I thought it might be interesting to draw up a comparative list of the different approaches taken for adventure design in rulebooks and published scenarios over the years. I don’t claim the following is complete or entirely accurate; let’s just call it a starting point.  Comments, enhancements and elaborations welcome.

The dungeon crawl
I don’t think I need to explain what this is.

The hex crawl
Overland exploration modules like the D&D “Isle of Dread”

Mini campaign
A module that combines that combines outdoor exploration and dungeons with possibly an over-arching storyline or objective. I think D&D “Keep on the Borderlands” uses this method. Gamma World “Legion of Gold” certainly does.

Skirmish Game
All the scenario does is provide a thin premise, tell the player where to put their character on the map and then the fight starts. A lot of early TSR games (Basic Marvel Super Heroes, Gangbusters and Star Frontiers) had these kind of introductory scenarios.

Scripted Adventures
The adventure presents a fairly complex story and is split into chapters the players are expected to progress through more or less sequentially (though the better module s offered multiple ways through). Numerous systems presented adventures this way, notably the WEG Star Wars but also a lot of late TSR.

Timeline
The adventure is presented is sets of a series of events that are going to unfold over a period of time, unless the party manage to change things. In essence it looks at the scenario from the villain’s/NPC’s point of view. Shadowrun’s Mob War is organised this way. Not sure if many other published scenarios were, though it is a reasonably well-established technique among GMs.

Backstory Driven
The adventure is presented mostly as back-story, clues and NPC write-ups, typically for mystery or investigative heavy adventures. The sample adventures in A Dirty World are in this style. I seem to recall Call of Cthulhu adventures were a mix of this and Scripted scenes.

Adventure Seeds
This are just adventure ideas rather than fully worked out scenarios.

Rules Embedded Scenario
In some recent games, the number or sequence of scenes in the game is tied to the mechanics. Sort instance in both Rune and 3:16 the GM has a fixed budget from which to build his scenes. The Mountain Witch I believe also has rules that managed the sequence of scenes.  

Plot Point Campaign
The Savage World line has this Plot Point Campaign concept. Not having played one I don’t know if it is any different from any of the above.

Character Driven
The book simply suggests that the player characters should set their own goals and the GM craft some sor tof adventure around that.  I was not sure if to include this because in many ways it's the exact opposite of a published scenario.

Adventure Paths, which I personally can't stand, but they are very popular. They exist for Pathfinder, but they're also in Shadowrun 4e (the Emergence book, frex). They basically have an outline for a series of adventures with maybe some write-ups for main NPCs. The text offers advice on how to get PCs into each adventure and how to transition to the next one, but the outline itself is very vague and basically suggests a sequence of events or actions rather than having a detailed scene-by-scene breakdown.

#1 the Dungeon Crawl - Stupid question - but - are you referring just to a true dungeon crawl, where characters explore a dungeon just to search for random treasure, kill random monsters, get xp and level up? There may be a distinction between that, and a plot-driven quest into a dungeon -e.g. rescue the princess, get the lost MacGuffin??

I'd perhaps add the 'Solitaire Dungeon' / Gamebook -e.g. Tunnels and Trolls, Fighting Fantasy -where the book is intended for player use. This may or may not be in scope for what you're talking about --though a couple of times waay back I've tried to use a solitaire adventure as a GMing tool.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;372889#1 the Dungeon Crawl - Stupid question - but - are you referring just to a true dungeon crawl, where characters explore a dungeon just to search for random treasure, kill random monsters, get xp and level up?

Is it really what you'd think of as a "true dungeon crawl"? :hmm:

By dungeon crawl I mean any adventure primarily set in a tightly controlled environment in which the party moves room by room and in which each room is it's own scene.

I think you make a fair distinction. Several editions of D&D contain a small section on how to build and stock a random dungeon. A bit like the Skirmish Game model this suggests that game designers do see this as viable way of playing thier games, especially for beginners.

Shall we go for  Random Dungeon and Designed Dungeon as different categories?

Solo Adventures is also something I'd missed.  Thanks.

QuoteIs it really what you'd think of as a "true dungeon crawl"?

I was trying to think of why I needed the term explained and eventually dug up where I'd seen this particular definition - RPG Design Patterns by Whitson John Kirk --pg 44.  Here he's defined "Dungeon crawling”, as "the act of wandering aimlessly through a dungeon slaying anthing (sic) encountered and gathering loot". In context he implied that dungeon crawl meant just plotless dungeons though I'm frankly not sure whether its a distinction he just made up - he does that quite a bit. (Its a Forge document of dubious value).

