How to write a good module

[AxeMental]

Of course I have my own ideas, but want to here what others have to say first. I'm not talking about the dungeon (thats a given and we have threads on that already). Also, what are the difficulties of avoiding "railroading" in the creation of a module (at what point does backstory and current activity described become a railroad)?

[TRP]

Write it.
Play test it.
Fix it.
Repeat as necessary.

Succinct room, monster, treasure and trap descriptions. Also, a concise style will likely lack the ability to railroad. The more verbose, the greater the opportunity to allow the choo-choo in through the door.

[JCBoney]

Avoid complicated scenarios. Simply give a short background, describe what's there, list possible complications from obvious actions, and let the players do the rest.

[rogatny]

Succinct room, monster, treasure and trap descriptions. Also, a concise style will likely lack the ability to railroad. The more verbose, the greater the opportunity to allow the choo-choo in through the door.

To follow allong:

Don't assume anything. Just be a reporter. Tell the DM what is there in an interesting and engaging manner. If you are including something, make sure it's there for game purposes and is something the DM will be able to relate to the players.

Come up with an interesting place that the players will want to explore. Come up with interesting characters with whom the players will want to interact. If you do these two things, "story" will take care of itself.

[thedungeondelver]

This is a fight of mine, and I'm glad this thread started: when I design a module I tend to want to hold the DM's hand a tad and say "If x happens, then the monsters may do y".

So I wonder if I shouldn't do that.

I mean, Gary did it from time to time - in G1 he notes that if the characters manage to burn the steading down (a difficult task) then the survivors will fall back to the dungeon level and wait for any attacks there.

Thoughts?

[Irda Ranger]

First drafts alway suck, so we'll assume that's already been written before any "good module" advice can be taken.

Read through your module. You can leave in a couple 'player hooks' in the beginning, but cross out anything that looks like a 'plot'. Especially anything near the 'end' of the module. In fact, if you think you know where and how the module will 'end' at all, fix that. There should be no set path.

If there's a scene in the module that you really, really like - delete it (that's advice from Peter Jackson, actually). You'll be so excited to play it that you might RR your players subconsciously so you can get to it. This is also the stage where you look out for Mary Sue NPCs that snuck into the first draft. Either get rid of them or give them some hideous drawback, like a curse that makes them barf garden slugs whenever they talk to a female they find attractive.

Locales, locales, locales. You can have too many, but it's hard. Include enough details about what these locales are used for when adventurers aren't traipsing through looking for loot. Give them a bit of history. Imagine what was going on there the year or century before.

Major NPCs should have a short list of preferences, motivations and memorable quirks. Preferences and motivations are so the Players can interact with them. Quirks are so your players remember them/can keep them straight. You might also want to have a list/table of random preferences, motivations and quirks appropriate for the module's setting (a used lamp salesman in the bazaar of Akraba) handy for on-the-fly generation of NPCs. But what NPCs should not have is a "story to tell", unless it's over a beer with the PCs. Keep your Strahd Von Zarovichs to yourself.

The thing with NPC agendas (rather than tactics) is that the NPCs should works towards achieving them pretty much regardless of what the PCs are doing. Whether the PCs help or oppose them will effect the tactics NPCs use to achieve their agenda, not change what their agenda is. Railroading is telling the PCs "You must help Baron Whosawatz defeat Castellan le'Faire", while a good module has an entry on the rumor table that "Baron Whosawatz is seeking to defeat Castellan le'Faire's petition to become fief-lord of Kancatan Vale." Then it's up to the PCs to decide what to do about that.

[rogatny]

This is a fight of mine, and I'm glad this thread started: when I design a module I tend to want to hold the DM's hand a tad and say "If x happens, then the monsters may do y".

So I wonder if I shouldn't do that.

I mean, Gary did it from time to time - in G1 he notes that if the characters manage to burn the steading down (a difficult task) then the survivors will fall back to the dungeon level and wait for any attacks there.

Thoughts?

There's small, on the ground stuff that should be included... "If the fight goes badly, the goblins will try to arouse the ogre in Cave E." That's not much different than saying, "If the lever is pushed up, the floor will collapse; if the lever is pushed down, the treasure chest will open." It's staging the scenario.

It's the larger conceptual stuff, especially that which dictates what the players should do... "After the party talks to Goldmoon, they should head to Pax Tharkas. If they fail to do so, the DM should take the following steps..." That's running the adventure for the DM. If the pcs are more interested in fighting the dragon army or figuring out what the dwarves to the south are doing, as opposed to running after whatever macguffin the phony cleric chick is interested in, that should entirely be the players' choice.

[Gord]

This is a fight of mine, and I'm glad this thread started: when I design a module I tend to want to hold the DM's hand a tad and say "If x happens, then the monsters may do y".

So I wonder if I shouldn't do that.

I mean, Gary did it from time to time - in G1 he notes that if the characters manage to burn the steading down (a difficult task) then the survivors will fall back to the dungeon level and wait for any attacks there.

Thoughts?

Oh yes, for me, this is what I would like in a module. If a player says or does something, then results of those actions are spelled out in the module. Works for me. Of course, it doesn't have to be this way, for every little aspect of the module.

I also like details. Len Lakofka like.

