Published adventures are more abundant and accessible than ever before. The depth, range and quality of the material is as strong as ever, too.
Descriptive text from Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Wizards of the Coast, 2014
That increases the likelihood of GMs incorporating published adventures into their games.
Of late, I’ve tried to streamline my process for preparing published material, whether I’m porting in an encounter from an outside source to use in the next session, or outlining several sessions from a campaign guide.
These three things are what I consider my priorities when gleaning from published adventures for my table.
Information transmission
I really try to zero in on identifying key information points in an adventure.
What information must the players receive and how will I convey it to them?
A lot of this is stuff they need to know to move things along from point A to point B. But it is also material crucial to developing their character’s individual story and the party’s collective tale.
Once I’ve made bullet points of the information points that are absolutely key, I give thought to how it will be revealed: From an NPC with a telltale voice or manner. A dying character’s last will and testament. A newspaper clipping. Engraved on a rock.
If important information is provided in a distinctive fashion during the game, then the chances of the players recognizing it as such and being able to recall it later is increased.
Nothing’s foolproof, of course. And in the course of play, other information points arise organically to confound, confuse and misdirect. But having provided the means for getting the good stuff out there, the better the chance it won’t be skipped over and it will be retained when it’s needed.
Three “Must-Run” Encounters
There’s more distilling of the published material. But this one is trickier, because players take the game where they want.
Still, by identifying three “must-run” encounters, the GM has at hand three comprehensive components needed for the session.
I think of encounters as three-dimensional modules, little packages of fun, that can be inserted into the framework of the session (whether it is the layout of a dungeon, the flowchart of an investigation or if the game’s gone completely off the map). Each encounter should contain any of several goodies: monsters, treasure, NPCs, traps, plot twists, ability challenges or an exotic location.
Having “must-run” encounters boxed up and ready to drop in is about keeping it fun for everyone. As a GM, nothing beats the reveal of a fun encounter. And having three that are “ready-to-go” sidesteps the little problem of the party getting sidetracked. No matter how far off the beaten track of the adventure they go, there’s an encounter directly ahead that will engage with them and keep the adventure flowing.
Identifying handouts
Broadly speaking, I think of handouts as ANYTHING that is tangible, including miniatures, combat terrain and maps, and other playing aids such as background music or sound effects.
You can always overdo this sort of thing. And it falls into “the right tool for the right job” category of adventure planning.
I mean, you don’t need stacks of Monopoly money on hand every time the PCs find a suitcase full of cash. But a couple of bills with a serial code clue written on them or having a few to dole out when an informant wants to be paid, can add to the atmosphere of the roleplay.
In theater terms, this is “staging.” Having properties on hand for presentation. Sometimes these are right-sized items, sometimes they are scale miniatures.
I always look through the text for opportunities to craft something new, given time. But over the years, if you keep stuff, you’ll have a wealth of trinkets and terrain to display or use as needed.
Those are my three priorities for preparing published adventures for the game table. But I’d like to hear yours. Share them in the comments below.
Isn’t it strange that adventures make you go through all this work of distilling them?
Actually, no. Published adventures are either written broadly, with a general audience in mind, or for a particular system and approach. It is unrealistic to think that an adventure, as written, will be a match for your table. Each play group is different, if only because the selection of PC types varies. Published adventures have utility,to be sure, but to fully exploit them requires work by the GM.
Only because of the format almost everyone has been using for the last 30 years. Old D&D modules mosly didn’t have that problem because they had no “plot”, which is actually a big advantage for GMs. Now admittedly many didn’t have much interesting going on in the dungeons thy described and offered only limited potential to interact with the inhabitants in other ways than fighting. Getting as much treasure as posssible was considered enough background and context at the time.
In recent years however, there have been a couple of great adventures which I would argue can be dropped into any campaign with the only adjustments necessary being switching out names for people and places to something appropriate for the local culture. Better than any Man and No Salvation for Witches are probably the best examples I know. The somewhat repulsive illustrations of many creatures might not be everyones taste, but the plots work in almost any fantasy setting. If you are usingsomething other than an OSR game you need to make your own stats for NPCs and select appropriate monsters from your monster book of choice.
Since they are written without a liner plot in which the players must fight specific enemies and must win those fights for the plot to continue, it doesn’t matter at all which classes the characters are, what level they have, and how many of them there are. If you have a big group of high level badasses they can charge straight at the monsters and slay them, and a pair of two low level characters might have to be sneaky, negotiate with the enemies, find strong allies, and probably employ a lot of running away. In either case they have plenty of option to explore the places, solve the mysteries, and overcome the main threat. Or they might fail and the adventure continues with dealing with the aftermath. You could not stop the warlock summoning a hundred little demons and take over the castle? Well, you know have a castle inhabited by a warlock and a horde of demons who terrorize the disorganized kingdom. Another great adventure ready made. And you can keep using all the location maps and NPCs you already have.
