What is your favorite type of adventure

[Ninja-Bear]

And also with the big bad, you can have it still effect your characters and generate plot hooks without your players directly interacting him.

 

I.e. my Star Wars game, the players are affected by the Empire however they only dealt with the Empire twice in 6 sessions.

[Wardsman]

It was always weird how in D&D nothing happened to you on the way to the dungeon until you started hitting 3rd or 4rth level.

Now RQ that was different matter! Beginners did get attacked on the way.

[eepjr24]

It was always weird how in D&D nothing happened to you on the way to the dungeon until you started hitting 3rd or 4rth level.

Now RQ that was different matter! Beginners did get attacked on the way.

That was not the case with our groups. Sometimes random encounters on the way to the dungeon BECAME the session. lol. It's okay, though, everyone had fun.

 

- E

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I think that's more the GM than the game system.

[Wardsman]

That was not the case with our groups. Sometimes random encounters on the way to the dungeon BECAME the session. lol. It's okay, though, everyone had fun.

 

- E

 

Yeah I think that's more the GM than the game system.

No It was an artifact of AD&D that probable was corrected in later editions.

The game originally had a dearth of natural creatures that were suitable for low level characters(1st & 2nd) to fight that fit outdoor encounters.

At first there were not much for outdoor encounters. As Monster compendiums were added that changed but wild animals strangely enough were kind of tough.

I think that got fixed later on. But as beginning characters we noticed that all the low level threats were found in the dungeon .

[Nolgroth]

I rarely used "wandering monsters" in the context of "Here is a table of level appropriate monsters that you can randomly roll to attack the characters." I did use random encounters, but those were all potentially related to the immediate plot. Sometimes they were just extra opportunities to role play, find out information, and get Good Guy Reputation points (fixing a wagon wheel, finding a lost caravaneer, etc.). Sometimes they were brutal encounters with minions of the Orc Lord (or whatever was the ongoing threat in the land). Point is, they were all thematically linked to the main adventure. At the farthest extreme, it might be the beginning of a side adventure that might have had nothing in common with the meta plot, such as driving a griffin attack off to protect a caravan. The side quest would then become "Retrieve Item that the griffin's made off with when they snatched up Rory" or "Go kill all the griffins to protect the caravan route." 

 

I often wondered why there were random, often powerful, monsters just wandering around with no goals or reason to be there. I also wondered if my freeform style of GM'ing made my players think I was using random wandering monster charts.

[eepjr24]

From the beginning I always had charts for myself of what types of things could be found in an area, that made sense for the area. In some cases we did have to tone down things so that a large black bear or pack of wolves would not eat the party. And I often designed my own monsters for the reasons above and because I quickly grew tired of a couple of players rattling off the stats of monsters they had memorized from the monster manual or fiend folio. I started with the red box and moved to AD&D when it first came out, still have my original (and in very bad shape) players handbook. But I would not run it ever again after having tasted the freedom of the Hero System. =)

 

- E

[Christopher R Taylor]

No It was an artifact of AD&D that probable was corrected in later editions.

The game originally had a dearth of natural creatures that were suitable for low level characters(1st & 2nd) to fight that fit outdoor encounters.

 

The Monster Manual had enough, they just weren't very interesting; goblins and wolves and such.  Just plain bandits are a menace to level 1 characters.

[Cantriped]

My favorite type of adventure is the "economic adventure". Which is more or less what I feel like DnD/Pathfinder assumes the GM is running, but which published modules rarely actually provide.

We are a party (which is usually more like a very small mercenary company than the fellowship of the ring). We usually have goals of some sort (although likely half of us are just murder hobos looking to avoid justice). We usually aren't the chosen ones; if one of us dies and can't be raised, they can just as easily be replaced by some other knee-biting, puppy-kicking adventuring sort. We have to watch our supplies, or find food and water as we go to avoid dipping into our rations. When we do find magical items (which doesn't have to be often), we give them to whichever party member can benefit from them the most (magic swords to the warrior, magic staves to the mages, etc), or divide them fairly amongst us. We have to track encumbrance (we can't just throw the entire dragon's horde onto Nodwick, or into a bag of holding). Diseases and poisons are actual threats, not just debuffs. When we enter a "dungeon-crawl" (which we frequently will) the challenge is not simply clearing the hex. We must defeat enemies, avoid ambushes, outwit puzzles, defuse traps, and survive the environment by behaving tactically and working as a team; all while conserving our resources for the "Final-Battle". When the final battle is over, if we were victorious, we still have to find some way of hauling our loot back to civilization and make a profit off of the venture so that we can afford to do it all again (but this time be a little better prepared than we were before).