Foreword. Skip this if you are strapped for time or bored easily ;)
It's not a particularly novel opinion to think that Wizards of the Coast's published adventure modules are well below the standard of many products put out by indie publishers. See Justin Alexander's review of 'Waterdeep: Dragon Heist' and Gus L's review of 'Lost Mines of Phandelver' to get an idea for why people think this. Lately I have been seeing a lot of people on reddit.com/r/rpg discussing adventure design and GM-ing style and a lot of what I've seen there, and also experienced irl in modern D&D games I've played, suggests that a lot of people are designing their own 5e adventures and campaigns in a very similar style to WotC's published modules.
The best description I can give of this particular style is that these adventures are written like fantasy novels. Much care is taken to have dramatic 'cinematic moments' and to ensure the story has good pacing and a satisfying ending. The problem with this is that RPG players aren't following a script and will undoubtedly make decisions that will upset the GM's plans and 'ruin' the adventure.
Now this is a very different style of adventure design to what a lot of old TSR modules and current indie modules subscribe to, where the players are just given a setting and situation to interact with that responds to their choices and ultimately leads to very dynamic and unpredictable gameplay. A lot of GMs (especially beginners) don't know about this alternative design style, and many who do either don't really understand it or don't have the tools or knowledge to run a game with it. What I really think the modern RPG scene needs is a product designed to teach new GMs how to design and run adventures in a more open-ended and less railroad-y way.
The Pitch
The book will be divided into two parts. The first part is a series of ~5 small adventures, starting with one that is very easy for the GM to run and slowly increasing in difficulty as you go. Each adventure will contain everything a total beginner needs to run it, as well as ample advice for dealing with common problems and commentary on the theory behind the adventure design. The second part of the book is a workshop for designing and running your own adventures in a step by step approach. The book will be compatible with 5e D&D as that is the biggest scene for beginner RPG enthusiasts right now.
The Adventures
Each adventure will be quite different from the others and will teach different skills and concepts:
Simple dungeon crawl. This gives the GM some practice running an adventure without many moving parts to keep track of. It will give them advice on dealing with character death and players giving up on adventures prematurely.
Adventure with a villain. This will be an adventure where the players are competing with a single autonomous adversary. This teaches the GM how to improvise as the villain plots against the players and reacts to their actions. It will give them advice on dealing with the villain being defeated 'too early' and the players making strange or unexpected decisions.
Mystery/investigation. In this adventure the players have to look for and follow clues in order to uncover a mystery. This builds upon the improvisation skills the GM practised in the previous adventure but introduces multiple moving parts and autonomous NPCs. It will give them advice on players missing clues, guessing the truth too easily and killing important NPCs.
Heist. One of the hardest types of adventure to run; the players form a plan and execute a heist. This challenges the GM with keeping track of many moving parts at the same time. It will give advice on players not knowing how to tackle a problem and players being imprisoned and/or prosecuted.
Sandbox/factional intrigue. For this the players are not given any particular goal but are presented with a situation where multiple parties are vying for power, and are allowed to interact with, influence and disrupt the situation in whatever way they like. The GM has to react to the players actions and improvise how they affect the course of events while keeping track of the schemes being carried out simultaneously by multiple NPCs. The GM also has to prepare for the players to begin coming up with their own goals and adventures within the framework of the game world. It will give advice on players messing around, doing silly stuff or not interacting with the adventure and players making choices that upset the game world in a severe way.
I haven’t done as much planning on the second part of the book, but if this idea goes anywhere I will update the blog when that stuff starts to take shape.
Challenges
Apart from the obvious issue of finding time to write all this stuff, the biggest challenge will be trying to market this book to the mainstream D&D audience. For this product to have the intended effect of raising the standard of GMs in the RPG world it needs to actually reach the people who will benefit from it. A lot of 5e players seem to either prefer homebrew content to published material, or are loyal to official WotC products (often because they don’t know about indie RPG products). Finding a way to get this into as many hands as possible is something I will continue to consider if this project goes anywhere. Feel free to tell me your ideas if you have any ;)
