I came away from GenCon with a definite bias toward modules written so packed full of challenge that playing them fast is a great deal of the challenge to successfully completing them. Spec 1-3 was a large culprit in developing this bias even though I really enjoy the encounters and story. Granted, I have a slow, but capable party I play with and fully support quickening play where possible but, I also don't want to be that stressed for time and or worried about indulging in some RP when appropriate. I guess to me, ending a good mod unsucessfully because a timer runs out in the real world is really unsatisfying and I'll probably avoid such mods in timed convention settings. Maybe I am in the minority on this and it's an existing practice likely to go on in the future but, I'd love to know what other LFRers thinks of it, especially if turns out we aren't enjoying it.
Honestly, some sort defined time limit has often been a part of RPGA play, particularly at conventions. This has been particularly true for things like Specials, and "delve-ish" modules. I'd be very surprised if we saw this become the norm in LFR modules, however.
I do think that it'd be a good idea to let players know that there's a firm time limit ahead of time, because some players / groups may not want to play such an adventure.
Specials always have more content than most groups can complete in the allotted time limit.
I do agree though that a bit of warning would be nice for people that are new to the whole Living system. Something like "This is a timed module..." in the cover blurb would be enough of a warning.
Except that if they play the adventure in a home play situation, they can take all the time they want.
Keith
Except that if they play the adventure in a home play situation, they can take all the time they want.
Keith
Sure and if they have a softball judge they call every encounter once the first enemy is bloodied.
When I run the specials at home I make the tables abide by the intended time limit. I imagine other groups do the same. We can never force people to abide by the rules. Does that mean we should just abandon them?
I came away from GenCon with a definite bias toward modules written so packed full of challenge that playing them fast is a great deal of the challenge to successfully completing them.
If you have a bias towards something, it means you prefer that thing. I believe you mean you have a bias against these mods.
It made it slightly difficult for me to read your post, when the initial statement is then contradicted by the rest of the post.
I came away from GenCon with a definite bias toward modules written so packed full of challenge that playing them fast is a great deal of the challenge to successfully completing them.
If you have a bias towards something, it means you prefer that thing. I believe you mean you have a bias against these mods.It made it slightly difficult for me to read your post, when the initial statement is then contradicted by the rest of the post.
I believe the poster meant that he observed a bias toward these adventures on the part of the campaign staff.
While I do not think that this is generally the case, it should be observed that certain adventures at GenCon (namely, the ADCP and SPEC1-3) had more experience than your typical LFR adventure at its tier. These adventures are budgeted to have more experience than normal to provide a tougher challenge, and thus greater potential reward for success, than normal.
I ran the paragon tier SPEC1-3 almost the entire convention, and from my observation, finishing three combats (which most tables did) granted more experience than a typical LFR paragon-tier adventure. What should be drawn from this, then, is that the accomplishment of the PCs getting that far in the adventure should be seen as a reflection of a table better than the typical, with the tables that complete the adventure being exceptional. After all, if the challenge doesn't differ from the typical LFR adventure, what's the point in labelling the adventure as "special"?
Furthermore, I would forward that the length of time taken to complete these adventures at paragon tier is also a reflection of the players learning the ropes of paragon tier play. PCs and monsters both kick it up a notch at paragon, with the typical PC having three new things to remember at that tier (a standard PP benefit, an action point PP benefit, and a new encounter power). Combine this with some non-leader PCs needing to heavily attend to when their fellow party members are taking action points for the first time, and you have likely slowdowns in play while these changes are adjusted to.
To be honest, I find that a lot of adventures, especially in High Heroic play (I haven't played enough paragon to comment, but I'd be surprised if this wasn't true there) run over 4 hours if you don't make a conscious effort to keep them moving.
Several of the Cores use the Core prerogative to increase page count and have an awful lot going on (CORE1-8 for example is a mod that you could easily take 6 hours over and probably still not explore every possibility), and with a few others it's really long combat or very involved RP, or both.
I think it's worth telling players in games like the SPEC that time is of the essence.
As for CORE1-8, there is no rule that allows normal cores to ignore the same rules as for regional adventures. Only specials, ADCPs and to a lesser extend MINIs differ from regular adventures. Without the appendices CORE1-8 word count is a bit higher then regular, but it contains three different paths to the same end goal, so in the end its word count is high, but not exceptional so (a quick scan of my adventure library shows several other cores and regionals with similar page counts). I will be the first to advice people that love to RP and plan to play this adventure either in 2 slots or a home game. You will be doing the adventure more justice. You can finish it within a convention slot as long as you do not play up as long as the DM keeps the game focussed without loosing on the RP and plan department (I have done so with average combat speed groups). The main reason though for such adventures is that we try to make adventures enjoyed by a majority of players and that means at times we do want to add heavy RP groups.
Oh absolutely, and it's not a complaint, merely an observation.
Heavy RP and 4-hour con slots rarely go hand-in-hand.
Sure and if they have a softball judge they call every encounter once the first enemy is bloodied.
When I run the specials at home I make the tables abide by the intended time limit. I imagine other groups do the same. We can never force people to abide by the rules. Does that mean we should just abandon them?
You write this as if you think there is a rule about play time for adventures. There is not. There is a design objective to write the adventures so that it is possible to play in roughly 4 hours because of the typical game session at cons and game days, but WotC/WPN/RPGA has abandoned the concept of a consistent play experience, particularly for LFR adventures. In many LFR adventures, tips are given where a DM might expand, typically on RP, if more time is available than the 4 hours. Please don't imply taking more time for home play is rule breaking or soft-balling; it is not. These are not tournaments (which are different beasts altogether).
Keith
You write this as if you think there is a rule about play time for adventures. There is not. There is a design objective to write the adventures so that it is possible to play in roughly 4 hours because of the typical game session at cons and game days...
Keith
I did not know that, good to know for the future. I would always try to wrap these things up with stricter attention to time as well during a home game. For the future I will stop paying attention to the time.
The meaning of my badly crafted sentence was that I found myself wanting to avoid such timed situations and disliking the practice of DMs continuing fights longer than necessary in the spirit of preserving the module's challenge.
I believe my strategy will now be to save such mods for home play and avoid playing them in stricter convetion setting. Sadly, this means new Core Specials and simliarly constructed mods at the larger conventions are now more of a deterrent than a draw for me. I very often like the mods but , really dislike what feels to me like an artificial obstacle.
Many things changed from LG to LFR because there was material players couldn't access, so why write encounters players can face or finish?
