What are some well designed and challenging adventures?

[DavidBVal]

For those that don't know, the very first adventure Zed Duke of Banville linked in the second post, B10 "Night's Dark Terror", was written by the same team of writers at TSR UK that later on created TEW Campaign. It is of course simpler and less detailed than TEW, but if you're a fan of Death on the Reik you'll probably enjoy the read. I plan to expand it and run a campaign based on it sometime.

 

[v1rus]

What about some other systems?

Impossible that only D&D, WHFRP and CoC have good modules.

 

[Grunker]

Renraku Shutdown is not a module per se but it’s a great basis for making one

 

[DavidBVal]

If you're into Tolkien, classic ICE Middle Earth books are good sources for setting, but the adventures are few and unremarkable.

Early Vampire:The Masquerade books like Chicago by Night, Milwaukee by Night, Ashes to Ashes, etc are good.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

If you're into Tolkien, classic ICE Middle Earth books are good sources for setting, but the adventures are few and unremarkable.

MERP is high quality you philistine.

 

[DavidBVal]

If you're into Tolkien, classic ICE Middle Earth books are good sources for setting, but the adventures are few and unremarkable.

MERP is high quality you philistine.

I know

Still, I say when it comes to actual adventures, it's up to the DM to make them. Sourcebooks are mostly descriptive.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

If you're into Tolkien, classic ICE Middle Earth books are good sources for setting, but the adventures are few and unremarkable.

MERP is high quality you philistine.

I know

Still, I say when it comes to actual adventures, it's up to the DM to make them. Sourcebooks are mostly descriptive.

Your books are in some weird language

 

[DavidBVal]

Yes, I am afraid I couldn't find them in Quenya

 

[Kliwer]

Bard+Cleric can beat anything, really. Just reintroduce an aspect from old D&D that is rarely used nowadays: henchmen.

I use henchmen. A lot. This is a very good way to enhance gameplay. But:
- mercenaries are quite expensive (at the current level 4, the team cannot afford too much);
- they are a bit weaker than players (I treat players as "heroes", so they have slightly better attributes);
- They cannot be 100% controlled. They may refuse to perform certain tasks;
- They usually have some hidden feature or defect.

This team (bard + cleric) has already said goodbye to the hobbit-thief (because she was a kleptomaniac). They resigned from the services of a fairly powerful paladin - because that was difficult to get along with at times. Recently they hired a fighter-thief (a former city guard agent). They even became friends with him, but there is one problem: he is an alcoholic . In the campaign I was running a few years ago, the team (already quite advanced) sometimes commanded entire units. I usually try to make promotion to higher levels associated with an increase in the social status of players, as well as with new opportunities.

A lot more fun that way. Always fun to see how your character develops into something completely different than the 5 minute brainstorm skeleton of a concept you had in mind at first. It's good to have some context for why you're engaged in the incredibly risky and deadly dungeoneering trade, especially in that lovely hobo stage when you're barely keeping up with expenses. Normal people would just stay on the farm, collect those taxes, or do whatever it is they used to do. But ultimately it's just there to give you a reason. Nobody wants to around and hear your anguished soliloquys about your complicated past breaking up the flow of the game. A little is flavour. Too much, and there's not much game left. When P&P RP devolves into something akin to pure theatre, it's like those games that are just a succession of boring cutscenes. I feel a lot of systems go too far in giving players power over the narrative. Ideally, in a session you're constantly balancing risk, reward, fucking around and having a blast, and genuine RP.

In our campaigns, we usually have a lively exchange of emails between sessions. We assume that some time passes between individual adventures. Thanks to this:
- you can develop personal threads of each player without boring others;
- absurd situations are avoided when characters advance from level 1 to level 10 within a few months;
- We can push some global changes to the game world, affecting the gameplay (from little things like the season of the year to big political events).

During the adventures, personal threads are of course also present - albeit to such an extent that no player dominates the game (although there are also adventures devoted mainly to one player - if the rest agree).

