Rethinking module design....

[Fiffergrund]

After completing Fingers of the Forsaken Hand, and having some time to think about it, there are a few ways in which I'm unhappy with the approach I used. I'm rethinking my approach for the next module, and I'd be interested in any opinions folks might have.

1) I believe I tried too hard to "tell a story." I'm leaning toward the opinion that the background of the dungeon should have been more sparse in detail or left out entirely. Granted, the information was for the CK's benefit, but that space would probably have been better used for more encounters, monsters, or items.

2) I developed relatively few NPCs at the expense of having more available to flesh out the town. The NPCs I did detail were flavorful, but I feel that I could have accomplished a better result by offering impressions and general characteristics, rather than trying to flesh out the characters in more depth. Again, relatively few playable areas with a lot of detail that simply isn't necessary.

3) I'm unhappy with the mechanics of the dungeon. I'm unhappy with the linear nature of the module. It falls short of railroading, but not by much. While there are clear choices for PCs to make, eventually they will have to choose all of the options in order to succeed. Their only choice is the order in which things are done, and that doesn't sit right with me.

So, in reworking my approach, I'm leaning in the following direction:

A) Provide a location and encounters. There will be internal logic to the adventure, but leaving it a mystery or leaving it up to the DM/CK to flesh out is probably a better approach.

B) Avoid telling a story. Avoid a plot line. Provide hooks and the chance to pursue them, but let the actions of the players dictate the story.

C) Sketch NPCs instead of detailing them. A brief paragraph about one or two motivations and a bit about their personality is enough. If the character has important information, detail that information.

For example, the CK doesn't need to know that Haviland took over his father's shop when he got sick. It's a nice bit of filler information, but a CK can supply that. The CK simply needs to know there's a shop, what kind of shop it is, who runs it, and a couple of things about the shopkeeper that are interesting.

D) All areas of the adventure should be accessible. There should be very few restrictions on the choices characters could make within the adventure, and this includes having to open a gate with multiple keys, or having to finish one dungeon before moving on to the more dangerous dungeon, or any other artificial constraints (usually borne of plot).

Any thoughts would be welcome.
_________________
Sir Fiffergrund, Lord Marshal of the Castle and Crusade Society.

He Who Hides Behind The Elephant's Back

[serleran]

The modified approach is better. I have not read FotFH (because I was being ran through it) so I can't comment on the way it was written. However, the new method is much more S1, and there certainly isn't anything wrong with that!

[gideon_thorne]

Here's a thought. When one has a plot device that consists of a series of challenges to acomplish, or maguffins to aquire, or anything similar, the trick is to have more than one possible result.

A+B+C+D is one way and leads to one conclusion

But if A+D are combined, unexpected option E occurs. And perhaps option E might end up combined with C and then F occurs.

A good result of adventuring, I feel, is when the unusual occurs. Magic, being the oftimes mysterious force that it is, often doesn't react in predictable fashion, so unusual result can occur.

Even a paragraph making a suggestion about a probable unexpected result can leave a nice 'open' plot thread for the creative game master.

And when your dealing with people and their motivations, quick notes about npc's and how they would react to A, B, C, and D going all sideways and out of order can quickly turn a few notes into a full blown campaign.

Sure, the party has cleared the local abandoned whatever and is all set to move in. But perhaps they upset some fundamental balance of power with a heretofore unrecognized or dormant threat. The parties actions (like my thief absconding with one of the Forsaken adventure Keys) could rebound in various ways. Perhaps an item in the adventure has some unpercieved value to some other force.

There's all kinds of things that can make the simple into the complex. Just some random thoughts.
_________________
"We'll go out through the kitchen!" Tanis Half-Elven

Peter Bradley

[Treebore]

I don't know. Part of a modules appeal to me is story ideas. So if you mean give me a background story to use, but not have it "drive" the module, I'll like it well enough. But I like story ideas from other people, it keeps my games from getting old. I think it is a big key to why we played the same campaign for years, I used modules to keep it, and me, fresh.

So keep story in there. Make it easy to "disconnect" from the adventure components by trying to keep it from being "the reason" for the whole adventure to even happen.

