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.