I definitely understand the precedent and reasoning which so many of you have presented behind why they are that way but, still really am not hearing many ringing endorsements of time constraints on intentionally action-packed mods.
As with other styles of forming mods (delve, investigative, etc.), I think clear identification and labling in the mod descriptions will alow us players to at least better plan to play to our individual satisfaction.
Having been thoroughly unhappy with trying to squeeze large mods into 4hr slots at conventions, I'm running an experiment. The next convention I'm running, I'm running with a schedule of three four-hour slots and two six-hour slots each day.
www.warhorn.org/WeekendInTheRealms2009At...
Slot 1 9:00am - 1:00pm 4 hr
Slot 2 9:00am - 3:00pm 6 hr
Slot 3 2:00pm - 6:00pm 4 hr
Slot 4 5:00pm - 11:00pm 6 hr
Slot 5 8:00pm - 12:00am 4 hr
BALD1-4 and any 11-14 mod just won't fit well in a 4 hr slot. Also, MINI1-1 is about a 6hr mod rather than an 8hr mod. It may be a utter disaster... but I figure it's worth a shot.
Paige
Aglarond Event Manager
Bald1-4? I'm sure when I played that one we got through it in about 2.5 hours.
Also, MINI1-1 is about a 6hr mod rather than an 8hr mod.
Agreed on that one, Paige. We played it at GenCon. We started it at 1pm...even with the DM asking for a one-hour break so he could get some dinner (he knew that, as soon as we finished the module, he would be asked to run the Dungeon Delve for the rest of the evening), we were done by 7:15.
When I run the specials at home I make the tables abide by the intended time limit. I imagine other groups do the same. We can never force people to abide by the rules. Does that mean we should just abandon them?
I don't think there's any "required time limit" in the rules.
Honestly, I avoid playing the Specials at Cons now. They *always* go over, and I like to RP and not worry about time.
Sure and if they have a softball judge they call every encounter once the first enemy is bloodied.When I run the specials at home I make the tables abide by the intended time limit. I imagine other groups do the same. We can never force people to abide by the rules. Does that mean we should just abandon them?
I guess we differ here. If the case is that standard con slots aren't long enough for a good 4e Adventure, I get it and it's unfortunate but, it's something I can adjust and plan for. However, I really dislike the intentional maufacturing of mod difficulty based on speed of play by pitting slot length vs. the amount of content in the module. Putting in way too much content by design, playing out encounters to the final man when not necessarry and constraining home play to the exact time outlined by the RPGA strike me as needlessly dissatisfying path for the campaign to follow and a waist of time and effort, unless there are those out there who really feel it makes for better gaming.
I like an involved mod that is challenging in the encounters it contains and don't like to have encounters ended before the fight has a fairly clear outcome. I think we as players need to tighten some of our bad play habits that tend to slow things down but, still don't think that pressure deadlines make for a more enjoyable play experience and it seems like the current distibution system seems to be producing tightly scheduled Special mods as convention fare where it becomes the most troublesome since they are debuted and set aside for convention use and release more than typical regional or Core mods.
I hope no one takes this as an indictment of their work for the campaign but, I know it was one of the more frustrating things I ran into at GenCon, I sat on considered for a while and really question why it continues to be done this way. Maybe, I just need a faster group?
Having been thoroughly unhappy with trying to squeeze large mods into 4hr slots at conventions, I'm running an experiment. The next convention I'm running, I'm running with a schedule of three four-hour slots and two six-hour slots each day.
We have definitely strayed away from 4 hour slots here. We have also left behind four slots per day.
We max out at three slots per day: something on the order of 0800-1230, 1300-1730, 1830 - 2300. Breaks between slots, or an option to run a bit long if the table so desires.
More often (such as for Friday and Sunday of a three-day convention, or at all gamedays), we do only two slots on a day, with a later start time and an earlier finish time.
You write this as if you think there is a rule about play time for adventures. There is not.
This was my impression as well, which helped make it cool that we were able to invite our CORE 1-14 table to our hotel room after being evacuated from the convention center Saturday night; we were actually able to complete the entire adventure this way, even though it took significantly more than 4 hours.
If you want to talk about adventures flowing over their 'time limits', though, you can't ignore SPEC 1-2; we ran it twice and didn't finish it in less than 12 hours either time.
--
Pauper
Copied from a CORE 1-2:
"What’s a Core Special Adventure?
Core Special adventures are designed to provide a challenging and epic (but fair and fun) experience where the players must work together in order to successfully complete the entire adventure within the time limit. The adventure as a whole is intended to be only slightly more difficult that other adventures, and not impossible to complete in eight hours of play time (don’t count breaks against the eight-hour time limit).
It’s quite possible that some groups cannot overcome the challenges in this adventure without running out of time. Core Special adventures give greater rewards (XP and treasure) than other Core adventures do, so even if a particular group doesn’t achieve total success, their characters are still well rewarded for their efforts. That said, this is not a competition, and players should walk away from the table with a positive play experience. The DM should not feel the need to slaughter the PCs to make the adventure feel special. Player satisfaction should always be the DM’s main goal."
Okay so to be clear: they are pretty up front that its a challenge to finish in time and that's intentional.
Alternatively, "only slightly more difficult than other adventures"...... might be true for SPEC 1-1. For the others? A bit less so.
HOWEVER- I will firmly put myself in the column of liking the format of the specials. For one, I feel that LFR is (usually) formulaically easier than the intention of 4e D&D. Why? The main thing is that with xp budgets, adventures usually have 2-3 combats, or if they have more the combats tend to get very easy. (This is not anyone's fault; its the nature of the beast.) With the way 4e is balanced (in terms of surges, action points, daily powers, etc) a small number of combats per day within standard level ranges tends to make combats come out as a bit easier for the players.
Granted, I think most writers do a good job making the enemies fight with appropriate tactics and synergy, and there's usually far more thought put into your average LFR combat than there would be for a home game.
But still, I don't see players run out of surges with much frequency; I don't usually see players (above the 1-4 tier) with their backs to the wall and freaking out. Outside the specials, of course.
The expanded XP budgets within the adventures allow the writers to put in that extra bit of challenge that makes the adventures that much more fun for me. Suceeding at a normal adventure is basically a given; specials are fun because people don't assume they'll win.
For me, adding the time element as an additional challenge is exciting. It raises the tension, and makes everyone pay attention to every detail. I've had a lot of fun with the specials I've played.
I'm sure a few rather large factors come into play here though:
1. Every time I've had a GM for the special, they've been well prepared, non-antagonistic, and they DEFINITELY haven't tried to run the clock out just to increase the time challenge. (That's severely not cool IMO.)