I'm personally toying with a new model myself. I simply give the story as I conceived it, including character motivations and write ups. Then detail the NPC's and locations my story is based on/around. Then the DM decides how to make it all happen, including integrating any changes or complete re-writes if that is what the customer desires to do.

But I am not going to tell them, "this encounter happens in this room at this time." The DM and his players will decide exactly how, what, when, and where things will happen. I'll give a frame work, they decide how it plays out, where it plays out, order of events, etc... Hopefully using my story and the locations I mapped out for them, as well as the NPC's I wrote up to help "complete" the story.

Your other ideas sound worth trying out, but don't eliminate the story.

[Treebore]

A note on Railroading,

yeah, having to complete steps A, B, C, D, etc... is railroading, but if the NPC who built/created the "railroad" to protect his treasure/secret/whatever my players just better get over this "railroading" thing.

You don't like it don't go after the treasure. That is the exact result desired by the NPC that created the railroad in the first place. Mission accomplished for the NPC. Failure for the PC's.

[Omote]

Fiff, the fact that you are thinking in this manner has already changed the way you will create your next adventure, whether or not you have even started it yet.

A lot of the details you mention also rely on factors from TLG. You can have a ton of story in any adventure provided there is enough space. You could also have a ton of detail in the NPCs, providing there is enough space.

But let's look beyond spacial limitations.

What do you think works better for THE module? I wouldn't think of how you personally would like the mod, but what works better for the mod itself.

Is it better for the module to have short NPC descriptions with a few basic stats and a sentace or two of description or motivation?

Having a basic description of a town or area is obviously different then having a fully fleshed out town with all of the accoutrements. Your decision on detail or not to detail changes the course of the module somewhat by possibly binding characters into linear motion. Then again, without sufficient detail, a module could be bogged down in mediocrity not feeling like a finished product.

Bottom line is that there are some good linear-style mods, and there are good free-form mods. The ultimate decision on how to focus your design is up to you.

Pick a design and work from there.

..............................................Omote

FPQ
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Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

[Fiffergrund]

Thanks for all of your replies. They have given me a lot to chew on.

I have a few ideas on how to strike a balance between all of the things I'd like to do, so we'll see how it goes.
_________________
Sir Fiffergrund, Lord Marshal of the Castle and Crusade Society.

He Who Hides Behind The Elephant's Back

[miller6]

Fiffergrund wrote:
Thanks for all of your replies. They have given me a lot to chew on.

I have a few ideas on how to strike a balance between all of the things I'd like to do, so we'll see how it goes.

Hey, wait! Don't close out the topic yet! I got a few things to add.
Yes, Yes and YES, YES, YES! I'm with you all the way on the changes, my friend (as evidenced in my Killer Cave Mods and upcoming TLG mods).

Here's some tips I'd give any mod writer...

#1) versitility of adventure location is a bigger deal than many may think since CKs insert mods into their own world. Hence, in some aspects, they must be somewhat generic to allow for campaign-specific adapations. In reality, towns are best reserved for town-based adventures (such as murder mysteries, exposing evil guilds and temples, sewer explorations or "creatures sneak into town" plots). Otherwise, each CK probably has their own "launching points". If a town is the focus, fill it with mini-adventures and forget the surrounding area.

#2) Railroading encourages characters to say "screw it" and go off the map on purpose, forcing a CK to scrap the adventure and wing it or piss off players by sticking to their guns. A little bit is okay, but if constant, players start to feel like cattle being herded and respond by inventing their own objectives to retain their freedom of choice. If you design a dungeon expecting characters to only hit half of the detailed locations, it's more like a maze with multiple routes and they get to chose their own fate. They like that. You can never go wrong that way. And they can always go back after reaching a climactic point to clean up anything they missed along the way. If not, just insert the "missed encounters" in a different adventure wherever they fit in nicely. (call it "encounter recycling".)

#3) Background material tends to get overlooked or modified by the CK. It's best to consider modules as what they are - references rather than books. Write them to be run rather than to tell a story. (In your specific case, you hit the nail on the head when you said the characters determine the story).

