I would like to open a discussion to hear your thoughts. I will not speak
on this topic while you guys share, so this will be your big chance to not
listen to me drone.
(Actually, since I'll be finishing up the couple other questions in my
backlog, I will be droning, but this will give you something to do while I
drone about something else.)
Question:
What are your thoughts about published adventures and they way they are
structured. Specifically Traveller, but could be others.
I always had problems with out-of-house adventures because most of them
just led the players around by the nose to see a thing happen, then led
them to see another thing happen, and so on.
I thought that DGP's famous "cinematic nuggets" were really just the same
premise, just flashed up a little. Still lots of predefined set-piece
scenes to arrive at and watch play out, and steps to get there.
The problem was that I found a hard time writing an adventure that
reflected the way I ref. My approach was that I knew everything about my
universe, certainly the area they were in, so I just gave them a problem
and let them come at it any way they wanted. There were no predefined
steps, paths they had to take, etc. It makes no sense to write an
adventure describing what I do: "Dear Ref: Know everything, and turn the
PCs lose. Enjoy your adventure!"
Obviously you have to give them some structure and steps to work with,
that's why they buy an adventure. What for you has been a good balance
between structure and freedom of story-telling in published adventures
you've seen?
I think personally I'm a fan of the Operation Plan set up when it comes to adventures. I like a certain amount of structure, the well we're on Wariner lets find a cargo and see where that leads us has always bored me, if I wanted to balance my chequebook I'd have stayed at home. I like to have a "patron" who gives out the "mission," you need to go here here and here, and you need to x y z. How you do this is up to you but here's your scooty poof Jr., a crate full of cash and a large pair of binoculars.
I guess I'm a fan of the PoT adventure nugget, give me the world, give me the op and enough rope to hang myself.
I understand that sometimes you need to have set pieces, sometimes the guy at the podium has to die because that's the plot point that kicks off the adventure.
You know as I sit here in the dark I suppose an objective, a simple timeline, a map and a supporting cast of characters is really what I want. That gives me the who what where when and how.
Derek Stanley
Sent from my iPad
> On Mar 24, 2014, at 11:30 PM, wrote:
>
> TNEers--
>
> I would like to open a discussion to hear your thoughts. I will not speak
> on this topic while you guys share, so this will be your big chance to not
> listen to me drone.
>
> (Actually, since I'll be finishing up the couple other questions in my
> backlog, I will be droning, but this will give you something to do while I
> drone about something else.)
>
> Question:
>
> What are your thoughts about published adventures and they way they are
> structured. Specifically Traveller, but could be others.
>
> I always had problems with out-of-house adventures because most of them
> just led the players around by the nose to see a thing happen, then led
> them to see another thing happen, and so on.
>
> I thought that DGP's famous "cinematic nuggets" were really just the same
> premise, just flashed up a little. Still lots of predefined set-piece
> scenes to arrive at and watch play out, and steps to get there.
>
> The problem was that I found a hard time writing an adventure that
> reflected the way I ref. My approach was that I knew everything about my
> universe, certainly the area they were in, so I just gave them a problem
> and let them come at it any way they wanted. There were no predefined
> steps, paths they had to take, etc. It makes no sense to write an
> adventure describing what I do: "Dear Ref: Know everything, and turn the
> PCs lose. Enjoy your adventure!"
>
> Obviously you have to give them some structure and steps to work with,
> that's why they buy an adventure. What for you has been a good balance
> between structure and freedom of story-telling in published adventures
> you've seen?
>
> Thanks,
>
> dave
>
>
For a campaign I liked to plot rudimentary arcs, largely driven by the
specific setting/history and NPC agendas with the players influence if/as
their prominence rose. That requires a lot of work, though.
I did enjoy published adventures either as sidetrack / one offs and liked
to break up the arcs now & then. Sometimes I would integrate a published
adventure into the campaigm and create arcs & future events off that.
My favorite was nuggets as provided in PoT and to a lesser extent the
subsector data notes. Easy enough to wing off the cuff but potential to
create larger stuff.
The best of both worlds would be subsector sourcebooks: heres this
subsector with 15 worlds each with 5-10 nuggets & a fleshed out example or
two.
