Adventures you'd like to see

[Malrex]

I feel like they should naturally be falling toward the Elemental Plane of Earth.

However, I would look at it a different way. And I can't take credit for this, because it is an approach advanced by Keith Baker in the Eberron setting, but I like it very much. The planes are reflections and representations of reality. So the Plane of Air is about things having to do with air - being buffeted by winds, lightning storms, floating on a light breeze, the peace of a warm breeze, the deep chill of a cold breeze, or scouring erosion over time, depending upon where you are on the plane. Likewise, elementals are motivated to do those things that are done by the elements they represent, so air elementals can be playful and like to push and tug at things (unless they are angry, when they flatten and tear at things), and fire elementals want to burn things, and water elementals worry away and erode things and drown creatures, and earth elementals don't do anything quickly unless it is to grow things, or start earthquakes.

Falling is not an "air" thing, IMO. Falling might be something you would encounter on the Plane of Dreams, but not in the Plane of Air. Rather, in the Plane of Air you might float with no means of propulsion or steering, unless you can jury-rig a parasail out of a cloak and follow the winds, maybe even to somewhere specific if you can talk to them. And different parts of the Plane of Air might have different properties, so you might have the "Region of Eternal Storms" and the "Region of Poisonous Vapours". There might be earthmotes floating here and there, with their own gravity, but they would only exist to highlight the effects of air upon them, so you might get motes of scouring sandstorms, for example. And factions: there could be the "Breezes of Summer" or the "Winds of Bitter Chill". Imagine if your MU accidently summoned a Wind of Bitter Chill and was surprised to discover it was doing cold damage? Or a Breeze of Summer that could cast sleep spells?

The Plane of Earth could includes regions of solid stone but also regions of warm burrows, and regions of endless claustrophobic tunnels, and regions of lush plant growth, and regions of constant earthquakes.

The Plane of Water would have both surface and depths, regions of bottomless ocean and regions of sea caves and coral reefs, regions of calm water and regions of devastating waves. There would have to be some land, because otherwise what would water have to erode? The land could be tropical beaches, or rocky headlands constantly being worn away by the raging sea.

BTW, there are no planes of earth, air or water on Eberron, so all of that is fair game if you like it.


Perhaps. But if the adventurers choose to go there, surely they should prepare themselves? You don't leave a cache of lanterns and oil at the entrance of a dungeon in case the PCs forget to bring torches, do you?

That's all great stuff Beoric! The winds would provide options for movement...a lot to think on.

Well, I see your point, but sometimes adventurers don't get to choose where they go and can't prepare.

 

[squeen]

How about in the Plane of Air you are either falling endlessly, or floating in nothingness. Air elementals of all sorts come and go --- some are curious, so you try to convince one to be your "steed". That way, even the "unprepared" have a % chance to continue.

 

[Beoric]

You OSR guys, always coddling your players!

 

[Evard's Small Tentacle]

Currently noodling on a new campaign (usually takes me a while to develop) and in looking through a bunch of stuff I have, very few settings are based or developed based on actual and current play first. Why is this? The lead in should be current environment, plots and events, with everything else being a backdrop that ties to those elements.

Almost all of the settings work the other way around with pages and pages of history and then minimal "front end" support.

Another thought- there are almost few/none Vampire Plaguey adventures (Strahd doesn't count as the vampirism is just a romanticized notion and not a core element).

 

[The1True]

The lead in should be current environment, plots and events, with everything else being a backdrop that ties to those elements.

Agreed, but as somewhat of an aside, there's a lot of hate for backstory on a number of these review sites and I can't say I entirely agree. I definitely like what Evard's saying here; get right into the adventure, lay down the setting and the hooks and get down to business. Definitely expecting players to sit around for 20 minutes while the DM drones on and on through four pages of fantasy history is ridiculous. Like they say in teachers college these days; your average student has about a 10-15 minute attention span; but they HAVE to listen. I'm playing in Ptolus right now and I think I grey out after about a minute. Too many names and I'm not sure which is supposed to be important. I'm not taking fucking notes dude, you're giving me highschool PTSD!
That said, as a DM, I love knowing the whole story and you can't necessarily expect me to piece your intricate mystery together myself from the hints in the room encounters. Compiling the big picture for me somewhere in the appendix for example would be very helpful. If I understand the whole story, I'll be more likely to present the clues the PC's find in a manner that best helps them piece it all together correctly.
And for big expositional knowledge dumps (clumsy but sometimes they're just unavoidable), rather than presenting them as read aloud, give me notes I can cut out and give to the PC's who did research or made skill checks. If it's pieces of the big story, clearly tell me what part of the story I should clip. Let the players read and highlight at their leisure (they're more likely to digest it and make connections between sessions).
To sum up; an adventure module is a treat for me. It's a pleasure not just to run, but also to read. Backstory and spoiler-art (art that I can't show the players) bloats the product for sure but it increases my enjoyment of it as its chief consumer, and if the author/editor finds a way to package that material in a way that it can be parceled out to the players that's even better; maximum efficiency achieved!

