What's the secret to writing a good adventure module?

What's the secret to writing a good adventure module?

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Make it something I can, as a DM, easily pitch to my players in a single sentence. "We go into dungeons to stop a cult from resurrecting the scariest dragon of all time," "Skyrim, but with giants," or "Dark forces trap the party in Transylvania" all make it clear what type of game it's going to be so they can start building buy-in and thinking about what they want to play.

Things that are twisty, political, general, or disparate tend to fail to the other side "it's cool, you'll find out when we play it" isn't a good pitch. "We're one of three teams working together to rebuild an ancient artifact to prevent a massive, extinction-event earthquake" is.

This.

Also I'd probably try to make the adventure highly location based.

There are concrete places for the players to visit with descriptions of what's going on in the place. Stuff to give the DM plenty to work with while also allowing the players room to explore.

I pity you for having such plebby players.

Prep situations, not a plot: you'll never know what your players will do.

Extra:
meaningful choices, 3 clue rule, lots of various interactive shit.

Think of the scenario as a story, meaning consider the pacing and tension of each scene.
Give each player an opportunity for their character to do something they find interesting.
Google "5 Room Dungeon."

Come to a comprimise and agreement with your players about what you would find enjoyable and what you would like to run.

Don't just come right out and say you have something cretaed as you will only depress yourself when nobody likes it, despite the enourmous effort and time you have put in to it, it can not be helped that people do not have the exact same likes and dislikes as you.

Talk to your players.

Personally, I would love a game in the war of indendance.

An adventure module is a clandestine impact, self contained story with open ended access to start the players as well as variable but definite end games. It must be a marketable product to apply to a varied number of compatible settings, or barring that, it must adhere to a setting that has a comparable market share. Clarity in story is a must, with a definite progression of plot, but not relying heavily on dragging people along an obvious railroaded path. Tread lightly, and provide multiple inspirations for players to participate in the grand scheme.

Read a lot of them and see what they all do.

Villains with relatable motivations. Motivations arguably more noble than the players themselves. Villains that are demonstrations that the only difference between them and the players are a few choices, or a few circumstances, or even worse, random chance.

Nox the Time Mage from Wakfu, who burned nations to gain the energy to go back and save his family, believed everything he did would be undone, so all his atrocities were meaningless.

Pinwheel from Dark Souls, who wanted nothing but to bring his family back to life.

The Borg from Star Trek, the Federation's dream of unification of all races, all cultures under one banner made real in the most horrifying way imaginable.

Make them neither hackneyed or contrived, make them people, make sure your players feel something when they finally kill them, other than the satisfaction of smashing a monster to pulp. After the adventure is over, after the details of combat encounters and character dialogue become hazy through the lens of time, the players will still remember how they felt. We take our feelings to the grave.

>"Skyrim, but with giants,"
Skyrim had giants?

Space Program

Usually I start with the title so like CURSETOWN or GOBLIN POISON FACTORY or ILLEGITIMATE ILLITHIDS or SIEGE CASTLE OF THE ORC PRINCESS then I give up.

>Make them neither hackneyed or contrived
So don't use any of your examples as reference?

Acknowledge points of failure.
Remember that when characters fail, it can be more memorable then them actually succeeding

Pitching an idea is all about reaching the widest audience in the least amount of words possible.

People don't have time to read through three paragraphs of someone's story.

>"Skyrim, but with giants,"

Huh. Guess you can describe dark souls as that.

MUST:
Be easily pitched to players
Leave PCs in a more interesting situation than they started in

SHUDNT:
Follow Boku No Pico's plot outline (never give PCs the opportunity to run from The Call, for instance)
Have only one railroad straight plot track
Have a line up of multicolored buttons that detirmine the final plot outcome.

I think the best adventure modules have a ton of locations and interesting NPCs. There's a connecting thread of intended plotlines between everything, but it should be thorough enough that when the players inevitably go in a direction the moduleair didn't foresee the GM has a ton of stuff to work with. So if the players get it in their head that they need to run off into the desert and explore some ruins that are only mentioned in passing, there should be encounters and thematic loot and descriptions and everything you'll need to run the new, unintended side quest and point them back towards the main path without them ever realizing they went off the rails.

>Have a line up of multicolored buttons that detirmine the final plot outcome.
huh?

ME3, DX:HR. I could go on.