Modules and Adventures in Indie Design

#22

So this is something I’m mostly thinking of in the arena of PBTA at the moment (because that is just where my design head is). But I’m really interested in the idea of creating scenarios for one shot play for PBTA games. Because that sprawling world building phase at the start which is so cool for setting up a campaign with lots of buy in, doesn’t work so well in a 3-4 con slot.

So I’m thinking about how to create scenarios to make it easy to play a satisfying PBTA one shot.

  1. Grabby setting that is simple that everyone can easily get into.
  2. Central Provocative Question (CPQ) - this is a question which is baked into the game e.g. in a Monsterhearts game it would be “Who will be Prom Queen?” in Bite Me! it is “Who will replace the Alpha?” - then gear the play around answering that question.
  3. Enough gaps in the setting that the players are creating some stuff at the table (and therefore feel they are getting to own part of the setting) but make sure that what is created slots into the setting and points back at the CPQ. The gaps are there to marry up a sense of player ownership with the existing material.
  4. Always leave relationships to be created at the table and make sure they are oriented at the CPQ. But put in guidance for the MC on how to make sure it is all relevant to the CPQ
  5. Produce a sideboard of material for the MC e.g. if this is a historical/geographically important game draw out a list of appropriate names, cultural touchstones, evocative details which will help the MC make the world smell real. E.g. my Wolfshead scenario for Bite Me! is set at a time in England where successive Kings spent 200 years deliberating (and ultimately successfully) exterminating Wolves from the UK (this is a high tension detail that ratchets up the pressure on a Werewolf Pack).
  6. A punchy opening scene set up - no time to ‘follow the player characters around’ for a couple of scenes to see their daily life. Start with something that hits directly into the action you are aiming for

This way of designing modules absolutely plays into my biases - I like my games to be heavy on inter personal drama so that is the lens I look at play through. But it also hits the table with a grabby concept for the players to get excited about, and support for the MC to deliver that concept in a satisfying way that plays out well for a one shot. You could probably turn it into a campaign… but I’m not sure for a PBTA-style game you’d need much more than the initial scenario set up for a campaign - since the play to find out aspects would probably take over at that point.

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#23

I’m mostly rehashing what other people have said here, but I think the thing when it comes to “modules” for things at the more story-game end of the spectrum (specifically but not exclusively PbtA stuff) it’s really a very light-touch thing. I don’t think there’s really a necessity for more than a page or two of “here are some cool ideas to start your game from”. Which isn’t to say it wouldn’t be useful to have more in-depth writeups, but I do wonder at the value of this. Will having four or six pages of game notes make a new GM more likely to run a game than two?

I think @Jay has done a really nice job with the quickstarts for Legacy, and that’s definitely a potential model for “PbtA Modules”. I’m also really interested to see the Mercy Falls and Kingsport material coming out of the Codex kickstarter.

From my own perspective, I ran a period-piece Monsterhearts game on the Gauntlet last month, and I put together some info for the players to read. Again, in the region of “a side of A4 or two”. I could probably flesh this out a bit more, to give more detail to specific locations and characters. And even some ideas on “stuff you can do”. But I honestly don’t know if there would be any value in me doing so, as even running the game myself I only touched back on a couple of those initial ideas I had, and played a lot more off of what the players came up with. I’ve also put together a minor hack to Hot Guys Making Out to tweak it into a coming-of-age story, which kind of falls into the space @Jeremy_Strandberg mentions above, where essentially it’s just the whole game rewritten. It should function like a module, in that it’s a new setting for the game, but ultimately it’s re-writing the majority of the game text because so much of the game is based in the writing rather than the mechanics. So I’d describe it as a hack of HGMO rather than a module for HGMO.

I don’t really have a definitive answer, though I definitely think there’s a lot to be gained by coming up with new starters/hacks/frameworks for story games. But ultimately a lot of “trad” modules are scripted stories, and something like PbtA doesn’t really play nicely with scripts, and blow-by-blow monster stats and story beats just aren’t as necessary.

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#24

Postulation: the more that the premise of a game involves the exploration of a specific, unknown, hostile place, the more suited that game is to having “modules” or “adventures.”

As evidence, see: all of the OSR, @jesseross’s Trophy incursions, the plethora of Dungeon Starters and adventures written for Dungeon World, various Cthulhu-esque modules, mysteries for Monster of the Week, even town write-ups for Dogs in the Vinyard.

Corollary: the more that the premise of a game involves the relationships and dramas between the PCs, and creating the setting collaboratively, the less suited that game is to having “modules” or “adventures”.

As evidence: the dearth of modules or scenarios for Apocalypse World or Monsterhearts or Sorcerer or Uncharted Worlds or most other story games.

