Using one format for all types of adventures unchangingly is a problem. You want to adapt the format according to the style of adventure (investigation, exploration, combat-heavy, event-driven, etc.) When I look to describing a particular scene or encounter, I think there are a few key areas that should be present. I look for the following: An opening paragraph or boxed text that sets out … Continue reading Formatting Encounters
Here are two encounters from Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Interestingly, they appear next to each other in the book. Which do you find easier to parse? In my case, it’s the first one. And it’s for a simple reason: the opening paragraph tells me what to expect in the room. For the second example, the empty classroom, my initial thought is that the … Continue reading Encounter Writing: Introductory Paragraphs and Room Descriptions
Some of my favourite Dungeons & Dragons encounters have consisted of a very simple challenge, but, because the adventurers didn’t have the right tools available to them, they needed to improvise and come up with another solution. Give me a stream with a slippery log over it or an open pit just too wide for all the characters to jump and I have a situation … Continue reading Exploration and Making the Mind Work
In just over a week, I’m going to start running Waterdeep: Dragon Heist as part of our regular D&D Adventurers League play at our local store. We’ll begin with a Session 0, where the players create their characters and I can set the ground rules of the campaign. I also have to make a few decisions of my own. The primary one is this: Which … Continue reading Waterdeep: Dragon Heist – Choosing the Villain
How often do your characters rest? Where do they rest? Do your characters always fight to the death? Further to my last article on the effects that the availability of healing has on the game, I was considering how other mechanics change the flow of the game. To some extent, the mechanics are elements of the old-style dungeon explorations that I still enjoy very much … Continue reading Wandering Monsters, Pursuit and Resting
Adventures I don’t design for publication? They don’t need so much text! The premise? Goblins are raiding from an old keep (the upper floor is destroyed). However, the goblins are plagued by an old summoning circle in the basement, which keeps letting loose Abyssal Maws! They’ve got a deal with some ogres to keep the maws in, but they’d prefer to get rid of them … Continue reading A Home Adventure
Some things you learn through experience. When I first played Dungeons & Dragons, while AD&D 1st Edition was the main edition, I got very frustrated by the magic item creation rules. Too vague! The DM had to do too much work! Where do you get those ingredients anyway? I understood that crafting magic items was an important part of the magic-user’s abilities – the book … Continue reading Crafting Magic Items – and the Effect on the Campaign
I recently played the first of the Star Trek Adventures organised play adventures, Decision Point. It was my first experience with the system, which meant we ignored a lot of the mechanics and concentrated on the story. The story revolved around an ethical dilemma: Do we break the Prime Directive of Starfleet (non-interference) and save some of the population of a doomed planet? Or do … Continue reading Troubles with Ethical Dilemmas
Shawn Merwin and Chris Sniezak recently touched on the phenomenon of most groups always turning left when they came to an intersection in a dungeon, as part of their Down with D&D podcast. The decision to “turn left first” is one I’ve observed at many tables over the last couple of decades. My feeling is that it comes partly from the decision to take the … Continue reading In the Dungeon: Left or Right?
Keep things short. Don’t overexplain. That background you wrote? It should be shorter. That NPC personality? Do you need that much detail? Try dot points. If you take over a page for an encounter, it’s too long. If it’s over a column, can you shorten it? Adventures are read twice, if you’re lucky. Once to prepare, and once during the running. When a DM runs … Continue reading On Brevity, Clarity and Adventure Writing