2. Every time I've played a special was with a premustered table that was balanced in terms of slots and appropriately leveled (our spec 1-2 high tier was all level 9s and 10s for instance). All those players were useful and effective at their roles.
3. Our GMs and all the players at the table understood their time restrictions, and tried to be as quick as reasonably possible. (There are so many tips here that can be useful.)
Most of the horror stories I've heard about specials seem to involve one of those 3 things I just listed failing to happen. My opinion is still that most of the time when things go run with specials its one of those 3 areas just mentioned more than the adventures. (But sure, some of the encounters can be a bit lame on occasion as well.)
Realistically though, we're just past the year anniversary of the campaign. Everyone's still figuring out what this 4e thing is, and how best to have fun with it.
Anyways, I wanted to holler as someone who does like the time limit part. I do realize, however, that that's not everyone's thing. I would think it could be cool for con-goers to have an option to do some of the adventures with some more time-buffering or so. For instance, you could offer SPEC 1-2 over 3 slots instead of 2, so those seeking the time challenge could get it, and those who dislike that sort of thing could avoid it (mostly).
Personally, I'd like to see 2 round non-specials with no extended rests, just for the sake of variation. It does ound like they're going to be trying some new formats for LFR in the next year or so with Undermountain & such....
playing out encounters to the final man when not necessarry
I'm all for calling combats, but sometimes you can't. One particular mod has a mechanic whereby the number of surges the PCs have at the end is of cricital importance. If there's a single enemy left who could conceivably knock a surge off a character, the encounter has to be played out. You also have to take care to time the 'calling' right - it may be clear from the GM's side of the table that there's little challenge left, but it may not feel like that to the PCs, and denying them the satisfaction of finishing enemies can leave a bad taste (more likely to be a problem in boss fights - no-one cares too much about mooks, but calling the boss fight with the boss still standing should be avoided).
Even then there can be problems. Last week I offered to call a fight, only for my players to protest and say they wanted to play it out, due to that stupid at-will Astral Seal. The way they figured it, they could finished the fight with *more* HP than they had at that point without having to spend any surges. The first time they said that, I shrugged and said ok. The second time I had the enemies drop their weapons and surrender, then invoked the 'bag-of-rats' rule ;)
Even then there can be problems. Last week I offered to call a fight, only for my players to protest and say they wanted to play it out, due to that stupid at-will Astral Seal. The way they figured it, they could finished the fight with *more* HP than they had at that point without having to spend any surges. The first time they said that, I shrugged and said ok. The second time I had the enemies drop their weapons and surrender, then invoked the 'bag-of-rats' rule ;)
Great call ;) I have this happen a few times as well in situations were resources are important. Instead of letting the PCs roll every attack, I mention the opponents hit points and defenses and offer my opinion on how long the opponent stands and who he might attack in that time (virtually always the defender). I then ask whether the PCs agree. If they do (as is almost always the case) I quickly roll basic attacks, and check damage. If not, I want to know why, and it is easy to convinve me, at which point I might make more or less attacks. This method works especially well if you are playing with experienced convention goers and DMs. Instead of 15 minutes of frustrating rolls, you change it into a 3 minute discussion and 1 minute of rolls.
It's a tough balance and it requires an experienced hand. On one hand, you don't want grind. On another hand, the 4E rules often mean it is important whether a daily is expended, another surge used, two short rests needed, etc. On the gripping hand, everything needs to stay fun and balanced.
There is no single answer. You have to play it by ear.
Similarly, on timing, you don't want to cut great RP short, or even a great combat short. The more you know a mod (you played it, you ran it previously), the more you can know what you can shave off elsewhere.
CORE1-14 can easily run long. The way drafts, playtests, playtests, edits, playtests, and playtests, all fed together, it was hard to make any substantial changes. In fact, playtest feedback added some time in, because I threw away an experimental cross-encounter skill challenge model for the suggested self-contained skill challenges. That required more successes and a bit more framework. As authors, we often make hard imperfect choices. Here, I knew this mod would be hard to run in 4 hours. You can absolutely do it, and without railroading, but you have to watch the pacing and keep PCs on track. The other option was to chop off story and that just felt awkward.
I had one run where PCs were absolutely loving an encounter. They were digging the terrain, the challenge... it was the best run of that combat I've had. But... we were running long. I thought about it a lot, and finally realized... a victory early on would change the tide but still keep it fun. I had a certain creature announce that its contract was up and head out. The players cheered, feeling they had reached a "time limit" of sorts. Then the combat sped up vastly and we finished right on time.
Running CORE1-2 once, I spent a lot of time on the skill challenge, because I knew the group would blow through the first fights. They did, and then we have a really nice final combat that was all the richer for the societal context of the SC.
I definitely respect that calling fights early can impact remaining resources and the difficulty of the rest of that in-game day's activities. I am big proponent of DMs that ask us to "scratch of a few surges and someone spend a daily and we'll move on." I have also had experiences where I felt DMs cut off the party from getting in their shots once they had managed to slip out of the encounter's initial disadvantage and gotten the upper hand on the NPCs . I don't think that is as big a part of the issue here though.
In the two times I played Spec 1-3 at GenCon, both times with what I considered very good DMs, there cam a period where the DM seemed to be playing the encounter out beyond what I would consider typical in some sort of effort to preserve the time challenge element of the mod. One said so much directly. If that is the instructions the DMs are getting, I really question "why?". Couple that with only debuting such mods at conventions and only allowing the early life the mods to be available for convention play distribution and the campaign is forcing some very good adventures into what will likely be a frustrating end.
I like what is in the specials and similarly constructed mods and can see how there would be some pressures to release and reserve them for big conventions like GenCon. I guess my hope would be that DMs wouldn't preserve the time challenge just for the sake of it and what can be done about scheduling realistically long slots for them would be investigated. Would be so bad if we had a bit more time to RP, a little more free time before our next mod and were able to actually finish or fail it based on the action on the table?
Right now I think it is mostly art as to when or if to call a combat (or declare the monsters fall to that "last" hit). I usually start thinking about it when my allocated time for that encounter approaches, and if the PCs seem to be beating down the monsters without concern, try to find a way to bring it to a close. My rule of thumb is if I think that repeated usage of the PCs at will powers will likely be sufficient and there is no challenging trap or monster power to use left, then seriously think about how to end the combat. Of course, last week I had a group who were in serious danger of dying (and one PC had died) so as we ran out of time in the game session, I offered a truce...each side withdraw with wounded and dead, which was accepted. I do try to respond to what the players would like, assuming I can divine that.
