Who Actually Has Time for Bloated Adventures?

[damiller]

The adventures (incursions) in Trophy Gold and Trophy Dark are basically presented as flowcharts, and the writing is very direct and economical. To the extent that they’re not a pleasure to read, unless you’re thinking of them purely as tools, and then they’re often fantastic.

ill have to look those up, always need more formats of RUNNING-friendly adventures rather than reading-friendly adventures.

 

[BrokenTwin]

We're currently near the end of part three of the PF1 version of Kingmaker, running it under GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. We're doing it because of the missing people, whom we've now found most of. We haven't found much in the way of plot structure, let along beats or epic finishes, probably because we do things rather out of order.

We're finding that the dungeon where it concludes has a few connectivity and logistical bugs. We got to the point where we'd deduced the existence of corridors that aren't on the map, After failing to find them, we took up creating our own.

Kingmaker is one of the few Paizo APs that's more sandbox than linear. My personal example, Hell's Rebels, has a few places where it branches out a bit (do you want to do A, B, or C first?), but ultimately it's a linear story. There are a few rough points, mostly when our pop-culture conceptions of rebellions run up against how rebellions tend to function in real life, but all in all the set pieces link up to each other in a way that logically makes sense in the moment, and unless you're deliberately trying to sequence break you won't have any issues following along without breaking your suspension of disbelief. Obviously, YMMV.

 

[billd91]

Yeah, it's a sad flaw to the fact that a lot of people buy adventures to read them, and not to run them. The end result is: They sell better if they're a good read. SO... adventure writers write them with this in mind.

I’m not sure it’s a flaw. I mean, I buy stuff thinking I might run them. But that doesn’t always pan out depending on how game my players are for that AP or adventure. That’s not necessarily sad for anything but my wallet.

And yes, I do prefer it if the ones I end up just reading rather than playing don’t suck as a read.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I’m not sure it’s a flaw. I mean, I buy stuff thinking I might run them. But that doesn’t always pan out depending on how game my players are for that AP or adventure. That’s not necessarily sad for anything but my wallet.

And yes, I do prefer it if the ones I end up just reading rather than playing don’t suck as a read.

Well, it's a flaw in that the phenomenon causes the designers to be reluctant to adopt a format that would make the adventure easier to RUN. I usually prefer that things do what their primary function is, and do it well, before secondary considerations.

OTOH, I shouldn't complain if it makes them sell better that way (seeing as I sell them). Bit like I said in the second half of my above post: I can't help but think that it MUST be possible to achieve both goals of a good read and easy to run.

Apparently no one has yet discovered the best format to achieve that goal.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Well, it's a flaw in that the phenomenon causes the designers to be reluctant to adopt a format that would make the adventure easier to RUN. I usually prefer that things do what their primary function is, and do it well, before secondary considerations.

OTOH, I shouldn't complain if it makes them sell better that way (seeing as I sell them). Bit like I said in the second half of my above post: I can't help but think that it MUST be possible to achieve both goals of a good read and easy to run.

Apparently no one has yet discovered the best format to achieve that goal.

STK had the flowchart. I wish it was a bit more detailed - but it was a good start
I think some adventures could have more bullet points and less text, especially for important parts. Flow chart, bullet points, box text, r-map. All that's said by a guy whose never written a module for pub, so armchair scenario designer here - like that's ever stopped me from offering an opinion lol

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I also want to say - with my high school buddies we play 2 hours a session about once a month, via zoom. We started June of 2020, and we finally finished Phandelver in May 2022, so almost 2 years exactly - for the intro adventure to level 5. This group was very mission focused, and were not "clear the dungeon and get the loot" type of party - so a lot didn't make it to the table

 

[J.Quondam]

R Maps
[...snip..]
Another way I might handle would be to create a spreadsheet with same info, but without the r-map visual linkage. Just the NPC name, Faction they belong to, encounter-chapter-volume

I really, really wish Paizo would release offical R Maps for their APs once all the books were finalized. Would make prepping for them as a GM infinitely easier.

What's "R Maps"?

 

[BrokenTwin]

What's "R Maps"?

Relationship maps. A web graph that shows you how every character relates to each other.
At least, that's what I'm talking about. I'm assuming @Eyes of Nine is referring to the same thing.

Edit Example:

 

[J.Quondam]

Relationship maps. A web graph that shows you how every character relates to each other.

Ah, gotcha! That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[dragoner]

Yeah, it's a sad flaw to the fact that a lot of people buy adventures to read them, and not to run them. The end result is: They sell better if they're a good read. SO... adventure writers write them with this in mind.

Whereas, if they wrote them to be easy to run, we'd have much, much better adventures.

I can't help but think (wish) that there is some happy medium. Personally, I want to RUN adventures, not read them. I can't imagine that an adventure written to be run would HAVE to be bad to read. I mean, I don't quite understand why anyone who wants to just read them wouldn't buy a book. I actually think that if they were done really well TO BE RUN, then the reader-types would probably still enjoy them.

It is a sort of vicious circle though, that if they are not a good read, then people rate them poorly, so they have to be a good read, either way, if one is going to sell them.