My group is about to finish the Enemy Within campaign for WFRP

This campaign is indeed an exception. However, I still think that it is better read than played. Like every campaign written "in advance" it is characterized by:
- too tight gameplay structure. When I plan an adventure myself, I prefer to give players a goal (or let them set one themselves) - and leave the way for their creativity to reach that goal.
- fits poorly with the motivations of individual characters. "-Why are we doing this?", "Well ... because that's what this adventure is about!"

Predefined campaigns simply take freedom from players. It looks more interesting in author's campaigns.

DM: Okay, you defeated the mountain giants' chieftain, gained fame in the region and gained rich loot. What do you want to do next time?

Dwarf: In the treasury of the giants we found notes about the legendary Dwarven Thunderhammer. We should try to find it, of course!

Druid: It can wait - the hammer will not run. We'd better go back to town and see what happened to Maria the Herbalist. She may need help immediately! [Maria was an unimportant epiosodic NPC, but players became friends with her and took an interest in her life]. What do you think, elf?

Elf: Hm ... I don't want to go for the hammer. This will probably be another trip to the dungeons. We'd better find Maria. Dungeon Master - could it be an adventure in an urban setting involving local guilds? I think the intrigue between guilds would be a nice theme for the next adventure.

DM: Of course. Does everyone agree?

Druid: Yes!

Dwarf: Well ... ok. But then we will go for the hammer!

This is the charm of a properly conducted campaign. Of course - it will take time to prepare a good adventure. Personally, it takes me about a week to prepare a typical two-day weekend session, several hours a day. But the effect is usually good, I guess.

For every mediocre pre-generated adventure I've played, I've played 10 incredibly sucky adventures made by a DM with delusions about his own ability to exert the work ethics needed to craft everything himself.

I'm sorry you were unlucky with the Game Masters. Mine were usually quite talented.

 

[DavidBVal]

This campaign is indeed an exception. However, I still think that it is better read than played. Like every campaign written "in advance" it is characterized by:
- too tight gameplay structure. When I plan an adventure myself, I prefer to give players a goal (or let them set one themselves) - and leave the way for their creativity to reach that goal.
- fits poorly with the motivations of individual characters. "-Why are we doing this?", "Well ... because that's what this adventure is about!"

Um... no.

"tight gameplay"... I think you haven't read them, really. With the exception of Mistaken Identity (Which is a mere intro), everything else is open and sandbox-like. I think I've never seen a campaign which gives more freedom to the players. Death on the Reik? a complete sandbox on an open map with a miriad small adventures to find. SoB and PBT? You are given an evil plot, a calendar of events and a list of potential encounters, it's up to the players to choose where they go and when, and solving the adventure has no clear-cut path. For instance in Bogenhafen it is amazing how each little location in town the players want to investigate has been detailed with something interesting... from the doctor house to the captain of the watch, most of those will likely be missed by the players, yet there they are.

"poor motivations"... I've ran it twice in the 90s, both times players were stoked and motivated from the beginning.

First of all is Mistaken Identity and the promise of free riches, there's always someone in the party that will be vulnerable to that lure. Then the adventure hook in Bogenhafen is great. From there onwards, it's about saving the world and also surviving the attacks from an enemy cult... if that doesn't motivate your players, you need to find new players.

There's a point where you have to stop being your player's psychoanalyst and just inform them than they have decided to become adventurers and travel together to seek fame, power, wisdom, justice, and/or fortune, and they get to pick which of those and why. It's a premise for any fantasy character, that for whatever reason he's bound to travel around and is open to weird job proposals from strangers. Trying to build a 100% perfect rationale behind why anyone would become a vagabond with a death-wish is a lost battle and a waste of effort.

If a cleric wishes to stay at the temple and pray, that's fine. That cleric lived happily and died in his bed aged 90, and your player needs to roll an adventurer cleric instead. Of course you could design a very specific adventure that pulls it off: a murder mystery inside the temple, so your pacifist cleric is motivated to solve it, and the bard's master was unjoustly accused of it, so the student wants to clear her name. Is that what you mean by a "tailored" adventure with specific motivations? Fine, easy enough to adapt any existing module to have a beginning like that. But you are wasting your time if you put your efforts there instead of on making the adventure cool, in the end that's not what is going to bring fun to a game.

Short version: getting the adventure rolling is not only the DM's job, it's everyone's.