Keith
I also take the overall "design factor" of the module into account. Are healing surges likely to become a factor later in the adventure? Am I likely to do enough damage to make the PC's spend any more? Are their any time sensitive issues? Things of that sort. If the PC's obviously have the upper hand and the enemies have already tried their best moves, then no point dragging it out. A combat grind/slow down can really alter the pacing of an adventure. I, at times, just fudge the numbers. Drop some hit point values and let the PC's quickly finish off the enemies. This prevents the PC's from feeling cheated out a kill, while speeding up the obvious.
I guess to me, ending a good mod unsucessfully because a timer runs out in the real world is really unsatisfying and I'll probably avoid such mods in timed convention settings. Maybe I am in the minority on this and it's an existing practice likely to go on in the future but, I'd love to know what other LFRers thinks of it, especially if turns out we aren't enjoying it.
I have to say I agree with the core of your message. I'm not playing DND as a competitive boardgame, I'm playing it because it is a Role Playing Game, and use of non-Role Playing things like over packing a module so it is essentially impossible to finish in the usually alloted time is not something I'm interested in doing.
Making players compete against a time limit to complete a module turns it into a Tactical Simulation game, and there are much better rules for doing that than 4E quite frankly.
I'm disheartened by the admission that this is being done on purpose to any modules, "Special" or not.
Making players compete against a time limit to complete a module turns it into a Tactical Simulation game, and there are much better rules for doing that than 4E quite frankly.I'm disheartened by the admission that this is being done on purpose to any modules, "Special" or not.
Well, keep in mind that most players want to see the campaign try different approaches. 4E lends itself to that sort of approach. This Special had a dungeon crawl feel with a story for why that was taking place. The next one likely will be different. Any given adventure might take a different approach, which is one of the reasons we have a game different than given tactical mini game X. I'm all for authors/admins trying things. Sure, at some point, my own personal "line that should not be crossed" might be crossed, but I can live with that to have different experiences.
There is a big difference between module feel, and using time constraints to make it harder to complete the module fully. I never mentioned the nature of the RP aspects (dungeon crawl or whatever) I only addressed the use of time constraints as a tool to limit the ability to complete the mod.
I realise modules are written to time constraints, and that is part of the nature of the RPGA beast, and I know that there are some modules out there that are simply great when you take away the time constraints.
But that is different to saying it takes X time to do Y encounters, so this module will have Y+1 encounters and still have only X time to get it done in, and that is the writing approach I have a problem with.
Absent the replay rule, I might be more inclined to agree with you. But, given replay, the ability to have lots of options, some of which you encounter, is fine and keeps things fresh. Even without replay, I find it okay to have different ways to complete something.
I'm assuming the following:
- You still get comparable XP, gold, etc.
- The PC/player still gets a sense of completion
With SPEC1-3, I felt the above was true. You generally come away with reasonable rewards for your level, still can accomplish the mission fairly easily, and still get the overall satisfaction. If you somehow do cover every room, you can end up with above-normal rewards... congrats! But, feeling that you accomplished the goal does not and should not require exploring every room.
I'm a completist. If I'm in Might & Magic 3 and I figure out that a certain room will end the game, I play out all remaining rooms/options, THEN I go for that final room. I want to open everything, do everything.
But, in an RPG, my PC wants to accomplish a goal under the constraints given. For the special, you knew going in that you had limited time and would be unlikely to see everything. When you saw rooms that seemed not to have the right things, you could flee. (And, the DM can help suggest that).
The basic idea of constructing an adventure for which you cannot explore all options (due to time) seems fine to me. It shouldn't be the default, but it is a nice way to make an adventure different.
Hmm IMPI 1-1 is a good example of a module where you cannot explore all the options, the module is not written in sucha a way that you should explore all the options.
SPEC1-2 on the otherhand has, in my LFR playgroup's experience, 1 too many encounters to be completed reasonably in 2 sessions. None of the encounters are unrelated to the plot of the module and so none should be left out. Failure to complete all the encounters before the final one will likely result in not completing the final encounter and a sense of disatisfaction. Our DM skipped the minotaur fight, and we still nearly didn't finish the mod (at least we didn't TPK) in time.
IMPI1-1 is good.
SPEC1-2 is bad.
Just making sure we are talking about the same things.
Ah, you're just saying that modules should not be overly long? If so, I think that is a worthy goal.
But, 4E makes it hard to stay in a 4-hour mod given the XP targets. I would rather see us adopt a 5-hour adventure goal than to change the authoring rules such that we confine ourselves to an absolute 4 hours (rules on how you use elites, how you measure RP time, how you include skill challenges with a lot of inter-player discussion, etc.).
SPEC1-2 was pretty insanely long. 12 hours is what often happens for a theoretical 8. In theory, playtest catches that. But, maybe those tables did fine, or maybe they made changes and thought it might pan out ok time-wise. I'm not sure.
Then again, the mod I wrote can go really long. On my end, I knew that and risked going that route. I wanted the complexity, and the mod may at times fail for that.
I would rather see us adopt a 5-hour adventure goal than to change the authoring rules such that we confine ourselves to an absolute 4 hours
I greatly dislike the 4 hour slot, which I think is purely a legacy/artifact of the GenCon four slot day.
I frankly think that the RPGA at GenCon should seriously look at going to three 5-hour slots per day rather than four 4-hour slots per day, even without changing the target length of adventures. It's a shocking suggestion, would require a re-thinking of the entire convention's schedule (even for non-RPGA games and events), and thus will probably never change.
I've said it here in other threads, but locally we haven't run a four slot day (not counting folks who play in their hotel rooms over the night) in years and years, and haven't looked back. 
I frankly think that the RPGA at GenCon should seriously look at going to three 5-hour slots per day rather than four 4-hour slots per day, even without changing the target length of adventures. It's a shocking suggestion, would require a re-thinking of the entire convention's schedule (even for non-RPGA games and events), and thus will probably never change.
Surprise! The RPGA has run three standard slots per day (not counting Midnight Madness or other oddball things) at GenCon (and Origins, for that matter) for at least five years now. I know that they were still in 4-slot mode when I first started playing RPGA stuff in 2001, but they changed it not too long thereafter.
The GenCon slots are 4.5 hours long:
8am - 12:30pm
1pm - 5:30pm
7pm - 11:30pm
Yes, in the early 00s, Ian Richards changed the standard RPGA play time for us. In ye olden days, the 4 hour game slot was assumed to be 3.25 hours of play time, plus 15 min to muster, 15 min for paperwork, and 15 min to get to next table. with notionally 5 hours, we have 4.25 hours of play time, plus we cut the paperwork way back by killing the peer voting, and now not using ARs, and only story award certs. Unfortunately, some of us would like to have 5 hours of actual play time.
