Sample Scenarios

[Tim Alexander]

Now, the ideal form, I think, would take the form of a chapter on 'How to Write and Adventue' followed by a worked example - the adventure itself - followed by detailed playtest notes of 'What Happened When We Played This Adventure'.

I'm with Ian on this one. As opposed to what's traditionally taken as a sample adventure I'd much rather see how the deisgners intended the construction of one. I think the Art-Deco Melodrama threads, which start here are a nice example of this for Sorcerer at least. It would obviously need to be refined somewhat before it would be useful as book text, but the gist is there.

-Tim

[Mike Holmes]

I think we have more consensus here than disagreement.

1. Sample adventures are one way to show the reader how the game is supposed to be set up.

2. If you don't know how to set the game up to run well...that doesn't bode well for the rest of the game. See Sandy's most recent article about Eigentesting. Shiver.

3. Your game may or may not be served well in describing a sample play set up with an adventure. Depends on the structure of the game. But that doesn't mean that you can't have some sort of appropriate sample.

4. Actual Play accouts can be yet another great way to get across what play is supposed to look like.

We all definitely agree that examples of some sort enhance the ability of text to transfer to the reader a sense of how play is supposed to work. What examples you use will probably vary. But have something.

None of that's really controversial, is it?

If you're not feeling up to the task of putting in the appropriate example, consider farming it out. In any case, if the problem is that you haven't played enough to know yourself what a good example is, the play more before trying. I can't imagine a game that wasn't tested to that level before you could go to writing examples.

Mike

[rafael]

And some games, Dread it seems, would be helped along with a sample adventure.

It's got a sample adventure.  Pages 177-179.  It's short, admittedly, but it's there.

There's also a free adventure on the website, about twenty pages long.

-- Rafael

[Marco]

Rafael,

Understood. I hear ya. I was going by the RPG.net review where the guy (who liked the game) seemed to be having a hard time putting together what the characters do in a general sense.

Meant nothing specifically bad about Dread. It looks like something I'd like a lot.

And I agree with Mike too--it's one method and may or may not be the finest given an individual game (probably bad for GURPS, implicit part of design for Host-A-Murder)

Mostly what I posted to say was: "Be careful drawing too many conclusions from published adventures (or even how-to-play text, but that's a different matter). The kind of forces at work when those things get made are more complex than I think people assume during analysis--and a sample adventure that was included may have had other priorities than being a concise, elegant, eloquent, global, and complete statement about how-the-game-is-meant-to-be-played or anything like that."

-Marco

[Mike Holmes]

Good point, Marco.

In fact, in many cases I truely can't figure out what the designer was trying to say with the sample adventure. I think in most cases they're a "value added" sort of thing. But then the designer thinks that if it's good enough to be a published adventure that they should publish it separately. Or something like that. Leaving the book with just some half-assed idea for an adventure. I don't know how many games I've read through, thinking, "Gee, this sounds neat to play," only to be nearly turned off the game by the sample adventure.

As somebody else said, no adventure is better than a poor one.

Mike