Quote from: jhkim;373162There are similarities, but there are also some significant differences.  About half match up well:

JK's "Location Crawl" <-> SG's "Dungeon Crawl" & "Hex Crawl"

JK's "Battlegrounding" <-> SG's "Skirmish Game"

JK's "Timetabling" <-> SG's "Timeline"

JK's "Illusionism" <-> SG's "Scripted Adventure"

Past that, though, I have "Trailblazing," "Hybrid" (original Ravenloft), "Branching" (Millennium's End), "Relationship Mapping" (some Vampire), "Randomized Events", and "Bangs" ().  

SG has "Mini campaign" (Keep on the Borderlands), "Backstory Driven" (some Call of Cthulhu), "Adventure Seeds", "Rules Embedded Scenario" (3:16), "Plot Point Campaign" (Savage Worlds), and "Character Driven."  

I think SG's "Mini campaign" overlaps my "Hybrid" category - he emphasizes that there is an over-arching storyline or objective, while I emphasize that there are mobile monsters/NPCs (thus a hybrid of battlegrounding and location crawling).  I think that any of these structures can have an overarching objective and an overarching background.  

SG's "Backstory Driven" is similar in some ways to my "Trailblazing" - he notes CoC where there are scattered clues similar to the marks that I described as trailblazing.  

SG doesn't seem to have a parallel to my Branching, Relationship Mapping, Randomized Events, and Bangs - although I'm not sure what the "Plot Point Campaign" is like, actually, not having any Savage Worlds adventures.  

"Rules Embedded" is a qualifier on an adventure that it has mechanical rules that apply to it - just like my "Randomized Events" is a part of the scenario rather than a structure for a whole scenario.  Similarly, his "Adventure Seeds" is mainly a qualifier that an adventure is sketched very short, rather than a particular structure.

Its mainly amusing how his don't require some kind of lexicon to decipher the purpose of the descriptors chosen.
I know what "Mini campaign" means, even without a description. But "Branching"? "Bangs"?

Smells of pork.

RPGPundit

Quote from: CRKrueger;373148I think one of the reasons that "adventures don't sell" is that people stopped writing adventures and starting writing plotlines with NPC stats.

I'm a module(yes I use the old term) fiend, I buy modules for games I don't even play just mining for ideas.  I want maps, I want filler NPCs, not 3 dramatis personae who are the main antagonists, I want the secret the innkeeper's daughter is hiding and why does the baker have a pegleg.  Stuff like that I can lift at will and drop anywhere.  A plotline with names is useless to me unless I play that specific plot.

That's one thing I like about the OSR, they have people putting out honest-to-god modules again.  You can take your mapless plotpoints and your skeleton-framed encounter series and shove them up your ass. :rant:

By Jove,  I think the boy's got something here!!

What's more, the adventures that DO sell are always adventures that contain solidly-worked material that is directly relevant to the entertainment of the group playing, not the glorification of the author as a self-styled literary genius, showing off his wonderful mary-sue NPCs and his "brilliant" utterly predictable plot-twists.

RPGPundit

Quote from: CRKrueger;373148I think one of the reasons that "adventures don't sell" is that people stopped writing adventures and starting writing plotlines with NPC stats.

I'm a module(yes I use the old term) fiend, I buy modules for games I don't even play just mining for ideas.  I want maps, I want filler NPCs, not 3 dramatis personae who are the main antagonists, I want the secret the innkeeper's daughter is hiding and why does the baker have a pegleg.  Stuff like that I can lift at will and drop anywhere.  A plotline with names is useless to me unless I play that specific plot.

That's one thing I like about the OSR, they have people putting out honest-to-god modules again.  You can take your mapless plotpoints and your skeleton-framed encounter series and shove them up your ass. :rant:

You win.

Well, I certainly won't be putting out anything resembling an adventure again. They don't sell and they get people pissed at you unless they are exactly like the modules they bought in 1984. Lose/lose situation.

-clash

I wasn't referring specifically to you Clash.  The whole adventure selling thing I guess was a thread derail, maybe I'll start another thread.

Quote from: CRKrueger;373310I wasn't referring specifically to you Clash.  The whole adventure selling thing I guess was a thread derail, maybe I'll start another thread.

I know that, CRK! I wasn't really replying just to you either. You just seemed so angry about the whole thing. What I say doesn't really matter anyway, as I have no interest in writing 'modules', so you won't miss anything.