Upon reflection, these two statements are full of holes. But maybe there’s a kernel there for someone else to riff on.

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#25

Thanks! I’ve really enjoyed putting these worked examples of game setup in the back of each of the books. Whether or not anyone actually runs them as adventures, I don’t know, but they’re great as a showcase of what a game of Legacy looks like once it’s been set up - and the sort of stories you can tell.

And @Jeremy_Strandberg I think that’s true, but I’d put most of the emphasis on ‘premade situation’ vs ‘collaborative setting creation’. I’d point to something like Inheritance (and parlour larps in general) as a game that is heavily about the relationships between the PCs, yet also is sufficiently high-prep that modules are really useful.

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#26

I’d make a distinction between a module that is an indie rpg’s setup phase predone and the kind of module that is meant to be played in or as a toolkit for play. The former I find super useful, because I’m very tired of having to come up with characters, a setting, plot hooks, relationships on the spot. Stellar examples of such modules can be found in the Sell Out With Me supplement for Misspent Youth. Robert Bohl got amazing writers together who made more cool worlds than I’ll ever get to use for the game. Since a collaborative setup is super common in indie rpgs, that is content that can be (and has been) made for a lot of them, I guess.

The other kind of module would be more in the trad or OSR sense. Premade tables, scenes, encounters, timelines et cetera. Something that comes to mind here is the Book of Rooms and the Deck of Mysterious Objects for Bluebeard’s Bride from which the game benefits immensely. The question would be whether there is or could be an indie rpg, maybe even a GMless one, for which enough of such tools could be amassed for the collection to have its own identity that would be, to some extent at least, separate from the game like with a trad campaign or an OSR adventure/module. If people played, say, an excellent, years-long Monsterhearts campaign or a terrific episode of Remember Tomorrow, could they not set out afterwards to make a book that let others replicate that experience (or the imagined one if not working from an actually played game) at their tables?

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#27

This is interesting. I’m currently drafting a first adventure / campaign module for Amazing Tales which in its original form is pretty militant about telling people to do no prep and to ‘make it up as you go’. Plus market research showed the target market didn’t have time for prep.

So why write scenarios? What I’m aiming for is to provide something which will let people deliver a reliably awesome game. Amazing Tales often delivers good games, and it sometimes delivers great games, but as you’d expect for a game for four year olds sometimes sessions can fall a bit flat and building a story can be hard.

So the idea with the scenarios is to provide something which will ensure you tell a kick ass story every time. Something that will up the standard of your game. And hopefully include some neat extras. For instance there’s a DCC module called ‘People of the Pit’ (I think) which requires the players to solve a maze. An actual one. On paper. I played it online, and as the mage it fell to me to trace my pointer through the maze, aware that a slip was going to get my 4HP character electrocuted. My description isn’t doing it justice, but it was seriously tense.

Moments like that are much more likely to fall out of a pre-cooked scenario - as long as the chef remembers to put them in.

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#28

That sounds about right to me.

#29

Seems relevant to the discussion so I’m posting it here: I’m running a brief poll on twitter to see if indie designers would even want modules written for their games. Please respond if you have the time.

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#30

Isn’t that the Codex Volume 1 Stretchgoal Mercy Falls more or less? I’m curious how it will be implemented but the general structure of the story, villains, events and mystery types sounds like it will be much more than a Monsterhearts Background.

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#31

I think RPG creators are generally delighted when someone wants to interact with something they’ve created.

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#32

A stray like reminded me of this discussion.

I actually put together a series of module adventures for last months Dream Jam!

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#33

Whoa! That’s a massive amount of content!

#34

I LOVE this idea! The only thing I would add is to suggest a few different threats and possible threat clock possibilities for the MC to pick through.

This reminds me of “Micro-settings” from Tiny D6 games. Although, that game is much more of a trad style game, all of the Tiny D6 backers (of which I was one) really appreciate the 10 - 20 or so mini-settings each of the games includes. These are only 3 pages each, contributed by different writers, with widely different concepts. They include a piece of concept art, an environ, a half dozen or more possible hooks, possible min-plots to work into a game (or enough for a one-shot), and a few villains with stats.

No one likes every one of these micro-settings but together they really excite backers. In part, because there is something for everyone. In part, because it is super easy to create a one-shot with these and then expand later if needed. There could easily be additional releases for $5 whenever they write another two dozen or so of these. It would indeed be a bit trickier with relationship focused games but not terribly so.

@BeckyA, I feel like your formula for a “micro-setting” is way better! I think this structure has real potential for many PbtA games! All you need, is two dozen of these for a game and I guarantee they would sell as a collection. I would be glad to help, if I know the game.

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#35

On a side note, the Legacy playsets / modules look amazing! I bought the Bundle of Holding just to get these!