#4) Make mods easily readable for the CK who should be spending most of their time listening to, talking to, and making eye contact with players rather than keeping their nose buried in the module. If it takes more than a couple seconds to find the info...good CKs will wing it instead of reading onward, feeling a need to keep things moving. Besides, many CKs don't have much time to prep and will forget or simply skip background related details as they quickly skim the adventure.

And here's my comments for you specifically...

The dungeon portion of FotFH was beautiful. Lots of variety of creature and encounter types with 5 separate themes that could hold up as stand alone mini-adventures. Despite your doubts, you didn't actually do too much cattle herding. Each finger had more than one path to the end, which made up for having to go through all 5 fingers. And for the CKs concerned with railroading, the way you designed it, each finger could be run separately, placed in different campaign locations with the CK inserting their own treasure at the end of each finger instead of a stone. If you want a direct comparison, it reminded me of C2 - "The Ghost Tower of Inverness", which I and many others consider a classic and was popular enough to be mentioned in the 2nd D&D movie.

I don't profess to be a master mod writer, but from trial and error running 1 or more home-made adventures per week for 25 years (egads, 1300+ different ones overall...hitting myself in the head for not writing all of them up), I have learned what kind of mod makes for a great gaming session.

The simple answer is: Gary had it right from the get-go. Mimic his style from his classic mods. I for one certainly try to. Ultimately, as a game, it's all about newness, visualize-ability, variation of encouter types, the action, the role-playing, the challenge level and finally the rewards of success. Everything else is just bells and whistles....appreciated but far less important.

And for the story-line emphasizers...dudes, the ongoing campaign is the story of each characters life - the story players care most about.
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"The adventure continues"

[Fiffergrund]

Ooh, some good points. Noted, and thank you.

Thanks for the compliment re: Fingers. I think the dungeon sections are the strongest part of the module as well. I wanted to recapture some of the flavor I experienced when I started to play D&D - lots of exotic creatures, strange locales within dungeons....but have it all make more sense in close proximity.
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Sir Fiffergrund, Lord Marshal of the Castle and Crusade Society.

He Who Hides Behind The Elephant's Back

[Zudrak]

Wow, m6.

I want to copy and paste your post for if/when I ever write a home-made addy. Nice! ...and thanks for sharing that, as I can attest it will benefit more than its intended recipient (Fiff).

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"I shun him."

-----

"Knowledge, logic, reason, and common sense serve better than a dozen rule books."

-- E. Gary Gygax

[miller6]

For anyone who's interested, here's some other tips for encounter writing I picked up along the way.

1) Vary encounter types. Encounter types include: 1) traps, 2) puzzles, 3) decoys/empty/mundane areas, 4) monsters, 5) treasures, 6) NPCs/role-playing encounters. You can mix and match, but try to include a balanced amount of each type.

2) Give the "Boss" hit points equal to 1.5 times the highest character level and the total HD of of the final encounter equal to the combined levels of the characters. Other encounters should be no more than 1/4th the total levels of the party since they have to go through a number of them. Optionally, vary encounter strengths to keep the party guessing how tough the oppoents are, with the total HD for the module being the same as it would be using the previous method (i.e. shave some hit dice off an encounter and add them somewhere else, etc.)

3) Use no more than 1-3 major NPCs with at least one of them being a bad guy. Minor NPCs (i.e. villagers) should just be given basic stats and left to the CK to develop further.

4) Don't describe all the possible outcomes for each encounter, just detail the obvious ones and leave the rest to the CK.

5) Provide random encounters so a CK can add extra challenges for parties that have more than 6 characters.

6) Try to use creatures, spells and magic items in unusual ways to maintain a sense of intrigue/newness. Mysterious rumors can help with this also.

7) When relevant, ensure that creatures have a nearby source of food and water or anything else they need to survive. Otherwise their presence won't make any sense. This can also create a sense of paranoia (i.e. hearing a normal frog or other creature nearbye that the party assumes is some monster).