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;372935I was trying to think of why I needed the term explained and eventually dug up where I'd seen this particular definition - RPG Design Patterns by Whitson John Kirk --pg 44.  Here he's defined "Dungeon crawling”, as "the act of wandering aimlessly through a dungeon slaying anthing (sic) encountered and gathering loot". In context he implied that dungeon crawl meant just plotless dungeons though I'm frankly not sure whether its a distinction he just made up - he does that quite a bit. (Its a Forge document of dubious value).

*nod* Well, you can tell that Whitson dude he's a complete retard who doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about, next time you happen to see him on some message boards. "True" dungeon crawling, my ass. HA!

I write adventures - when I write them - differently to anything you have detailed. They are what i call situational adventures. I detail the location, the NPCs, and the assets available, then throw in an initial situation. What the PCs do about the situation, and what happens after that, are up to the group.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;373010I write adventures - when I write them - differently to anything you have detailed. They are what i call situational adventures. I detail the location, the NPCs, and the assets available, then throw in an initial situation. What the PCs do about the situation, and what happens after that, are up to the group.

-clash

That sounds a lot like what I do too, in theory at least. The pactice it tends to be a lot messier. I'm not not much of a purist which means I'll throw in anything I think might work. It doesn't always.

But anyway this kind of "open ended situation scenario", which I think is quite popular among GM is not something I think I've seen in roleplaying game rule books or published scnearios, unless perhaps as Adventure Seeds. Still might as well count it as a new distinct category.

Quote from: Soylent Green;373014That sounds a lot like what I do too, in theory at least. The pactice it tends to be a lot messier. I'm not not much of a purist which means I'll throw in anything I think might work. It doesn't always.

But anyway this kind of "open ended situation scenario", which I think is quite popular among GM is not something I think I've seen in roleplaying game rule books or published scnearios, unless perhaps as Adventure Seeds. Still might as well count it as a new distinct category.

I mean I write this way for my published scenarios, not just for my own games. I don't write/publish very many adventures, because writing this way for publication is difficult, adventures don't sell much, and it's generally not worth the effort.

-clash

Even better.

Quote from: flyingmice;373010I write adventures - when I write them - differently to anything you have detailed. They are what i call situational adventures. I detail the location, the NPCs, and the assets available, then throw in an initial situation. What the PCs do about the situation, and what happens after that, are up to the group.

-clash

I go this way too although the degree of detail may vary from the 'there is a city with a occupying population. The loacls have irish accents the invaders french. Technology is rennaisance level.'  
To a more convoluted one.

My general prep for a campaign is to draw a flowchart, but one that that is PC action driven rather than time driven. The main agent will be the NPCs. In that regard its a cross between a timeline and a situation. Basically the NPC plot will unfold and the PCs can interact with it or not. The degree of importance of the plot will determine the efforts I as DM go to pull the PCs in. So if the plot is 'the end of the world' as you might get in a CoC game I will develop PC hooks that pull them into the plot, so a relative disappears one of the PCs is attacked, one of the PCs reicieves a package in the post etc.. if the plot is more trivial, a big bank hiest in a cop game then there will be clues but if the PCs don;t get involved wither will be other plots, the heist plot will still carry on but will resolve without their input.

I guess I tend to go for something like backstory driven, heavy on NPCs. A bunch of NPCs want things that conflict with each other. Some are good, some are evil, but mostly everyone's kinda in between. Everything is kind of a mess, and some bad things have been done, but worse things are about to be done. People are angry and getting desperate and everything's on the verge of turning right to shit. Put the PCs in the middle of that and throw the NPCs at them, making demands. See which way they jump and respond accordingly.

Quote from: flyingmice;373010I write adventures - when I write them - differently to anything you have detailed. They are what i call situational adventures. I detail the location, the NPCs, and the assets available, then throw in an initial situation. What the PCs do about the situation, and what happens after that, are up to the group.

-clash

This is kind of how I construct adventures. Particularly in modern campaigns, I draw up a set of NPCs with different goals and allegiances. Set up some basic locations. Then I have a general overview of plot (like these are the three major conflicts that could take place over the course of the campaign). But because players could do anything to alter or derail that, I try to leave it open and think about how different characters would respond if the players do anything unexpected.

John Kim posted a similar breakdown to his blog: http://jhkimrpg.livejournal.com/4644.html

About dungeoncrawl subtypes, I don't think it's important to say what's the echt version but there are distinct subtypes. There are directed ones where the dungeon is a setting for a scenario with a specific goal (like save the princess) and there are more exploratory ones where the idea is more to see what's there and to get loot and experience points. Of course there are combinations, especially if the "goal" is somewhat vague or the players decide to take control regardless of what the scenario says.