- Sent from my SM-N900T
On Mar 24, 2014 11:30 PM, <> wrote:
>
>
> TNEers--
>
> I would like to open a discussion to hear your thoughts. I will not speak
> on this topic while you guys share, so this will be your big chance to not
> listen to me drone.
>
> (Actually, since I'll be finishing up the couple other questions in my
> backlog, I will be droning, but this will give you something to do while I
> drone about something else.)
>
> Question:
>
> What are your thoughts about published adventures and they way they are
> structured. Specifically Traveller, but could be others.
>
> I always had problems with out-of-house adventures because most of them
> just led the players around by the nose to see a thing happen, then led
> them to see another thing happen, and so on.
>
> I thought that DGP's famous "cinematic nuggets" were really just the same
> premise, just flashed up a little. Still lots of predefined set-piece
> scenes to arrive at and watch play out, and steps to get there.
>
> The problem was that I found a hard time writing an adventure that
> reflected the way I ref. My approach was that I knew everything about my
> universe, certainly the area they were in, so I just gave them a problem
> and let them come at it any way they wanted. There were no predefined
> steps, paths they had to take, etc. It makes no sense to write an
> adventure describing what I do: "Dear Ref: Know everything, and turn the
> PCs lose. Enjoy your adventure!"
>
> Obviously you have to give them some structure and steps to work with,
> that's why they buy an adventure. What for you has been a good balance
> between structure and freedom of story-telling in published adventures
> you've seen?
>
> Thanks,
>
> dave
>
>
>
When I designed the space around my PE that's pretty much what I did,
detailed 4 subsectors and came up with a couple ideas for adventures for
everything.
Published adventures were generally idea farms for me, ideas about NPC's,
ideas about areas and maps. dear god give me maps. I have a book somewhere
with all the TNE starships I could find and deck plans, some of them going
back to CT for as many of them as I could. I reasoned that if I was going
to run something I wanted to have a rough handle on what was going to be
where.
I remember back in the T2K days my GM running an adventure based off the old
Clint Eastwood movie Where Eagles Dare, of course for us he renamed it Where
Dimwits Dare, but we had tons of fun.
I found that leaving documents was a great way to make the players find
their own adventures.
These led to . oh about 10 different adventures. I'm going to be honest the
writing in those is pretty bad, I wrote them all up in one sitting and
reading through them now I can see where some editing would have really been
an asset. Of course they were supposed to be stream of conscience personal
journals so.
From: []
On Behalf Of Master Uxi
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2014 8:46 AM
To:
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] NOT Dave droning on
For a campaign I liked to plot rudimentary arcs, largely driven by the
specific setting/history and NPC agendas with the players influence if/as
their prominence rose. That requires a lot of work, though.
I did enjoy published adventures either as sidetrack / one offs and liked to
break up the arcs now & then. Sometimes I would integrate a published
adventure into the campaigm and create arcs & future events off that.
My favorite was nuggets as provided in PoT and to a lesser extent the
subsector data notes. Easy enough to wing off the cuff but potential to
create larger stuff.
The best of both worlds would be subsector sourcebooks: heres this subsector
with 15 worlds each with 5-10 nuggets & a fleshed out example or two.
- Sent from my SM-N900T
On Mar 24, 2014 11:30 PM, <> wrote:
TNEers--
I would like to open a discussion to hear your thoughts. I will not speak
on this topic while you guys share, so this will be your big chance to not
listen to me drone.
(Actually, since I'll be finishing up the couple other questions in my
backlog, I will be droning, but this will give you something to do while I
drone about something else.)
Question:
What are your thoughts about published adventures and they way they are
structured. Specifically Traveller, but could be others.
I always had problems with out-of-house adventures because most of them
just led the players around by the nose to see a thing happen, then led
them to see another thing happen, and so on.
I thought that DGP's famous "cinematic nuggets" were really just the same
premise, just flashed up a little. Still lots of predefined set-piece
scenes to arrive at and watch play out, and steps to get there.