In the last 20 years or so most published adventures seem to try to have the players act out a prewritten novel. But that’s really one of the poorest way to run a roleplaying game. Not only does it cause countless problems and additional work for the GM, it also takes away most of the unique things that can be done in an RPG and nowhere else. I argue that almost ever adventure in the last 20 years was doing it wrong.
Apart from what Yora said, an opinion I share:
There are different groups because the game has allowed different groups to exist. I blame D&D for this way of thinking. It’s totally realistic to think that a game can create a homogeneous group of fans playing it – it’s just that D&D haven’t done that, and then it’s impossible for most people to think that it can be done.
Just like your answer showed for my thought-provoking question. Or “thought-provoking” was what I aimed for with my question.
While I dispute the notion companies have been producing the wrong types of adventures for the last 20 years, I appreciate that you’ve shared your love of Lamentations of the Flame Princess games with us. I think the sandboxy, location based approach that LoTFP embraces has a lot of merit. Whether it is truly level agostic without requiring GM prep work, I thnk is arguable. Two things: 1) I think the game presumes the GM has experience, and is either good at prep or can think on her feet; 2) I think the fact LoTFP is a game that has stripped a lot of the subsystem branches off the d20 frame gives it many advantages in this regard, however.
And much of the play style it advocates for does fall in my personal wheelhouse. Yora’s blog has a post worth reading, http://spriggans-den.com/?p=1976#more-1976 .
I think my three points still hold. Regardless of the style of play, as a GM, having a means of sharing key information, ready-to-go encounters, and the right playing aid for the right job are good ways of getting the most out of a published adventure so it matches the expectations of your table.
And I’d love to hear what other readers are doing in terms of prep, whether they are hacking modules up for the juiciest bits or finding slight adjustments hear or there are getting the job done. What’s your favorite handout?
Well, I don’t have very much experience of LotFP as a game, but the scenarios I own for it exhibit *in spades* the reason many fled D&D for other systems in the old days: random instant lethality and inexplicable scenarios.
I hate with a passion anything which can at a stroke take a player out of the game with hours to go, especially if there is no logical way another character could re-join the action. This is a way to dis-incentivize one’s RPG sessions if you ask me.
And having no rhyme or reason means that the players have no hook on which to hang their suspension of disbelief, so they lack any deep level of buy-in to the action and cannot immerse themselves in the RPG experience.
Just my two coppers.
Older than 5 years ago, I could count the number of modules I’d run or raided on one hand. I was very… artisinal in my game prep. From hand, much prep… I loved it, but it took a lot of time.
Running organized play the last few years has greatly increased the type and number of modules that I’ve run. Getting forcibly reintroduced to them shook my preconceptions; there are both excellent stories and scenarios, and a lot of good bits to loot.
I loved the 4e encounter maps. They often worked okay to well for the printed scenario, but provided a lot of options for remixing. Good town maps with a rooftop view? Great for chases–or running through a town with locked doors. (It feels different than when you can see the homey kitchens on the other side of the thin wall line.)
Similarly, good wilderness maps are a great cue to include elements that set a scene but have no game effect. And you don’t have to describe them at all… they’re on the map for everyone to see. No long winded description required!
The 4E maps have a lot of utility. Still using them and tiles when need calls for quick lay down. (My plaster tiles are still my favorite for a dungeon setting, but require placing them out beforehand.) On the fly, the heavy card tiles and 4E maps are a good substitute.
I find two tools most useful in prepping someone else’s adventure –
1) the spider maps – this will be a “NPCs relation ships” spider gram quickly showing who knows who and what their relationships are. Sometimes I also need a geographical spider-gram to get a rough idea of who/what is adjacent to this/them.
2) the ‘perfect’ time line – what happens once the adventure-time-line-clock starts ticking? does it still keep ticking if the PCs do nothing?
this is also how I tend to plan out my own scenarios and campaigns, so maybe its just the way I think?
I like both of these and see the advantages. Question: does the spider map require changes in-game and how easy is it to record changes? I love the idea of a baseline timeline, especially fo investigations.
glad you like them 🙂
Recording changes is pretty easy, as I use one or two word descriptors between the nodes (so each major NPC is a node, and I have ‘Like’ written along the line joining two NPCs if thats their relationship status); so its a simple matter to cross it out and write new word.
The spider-grams should be updated regularly, but I am notoriously slack about that sort of thing! In reality (for my games) it only tends to get updated when something major happens, for example:- If two (N)PCs end up going from ‘Like’ to ‘Hate’ (or visa versa) of each other, or if a major NPC dies.