Mary K. Kuhner wrote:
> In article <45ffe81a@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, tussock <scrub@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>> With all modules, I have to redo them a bit to allow breaks, the
>> bad guys have lives too and all that. I mean, the PCs are allowed to
>> bite off more than they can chew, get in over their heads, that's all
>> part of the fun; but generally there's something out there for them
that
>> they can defeat in detail and return home to drink away the horrid
>> memories of.
>
> How do you do it?
>
> SPOILERS for SCAP follow:
>
> A pretty typical module adventure: An evil priestess has waylaid a
> priest who was returning to the city with some magic items needed
> to prevent a flood.
He's got the MacGuffin. It's irrelevant to the game, that's the
point of a MacGuffin. It can easily be something to prevent the flood
predicted due in a couple years time (a natural damn has blocked a
tributary and will break about then), or protect the city from a plague,
or whatever.
> The PCs get word of this. They try to rescue the priest, but too
> late:
Heh. Being a moment too late is just melodrama, I'm not bothered
with throwing that sort of thing out. The PCs can chase down the thugs a
month later as they start throwing around their payment and getting
loose lipped with booze.
The PCs put the hard word on them, but they play all innocent: then
they panic and try to take out the PCs, and we continue. Or, you know,
whatever, there's always something to draw the fights into play.
> they tangle with the thugs who killed him, but the evil priestess
> has gone.
So the items have gone to ground and there remains no trail to
follow. They can turn up next spring doing something ominous, word
quickly working it's way to the PCs.
> They track her down to her underground lair and defeat her and her
> companions.
/Finally/, in the late summer, a lacky is uncovered who betrays
their location. The autumnal rains are due, but not for few weeks (or
maybe it's the spring thaw, doesn't matter).
> They then return to town in time to stop the flood.
Or they don't, floods can be fun too. 8]
> The PCs went up two levels in the course of this. (I don't recall
> exactly where the first level advance was: maybe right after
> the thugs.)
And if they're a little short, pull a couple of encounters from
elsewhere and work them in as a side story. Or, you know, wait 'till
next year to go up a level.
> How do you redo something with a plot like that so that the PCs can
> have significant downtime in the middle?
I think I've done that alright above.
> Or do you avoid using anything with such a structure?
Not a lot of the structure needs changed, just a paragraph or two
of preamble. Same major NPCs, same encounters, almost all of the same
connections between them, and that's where the work is in preparing DnD
games. The plot is just happening over a year instead of a couple days.
> Most of the modules I've seen are either frightfully, almost (to
> my mind) unusably short--one or two encounters, basically, like the
> ones WOTC has on line--or cover 2-3 levels' worth of advancement,
> like the original Adventure Paths or the SCAP or Worms modules.
The longer stuff all has natural break points, they're designed to
let parties regain spells and heal up. Just stretch the connection
between them, instead of a secret three sectioned dungeon have three
secret dungeons.
Even something weird like "The World's Largest Dungeon" could see
the PCs setting up little extended camps within the place, learning to
get on with the less obnoxious of their neighbours.
> If you run it as written, the PCs start out at 5th and are 7th
> a couple of days later. It's not clear to me how you could stretch it
> over months of game-time, unless you abandon the "we need to
> stop the flood" time pressure.
Any extended plot arcs have to be ****ged into having the requisite
years available, or just accept that the PCs might have to let someone
else handle the problem.
They are perfectly allowed to push on, but there's little to gain
in game or out, and you don't want to stick your neck out too far anyway.
> And then it gets hard to feel that the PCs are involved with their
> setting.
The setting is the lives of the people around you; not the fights
or some external time pressure. Say the coming flood will destroy the
low-lying structures, so people are selling up and closing shop in
preparation. This causes devaluation, unemployment, vacant buildings,
and sees lots of minor crime and disorder springing up. An old friend
gets in debtors trouble with the magistrate, that sort of stuff.
In the downtime the players can work on providing for the new poor,
organising useful work boarding up abandoned buildings, clearing fire
dangers, and managing any refugees. It's not just a few fights over the
MacGuffin, it's a major event in the life of your city.
> The material you write yourself is, I presume, much less encounter-
> dense than most modules. I know the stuff I write myself is.
Sort of. I don't mind the whole level/year worth of fights stuck
into a two or three day seige, I just like to put some background around
why the seige is happening and what its extended effects are.
> But the modules really impose a pretty strong advancement clock.
If you've seen the newer Savage Tide stuff, it's been on a railroad
from the home city to a ****pwreck and across an island. The voyage takes
a long time naturally and a ****pwreck provides an excellent forced rest
as food, water, and shelter needs organised, and the weather has to
clear enough to go walkabout.
Across the island there's time to be taken in a villiage, have them
learn to accept the PCs before they'll guide them further. Spending a
year with the villiagers helping them out makes sense in the long-term
too. It doesn't matter that the PCs were lost for three years crossing
the island, it'll make reuniting with the boss all the more dramatic.
--
tussock
Aspie at work, sorry in advance.
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