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Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Looking For Tools to Teach the Novice DM "Adventure Design"

Sometimes my blog topics take off on tangents, whether in the comments section, a side conversation on G+ or spawned threads on forums. Recently, the whole idea of using published adventures has generated a side conversation of "why not create your own?"

The answer to that, for me at least, is time. Writing a usable adventure takes time I do not have. So I buy and use and modify published adventures.

It does raise a question for me - is there a good resource for the novice DM to refer to when it comes to designing adventures?

It might not even be an OSR / D&D resource - good adventure design is pretty much independent of rules.

So, cough up your secrets. Dig the dusty tomes off your bookshelf. Lets find our "Adventure Design for Dummies" books ;)
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14 comments:

  1. ljOctober 9, 2012 at 12:14 PM

    Tome of Adventure Design is flippin great and being a novice DM, I found it very easy to use.

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  2. James SmithOctober 9, 2012 at 12:36 PM

    Tome of Adventure Design is probably the best such resource out there.

    -C's PDF's and Kellri's Encounters Reference are also recommended. The Old School Primer also has some good advice.

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  3. savagelegendOctober 9, 2012 at 1:24 PM

    Adventure Creator's Handbook. Don't know the ToAD, but this is solid gold.
    http://www.rpggm.com/products/adventure-creation-handbook/

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  4. Yves LarochelleOctober 9, 2012 at 2:24 PM

    Back in the early 2000s, I did enjoy Part III of the real "Dungeon Master for Dummies".
    Seems like it's even a "collectable item" now given the used price:
    http://www.amazon.com/Dungeon-Dummies-Dungeons-Roleplaying-Paperback/dp/B00850IX10/

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  5. KiltedyaksmanOctober 9, 2012 at 3:14 PM

    For me it's a matter of "considerations." They are guidelines that set parameters but are flexible in their application.

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  6. Tom GrimshawOctober 9, 2012 at 4:32 PM

    I seem to remember there being a great product that not only helped you design dungeon environments that where logical but also fill out there histories..

    I believe it was called Central Casting: Dungeons -

    http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=6917

    As I recall it was also pretty much systemless, if not completely systemless.

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  7. Erik TenkarOctober 9, 2012 at 4:41 PM

    @Tom G - easily found on Scribd apparently...

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  8. Tom GrimshawOctober 9, 2012 at 6:36 PM

    Excellent! I'm lead to believe that it's a tough cookie to find in print. Well worth a go as I remember. :0).

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  9. BeZurKurOctober 9, 2012 at 7:05 PM

    How would something like B1 In Search of the Unknown fit into this?

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  10. Erik TenkarOctober 9, 2012 at 8:20 PM

    @BeZurKur - B1 can serve as an excellent old school example of micro setting and sandbox - but not sure how it works as a toll to teach newbies "Adventure Design"

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  11. JDJarvisOctober 10, 2012 at 7:06 AM

    The Dungeon Alphabet is a great resource, the 1st edition DMG is pretty darned good.
    the best answer is look into many sources, don't stick with just one.

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  12. Keith DaviesOctober 10, 2012 at 8:57 AM

    The Tome of Adventure Design is a great resource when building ideas, but -- at the risk of accusations of pimping myself -- I think the techniques I describe at my site work better.

    I'm not sure about it being introductory material. It could probably be made so, it likely can be considered so by those with a background in mathematics or computer science (if only so you recognize what a graph is).

    Y'know, this megadungeon thing I'm working on.

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  13. BeZurKurOctober 10, 2012 at 4:46 PM

    Adventure design may be too big a subject to tackle. There are so many different ways to approach it. When I think of how I learned it, it was always through different styles of supplements/adventures.

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  14. Keith DaviesOctober 10, 2012 at 10:55 PM

    Say, Erik, do you think it might be worth my time and effort to bundle up my scenario design stuff, polish it a bit, and try pushing it as an adventure design guide?

    ReplyDelete