching on for miles (see web of illusions).
Avoid Deus ex Machina.
Do provide an outline in the beginning of important plot events. Feast of goblyns is good in this way.
I prefer competent to incompetent npcs.
Length...I think gamers like 320 page adventures more than they like 32 page adventures. Less work in gluing a campaign together, if you're not inclined that way, and easier to get excited about. Even if they don't want to run such a big adventure, they can rip components out for use elsewhere if it's somewhat modular, especially if there are suggestions on how to do so in the front.
Areas to explore unrelated to the storyline...Dungeoncraft says that D&D is a game of exploration a lot of the time, yet the average adventure hangs sites and events only off the main plotline, and neglects to provide lairs and encounters that PCs can just go and find if they wander around.
Fleshing out NPCs and urban areas...Slapping together enough key personality, appearance and role features for an NPC, along with a note on what they may be doing at the time the PCs meet them, really doesn't take that much space if the author sticks to a few evocative keywords for the DM to refer to. It saves DMs having to make notes in the margins in order to compensate for the horde of faceless NPCs the module writer has created if they skimp on detail.
Areas to explore unrelated to the storyline...Dungeoncraft says that D&D is a game of exploration a lot of the time, yet the average adventure hangs sites and events only off the main plotline, and neglects to provide lairs and encounters that PCs can just go and find if they wander around.
Fleshing out NPCs and urban areas...Slapping together enough key personality, appearance and role features for an NPC, along with a note on what they may be doing at the time the PCs meet them, really doesn't take that much space if the author sticks to a few evocative keywords for the DM to refer to. It saves DMs having to make notes in the margins in order to compensate for the horde of faceless NPCs the module writer has created if they skimp on detail.
I'd add to that to make the background story eventually visible to players. Dungeon magazine is particularly guilty of setting up a wonderful justification for an adventure with a rich backstory, and never letting PCs know what that was. Perhaps Scooby Doo is a model here, where the reasons for why everything happened is somehow explained to the PCs at the end of the episode, and things make more sense!
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I agree with most everyone so far. Maps are very important to me. A handout of $200 would probably be a little cost prohibitive for most DMs to use since the publisher would probably make it hardbound and color it and charge $239.95 for it. What I really buy an adventure for is stuff I can steal or drop into my setting with little or no effort. Of course it's hard for a publisher to predict what knid of game every DM is running, so obviously no module will hit with everyone 100% of the time. Also, I really go for good writing. And, the thing that hacks me off more than anything is when a room descrition or read-aloud tells the players what their characters feel emotionally. "The writhing mass of tentacles rfightens you." BS. Players decide how their characters react to any situation. It's fine to describe the five senses, and even extra sensory stuff sometmies, but never tell a player he feels fear, anger, or even happiness unless he is under some sort of compulsion. Well, that's my opinion anyway. Your opinion may vary. The most important thing for me is that the adventure is fun for me and for my players. Otherwise, why bother, right?
JoeGKushner
Adventurer
This is a quote from my review of Castle Dunmere from OgreCave.
Any company or authors interested in making a d20 adventure should ask themselves the following questions before beginning:
1. Will we have top notch art?
2. Will we have originality, or a unique twist of a classic theme?
3. Will we have a great setting?
4. Will we have a competitive price?
5. Will we have great web support?
6. Will we make effective use of the inside cover?
7. Will we keep advertising inside the product to a minimum?
8. Does it beat a single issue of Dungeon Magazine?
And those are still pretty good examples of what a module should have. Let me throw in effective layout, minimum amount of editing mistakes, and numerous entry points, and I think that my list is updated. (Just finished reading Prisoners of the Maze and boy... I like the Maze but hate eveything else.)
Any company or authors interested in making a d20 adventure should ask themselves the following questions before beginning:
1. Will we have top notch art?
2. Will we have originality, or a unique twist of a classic theme?
3. Will we have a great setting?
4. Will we have a competitive price?
5. Will we have great web support?
6. Will we make effective use of the inside cover?
7. Will we keep advertising inside the product to a minimum?
8. Does it beat a single issue of Dungeon Magazine?
And those are still pretty good examples of what a module should have. Let me throw in effective layout, minimum amount of editing mistakes, and numerous entry points, and I think that my list is updated. (Just finished reading Prisoners of the Maze and boy... I like the Maze but hate eveything else.)
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