Bryce said...

[squeen]

It's funny, the little music box jumped out at me too. Jokes are good. But my first thought since we are talking Lore, is how that could be an example. Perhaps the music from the box opens a secret door somewhere, and a bard determining the lore of the music box would know that somehow due from clues near the secret door or whatever.

I also wanted to mention I like your idea for a musical key---let's find a way to shove that in to the Earth Temple article somehow.

 

[Malrex]

I also wanted to mention I like your idea for a musical key---let's find a way to shove that in to the Earth Temple article somehow.

Dont know your dungeon yet...but maybe some kind of crystal windchime...it creates a high pitched sound, harmless to most, but shatters obsidian or other crystal something...maybe sonic damage to creatures of stone or crystal...earth theme..

 

[Two orcs]

Hall full of animated crystal statues guarding a treasure chamber. Too many to fight all at once, sneaking past possible (but treasure too bulky to allow an invisible thief to do it easily) but if you find the resonant frequency you can shatter them all. A non-animated statue in a workshop, halfway sculpted, let's you test this in a safe environment. A certain tuning fork gives off the frequency but the sound needs to be amplified by placing it against a bell or gong to actually shatter the statues. The broken crystal is also low density treasure. A character trained in singing can also pitch their voice to that of the fork and be loud enough to shatter the statues.

 

[squeen]

@Two orcs : Totally creative, and totally works---I could see Bryce positively highlighting something like that in one of his reviews as an innovative element. (In particular, I like the idea of shattered gem-creatures as treasure!) Now you just need to write the rest of your wizard's tower adventure!

....but I was thinking of something on a much smaller scale...just a magic gate that opens to a certain tune and how to drop some subtle clues about how it works. Truth is, I've been in this weird minimalist "poke-and-prod" design mood lately. (I blame this place...and Malrex, of course.)

Also, it helps balance out the fleets of flying K'walish Apparati and mutated kobold Empresses with wild and debilitating mind powers in the main dungeon.

 

[squeen]

For context, here's how they did it back in the day (Villiage of Hommlet).

Additional (off map) detail, magic items, stats (and Lore!) all delineated by bold text.

Hard to scan, but I still find the conversational style charming.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I don't think you want to use Gygax as an example of how it should be done. Things were practically prototypical in those days; there was no refinement, no lessons-learned. It's like trying to put vacuum tubes back into TVs... there's a reason they aren't a thing anymore. In this case, the reason is that the text is too condensed, and the ONLY way anything is differentiated is by bolding, which basically just means half your text is bold and half isn't, so it save you no reference time.

 

[squeen]

I don't think you want to use Gygax as an example of how it should be done. Things were practically prototypical in those days...

Yes, but what caught my attention was the shared desire to segregate the obvious-at-first-glance data from the details that require player-action to be revealed.

Also, we could all take some lessons from the Master in evocative writing---there are some perennial truths that Bryce has brought to our attention with his Three Pillars. Here, Elmo's personality has been jabbed---dagger-like ---into the DM's brain with very few sentences.

Sadly, these two simple notions were waylaided by boxed read-aloud novelization.

Also, come on, my man---to the main point...much here fits nicely into the Lore bin!

 

[DangerousPuhson]

None of it is lore though - this is all NPC interaction. And even then, it could be streamlined so much more. Hell, Elmo isn't even at the farm; he's at the inn!

But if you were genuinely running this, you'd absolutely have to pause the game and read it all whenever the players want to do something at the farm because it's not laid out well at all. For instance, it says "underneath some rusty nails in a keg in the back shed...", but it doesn't mention a back shed anywhere in the description of the farm (nor the map), so how are the PCs supposed to know there's a back shed to explore unless the DM fishes it out beforehand from some random sentence about treasure and finds some way to casually mention that the shed is a thing?

Gary's writing style is very "stream of consciousness", which is fucking HORRIBLE for practical use at the table.

 

[squeen]

I guess I am suggesting Lore as a broad net to catch dynamic (non localized) info. Perhaps that’s an abuse of the word. But if you’ll allow that, maybe the fact that they have two absent sons who are adventurers goes there.

Sure, Lore is a slot for “this used to be...”. Can it also be used effectively for other incidentals?

key breakdown:

1. Obvious details
2. Actionable items
3. Everything else

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I have no problem with lore, so long as it's not intrusive. So long as your key is compartmentalized well enough that non-pertinent stuff can be glossed-over easily and pertinent stuff can be found when it's needed, then it doesn't matter what the key actually contains. It's a useability thing, not a content thing. If it's easier for a DM who needs to know about the two sons to find that information in the key of their home rather than the key of the place they are (or some alternative, like an NPC relationship matrix or something), then it makes sense for that information to go there; otherwise, it's just clutter.

I'm of the mind though that unless the players can use, interact with, or take advantage of the lore in any way, then it's only purpose is to entertain the DM, which is not what modules are meant to do (as least ones that aren't written to be read like novels). But that doesn't mean you have to cut the lore out; a better solution is to rework it to find a way that players can use the lore to their advantage.

 

[squeen]

What if we say “inspire” the DM instead of entertain? Terse setting flavor.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

What if we say “inspire” the DM instead of entertain? Terse setting flavor.

I suppose the question then is: why? Why does the DM need to be "inspired"?

Inspiration is merely the seed of creativity, but you need to ask yourself when writing the adventure "is there a need for the DM to get creative at this point, or is what's here already creative enough?" The players aren't going to know the difference between what comes from the module and what doesn't - to them, they're both just words coming from the DM's mouth.