8 ) Don't detail how monsters in the next room will react to things happening next door. A good CK will take such things into consideration. The exception would be in the case of an established hierarchy (i.e. a chieftain summoning clan members for backup).

9) Dont' be afraid to bend the rules. People memorize monster hit dice and spells and item abilities. Change them to keep players guessing (i.e. a 12 HD kobold fighter). Or make up new stuff as you see fit since this also maintains the newness.

10) Include several "certain death situations" to remind the party that their choices are important and wrong ones may yield dire consequences. Otherwise the players won't get the sense of "danger" that makes gaming more fun. Near deaths are often climactic. It helps to make some harmless situations seem deadly and some deadly situations seem harmless. Players feel a greater sense of pride eluding, defeating or simply surviving such situations.

11) Don't trap the party in a place where they have nothing to do. Stymieing players makes the game boring and hence is a bad practice.

12) Let the party find a few places to rest and regain spells, even if such places are hidden in areas behind secret doors. If no such places exist, leave the option open to withdraw from the dungeon to rest for a day.

...and 1 3) Create an outline then play it out with your group. It'll help you discover situations, subplots and outcomes which you might otherwise have overlooked. Afterwards, flesh out the adventure based on the best results from the trial run.

Hope that's useful to someone. Maybe I'll add more later. Heh, then again maybe I better shut before I give away all my tricks of the trade.
Like anything else, there's an art to mod writing. It's impossible to please every gamer, but certain patterns seem to be proven winners.
Brian Miller
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"The adventure continues"

[Ghul]

Fiff--

I support your style modifications to module writing 100%. It seems to me you've seen the light!
Good luck with your next work, and as I own FotFH, I'm sure I'll buy the next one.

--Ghul

[Geleg]

Great thread, guys. I've come away with some very helpful ideas.

G

[Omote]

miller6 wrote:
keep players guessing (i.e. a 12 HD kobold fighter).

That would get me to second guess any kobold I ran up against!

.............................................Omote

FPQ
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> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

[Korgoth]

Good thoughts, miller6. Especially about the dangers of railroading and the need to keep the encounters varied in type.

I would add that it's important to make the adventure sensual, in the actual sense of the word - something that engages the senses. The CK should tell the players how the air feels, what it smells like, what can be heard, etc.

I like these sorts of details in modules - if the whole place is damp with a slight hint of mold in the air, tell me that. Not because I can't make it up myself, but I might forget to tell the players about it when I'm juggling everything else a CK has to do.
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[miller6]

Korgoth wrote:
I would add that it's important to make the adventure sensual, in the actual sense of the word - something that engages the senses. The CK should tell the players how the air feels, what it smells like, what can be heard, etc.

Yes, I should've included ALL of the senses rather than just visualize-ability. Glad you brought it up.
Brian Miller
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"The adventure continues"

[miller6]

Omote wrote:
That would get me to second guess any kobold I ran up against!

.............................................Omote

FPQ

Yes, Kobolds are destined to conquer the world.
Didn't you get the memo?
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"The adventure continues"

[miller6]

Fiff, I'm anxious to see what you have in mind for this "special city" in your next mod. Is it a Floating cloud town? Underground? Underwater? On fire and the party has to run through rescuing people while battling hordes of fire-based creatures hell-bent on burning everything to the ground? (insert evil laughter).
Sounds interesting, whatever it is.
Brian Miller
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"The adventure continues"

[Fiffergrund]

Well, it's an idyllic little town, where the people have lived and farmed for hundreds of years and dozens of generations in relative peace and solitude.

Oh, and everyone living there is incredibly good-looking.

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Sir Fiffergrund, Lord Marshal of the Castle and Crusade Society.

He Who Hides Behind The Elephant's Back

[serleran]

But, do the children have perfect blue eyes and nice, white, hair? I so want the Village of the Damned as a module.

[miller6]

Fiffergrund wrote:
Well, it's an idyllic little town, where the people have lived and farmed for hundreds of years and dozens of generations in relative peace and solitude.

Oh, and everyone living there is incredibly good-looking.