Even when I was running D&D I never bought them. I think I have Village of Hommlet, which was given to me. I don't understand their appeal, and never had any use for them. Bad indicators for writing the damned things, right?

So basically what I am interested in doing - NPCs, assets, and starting situations - people don't want. No sense in going further, no loss to anyone.

-clash

Pathfinder and Goodman Games built companies off of them.   Wizards cares enough about them to admit publicly they need help writing them, yet the good old fashioned adventure module seems to be looked down upon by modern game companies.  We constantly hear "they don't sell".  I guess what it comes down to is, I don't buy that argument.

I think it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The really bad TSR period churned out some really bad modules and turned people off of the medium.  The D20 glut did the same for 3e.  

Modules got a bad name, so people stopped buying.
People stopped buying so modules got the "don't sell" tag.
Since a good module is hard work, designers dumped them for quick and dirty plot-point idea adventures (like SW) or the encounter-based framework (like 4e).
The non-D&D games have followed suit.  Even when doing modules, the modules became lighter.  WFRP2 was much less detailed in modules then WFRP1.  SR3 and SR4 much less detailed then SR1 & SR2, etc.

Now we're at the point where we have an entire generation of RPGers that have never even looked at a module that they could run as is with a good level of background detail.

There are some exceptions to the "adventure-light" crowd.  Green Ronin does a decent job with the SIFRP modules, the Dragon Age ones are even better.  Kenzer knocked one out of the park with Frandor's Keep.  Goodman games keeps chugging along, but Necromancer Games stuff generally was better.  

Basically, I think modules will sell when their perceived worth increases.  The more information GM's can pillage from a module, the higher the perceived worth.  That's why modules don't sell today, IMO, a lot of people have no need for the style of the ones currently on the shelf.

I was just ranting, that's all.

To tell you the truth, if I was getting into a system like Starcluster or Victoriana, a small book with NPC's, Assets, and starting situations would be good, especially if it was written by the author.  A glimpse into how the author sees the game working is always good.

Quote from: CRKrueger;373310The whole adventure selling thing I guess was a thread derail, maybe I'll start another thread.

Thumbs up. Might be interesting to discuss.

Quote from: CRKrueger;373320I was just ranting, that's all.

To tell you the truth, if I was getting into a system like Starcluster or Victoriana, a small book with NPC's, Assets, and starting situations would be good, especially if it was written by the author.  A glimpse into how the author sees the game working is always good.

I think the thing is most people who are into that style of GMing are good at coming up with this stuff themselves.

As far as glimpsing how the author sees the game working, I say thumbs down. As a GM, I don't care how the author sees the game working. I'm much more interested in how I - the GM - see the game working. The author can go pound sand. So as a game designer, I don't want my interpretation to become the "standard" interpretation. I want your interpretation to be the interpretation. I can go pound sand.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;373328I think the thing is most people who are into that style of GMing are good at coming up with this stuff themselves.

As far as glimpsing how the author sees the game working, I say thumbs down. As a GM, I don't care how the author sees the game working. I'm much more interested in how I - the GM - see the game working. The author can go pound sand. So as a game designer, I don't want my interpretation to become the "standard" interpretation. I want your interpretation to be the interpretation. I can go pound sand.

-clash

Even if I end up telling the author to go pound sand, I still find authorial intent interesting.  If I can see where you were trying to go, it gives me a better idea of where I want to go.  I can guarantee we won't end up in the same place, I'm not talking canon, just possibilities.

Quote from: flyingmice;373315So basically what I am interested in doing - NPCs, assets, and starting situations - people don't want. No sense in going further, no loss to anyone.

-clash

I was just thinking that that would make a cool product. Not an adventure but rather adventure parts.

Cool setting places, detailed NPCs and motivations, plot ideas, side treks, situations. Not a single adventure but a whole bunch of plug in parts to build your own adventure with or to fill in gaps in your own.

That would be quite useful to me. Then again, I think my tastes are different enough that the product would only end up selling the one copy that I bought.

Quote from: CRKrueger;373342Even if I end up telling the author to go pound sand, I still find authorial intent interesting.  If I can see where you were trying to go, it gives me a better idea of where I want to go.  I can guarantee we won't end up in the same place, I'm not talking canon, just possibilities.

I think there is room for the module/game writer to give readers an idea of how he thinks the game might be played, without insisting it is the only way to be played. I also find it helpful to get some friendly "running the game" advice from the writer. What bothers me is when the writer explains that he alone has the secrets to playing the game right. That investigations have to be run this way, combat has to be run that way, horror only happens if I do x, etc.