Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 192941" data-attributes="member: 172">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.</blockquote>

Verification