Keith
Ah, you're just saying that modules should not be overly long? If so, I think that is a worthy goal.
I'm saying modules should not have, for example, 4 combats + 1 skill challenge and be given a timeslot of 1 session. It is not hard to write 3 encounters and 1 or 2 skill challenge(s) and get it to fit in 4 hours, and make it interesting and challenging. It doesn't need more encounters so that it becomes a clock contest where people that roll well win and people that roll average or poorly loose (or the party mix is ideal vs poor etc).
All the SPEC modules suffer from this issue.
It isn't special if you cannot complete the module because of an artificial time limit.
One of the challenges a shared world campaign like LFR has is trying to appeal to a wide variety of tastes and play styles. The Specials, not just for LFR but in LG (and I think MoH too), have been biased towards the dungeon delve, high challenge to get them done in the available time. Since you may play the Special later in home play (which was not always true in the past), you do have the option to take more time. So I guess the question is, should we eliminate the rare presentation of such a challenge for those who do like it, because of those who do not like it? Are we a big tent, or do we vote people off the island? YMMV.
Keith
That is moving into a more complicated realm, part of that is "should there be con only modules?" (I suspect the answer needs to be yes to support our conventions) and another part is how do we define challenge.
I have no problems with Challenge - but I don't want challenge to be based on an artificial constraint like "time available to play". We have quite a few players who liked those old LG tough mods (heck a few wrote them), but I'm yet to see them satisfied by modules that "just take to long to play" - which is what we are getting in 4E. It isn't special to be able to complete the module readily with unlimted time, but not be able to because you have 4 (or 8) hours to do it in.
I have no problems with Challenge - but I don't want challenge to be based on an artificial constraint like "time available to play".
This is worded quite well. I agree with this statement entirely.
I agree with that statement as well.
But, in the end, what do you do? I agree that we should work to not create modules where PCs are supposed to complete everything but in practice cannot. That was a problem with SPEC1-2 (which has so many great things otherwise from what causes it to go long).
At the same time, sometimes you have a module that is likely to play, say, in 4.5 hours. Do you shoot for a more convention-strict 4 hours and vastly retool the mod when playtesting shows this? Or, do you press ahead as it is with a few minor notes for convention play? Do you take an even more drastic stance and just place hard rules in place to prevent anything going long? How hard do you push?
There were a lot of LG mods that went long. As a frequent playtester, it wasn't uncommon for mods to go 8 hours for a 1-round playtest. Then it would go to the chopping block and the next playtest. It was that hard in 3.5 to peg duration. I think 4E is actually easier to design for time.
Separately, I know that our LG group would play mods in 4 hours at a con, but then any mod played at a home would easily expand to 6-8 hours due to RP, jokes, IC side-treks, etc. I fondly recall 45 minutes of RP and me saying "ok, can I DM the start of this mod now?" and having Ken Sheffield say "What, Teos, like that mod there has anything better than what we're doing here?" I laughed, agreed, and then kindly told him to shut up anyway. :-)
In aiming at a strict 4 hours, you can end up shortcutting the bits that can lead to better free-form play. You can end with more formulaic approaches. Interesting encounters are often more complex, with more bits and more possibilities, and these can often baloon the time for an adventure. I hate to see anything limit opportunities or the really good author creativity that 4E can facilitate. I would honestly rather go over or trust the DM to cut the right things short at a con. I would rather the adventure make something optional than not put it in.
My preferrence would be for the mods to be not so densely packed and not designed to set up out-of-game time as a mechanism to determine the success but, if for some reason, out-of-game time needs to be a determiner, wouldn't it make more sense to put smaller penalties at the end of each encounter? The penalty for going over the alotted time for an individual encounter could be some sort of mandated surge or daily power use based on the remaining challenge left. The effect would be that the mod length would be held to it's limit but, the effect of the time cap would be much more gradual.
I'd find being penalized resources that I would have likely and believably used to complete the encounter through out the mod leading to failure far more palattable than just being unsuccessful because time ran out when my character still had plenty of power at his dsiposal.
Lee
In aiming at a strict 4 hours, you can end up shortcutting the bits that can lead to better free-form play. You can end with more formulaic approaches. Interesting encounters are often more complex, with more bits and more possibilities, and these can often baloon the time for an adventure. I hate to see anything limit opportunities or the really good author creativity that 4E can facilitate. I would honestly rather go over or trust the DM to cut the right things short at a con. I would rather the adventure make something optional than not put it in.
The thing is that if you are being offered a CORE or SPEC you shouldn't be Johnny Come Lately module writter, you should have a proven track record as an author and thus be allowed to deviate from the basic forumla - heck the SPEC deliberalty break said formula. The basic LFR forumla - 3 fights, 1 or 2 Skill Challenges is a snap to write to the 4 hour limit given the available XP, the hardest part is filling in the details and making an interesting plot. But the authors who should be writing CORE and SPEC modules should be moving beyond that simple paradigm, and the greater freedom offered by such should solve the problem.
QUEST1-1 is a great example of a module that does this btw. It can be done, without skipping, in 4 hours, and yet for home play it could take 8 or more hours of play easily due to the vast array of RP opportunity the module presents.
SPEC1-3 on the other hand is a horrible example - because it is a single slot module that has the content (based purely on random choice and some rolls) to go for 2 slots. It is a great dungeon crawl for home play but a terrible mod for 4 hour play.
SPEC1-3 I will never play under timed circumstances again (and I'm working on my DME for GenConOz to make it playable in 4 hours this evening), QUEST1-1 on the other hand was so much fun to run that I started a Zhent Quest character just so I could get to play it, timed or not. (Why yes SPEC1-3 has more challenging fights - sweet, but that isn't the problem with the mod.)
I have run the SPEC1-3 H1, H2 and H3 (only once) a couple of times at conventions and during non-timed playtests and slot 0s (in which case they still finished within 4 hours of actual gaming). Each and every time the PCs were out of resources anyway by the end of the slot and they decided to retreat, knowing there were still more encounters left, but having succeeded in the primary mission. All four also include an IC time limit, which if taken into proper account tends to become a drain on resources (no unlimited short rests in between encounters) and also meant that there is no option for an extended rest. It might have been my DMing style, the players (and some were rather slow) I gamed with or a combination of the two, but to say that SPEC1-3 is automatically difficult to finish in 4 hours of actual game play is a bit of a leap.
