Neithan
2008-11-29, 06:43 AM
One thing always bugged me.
Every so often, you see forum threads and blog entries, that start to praise the awsome great adventures of old. But I tried to read some of these "adventures". They are not adventures, they are just poorly designed dungeons with a big heap of random encounters!
It's all like diablo, except that diablo has a much more complex background story and, well... I don't know at least something resembling a story? Even Diablo 2, one of the most straight-forward hack and slay games, does have a story, which is brief, but entertaining. You kill tonns of monsters in ancient tombs, where old demons are imprisioned, but you do it to prevent the end of the world. Not a very new reason to do it, but at least there is a reason! "Hey, there's a tomb where we can look for treasure for the 27th time." is NOT a reason!
But terrible "adventures" are not really the point here. The point is great ADVENTURES!:smallsmile:
I'm currently working on the background story for a rather long campaign (I know, one game per months for 2 years is not that long for many old-school gamers) and though it's really exciting, it's really not that easily done. So I thought about starting a thread about story-driven campaigns that de-emphasise combat in favour of good planning and investigation. How much do you like it? What's your oppinion about style? How do you structure your campaigns? What have you learned works well and what not? And all the stuff like that.
Anyone read Heroes of Horror? I have to say, even when you don't want to run horror games, it's an awsome source for how to create tension and excitement. And it also dedicates half the pages to adventure and campaign design and wastes only 50% on feats, spells, and prestige classes. I wish there'd be more books like that.
Somehow, I also find Elder Evils quite intriguing. Though I don't run near-epic end of the world games, there are so many really good ideas about creating background stories for longer lasting campaign arcs. Does somebody know of other books, that might come in handy for that purpose?
Every so often, you see forum threads and blog entries, that start to praise the awsome great adventures of old. But I tried to read some of these "adventures". They are not adventures, they are just poorly designed dungeons with a big heap of random encounters!
It's all like diablo, except that diablo has a much more complex background story and, well... I don't know at least something resembling a story? Even Diablo 2, one of the most straight-forward hack and slay games, does have a story, which is brief, but entertaining. You kill tonns of monsters in ancient tombs, where old demons are imprisioned, but you do it to prevent the end of the world. Not a very new reason to do it, but at least there is a reason! "Hey, there's a tomb where we can look for treasure for the 27th time." is NOT a reason!
But terrible "adventures" are not really the point here. The point is great ADVENTURES!:smallsmile:
I'm currently working on the background story for a rather long campaign (I know, one game per months for 2 years is not that long for many old-school gamers) and though it's really exciting, it's really not that easily done. So I thought about starting a thread about story-driven campaigns that de-emphasise combat in favour of good planning and investigation. How much do you like it? What's your oppinion about style? How do you structure your campaigns? What have you learned works well and what not? And all the stuff like that.
Anyone read Heroes of Horror? I have to say, even when you don't want to run horror games, it's an awsome source for how to create tension and excitement. And it also dedicates half the pages to adventure and campaign design and wastes only 50% on feats, spells, and prestige classes. I wish there'd be more books like that.
Somehow, I also find Elder Evils quite intriguing. Though I don't run near-epic end of the world games, there are so many really good ideas about creating background stories for longer lasting campaign arcs. Does somebody know of other books, that might come in handy for that purpose?