In the last post I mentioned some frustration with prepping Shadowdark, so I wanted to dive into that a little bit more: Is adventure design guidance required to make a game complete? And what does good guidance look like?
But first a comment on feedback.
This blog is very new, but the podcast has been around for a little while now - and I'm very thankful for the people that interact there. With this new format comes the question of how to handle that, so this is what I think I'll do.
I will have stand alone episodes responding to feedback purely posted on the podcast, and I will call out themes or quotes from feedback where it's relevant to further blog posts. Just like this feedback from Daniel from Bandits Keep.
You can find Daniel's RPG stuff on YouTube at Bandits Keep and as the co-host of the excellent podcast Monsters and Treasure.
Thanks for the call Daniel and for the feedback. I'm going to paraphrase Daniel's thoughts on the subject here, forgive me if I've misinterpreted anything or taken anything out of context.
Daniel broadly agrees with my premise, though he places extra emphasis on the importance of having guidance for what an adventure should look and feel like, rather than simply having tables, charts or procedures to create one. He calls out good examples like Into the Odd (gives a good idea of what the characters will be doing) and BX (for great guidance on creating adventures). Also that an example adventure is also a great thing to have included.
Other than to say I agree, I wont dwell on these thoughts now as I'll cover them in the rest of this article. But thanks again Daniel for calling in, I'm shamelessly using the call as inspiration for this follow up post.
Lets look at some examples of a few game systems and what content they have for adventure generation/guidance for running the game.
Okay, listening back I think I might have been a little harsh on Shadowdark. I still broadly stand by my comments, but I want to highlight that I'm exceptionally time poor (read: lazy), and so I have a preference for certain types of prep assistance. I want to go back through the book and highlight some things that Shadowdark has to help you prep games, and maybe share some “deeper” thoughts on them.
A quick note on what I think Shadowdark does really well; it explains the gameplay procedures. A good portion of the book is dedicated not just to the rules of characters, magic and making checks (the basics) but also how to adjudicate crawling through a dungeon, what that should be like, how to handle torches/light and their importance etc. And of course, the ever helpful example of play. A lot of newer games get the (fair) criticism that they assume you know how to play (either that you've played before, or have read from some other source) but I think you could very easily pick up Shadowdark as your first game and get it or come from 5e and understand the difference in style.
Okay, I've tried to write this a couple times and its working out too long. Let me just dot point out some of the good and the not so good (in my opinion).
The Good:
The Not So Good:
So a couple things to note, I titled the bad section not so good because I think most of it is pretty close to being good, and my good points mirror the not so good points. There's lots to like, and lots that is useful/useable - but I do feel like I'm left wanting a bit more. Here is what I think would be helpful and make it go from good to great.
An example of creating a dungeon adventure would be amazing. A list of monsters by level (or dungeon level would be even better) and some guidance on numbers (both for single encounters and larger groups).
Side note: I don't find the 1:1 ratio for placing monsters satisfying. Are all monsters equally challenging at the same HD? Do they not vary in numbers based on rarity?
It would also benefit from some more advice on placing treasure and its relationship to XP, working this out is quite difficult and further complicated by carousing (random amounts of XP for gold spent) so some advice to get the pacing of advancement right would be great. And some structure around when and how to use the random tables. That is all it would take I think.
In my personal experience the thing I most struggled with was how much treasure to award (I didn't find the random tables satisfying, except in a pinch when players might find something I hadn't prepped for) and how many and what monsters to place. For example, I know there's a goblin tribe raiding a popular road into a village and figure they must be holed up in a cave nearby. How many goblins would there be, do they have a structure (are there leader goblins?) and how much treasure/XP will they have. For that I turned to BX which tells; me the amount found (6d10); that their is a 3HD leader, who has 2d6 body guards; and that they have on average 1000gp in their stash and smaller groups will likely have a few coins.
Lets quickly look at some other games whilst we're here.
Specifically the basic set, I believe that it came with B2 - which is an excellent reference for the expected style of game. It also have a great example of play, and importantly for this topic some amazing guidance for designing adventures, if you're making a game and think this stuff is important - use this as a reference.
Here is the gist of it:
This is all accompanied by tables for appropriate monsters, their numbers and structure and what treasure they're likely to have to help fill things out. It is missing something which Shadowdark has which is assistance on drawing the map, this would be a great addition (personally its something I struggle with and get stuck on).
Then there is an example of that exact procedure being used to generate a dungeon (which you could run as another starter adventure in addition to B2).
If this style interests you I can recommend this series: Adventure Design also by Daniel over at the Bandits Keep YouTube where he goes through and creates an adventure for each of the 10 scenarios (plus plenty more videos on the topic).
Daniel also mentioned this game, which has to be my favourite rules-lite system (maybe alongside Black Sword Hack or the Borg Games). What has Into the Odd got going for it?
Well its got a lot of the good stuff from the other two, an example of play, tables for inspiration and great principles advice for playing; and of course, a very good starter adventure as an example. It also exudes character, which it needs to as it is different from a typical D&D premise (but doesn't stray too far) and so it needs to communicate how its different and what it should play like.
But it is missing the procedure of B/X, the list of monsters, hazards and treasure are lacking and there is no guidance for placing them. A great book, well worth the read, but I think you need to rely on your own trial and error/creativity or other systems.
How about we look at something fairly new, and in a different genre? The Wardens Manual for Mothership is another book alongside Into the Odd that has some great advice for how to run a game, but does it have advice for how to put a session together?
Yes! It even starts on page 4, the first actual page of content!
Now, of course it is cheating in that you've probably had to read the players manual where as the other books we've looked at have been single volume. It does show an understanding of the importance of actually explaining how to run a game.
I think this is the best that I've read, we get a set of 10 scenarios and settings, guidance of creating horror, examples on creating different types of obstacles, such as: creating interesting encounters, puzzles and NPCs. Instructions for creating a map (yay), both for drawing it and for keying it. And as a bonus it gives you steps for actually running a first session.
I think the very first roleplaying games got this right, even OD&D as confusing as it is has systems for creating the content that you actually need to play. It is worth shouting out (though I don't think I'm educating any readers with these suggestions) the AD&D DMs guide for fantasy and Traveller for scifi. I imagine there are a bunch of other games from this early era that are similarly useful.
The first conclusion I want to make is that “completeness” is probably not even all that important a metric for deciding if a game is good, or fun, or worth your time. Depending on what the reader wants out of the book its going to be subjective anyway. However, we see good examples of it at the start of the hobby and in new products coming out today. And the great news is that they don't take up all that much space, so why not include it?
In my opinion things like “well you can just make it up yourself” or “you can get it elsewhere” is not a good excuse. Including something doesn't prohibit me from making it up on my own, ignoring the advice given and doing something completely different or using a different system all together.
So what do I like in “adventure design guidance”, here is a sort of checklist:
That is a very generic list, but I actually think it covers what you need. A lot of games only have enough of 2 or 3 of these.
Okay that is all I have to say for the moment. So what do you think, have I got it all wrong? have I missed something? Am I just really lazy? Send me an email at diegeticadvancement@gmail.com or send me a voice message on Speakpipe. I'm also on Discord in a few places, so if you find me feel free to send me a message there.