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Backstory, like everything else in a module, is supposed to be a DM tool for running the adventure. If it's less than necessary to running the game, then backstory should be minimized. But here's what I believe are some caveats to the "shorter is better" backstory rule:

- If it helps contextualize the environment so that the DM can run the game through any gap that appears in the adventure, then the backstory can be a bit longer, especially on improv-heavy modules (like sandboxes).

- If the adventure is part of some larger campaign, the backstory can be longer to convey whatever carried along from the last adventure (the trick, it seems, is then ensuring that anything that carried over is actually put to use in the adventure, rather than just old NPCs hanging around or whatever).

- If there is an expected ambiance for the locale to be filled in at randomized moments by the DM, then he needs to know enough about the place to best convey that ambiance. Not all DMs grasp the aesthetics of a haunted Babylonian-style temple, for example, so it helps them to know what kind of people Babylonians were - their gods, their technology, their iconography, etc.

- If there are parts of the backstory meant to be directly communicated to the players, it can be a bit longer to accommodate (being mindful of boredom, shorter is still the rule of thumb in these cases).

There's probably more caveats, but these come to mind. If you want a long backstory, it has to be necessary to the adventure (if your adventure needs a three-page backstory to run it, then you've designed it poorly).

 

[Malrex]

Main Question: What do you consider backstory?

TLDR; If backstory can't be used as a tool for the GM, then it's not relevant to the adventure. Also, I include factions, timetables, rumors and other things as 'backstory'.

Backstory does seem to receive a bunch of negativity. I'm with The1True, that I like to know all the details because it helps me run the adventure better. Adventures that don't give me enough backstory comes off as very dry and does not fuel my imagination at all--although some of those adventures are highly praised (and I couldn't even finish reading them--because it did nothing for me).

Having said that, backstory information needs to be important and relevant otherwise it's useless and doesn't provide what I'm looking for either. I did a review of an adventure...The Secret of the Library. It had some great ideas, but was bogged down with text. The backstory was very long and it made me realize what type of backstory was useful to me and what wasn't and why backstory gets some negativity. Which sorta makes me want to do some more reviews again. But let me critique myself first:

When I was writing City of Vermilion, I tried to keep things as short as possible with backstory. But backstory to me includes all the things the DM needs to know--for example, for Vermilion's backstory, I included a summary of laws, population size, race %'s, trade, city building history, and religion in about a half page. Then I have a religion section that is about 1 page with different gods--but Ill be able to remove that as that will all be covered in a base setting book that we are coming out with at some point. Then I have about 3 pages that includes history/what's going on with the city, the adventure summary, and the 'main adventure' that is happening in the background that PCs can join in or not--this 3 pages is what I consider the meat of the backstory. But for cities, there is a lot more 'backstory' a GM needs to know: I have ruling houses, factions which summarize what they want/goals, a timeline, and other stuff....and it takes up about 10 pages.

This sounds excessive, and it bothers me, so I've added summary tables to help the GM out...but 10 pages?! But the City of Vermilion so far is over 200 pages of adventures, so maybe 10 pages doesn't sound too much. Plus, I use the backstory as a tool like it should be. In the 200 pages of adventure section, if I mention a faction, I refer them to the summary table AND if they need to learn more, they can refer to the section in the backstory.

Is the city's trade important and does it need a long drawn out section about it? I say no...it's not relevant information during play, BUT it's nice to know for the background. Vermilion's looks like this:
"Trade: Olive oil, seafood, ship-building, textile, wines"
Why is that even important? Well I tie some of the trade into the adventure: A Situation or Potential Shitstorm is that the textile industry isn't getting along with the wine/olive oil industry and their is some politics within those groups the PCs might find themselves in. So knowing the trade becomes relevant. Knowing the trade can help the GM know what's in the cargo holds of ships or wagons, etc.

Comparing Vermilion to my Secret of the Library review--knowing that the builder was friends with the mage who wanted the library built and the builder's schedule of work and all the history of building the library---none of that was brought back into the adventure, so it wasn't relevant backstory.
I looked back at Red Prophet Rises--3 paragraph introduction. I think that's around the sweet spot for just an adventure. But it's also 3 pages of 'backstory' that includes notes to the GM, timetables, rumors, etc.

 

[Evard's Small Tentacle]

Main Question: What do you consider backstory?

TLDR; If backstory can't be used as a tool for the GM, then it's not relevant to the adventure. Also, I include factions, timetables, rumors and other things as 'backstory'.

Backstory does seem to receive a bunch of negativity. I'm with The1True, that I like to know all the details because it helps me run the adventure better. Adventures that don't give me enough backstory comes off as very dry and does not fuel my imagination at all--although some of those adventures are highly praised (and I couldn't even finish reading them--because it did nothing for me).

