DUNGEON Adventures Magazine

[Capt JT Kohonez]

I have a big pile of Dungeon Adventure Magazines that I'm considering using for my Fantasy Hero Campaign. Just wanted to know know if any of you had done that. One of the things I want to run is the Cauldron campaign arc with some changes that would have the adventures make a little more sense of course.

 

Any suggestions would be extremely helpful.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: DUNGEON Adventures Magazine

 

Well, I can say from experience that I tend to avoid pre-genned material, so insofar as doing a full reconstruction in terms of "this to that" I can't be of much use, but having built a whole mess of story arcs, that I can probably help with.

 

First thing you'll want to do is disect the whole mess. Sit down with a few hours and pour through the material; get a mental handle on the flow of the adventure and where the designers intended it to go. Understand any interplay between designed combats, level structure, and quest specific items vs. random treasure drops. Said other way; go straight past the operating system and into the heart of the beast. What's making this adventure tick, and is it working?

 

Once you've established the foundation of what the adventure is trying to do, you'll be in a pretty good position to start reconstructing it. Obviously you'll be doing a lot of conversions from d20 to HERO, which will include rebuilding MOBs of appropriate power levels, installing NPCs under point buy, etc. I can also suggest the thread I have going on building an internally consistent magic system in HERO, as one does not exist, just the tools to design one.

 

It does require some rules creation (Steve, The Fool, Chris Goodwin, Archon, Killer Shrike and a bunch of other people have really, really gone above and beyond for me on that thread alone) so you can have a system that works for you. It's probably the single most daunting task you'll face.

 

Class design is easy, and is a simple matter of determining how much freedom you want the PCs to have (none, some, all). I suggest going with what i3ullseye and I agree on (and Killer Shrike) and build package deals that leave the PCs with plenty of wiggle-room. You'll also want to directly import alignments for ease of use; that way when your Paladin uses Detect Evil it won't be a judgment call; you'll know the alignment. While HERO eschews absolutes, it's one of the few things that, properly handled, can actually make your life much easier. I have a nine page article I wrote on alignments in a sublime reality, but it's a bit lengthy to post.

 

Then build the bridges that take you from one story arc to another; this is part of your pacing, which is the lifeblood of storytelling. I suggest thinking of it as a 'breathing exercise.' In "normal pacing," you're breathing easily. You can jog, walk, drink your coffee. All fine. Walk and chew gum. Down time, or long lulls are 'relaxing' - they're down time for the PCs, deep breathing/meditative states. When you use this stage, it'll be as a break. It gives them time to spend CP, build items, and ask questions. Those are the easy ones; think of it as the difference between being awake and active in game, and sleeping - doing things mentally outside of your characters interaction with the world.

 

Your adventure should follow a standard breathing regiment: Normal, which should flow to quickened. Quickened breathing is what you experience during exercise; it represents exertion. Dice rollling, plot hooking, and minor combats are all Quickened. I suggest using a sine wave; quickened, normal, quickened, normal - and get the PCs into that pattern. Build a sense of confidence (albeit false confidence) that they know what's going on and what to expect. From this, you get your PCs to take a sharp intake of breath.

 

Sharp Intakes are your money shots. A character takes a sharp intake when facing down a boss, about to make a do or die roll next to a lava pit; determining whether or not the trap is about to blast the party to pieces. This is the most heightened state, but if you use it too much, you'll lose the effect. If your players are talking about those moments with a sort of reserved reverence, you've done it right.

 

I bring all of this up because when you sit down to run the game, you really want to make sure that within the confines of what you're doing the PCs have access (and the freedom, to a certain extent) to get the tools they need. The hardest thing to manage in a story is appropriate pacing while still giving the PCs freedom to move and explore. In a pre-genned story, many of their decisions have been made for them, so you have a little more freedom to do that. A well drafted pre-gen story will have this flow built in; the authors generally know their audience and how to run a good game.

 

Once you rebuild it, you'll really want to keep an eye on it. An adventure is something like a travelogue in that sense; it only gets good once you've torn it apart and put it back together again and been through it yourself and seen those sites in your head, and determined the best way to express them to others.

 

Hope that helps.

[mayapuppies]

Re: DUNGEON Adventures Magazine

 

Using Pre-gens from system to another is a major STOP sign (to use HERO lingo). I have the original Temple of Elemental Evil, my all time favorite module. In D&D the party handled it quite well...then I converted it over to Rolemaster...

 

I have yet to have a party make past the moat house without getting creamed...in fact, the last party I ran through it, blew up Homlet (literally).