Some kind of adventures absolutely do need this further inspiration. Sandboxes, for example, require a great deal of improvisation on the DM's part because the whole adventure is contingent on the players making their own adventures as they go along. So the DM needs all sort of evocative hooks and things he can riff with. But a dungeon? A dungeon is straightforward - either something is the case, or it isn't the case. I'm not saying there's absolutely no place for inspirational material in dungeons (sometimes the expectation is for dungeon stuff to carry over into the rest of a campaign world), but if the players can't use it and the DM doesn't need it, then why bother including it? It just gets in the way in such cases. The preferable solution is to keep that stuff separate: an annex of background information, or a section with further adventure hooks, or an epilogue or something.

When Bryce says things should be evocative, he's not talking about adding a bunch of historical context (lore); he's talking about turning "longsword +2" into "Skinreaper, slayer of the lycanthrope king", or turning "a hungry troll" into "a knobby hunchback mutant mushing a goose into paste with a rolling pin".

 

[squeen]

More wisdom from the Master...(here)

EASE OF USE AS A HURTLE

For awhile I’ve had four pillars of judgment. Ease of Use at the Table, Evocative Writing, Interactivity, and the elusive Supreme-Court-Porn of ‘Design.’ I’ve toyed with the ideas that there is this kind of sliding spectrum of each and at some level they produce something that is worth your time to use. I think, now, though that I’m thinking of it wrong. The overwhelming feedback from most folks, when you talk about adventures, is how they don’t use them because they are hard to use. And they’re right. This points to the Ease of Use pillar. I suspect that there’s actually this hurdle in Ease of Use. The number one priority is to make it easy to use. Because if you don’t then no fucking person is going to use the fucking thing. It doesn’t have to be perfect in this regard, but you have to get over some hurdle. Just make it not torturous to use. Then if you can hit the bare minimum in terms of evocative writing and interactivity then you get a Recommendation. Maybe not even that, maybe you don’t even have to make it an interesting adventure with the writing or interactivity. Just make the fucking thing not a chore so it can actualy be used to play the game. That makes you a Journeyman. Anything at all in the other areas makes you a Master. There’s, how’s that for the setting the baf impossible fucking low and still seeing 90% of the designers not be able to meet it? (These rules only apply to MOSTLY everyone. Jabberwocky’s Wake still gets a pass from me.) Yeah, it’s really taken me ten years to come up with that. Go figure.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

>> "For awhile I’ve had four pillars of judgment. Ease of Use at the Table, Evocative Writing, Interactivity, and the elusive Supreme-Court-Porn of ‘Design.’"

One nitpick I have with this statement (because of course I do): Ease-of-Use is design. They are not separate entities.

You design something for ease-of-use, and something that's easy to use is indicative of a good design.

 

[squeen]

@DP: Happy to see you posting again!

One nitpick I have with this statement (because of course I do): Ease-of-Use is design. They are not separate entities.

I think Design is a super-set. Easy-of-Use being a part, but not the whole, of good design.

Here's another aspect (or two?) of "Design" : Expandability...or Modularity (easy to drop in any campaign)

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Here's another aspect (or two?) of "Design" : Expandability...or Modularity (easy to drop in any campaign)

I'd categorize those as ease-of-use functionality - in this case, ease-of-use within a larger campaign, aka versatility.

Though now that I think of it, the only part of module "design" that's hard to classify as making the module easy to use is aesthetic (art, color, things like page borders, etc. ).

 

[squeen]

I think Bryce means "at the table" for easy of use. Expansion is definitely an off-line activity. Some products might be limited in scope, but easy to use for what they do.

 

[squeen]

Another extracted pearl...from here

Visible History

It’s a weird ass place that’s been impacted by by several events which are probably not related to each other. I’d like to note that this fact (several events/history) is one of the defining features of several great adventures. From Many Gates of the Gann, to Spawning Grounds of the Crab-men, and maybe even Barrier Peaks, the Bowman map/adventure creation tutorial, and How to Host a Dungeon, the history of place and the impacts of time are some of the defining characteristics of these great adventure locales.

 

[bryce0lynch]

@DP: Happy to have to posting again!

I think Design is a super-set. Easy-of-Use being a part, but not the whole, of good design.

Here's another aspect (or two?) of "Design" : Expandability...or Modularity (easy to drop in any campaign)

There's something else going on and I don't know what to call it so I'm calling it design, or maybe holistic design.

Some thing work together. Some things make sense.

This is the 4th thing, that I'm currently calling design. And questioning if it is actually the other three working together, a subset of one of other three, or actually a fourth thing.

Let us assume a spherical designer who is, by the definition of this example, not up their own ass. They attempt to create an NPC backstory, with motivations, personality, etc. I think that this effort, which typically results in a bunch of Bad News for the DM trying to run the adventure, is actually an attempt at that "Design" thing. A failed attempt, but hey are trying to make things work together, etc. Hmmm, or maybe I'm using it as a catchall term? idk ...


I feel sorry for you people, who have to wade through my inner monologue.

 

[squeen]

I feel sorry for you people, who have to wade through my inner monologue.

For me chasing "Good Design" is:

1. Low stakes if I fail (i.e. recreation)
2. Way less dull and crass than most of the other crap our society is grappling-with/consuming right now
3. Elusive enough to be challenging to hunt.

That said...I noticed that after you met with Prince and Melan in Ohio...they stopped posting here! Apparently they had their fill of trying to pick your brain.

(Also, I have no idea what your post above is trying to say...Design as in "interconnection of individual elements into a cohesive whole?" Something that goes beyond a pitfall of the hobby of having a zoo-like menagerie of creatures in rooms living next to each other in isolation---more Gygaxian Naturalism and less staged video-gamey elements?)

Cheers!