copacetic

@copacetic@discuss.tchncs.de

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copacetic ,

A single session should be doable with one or two pages. I like the style the Mausritter community uses a lot. For an example, see the Stumpsville adventure in the base game.

A larger good example is The Waking of Willowby Hall. Multiple pages describing every room in a big mansion.

  • There should be a single paragraph intro which can be given to players in advance (so no spoilers!).
  • An image is great to convey the mood and style.
  • A map is usually useful but think broadly. The map of Stumpsville is more like a picture from the side. Still good enough to say "you are here in now".
  • Offering multiple plot hooks is great to embed it into a larger campaign.
  • Lots of bullet point lists and bold text parts to optimize orientation during play.
  • To avoid going "off rails", just state a clear goal. If they go "off rails" then it is a short session.
  • Something I miss in many adventures (especially if sandbox style modules) is a sense of urgency. Work some kind of timer into your adventure. Willowby Hall has an escalation mechanism built in which increases danger essentially because time passes. In other words, don't just "rescue the princess" but also "she gets sacrificed in three hours" and it should be possible to reach her too late.

What I don't need is a showdown scene. In general, I prefer "adventure sites" rather than "adventure stories".

copacetic OP ,

He has been "playing one campaign or another since mid-2014". Also, "Of the last three years, one was spent entirely on a level 1-10 campaign of Pathfinder 2E, with the other two years jumping between Shadowdark, Mork Borg, Blades in the Dark, Monster of the Week, and finally a Heart: the City Beneath campaign that's ending next week."

Also, he writes "with the exception of PF2E, all the other systems I've tried are less mechanically demanding." So he seems to have at least a vague understanding of multiple systems. Enough to voice an opinion at least.

copacetic OP ,

There seems to be a lot of attention on WotC actions, so I guess people are concerned that it might work to turn D&D in this dreaded "lifestyle brand?" Statements like the "it won't work" in the title serve to convince yourself then.

I don't care about WotC. There is no threat to anything I'm playing. If they destroy the D&D brand, so be it.

Could it still affect me negatively? Maybe indirectly. If D&D blows up, then RPG community probably shrinks and fewer people join. The most popular game is the entry game for many after all. So it will hurt the many small indie creatives too. Maybe there will be a painful correction. On the other hand, it probably results in a more healthy and resilient community afterwards. Still, I would feel sorry for the people who live on a small RPG business now which might not survive a D&D implosion.

copacetic OP ,

Nothing is wrong with just saying it. In practice, it sometimes doesn't work out though.

For a very public drastic example, look at the Far Verona rape:

The reaction of the other players at the table while the scene plays out is telling. It appears that no one expected this storyline to go where it went.

Yet, nobody said "I don't like where this is going."

To be clear: I don't blame them for not saying it. Probably, I probably would have been quiet in that situation too. I believe that safety/communication tools are usually not necessary but in rare cases they are. Thus, it is a good practice in general and worth some overhead.

copacetic OP ,

The actual paper is directly linked in this press release. It contains three threats to validity:

First, due to the small sample size, demographic factors (such as prior experience with D&D and COVID-19 experiences) could not be entered into the statistical models as control variables. [...]

Second, the single-arm design is vulnerable to participant-related effects (participants responding to the demand characteristics of the research situation and placebo effects) and experimenter expectancy effects. [...]

Third, due to the age of participants (mean age was around 28), we should be cautious when generalizing these findings to other groups, such as geriatric or paediatric populations.

Overall, this is not very strong evidence. The primary conclusion from the researchers seems to be "promising for further research".

One curious note:

Interestingly, only two of the five outcome variables were found to change from T1 to T2. This could indicate that the positive effects of D&D take time to manifest or that a threshold of exposure is needed before positive effects begin to manifest.

They had 8 weekly 1h sessions. T1 is "before the first session" and T2 is the middle "after 4 of 8 sessions". (They also measured T3 "after eight sessions" and T4 "one month after the last session").

Seems like one shots won't do it.

The Power of Bluntness ( www.bastionland.com )

I certainly have preferences here. I think Deep-Niche rules can be kind of tricky, as you sometimes don't use them often enough to properly learn their complexities. Overall I definitely lean toward the blunt side, especially in wargames, but I think a game can succeed with all different types of rule if they're implemented with...

copacetic OP ,

Lasers & Feelings and its many hacks is such a really simple system. It is one page including setting.

I only played the hack Blood & Chrome and it worked for us: We had a glorious Mad-Max style chase and fight.

copacetic OP ,

You can still sell the original rules as Advanced D&D. :)

copacetic OP ,

Wow, awesome story!

It seems the GM brought a lot to the setting ("I already knew quite a bit about [Tombstone, Arizona]"), so most people would not be able to create such an experience with just the game document.

copacetic OP ,

I looked up the rules. According to my understanding, here is roughly what happens in a pistol duel:

There are three checks, quite similar to D&D. Who goes first (initiative), hit determination, and wounds. I can see the shared heritage.

For each of these, you have a base number from your stats. Then various modifiers are applied depending on range, movement of shooter, movement of target, wounds, weapon type, and more (e.g. hipshooting is +5 for first shot but -10 for hitting). Collecting and adding all the modifiers is what makes it complicated.

Initiative does not require a roll. Hit determination takes one percentage die roll (d100). The wound takes two d100. Example from the rules: "A first roll of 49 would indicate a wound in the left shoulder, and a second roll of 72 would mean that the wound there was a serious one." A serious wound means -7 to your strength attribute and shows up in later bonus calculations.

Such a serious wound will take seven weeks to heal assuming proper medical treatment.

Fun fact: The rules contain more than five pages of stats for historical figures like Billy the Kid. :)

copacetic OP ,

Oh, didn’t think of that. Thanks.

copacetic OP ,

Mostly by hanging out in some Discord servers. Some because read blogs.

copacetic OP ,

There is a "resized" version with only 39MB though.

copacetic ,

Also keep in mind that it doesn't always mean combat. With the reaction table, there is only a 28% chance the encounter is hostile. 44% chance it is uncertain and it depends on the players if it will be a combat.

Review: A Rasp of Sand ( playfulvoid.game.blog )

If you’re looking for an all-in-one dungeon delve that you can play consistently with minimal prep, a Rasp of Sand is for you. Just keep in mind that you need a table that is happy with high lethality, cautious play (if they want to progress), and that aren’t adverse to an expectation of not playing the same characters...

The Well of Frogs (adventure review) ( tenfootpole.org )

Truly a great adventure. It feels like an OD&D adventure. It feels like a city adventure. It feels like a place and it’s full, to the brim, with idiosyncratic things. Never going gonzo, ot’s just that sly grin to the writing style that brings the thing to life. Very nearly the platonic ideal of adventure writing.

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