Note that I am less certain about P1. I can see that running those as a 2-rounder makes a bit more sense, especially since many people have not played their paragon level PCs in months and are new to it. They are going to be a bit slower about it. Paragon fights might be slower as well, but I have run and played a couple of Dungeon Delves, and Mike Mearl's adventure at DDXP 2009 and in my experience the fights took just as long as at H3.
Aye - they can finish the "core plot" - which is what I'm working on DME for, to make sure that if I have to run it I can get them to do the "core plot" in a timely fashion.
Consider that there are 5 combats in the module, and that technically a party could encounter every one of them, a situation made more likely if the poor DM tries to follow the Adventure Flowchart.
The premise of the module is fine - but 5 combats, along with numerous skill problems, in 4E just is not going to happen in 4 hours, even with a group of skilled players who are familiar with each other and have strong characters - certainly not without DMs calling fights or otherwise shortening them significantly (monsters dieing at bloodied for eg).
You are generalizing. For one thing, only H1 contains 5 fights and one of them is really easy (setting up the fight took more time then running it each time). H2 and H3 contain less fights (unless in H3 case you want to go into a really big overcap xp wise in which case you could have 5). For another, I have seen tables finish all fights within the time limit. Granted, it is going to be difficult, but if a team works well together and both DM and players keep the speed up fights can be surprisingly short in 4E. You also missed my point. Regardless of the time limit, I have never run SPEC1-3 where I had to cut the adventure short because of time issues with the PCs still being able to face additional encounters. By that time they were already ready to retreat (and more often then not they had done 4 fights and the skill challenge). Hence, having had more time would not have changed one thing. And ultimately that is the goal of specials: to challenge the characters with difficult fights that go beyond the challenge of a regular fight. The time part is not what makes a special more challenging, or at least not intentionally, although the IC time limitation definitely is (and from a storywise perspective it makes sense).
The big picture here is that the specials are being written packed full of content that needs to be finished with the full expectation that their early life will be being debuted and exclusively run in public events which largely means convention play and four and half hour time limits. There are also appears to be some sentiment amongst DMs, whether intended or not, that running time challenge created by short time slots and overfull mods somehow needs to be preserved as part of the mod's integrity. This means a large percentage of those playing the mods are meeting with what I and i belive ohters consider a very unsatisfying ending.
I love these mods as untimed endeavors and still find them challenging without the stress of time. I fully believe that players can play faster and in may cases should but, is rushing play, skipping over roleplay, stressing overtime and failing because of out of game playtime really what the game designers and campaign directors consider appropriate or even "special" as a gaming experience? If I look at at the D&D experience many had at GenCon, we rushed to Indianapolis and back, rushed to get to slots on time, rushed through delves, rushed through the Championships and then had to rush through Specials. I am all for Specials being special but, how about something we can savor and enjoy at a relaxed pace instead of one more round of beat-the clock.
Some of this hangs on the shoulders of convention organizers and creating space in the schedule for longer mods but, I think LFR is likely the party that can get something done to improve the situation. The mods can certainly be written less packed or re-estimated for running time. Even replacing the module end time failure penalty with smaller surge/resource penalties for overly long but, winnable encounters could diffuse the situation some. It might even help if shorter adventures were written to help convention planners in allowing for longer schedule slots. Reading the response in this thread, it seems like alot of us can understand and tolerate being limited by the clock but, very few seem to like it.
The big picture here is that the specials are being written packed full of content that needs to be finished
I'm not seeing that. SPEC1-3 is clearly meant NOT to be finished. You want to achieve the goal, which in no way, shape, or form requirese completion of the whole dungeon. If anything, that enhances replay and enhances options. You have more tales to tell. It is a more real dungeon. It is a bigger challenge, which grows to fit the needs of really good tables (who can actually have a shot at fighting everything).
Besides, I thought Calite said a while back that his issue was not with those types of mods but with the normal mods that ran long? I'm confused.
I'm with everyone on regular mods. It would be nice for regular mods to be doable in 4 to 4.5 hours, which works fine at cons. For some mods, that might mean the DM needs to have their game face on. Truly, that's going to likely be true of any mod in the 7-10 or higher range, because the HP values can just make the combats go long. The alternative is to clamp down on a lot of creativity for authors.
On special mods where time is the deal, well, I mean, that's part of the challenge! It is intentional! It means that, if you are running low on time/resources, you have to... wow, retreat! Run and find the right place! Our table did it in SPEC1-3. We had two good players and a lot of less experienced players, plus one guy that clearly had not slept all con long... he was halucinating (to put it mildly). It all made for a really fun challenge!
There are also appears to be some sentiment amongst DMs, whether intended or not, that running time challenge created by short time slots and overfull mods somehow needs to be preserved as part of the mod's integrity. This means a large percentage of those playing the mods are meeting with what I and i belive ohters consider a very unsatisfying ending.
Well, for SPEC1-3, my thought is that this is the point of the mod. The rewards should, truly, be given based on 4 hours of play. Now, whatever you do in your home, so be it, but that's the point. For something that is just a mod that can go long (QUES1-1 is a good example), that's fine to run it longer and there should be no penalty. I would be surprised if anyone said "sorry, you ran out of time on QUES1-1, no story awards, only partial XP, etc." in a home setting. Are people really seeing that?
And, Calite, I know where you are coming from, but please, watch the comments about authors. These are people, whether new to the scene or old timers (and I'm not confident you or I can accurately guess which are which) that are working really hard to produce something for the community. Your words could be chosen more carefully, and even more accurately. Truth be told, I'm a pretty inexperienced author. I've written one LFR mod, two mini-missions for LG, co-authored one LG mod, and participated in a lot of non-mod creative endeavors. That's not that much. Should I stop contributing and be ashamed of the work I've done?
SPEC1-3 is clearly meant NOT to be finished.
There are 2 goals in the module and 2 encounters that are not relevant to achieving those goals. They could easily be put in an appendix and the core goals of the module then be detailed well to allow for a more relaxed play experience when time does matter.
Its an RPG not a timed boardgame. (Delves excepted, but hey that is why I'm not playing the delves.)
Besides, I thought Calite said a while back that his issue was not with those types of mods but with the normal mods that ran long?
Hopefully the above clarifies a bit.
Looking at my DME notes, I would not be suprised that they are just me codifying what DMs are doing anyway. My notes are mostly aimed at reducing rolling and streamlining the experience so that players do not get hung up on particular points, and are less worried about where rolls fit into the SC.
The alternative is to clamp down on a lot of creativity for authors.