The problem was that I found a hard time writing an adventure that
reflected the way I ref. My approach was that I knew everything about my
universe, certainly the area they were in, so I just gave them a problem
and let them come at it any way they wanted. There were no predefined
steps, paths they had to take, etc. It makes no sense to write an
adventure describing what I do: "Dear Ref: Know everything, and turn the
PCs lose. Enjoy your adventure!"
Obviously you have to give them some structure and steps to work with,
that's why they buy an adventure. What for you has been a good balance
between structure and freedom of story-telling in published adventures
you've seen?
Dmn those logs were good, I think I will steal them for my little TNE PE. Now whats in the cargo hold?
Cheers
Richard
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Stanley
To:
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2014 4:43 PM
Subject: RE: [Traveller_TNE] NOT Dave droning on
When I designed the space around my PE that's pretty much what I did, detailed 4 subsectors and came up with a couple ideas for adventures for everything.
Published adventures were generally idea farms for me, ideas about NPC's, ideas about areas and maps. dear god give me maps. I have a book somewhere with all the TNE starships I could find and deck plans, some of them going back to CT for as many of them as I could. I reasoned that if I was going to run something I wanted to have a rough handle on what was going to be where.
I remember back in the T2K days my GM running an adventure based off the old Clint Eastwood movie Where Eagles Dare, of course for us he renamed it Where Dimwits Dare, but we had tons of fun.
I found that leaving documents was a great way to make the players find their own adventures.
These led to . oh about 10 different adventures. I'm going to be honest the writing in those is pretty bad, I wrote them all up in one sitting and reading through them now I can see where some editing would have really been an asset. Of course they were supposed to be stream of conscience personal journals so.
From: [] On Behalf Of Master Uxi
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2014 8:46 AM
To:
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] NOT Dave droning on
For a campaign I liked to plot rudimentary arcs, largely driven by the specific setting/history and NPC agendas with the players influence if/as their prominence rose. That requires a lot of work, though.
I did enjoy published adventures either as sidetrack / one offs and liked to break up the arcs now & then. Sometimes I would integrate a published adventure into the campaigm and create arcs & future events off that.
My favorite was nuggets as provided in PoT and to a lesser extent the subsector data notes. Easy enough to wing off the cuff but potential to create larger stuff.
The best of both worlds would be subsector sourcebooks: heres this subsector with 15 worlds each with 5-10 nuggets & a fleshed out example or two.
- Sent from my SM-N900T
On Mar 24, 2014 11:30 PM, <> wrote:
TNEers--
I would like to open a discussion to hear your thoughts. I will not speak
on this topic while you guys share, so this will be your big chance to not
listen to me drone.
(Actually, since I'll be finishing up the couple other questions in my
backlog, I will be droning, but this will give you something to do while I
drone about something else.)
Question:
What are your thoughts about published adventures and they way they are
structured. Specifically Traveller, but could be others.
I always had problems with out-of-house adventures because most of them
just led the players around by the nose to see a thing happen, then led
them to see another thing happen, and so on.
I thought that DGP's famous "cinematic nuggets" were really just the same
premise, just flashed up a little. Still lots of predefined set-piece
scenes to arrive at and watch play out, and steps to get there.
The problem was that I found a hard time writing an adventure that
reflected the way I ref. My approach was that I knew everything about my
universe, certainly the area they were in, so I just gave them a problem
and let them come at it any way they wanted. There were no predefined
steps, paths they had to take, etc. It makes no sense to write an
adventure describing what I do: "Dear Ref: Know everything, and turn the
PCs lose. Enjoy your adventure!"
Obviously you have to give them some structure and steps to work with,
that's why they buy an adventure. What for you has been a good balance
between structure and freedom of story-telling in published adventures
you've seen?
I think there is a market and a need for both kinds of adventures. Classically, these are Scripted (often called Adventure Paths) and Unscripted (often called Sandboxes). There isn't anything wrong with either one. I've used both and will continue to purchase and employ both. For a busy GM/Referee, scripted adventures can be a godsend. For a Ref with more time on his or her hands, unscripted can be a blast. Why should there be one canonical answer?
Another answer is that scripted adventures go a long way to conveying the "feel" of a universe. It's easier to run some unscripted adventures after I've run or read some scripted ones.