 

So, what does this have to do with anything? I dunno, Thia pretty much nailed it in his opening paragraphs, tear it apart, know it better than the designers and then patch it back together. Don't be afraid to stray from the written path and ad-lib like mad.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: DUNGEON Adventures Magazine

 

I've looted the maps and occasionally graphics from a few Dungeon Adventures, recasting them for my own purposes. Every now and then I've been known to swipe an idea, plot point, or the core of an interesting scenario. But I've never used one as - is, or even enough of one that it would be recognizable to the author.

[Capt JT Kohonez]

Re: DUNGEON Adventures Magazine

 

"Hope that helps." ???!!

 

Wow, Thia thanks ALOT! for the input.

 

Your post although I'd considered some things in it already put it in crystal clarity. I've used "alignments" before in both HERO and the Fuzion system as Psych Disadvantages. It worked pretty well.

 

Again thank you so much.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: DUNGEON Adventures Magazine

 

In my experience, the big thing is to import concepts, not specifics.

 

For example, don't look at the name of the creature in a D&D encounter - look at its function in the scenario. It's a big nasty beast? FInd a FH big nasty beast to fill the role. Kobolds are small, but intelligent little fighters. You could use any creature that futs that description in your FH scenario.

 

D&D is a "nickle and dime" game. PC's gradually lose hit points, spell resources, etc. Hero doesn't take that approach, as characters rarely have charges on their main abilities, and recover STUN and END between enounters. As a result, you have to plan the adventure a bit differently.

 

Think of your scenario more as an adaptation than a re-creation, and draw out the critical elements of the scenario you want to use, rather than looking to a word for word translation.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: DUNGEON Adventures Magazine

 

*blushes furiously*

 

Let it be known that as a rule, I don't handle compliments too well, but you're very welcome. Not like I haven't been picking people's brains since I got here, so I'm happy to give back. Keep posting and as you come across questions and problems, either myself or one of the other board lords can either answer it directly (Why does a plot work? How do I build Magic Missile?) and rules questions you can ask Steve Long, or turn to us for house rules, design considerations, etc.

 

As always, you need, you ask, we answer. We'll even try to be nice about it. They're nice to me... but I think they're considering fattening me up for Christmas dinner, as well, so that may be misleading.

[Lucius]

DUNGEON Adventures Magazine

 

I actually have converted entire scenarios over from D&D and it worked quite well.

 

It would be a problem if you tried to slavishly copy everything over as exactly as possible; just use what works and don't use what doesn't. In the Giants modules for example, it was stated that the local rulers are basically forcing the adventurers into this adventure. That did NOT work at all for the context I had already created for my adventurers, but several other plot hooks did.

 

I'd be giving more advice, but I think most of what I could say has already been said here.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The pallindromedary notes that Lucius is not in a talkative mood for some reason.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: DUNGEON Adventures Magazine

 

You know it's bad when he spells Palindromedary with two "l's".

[Dale A. Ward]

Re: DUNGEON Adventures Magazine

 

They're nice to me... but I think they're considering fattening me up for Christmas dinner' date=' as well, so that may be misleading.[/quote']

 

Oh, stop hamming it up... you turkey!

 

[Eosin]

Re: DUNGEON Adventures Magazine

 

In my experience, the big thing is to import concepts, not specifics.

 

For example, don't look at the name of the creature in a D&D encounter - look at its function in the scenario. It's a big nasty beast? FInd a FH big nasty beast to fill the role. Kobolds are small, but intelligent little fighters. You could use any creature that futs that description in your FH scenario.

 

 

These are my thoughts exactly. It is the concepts and the cool preconstructed widgets (maps, character art, handouts) that you are looking for, not a list of encounters. D20 adventures include a huge number of superficial encounters that serve to deplete resourses before the BBE-G(uy) at the end. Fantasy Hero games don't need this.

 

So, look for the important fights, the important encounters, and the ideas needed and then design your bad guys. I totally ignore stat blocks and creature types. An 11th level party in d20 might be able to handle a lich and his cronies but the same thing will utterly smackdown a heroic party of 75+75+50 EP.

 

Instead of constructing a lich plus 2 specters, 3 shadows, and 3 summoned dire bears - I build a grotesque mage who has been corrupted by blood magic, his 3 less bonewalker servetors (weak undead but stronger than skeletons), and his nasty apprentice (summoned monster).

 

Don't go for an =/= ration go for ideas that =/=

[Thia Halmades]

Re: DUNGEON Adventures Magazine

 

Originally Posted by Dale A. Ward

Oh, stop hamming it up... you turkey!

 

They're after me. I swear it. You have to help me.

 

*sksshhhht*

 

Noooo!