Why? Creativity is already restricted on a number of fronts, asking authors to respect time limits is already in the Writers Guidelines. So I'm not sure why this would change things further.
On special mods where time is the deal, well, I mean, that's part of the challenge! It is intentional!
There is a big difference between in character time limits being part of the challenge and out of character time limits being part of the challenge. I'm pro-IC but very much against using the OOC ones to create a false challenge. Again its an RPG not a board game.
And, Calite, I know where you are coming from, but please, watch the comments about authors.
Feel free to message me about this, because I'm not sure what you mean.
I'll be honest, baring a few specific things I have really enjoyed playing LFR for the last twelve months, and few of those things have anything to do with the writers of the modules.
My core concern is about overpacking modules - so that the game becomes about the rolls and not the roles. I like having time to explore the roles. Playing a module where you leap from one set of rolls to the next simply so that you can finish the module "in time" isn't why I play RPGs.
SPEC1-3 just isn't about doing everything. I think we will just have to disagree. The pressure, the 'board game' feel, the emphasis on time running out... that's all intentional. Those optional rooms aren't there to be completed by the average group. They are there as a challenge, a roadblock, a pressure. It is part of the 'special'. Now, it is totally cool for some people not to like that. No special will please (or ever has pleased) everyone, not in any campaign.
But, that is what SPEC1-3 is about. Changing it via DM fiat to be a leasurely exploration of the rooms... that's just not what the XP/rewards are based upon, and I would actually find it unfair to run it that way. Not a big deal, but that's what I lean towards vs. the contrary (that the normal version is unfair and that a 'fix' is needed).
Other mods, I hear you there. Ideally, everything can be done in the allotted time. It isn't easy to write that way. At least, not for me and not for many great writers I know (and I don't include myself in that category). And, for regular mods, that is where the DM can use their steady hand to guide the group along. The monster surrenders once there is no reason to track resources. The monster develops a fatal wound, losing some more HPs on that blow, falling to the ground. The skill challenge concludes, even though the complexity was not actually reached. That stuff works just fine in regular mods. We can't pile it all onto the authors, who are often adding more to a mod so you have options, choices, and story. A skill challenge can often tell a story, but that might be done with before the number of successes. That's not necessarily an author fault. Sure, some perfect skill challenge could be perhaps written, but I think that's an unreasonable expectation. The DM can handle it in a positive way.
Changing it via DM fiat to be a leasurely exploration of the rooms... that's just not what the XP/rewards are based upon, and I would actually find it unfair to run it that way. Not a big deal, but that's what I lean towards vs. the contrary (that the normal version is unfair and that a 'fix' is needed).
But, there's no real reason why it can't be a leisurely frantic scramble against the clock.
Leisurely for the players.
Frantic scramble against the clock for the PCs.
Frankly, we just ran a table of this as a slot zero, and ran it pretty much like that. The in-game rushing was very pronounced (twice we moved on from encounters without even a short rest), but we took our time out-of-game. I thought it was very effective, and conveyed the time element very nicely.
I guess to me, rushing through real-time as players emphasizes the rush through game-time of the PCs in about the same way that the DM throwing rocks at the players would emphasize the physical danger the PCs are in.
See, what's interesting is that in an actual 4.5 hour slot, you might be able to take the short rests *, because those don't take up game time, but need to be efficient around your combat such that you don't take up real time thinking, discussing, etc.
I like the thinking, discussing, RPing. I just see this adventure as a timed event. Maybe it isn't, only being so in a convention? It does say "the players have to keep a steady pace if they hope to finish all in one 4-hour session. Finishing all encounters is not required to complete", but it isn't clear to me if this adventure should be run one way at cons and a different way at home games.
I can say that SPEC1-2 is not designed as a time constraint, and thus was much harder at a con.
* = When we played SPEC1-3, our judge asked how many short rests we were spending. I haven't read the mod in its entirety.
We ground through H1 & H3 and were unable to complete them in 4 hours because bad rolling on our side made the combats go longer than they needed to without a clear winner being decided. So we played well, we were timely, and defeated the challenges of the modules - but we were left unable to finish the modules simply due to real world time constraints.
I am happy to see modules where the story has the characters in a race against time and you need to make choices about having your character be safer, or take less time. They are a lot of fun when well presented.
I am not happy to see modules where the story has the players in a race against time to decide who succeeds. There are simply to many variables to deal with to make that sort of competitive play even meaningful.
Note I do think the Adv Company module concept is cool, and has a lot of interesting scope - but it really needs to be better explained to the community how that works. You do not need to as players play the module faster to finish it - but your metagame decisions (cards, APs etc) and your decisions about what your character does have appropriate metagame concequences - that is great. As a group the players can decide if they care or not about the metagame elements and there is no danger that real time will run out and decide the outcome of the adventure.
That is really the crux, real time running out should not make in-game time run out.
Futher to the idea is just what does SPECIAL mean.
Does it mean a challenge to the players to complete X amount of adventure in Y time for Z rewards.
Or
Does it mean a unique experience that can only be obtained through playing in a special mod.
They are different things.
The first is now readily done with the delves. The second I'm not so sure about.
SPEC1-3 on the other hand is a horrible example - because it is a single slot module that has the content (based purely on random choice and some rolls) to go for 2 slots. It is a great dungeon crawl for home play but a terrible mod for 4 hour play.SPEC1-3 I will never play under timed circumstances again (and I'm working on my DME for GenConOz to make it playable in 4 hours this evening)
I just played this module at Gen Con Oz (the level 1-4 version) as a matter of fact and I have to disagree.
Whether or not you encounter all the content is not random choice. We used tracking to follow the breadcrumb trail to the plot token without taking unnecessary detours, avoided unnecessary fights, headed upwards rather than sideways to seek an exit, and got out in what I think was probably the minimum number of encounters. We took a longer option rather than a shorter option with the final encounter, but that's because the shorter option struck us as incredibly stupid. Regardless, the point is that we played conservatively and got out with plenty of in-game and out-of-game time to spare.
Personally I have a strong preference for dungeon crawls to be played under time pressure, because I have a strong preference for both players and referees to keep the action moving and lighting a fire under them tends to do that. It's not how I prefer an rp-heavy module to be, obviously, but we were given an accurate picture of what to expect from SPEC1-3 and found it exactly as advertised.
Obviously such events aren't what everyone considers fun, and if you don't like them and don't play them then more power to you I say.
