Eosin the Red said:
I think this is a pretty good point but I think that many adventures are trying to offer extras like this to get people who ordinarily would not buy an adventure to take a look.
What kind of cool tidbits make an adventure more useful than just being a module -- 2E, 3E, or 3.5E? I am looking to offer extras and want to gauge the bang for buck ratio.
To me personally? Well, pretty much the obvious:
- A cool new monster or group of monsters
- A nifty magic item or two
- A bit of world stuff ... a local city or town, or a neat cultural thing (the local rites of ascension or intrigues at the temple)
- A neat spell idea (we don't need another damage spell, but something different ... producing a magic cage around a monster out of thin air for instance)
- Class variations and/or prestige classes are cool, but I don't much use 'em myself 'cause they're hard to fit into E-Tools ;P
Thinking about cool modules from previous editions that caught my attention, there are three types that I remember: the Megadungeon, the Neat Idea, and the Anthology.
Megadungeons are pretty straightforward ... think
The Temple of Elemental Evil (or
The Dungeon of the Bear for those who like it more obscure
). The reason for getting those is obvious: instant campaign, just add players and stir! Generally speaking, as long as a megadungeon has a strong enough central hook, it's easy to forgive if some of the rooms are a little less than interesting. A room with six bugbears playing cards in a megadungeon is filler, perhaps, but that filler will help the characters beef up enough to take on the actually-important high priest in the next room.
The problem with megadungeons is that even if they
do have a strong central hook, they can get tiresome after a while. ("Geeze, another whole LEVEL of evil elementals? Can't we go rescue a merchant's daughter from evil humanoids just for variety?")
The Neat Idea, on the other hand, is something that's just such a cool image or concept that I can't wait to bounce it off my players just to see their reaction -- "Beast of Burden" from
Dungeon for instance (to reference another current thread) is neat because the "dungeon" is on the back of a colossal beast -- which is a very cool image and makes for all sorts of interesting possibilites (what happens if the beast falls down?). And plus I can just see the eyes of my players widening when they encounter that first giant footprint and the implications sink in.
Some oldskool Neat Idea modules that intrigued me enough to buy them right off the bat were
The Ghost Tower of Inverness (what happens if the tower disappears while the characters are still in it?),
Deathtrap Equalizer for T&T (now THAT'S a cool name -- what does it mean?), and
Destiny of Kings, because the cover illustration of the cleric's ghost begging the party for help struck me as such a neat image.
The Anthology, on the other hand, is several adventure ideas together, rather than a single fleshed-out scenario. Prime examples are
Tales of Lankhmar,
A Hero's Tale, or
Treasure Tales. Usually these have a handful of really good ideas and a dozen that are not that exciting. But if the handful of good ones gives me the spark I need to make a cool adventure or two on my own, it's the worth the price! These also have the advantage of not needing to conversion -- if only because you're building most of the scenario yourself anyway...
-The Gneech
