Writing convention scenarios

Rick,
I disagree. I think the process and goals of module writing gives us plenty to talk about.

I currently write, playtest, edit and do rules design for The Fellowship of the White Star.
In the past I have written for Living City, Living Jungle, Living Death, and Living Greyhawk.

Arcanis is the campaign where I get to be lazy and let other people do the work.

I like Josh’s slider analogy and where Arcanis fits in it.

Ive tried ‘player collaborative’ indie rpgs such as Dungeon World, Dogs in the Vineyard, etc and it honestly didn’t do anything for me. They are not great for the shared world campaign experience since they will lack one key element…consistency.

I think Legends of Arcanis has hit the sweet spot and its authors are on the mark.

Well you posted it to the Arcanis forums,and the tone and message of the original posting, seems to indicate you think that something is wrong, or not to your liking, or that the slider is in a place that you don’t like.

I think likewise you have misunderstood my response. I’m saying that player agency is not a binary/ on/off thing, rather its something that had gradations and those gradations are directly related to how close the writer and Judge are.

There are definitely interesting ideas posted here and as I’m currently working on a mod, things I had planned or will plan on keeping in mind. Pacing and timing especially as it relates to length are certainly critical factors.

Peter’s expressed concern is to address those elements controlled by the author. Josh has raised the valid point that how long a mod goes depends in large degree on the GM and the players. This is impacted by everything from the general interest in RP time for the characters and combat efficiency.

What I would ask as both an aid for this topic as well as for writing in general would be to include or try and quickly come to some agreement on how long different things take. Things such as:

1. True target mod length for a 4 hour slot to account for short breaks, paperwork, introductions etc. In my experience I would say that a half hour should be sufficient for that, so play length target of 3.5 hours would be ideal. Is this on target?

2. Combats – what guidelines for time should be used? I.e. for an average difficulty combat it should take X time. If it’s a hard combat you should roughly plan on Y time.

3. Skill challenges – usually there are a series of individual challenges strung together, I think often 4 or 5. In my experience it’s usually about 5 minutes per challenge on average except if one of the challenges includes a full blown combat. I’m distinguishing this from a roll and succeed or roll and fail – bypass but take damage kind of combat. Does 5 minutes per sound right? If it’s a “full” but “light” combat, probably use guidelines from #2 above.

4. Investigation (skill based) – These are tasks that require figuring out where to go to get information or needing to figure out applicable skills rather than being told “Make a Knowledge (Religion) check”. For those it’s probably a minute plus the time it takes to read the most information gained.

5. RP / Investigation (People) – This can take a variable amount of time and can be hardest to guess at given the variable nature of players. My gut says it’s 10 minutes / NPC interacted with if there’s any sort of information to gain or outcome to influence. If it’s mostly a banter before a combat, I’d probably guess it at about 3 to 5. If you’re playing an RP heavy mod, going back to previous NPCs often gets cut down a bit to half if you’re going back to follow up on new info or reactions to something happening. What do people think the “average” numbers should be?

6. Introductions – 5 minutes roughly to get through a table

7. Boxed Text – Length of boxed text read slowly to allow the GM to storytell it properly. Anyone have a good feel for time for a “unit” of boxed text, say half a column?

8. Puzzles / the grand debate – These are elements where the players must come up with a creative solution or answer where a roll by itself won’t simply resolve the issue except in the “ok, this is our approach” type of deal. A grand debate is more where the PCs are at a crux or must figure out how to convince an NPC to do or not do something. My gut says 5 – 10 minutes. Some tables just rapidly decide what they’re going to do based on party makeup. Some others will take a lot longer to work things out.

Are there other elements that could be called out to help authors craft an appropriately lengthed mod? There are certainly design elements and principles on the sliding scale of how involved are the heroes that help select or shape the selection of the items above.

If there are general guidelines for authors they could be added to mods for GMs as well to let them know roughly speaking how they’re doing time-wise. This could simply be a matter of results of playtesting as well, but could be helpful to both.

Anyone have suggestions on optional encounters such as how often to include them given they should be meaningful, but if optional what happens in its place?

More questions I guess from me than suggestions. I’m looking forward to seeing insights from those who have done it.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

Now I am curious, and pardon if this is a tad off-topic. With the ending of the Crusade arc, specifically HP-14. There was no mention of Dwarven Princess’ and the Tir Bertoqi King when successfully completing it. Was this intentional as to let the GM and/or the players come up with their interpretation?

Now I am curious, and pardon if this is a tad off-topic. With the ending of the Crusade arc, specifically HP-14. There was no mention of Dwarven Princess’ and the Tir Bertoqi King when successfully completing it. Was this intentional as to let the GM and/or the players come up with their interpretation?

that story was answered in person at the BI but was already in first part of the Codex of Heroes, in the beginnings and endings section.

From my perspective the blow-out in playing time started about Greyhawk Year 3 when writers started thinking “I’ve got four hours to fill, lets put an extra combat in” and went downhill from there.

The playing time has been blowing out ever since. Here in Australia, we get 4 x 3 hours sessions per day and it has been impossible to squeeze Org Play games into the time slots (too much combat, too much material to RP through) for a long time. The earlier stuff wasn’t a problem with good organisation.

These days we allow 5 hours (2 x 3 hr blocks) and STILL can’t get them finished easily once RP starts.