Having said that, backstory information needs to be important and relevant otherwise it's useless and doesn't provide what I'm looking for either. I did a review of an adventure...The Secret of the Library. It had some great ideas, but was bogged down with text. The backstory was very long and it made me realize what type of backstory was useful to me and what wasn't and why backstory gets some negativity. Which sorta makes me want to do some more reviews again. But let me critique myself first:

When I was writing City of Vermilion, I tried to keep things as short as possible with backstory. But backstory to me includes all the things the DM needs to know--for example, for Vermilion's backstory, I included a summary of laws, population size, race %'s, trade, city building history, and religion in about a half page. Then I have a religion section that is about 1 page with different gods--but Ill be able to remove that as that will all be covered in a base setting book that we are coming out with at some point. Then I have about 3 pages that includes history/what's going on with the city, the adventure summary, and the 'main adventure' that is happening in the background that PCs can join in or not--this 3 pages is what I consider the meat of the backstory. But for cities, there is a lot more 'backstory' a GM needs to know: I have ruling houses, factions which summarize what they want/goals, a timeline, and other stuff....and it takes up about 10 pages.

This sounds excessive, and it bothers me, so I've added summary tables to help the GM out...but 10 pages?! But the City of Vermilion so far is over 200 pages of adventures, so maybe 10 pages doesn't sound too much. Plus, I use the backstory as a tool like it should be. In the 200 pages of adventure section, if I mention a faction, I refer them to the summary table AND if they need to learn more, they can refer to the section in the backstory.

Is the city's trade important and does it need a long drawn out section about it? I say no...it's not relevant information during play, BUT it's nice to know for the background. Vermilion's looks like this:
"Trade: Olive oil, seafood, ship-building, textile, wines"
Why is that even important? Well I tie some of the trade into the adventure: A Situation or Potential Shitstorm is that the textile industry isn't getting along with the wine/olive oil industry and their is some politics within those groups the PCs might find themselves in. So knowing the trade becomes relevant. Knowing the trade can help the GM know what's in the cargo holds of ships or wagons, etc.

Comparing Vermilion to my Secret of the Library review--knowing that the builder was friends with the mage who wanted the library built and the builder's schedule of work and all the history of building the library---none of that was brought back into the adventure, so it wasn't relevant backstory.
I looked back at Red Prophet Rises--3 paragraph introduction. I think that's around the sweet spot for just an adventure. But it's also 3 pages of 'backstory' that includes notes to the GM, timetables, rumors, etc.

I don’t consider any of what you wrote about to be the issue and in fact necessary. Those are integral details a DM uses at the table during a campaign.

The “what happened before” stuff needs to be in the background and not the foreground of an adventure. Having a 10 pages on the eleven empire that existed 500 years ago and retreated during the Great War (ya, that trope is nauseatingly prevalent in most campaign settings). Is an absolute waste of mind space and the GMs time.

if the point of all of that backstory was to say the elves used the Staff of the Stupid to turn all demons into goats and now the staff has been recovered by Amanda the Thrice Cursed causing a malevolent goat uprising, then that’s really the key piece to be conveyed.

 

[Malrex]

I don’t consider any of what you wrote about to be the issue and in fact necessary. Those are integral details a DM uses at the table during a campaign.

The “what happened before” stuff needs to be in the background and not the foreground of an adventure. Having a 10 pages on the eleven empire that existed 500 years ago and retreated during the Great War (ya, that trope is nauseatingly prevalent in most campaign settings). Is an absolute waste of mind space and the GMs time.

if the point of all of that backstory was to say the elves used the Staff of the Stupid to turn all demons into goats and now the staff has been recovered by Amanda the Thrice Cursed causing a malevolent goat uprising, then that’s really the key piece to be conveyed.

Yeah, I think we are on the same page.

For an actual campaign setting (not just an adventure), I like to see some of it, IF I can utilize it. For example, the 'elven empire that existed 500 years ago.'...I'd expect to see a bunch of elven ruins and treasures scattered about--then the backstory would make some sense and as a DM, I could then add items from the elves enemies and whatnot (use it as a tool), and PCs can slowly unravel the history of the place by themselves if they want too (creating some interaction). If there was no elven remnants in the area with this example, then ya, what's the point?

 

[Evard's Small Tentacle]

Yeah, I think we are on the same page.

For an actual campaign setting (not just an adventure), I like to see some of it, IF I can utilize it. For example, the 'elven empire that existed 500 years ago.'...I'd expect to see a bunch of elven ruins and treasures scattered about--then the backstory would make some sense and as a DM, I could then add items from the elves enemies and whatnot (use it as a tool), and PCs can slowly unravel the history of the place by themselves if they want too (creating some interaction). If there was no elven remnants in the area with this example, then ya, what's the point?

Exactly. Lead with the ruins and whatever makes them unique and elven (since that’s what the PCs will interact and deal with) rather than saying there are elven ruins scattered about. This could be as simple as a few tables and some specific locations. Then tie those elements to the background story as it correlates.
Frankly one of the elements about DCO I love is just this. There is a slave chamber with a simple note “ small cantrips scratched into the walls- “Ease Pain”’and “Lessen Scars.” Was so powerful when the party interacted with those elements- there was little I needed to expound on. Everyone knew and felt.

 

[Malrex]

Frankly one of the elements about DCO I love is just this. There is a slave chamber with a simple note “ small cantrips scratched into the walls- “Ease Pain”’and “Lessen Scars.” Was so powerful when the party interacted with those elements- there was little I needed to expound on. Everyone knew and felt.

Ohh, I dig that.