[Matthew]

Also, what are the difficulties of avoiding "railroading" in the creation of a module (at what point does backstory and current activity described become a railroad)?

I have two great examples of this. One is in Saga of the Rat King, where there is a room that just gets flooded with endless enemies until the player characters are captured. The other is, I am sad to say, in AA7 The Sarcophagus Legion, where the text assumes that the player characters surrender, are "staked out", and then escape. If they do not surrender, then the text assumes they are killed or subdued. Basically, these are situations where there is only one possible outcome no matter what the players do during the adventure. Stuart Marshall draws a line between this and the "bus ride" to the adventure [i.e. things that happen before the module starts]. I can see his point, but that does make modules difficult to integrate with ongoing campaigns.

This is a fight of mine, and I'm glad this thread started: when I design a module I tend to want to hold the DM's hand a tad and say "If x happens, then the monsters may do y".

So I wonder if I shouldn't do that.

I mean, Gary did it from time to time - in G1 he notes that if the characters manage to burn the steading down (a difficult task) then the survivors will fall back to the dungeon level and wait for any attacks there.

Thoughts?

This sort of stuff is perfectly acceptable to me. Sketching out the likely tactics of the monsters is perfectly reasonable. Some modules go too far and specify every reaction in sequence, and that is not always a good idea.

[Malcadon]

I have two great examples of this. One is in Saga of the Rat King, where there is a room that just gets flooded with endless enemies until the player characters are captured. The other is, I am sad to say, in AA7 The Sarcophagus Legion, where the text assumes that the player characters surrender, are "staked out", and then escape. If they do not surrender, then the text assumes they are killed or subdued. Basically, these are situations where there is only one possible outcome no matter what the players do during the adventure. Stuart Marshall draws a line between this and the "bus ride" to the adventure [i.e. things that happen before the module starts]. I can see his point, but that does make modules difficult to integrate with ongoing campaigns.

I hate when they do that. Its like a sudden video game cut scenes you cant avoid or skip. I like the PC's capture to be a possible outcome - not the only one! The first time I remembered such a thing was in the second Gamma World module. The railroading felt a little forced. I call it the "knock them out with a coconut" scenario. That is, the scenario cant go forward unless the PCs get knocked out or captured - even if you have to rain coconuts in their skulls!

I remember hearing about a DM who made a dungeon, but not the outside map, and the players wanted to explore elsewhere. The DM summoned an outside storm that forced the entrance door shut. When the players tried to force their way out, the DM collapsed the doorway. The player know they would never that battle.

This sort of stuff is perfectly acceptable to me. Sketching out the likely tactics of the monsters is perfectly reasonable. Some modules go too far and specify every reaction in sequence, and that is not always a good idea.

So true. Laying out tactics is vary useful for DMs, but when the module lays out a step-by-step sequence, then that dont give the DM a lot of room to do their own thing - you might as well be emulating a video game!

And that is the key thing to all this, is that modules are not video games. The unique nature of RPGs allow for a level of interactivity undreamed of in video games, and it would be a waste if modules not play to this strength.

Truth be told, I no longer play modules wholesale. I like to carrypick through them for ideas.

[thedungeondelver]

It's good to hear this feedback. I'm always worried about the idea that I'm just, well, railroading the DM into behaviors with my monsters.

I mean, the DMG lays out perfectly clearly what monsters do (or do not) in a tactical situation with the Morale rules, but there are still those situations where I feel it salient to mention that yes, survivors of a probing attack by a party of adventurers will prep/retreat/pursue.

[Benoist]

I too think it's perfectly fine to lay out some possible consequences of this or that action on the PC's part. I really like it when the module really helps me grab the material and run with it as my own. That's what the tools and text provided should allow, ultimately.

If it frames the actual game's actions, tries to hold the DM's or the players' hand when actually playing the thing, then it raises walls and obstacles in front of the group instead of throwing bridges for them to go ever further in the enjoyment of the game. That's not a good thing.

[TRP]

As DM, I always take suggested tactics for monsters at exactly what they are. Suggestions. They are welcomed suggestions, in that, there may be something in them that I would not have considered. Obviously, a designer cannot anticipate everything an adventuring party can do, but general guidance on how attached a monster, or monster group, may or may not be to their particular area, is never, IMO, a wasted effort by the designer.

[jgbrowning]

Ask Semaj Khan to do it for you?

joe b.

[Mythmere]

I think the general advice about railroading has definite exceptions:

1) as noted, the bus ride to the adventure. It should be easily substituted so that it can be integrated with a different campaign, but there ought to be one. The risk isn't in having it. The risk is in making it novel-length or complicated. Players have a very limited attention span for background information, especially if it is all read at once.

2) The backstory. An adventure ought to have a mystery involved. It might be a revelation at the end (DROW are behind these giant raids!), it might be little stuff (hey, this cup has the word "Quasqueton" engraved on it - what's that?), and it might be the uncovering of facts about what disaster turned the place from normal to adventure-worthy. But players love discovering things - some won't work at it, and that's fine, but even those players love a revelation). Backstories shouldn't be long, shouldn't be front-loaded, and shouldn't get in the way of the adventuring. But they can also be part of the information unfolding that's used in figuring out passwords, secret passages, etc.