...because dopplegangers ate all the ugly people, immitated the charismatic ones and then ate them too?
Works for me. 8)

Brian Miller
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"The adventure continues"

[miller6]

Well, I finished running fingers. The players loved it though they came 1 saving throw away from a TPK in the final encounter. (Luckily for them, I gave the wand of ressurection from earlier in the mod some extra charges, suspecting they might be needed later.)

Another thing I was doing was having that same creature respond to auguries/divinition type spells throughout the fingers but prior to the final encounter rather than letting the clerics hear from their own dieties. Doing so had the party worried about the final battle and furthered the belief that the creature was some form of diety...which gave me another idea...

The creature in the final encounter has several resistances. When the applicable ones are converted to energy resistance stats (10, 20 or 30 hp per round) or toned down a bit in some other way, then after its defeat, it's gem brain makes for one cool artifact! And I left the option open to have the 5 gem eyes enchanted as separate magic gems, useable once per day (though having that done is another quest entirely).

Anyhow, just wanted to share a couple of ideas and pass along word that my group loved your mod (even though 5 out of 6 of them lost a con point when they burned up every last charge in the wand of ressurection).

Brian Miller
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"The adventure continues"

[Fiffergrund]

Wow! I'm really glad your group had fun with it. Those ideas (having the creature answer divinations and auguries, and the brain/eyes as magic item components) are great, and really round off the adventure nicely.

Thanks for all of your comments!
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Sir Fiffergrund, Lord Marshal of the Castle and Crusade Society.

He Who Hides Behind The Elephant's Back

[gideon_thorne]

miller6 wrote:
(even though 5 out of 6 of them lost a con point when they burned up every last charge in the wand of ressurection).

Brian Miller

says the thief who walked away without a scratch, during Fiff's playtest.
_________________
"We'll go out through the kitchen!" Tanis Half-Elven

Peter Bradley

[miller6]

gideon_thorne wrote:
says the thief who walked away without a scratch, during Fiff's playtest.

My entire group lost initiative even though they rolled individually (their highest roll was a 2). Things started badly and only got worse for the players - more lost initiatives, failed saves and missed to hit rolls. Meanwhile, my 20-sided was cranking out natural 20's and my 6 sideds were rolling a lot of 6s. Needless to say, their hit points ran out shortly after their luck ran out.

Brian Miller
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"The adventure continues"

[Treebore]

miller6 wrote:
My entire group lost initiative even though they rolled individually (their highest roll was a 2). Things started badly and only got worse for the players - more lost initiatives, failed saves and missed to hit rolls. Meanwhile, my 20-sided was cranking out natural 20's and my 6 sideds were rolling a lot of 6s. Needless to say, their hit points ran out shortly after their luck ran out.

Brian Miller

That reminds me of one of the games I played at GenCon. I think only 3 of us lived to run away. My PC wasn't one of them.

[Fiffergrund]

miller6 wrote:
Fiff, I'm anxious to see what you have in mind for this "special city" in your next mod. Is it a Floating cloud town? Underground? Underwater? On fire and the party has to run through rescuing people while battling hordes of fire-based creatures hell-bent on burning everything to the ground? (insert evil laughter).
Sounds interesting, whatever it is.
Brian Miller

I decided to give out a couple more teasers.

The title will be "The Unearthing of Acton Dinsbury."

And the overall theme is that a mystery accidentally stumbled upon goes awry...
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Sir Fiffergrund, Lord Marshal of the Castle and Crusade Society.

He Who Hides Behind The Elephant's Back

[miller6]

Fiffergrund wrote:
I decided to give out a couple more teasers.

The title will be "The Unearthing of Acton Dinsbury."

And the overall theme is that a mystery accidentally stumbled upon goes awry...

Sounds interesting, and with at least one undead. Cool. Cool.

Brian Miller
_________________
"The adventure continues"

[miller6]

Oh gads, it just clicked. That will be truly tough if that city is what I think it is!

Brian Miller
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"The adventure continues"

[Fiffergrund]

I hope it comes out the way I'm intending.
_________________
Sir Fiffergrund, Lord Marshal of the Castle and Crusade Society.

He Who Hides Behind The Elephant's Back