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.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;373060John 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.
Hi Elliot!
As always, I prefer definition from center. The types listed are each the center of a range of sub types which blend into and overlap with the other types. So-called "pure" types are rare.
-clash
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;372885Adventure 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.
I first noticed this with White Wolf, and later with 3e modules. I have not considered buying pre-packaged adventures since for the exact reasons you enumerate.
Clash, sure, I could have phrased it differently in terms of tendencies instead of pure types. OTOH, we really did play the undirected variety of dungeon adventure when we started playing D&D. It really was "because it's there".
And I think this also impacts scenario design, as the more exploratory style works better with the kind of dungeon topology Melan has described. For the directed variety, topology probably doesn't matter as much.
Come to think of it, my favorite TFT solo module, Security Station, is 100% motivated by explorng and looking for treasure, even though it's designed as a "realistic" (somewhat) dungeon.
Quote from: StormBringer;373063I first noticed this with White Wolf, and later with 3e modules. I have not considered buying pre-packaged adventures since for the exact reasons you enumerate.
WW was particularly bad (the various books detailing the end of the oWoD basically fall into this format), but IIRC, Rifts was an early offender as well with the Coalition War metaplot.
I find that they're bad value for money. I can already do almost everything they provide easily and for free. Since they only tend to detail extremely important NPCs, the reusability of the actual mechanical material is limited. What I really want from a module is material that I might have trouble producing myself or that is time-consuming to produce, and that can be reused as needed in future games. Adventure paths accomplish none of those for me.
I 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:
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;373080I find that they're bad value for money. I can already do almost everything they provide easily and for free. Since they only tend to detail extremely important NPCs, the reusability of the actual mechanical material is limited. What I really want from a module is material that I might have trouble producing myself or that is time-consuming to produce, and that can be reused as needed in future games. Adventure paths accomplish none of those for me.
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:
Exactly. I can shit out a dozen NPCs and a loose story line over a coffee break. I want a full bodied adventure that I otherwise would not have the time to flesh out with sufficient detail.
Quote from: StormBringer;373154Exactly. I can shit out a dozen NPCs and a loose story line over a coffee break. I want a full bodied adventure that I otherwise would not have the time to flesh out with sufficient detail.
What really helps me are maps, handouts, and scenes of what things look like from a character perspective. I can make handouts and maps but it takes time.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;373060John 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.
There 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.
Quote from: Nicephorus;373155What really helps me are maps, handouts, and scenes of what things look like from a character perspective. I can make handouts and maps but it takes time.
Yes, that is precisely the kind of labour-intensive time killer for which I would pay cash money.
To be honest had I remembered to check John's site I probably would have bothered compiling this list. The two lists are pretty similar which is kind of reassuring. The interesting point for me is the way it shows just how diverse the hobby is and that is a mesage that cannot be repeated often enough.
My oly comment is that I am not terrbily sure about equating "Illusionism" to "Scripted Adventures". In practice yes, it is very likely that the GM is using smoke and mirrors to keep the party on the railroad, but if you are unlucky enought he GM might just use brute force which is anything but illusionary.
On a more positive note, assuming the "script" of the Scripted Adventure is sensible and the genre conventions understood there is a chance the party will naturally follow the script own their own accord. Also, I have played in a few games in which the fact that there is script of sorts is out in the open. So within each scene the players have total freedom but the GM is totally responsible to link the scenes.
That said the term "Schroedinger's NPC" is absoultely priceless.
PS
Thinking about, what is not clear from the term Illusionism is whether this refers to the notion prijecting the illusion of concrete virtual world when actually behind the scenes the GM is retrofitting, improvising and just throwing things in he hopes to justify later, OR the term illusionism refers to the giving the players the illusion that their choices matter when in fact all road lead to Rome anyway.
The two are of course related.
Usually when used it means the latter.
I've seen the former referred to as "retroactive continuity" if it's extreme. (I forget who coined it, saw it on the Forge and decided it's actually useful as a concept, even though I'm not crazy about it as a technique).
Depending on exactly how it's done, it might just be "improvisation".
E.g., if there's some plot twist thrown in by the GM, which requires some sort of backstory that was never really planned and which the PCs could have uncovered, then that's retroactive continuity. Say, the GM needs a devious traitor among a group of long-trusted NPCs, so the GM just picks one of them and claims the traitor's been hiding his tracks all along. Obviously at this point the GM has the luxury of picking an NPC whose past actions offer opportunity to explain the treason and the coverup. But if the GM had fixed on a particular traitor much earlier, then that particular traitor could have been uncovered.
On the other hand if the GM never maps out the land beyond the mountains, leaving it only for whenever the PCs actually decide to head over there, and the GM then creates it to be consistent with established facts, that's basic improvisation.
Actually the first example is so extreme that it borders on illusionism, or even crosses the line. It can certainly be seen as dishonest, let's put it that way.
Possibly a better example is when certain events are produced either through mechanics or normal roleplaying, and then at a later time the GM decides they were connected when they weren't explicitly connected earlier. This is a kind of "paranoid" perspective. You're on a mission and you roll a random encounter; instead of the orcs or space pirates or whatever being a completely unrelated incident, the GM decides they're actually in alliance with the bad guy you're up against.
In retrospect, I think that the term "Scripted Adventure" is clearer and more to-the-point than "Illusionism." (At the time I wrote that a while ago, I must have thought that "Illusionism" was catching on as terminology, so I went with that rather than coming up with a related label.)
I think making the players feel like it is their choice is a matter of technique, but as far as structure of the pre-written module or GM notes, the point is that there is a prepared plotline that includes the PCs.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;373176I've seen the former referred to as "retroactive continuity" if it's extreme. (I forget who coined it, saw it on the Forge and decided it's actually useful as a concept, even though I'm not crazy about it as a technique).
Depending on exactly how it's done, it might just be "improvisation".
E.g., if there's some plot twist thrown in by the GM, which requires some sort of backstory that was never really planned and which the PCs could have uncovered, then that's retroactive continuity.
I'd add an important distinction. Sometimes in comics or book series as well as RPGs, "retroactive continuity" or "retcon" can mean an overt change to what was explicitly established. i.e. "Yes, it was shown that Jerome's father died, but we're going to change that and say that he's was never killed."
That's different than "Yes, we saw him get killed, but actually he was faking his own death in order to disappear given the crimes he committed."
Basically, in books and television, it's usually impossible to tell for sure if something was pre-planned by the writers from the beginning. Thus, retcon usually refers to when they explicitly stray from their established continuity - i.e. what was shown was not what happened.
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. :D
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. :D
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. :D
-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. :D
-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.
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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.