I'll be the first to agree that players and DMs can and should speed up play but, If there really needs to be an out of game time limit, wouldn't incremental penalties based on each encounter work better? I doubt I'll ever like gaming under a time pressure but, if it's necessary, why not handle it in a more graceful and less frustrating manner. I'd rather be assessed a resource penalty because we ran long in an individual encounter and be able to get back on track than a flat fail for running over the end. Multiple tiny prods is more likely to cause players to adjust as opposed to just making them annoyed and unfulfilled at the end. As soon as we agree it is an out of game pressure we should begin to to deal with it in out-of-game terms as opposed to worrying how much sense it makes in-game.
I'll be the first to agree that players and DMs can and should speed up play but, If there really needs to be an out of game time limit, wouldn't incremental penalties based on each encounter work better? I doubt I'll ever like gaming under a time pressure but, if it's necessary, why not handle it in a more graceful and less frustrating manner. I'd rather be assessed a resource penalty because we ran long in an individual encounter and be able to get back on track than a flat fail for running over the end. Multiple tiny prods is more likely to cause players to adjust as opposed to just making them annoyed and unfulfilled at the end. As soon as we agree it is an out of game pressure we should begin to to deal with it in out-of-game terms as opposed to worrying how much sense it makes in-game.
I'm not sure what you've got in mind when you're talking about "incremental penalties based on each encounter".
If the idea is that running over time on Encounter #1 gives you penalties that make Encounter #2 harder that sounds like a bear to balance, and likely to lead to an equally frustrating TPK if the penalties were genuinely significant and the encounters were tuned to be tough to begin with.
Also in a convention setting it's often the case that you "lose" when you run substantially over the allotted time anyway simply because the players and the referee are all committed to another game in the next session. You all know what that time is because you have wristwatches and you know your own schedules.
If you've got ideas other than a time limit that would make for a fun dungeon crawl I'd love to hear them though. Who knows, they could use them for the next SPEC module.
My hope for the next round of Spec's would be this:
A) decide if we really want out-of-game time to be a factor in the mod's difficulty. (I vote we don't and properly fill the mod with reasonably completable encounters from a time factor.)
If, we do decide we want to create difficulty by over filling mods and pressuring players on out-of-game time.
B) very clearly state that out-of-game time is an aspect of the module's challenge in the adventure's description.
C) clearly define consequences for how far the party gets by the end.
and/or
D) provide resource penalties for taking too long in an individual encounter that is likely defeated by the party and ending it quickly to catch back up to the overall module schedule.
Maybe my ideas won't fix things but, I think their consideration can lead to alot of improvement for the enjoyability of special mods in convention play. I know they would improve mine.
let's leave the timers for the delves and the Championship,
Lee
I'm confused.
My hope for the next round of Spec's would be this:
A) decide if we really want out-of-game time to be a factor in the mod's difficulty. (I vote we don't and properly fill the mod with reasonably completable encounters from a time factor.)
If, we do decide we want to create difficulty by over filling mods and pressuring players on out-of-game time.
I keep being confused by this term "out-of-game time". What is this in terms of SPEC1-3? Isn't it all in-game time? The concept of SPEC1-3 is that this is a dungeon crawl, you don't have sufficient adventure time (magical portal expiring) to check everything out, thus you know you need to rush to complete your goals. It is all in-game. The only difference from a normal mod is the difficulty level and the aspect of having more rooms (filled with foes) than you need to fight.
That's the hook for SPEC1-3. Now, you may not like it. Specials are special, and any one player will like some of the 'special' aspects more or less. In general, specials give you a bit of a different experience while being harder than the average adventure. They often have bigger goals and more important/heroic story. They often feature 'classic' locations known from novels or adventures. But, really, the design team has good freedom to decide what to write. Generally, the design team is strongly considering how to make it 'special' in all those ways and picking and choosing what they think works.
With SPEC1-3, again, there was a clear decision to have too much to be done by all but the most impressive of tables. For the rest... well, the adventure makes the time issue clear and the DM should as well... so, if you are in combat X and are running low on resources and you haven't found something that is part of the goal... you need to withdraw. A table that doesn't really does earn the failure conditions (and it IS okay to fail, every player will at some point be part of a table that fails something... it happens and is part of what makes success so sweet).
B) very clearly state that out-of-game time is an aspect of the module's challenge in the adventure's description.
That's fair, though this suggests that time is somehow a much bigger issue than other factors in a module. Does timing deserve a special notice? Why? Is the issue that we are completist? Is the issue we never want to be rushed? Is the issue that too many of the recent offerings had that sort of feel/constraint? (I don't have an answer. I have my own level of agreeing/disagreeing with all of these questions, but I suspect everyone will have a different take). What, really, should authors be doing? There aren't really many more than 5 or so people posting on this topic. I just saw 3 tables (21 people, counting DMs) that enjoyed one of the levels of SPEC1-3 this weekend. What conclusion should designers really draw?
From my end, I understand that too many modules with a similar construction/goal should be avoided (GenCon and PAX seemed to have an unusually high number of adventures that were deliberately challenging/competitive, which is a strain on players, takes away from each individual competition, is confusing, and is tough on new players).
I also understand some people don't like modules where you can't finish anything. I don't hear anyone advocating these should be regular occurrences, but I doubt the majority of players have a problem with periodically having that experience. Many players aren't delve players, but appreciate something similar to a delve but which still has RP and story.
C) clearly define consequences for how far the party gets by the end.
Those are good goals, but I suspect the designers feel they did just that for SPEC1-3, to the extent they thought it necessary. I've played 4 SPEC1-3s, and I felt that the conditions were clear with every run and every DM (each time different) that I had.
and/or
D) provide resource penalties for taking too long in an individual encounter that is likely defeated by the party and ending it quickly to catch back up to the overall module schedule.
HeroicSerge and I had the same thought. It is really easy to have any penalties lead to an 'unfair' challenge. I think SPEC1-3 actually is really fair by not having a resource penalty. You can at any time realize that you are low on time and take appropriate action and still have a good chance at success. "We have time for just one more fight, and we have everything we need but don't know the exit, and there are many rooms left... let's run!"
The alternative would likely lead to huge problems. Penalties can have a cascading problem... you run out of surges and are out of play. You run out of encounters/dailies and have to resort to repetitive at-wills. You can't rest and the healer can't really heal you... it's far easier for players to find this unfair than the pretty fair and predictable aspect of time. You always see the clock and you always know if you met the goal. The only thing left is a completist desire vs. the clock.
It isn't that we can't come up with some alternatives or compromises, but any alternative tack is unlikely to be a foolproof perfect solution. I think the idea of describing the challenge might be appropriate, but I don't know where you draw the line on what to advertise. If you use a lot of skill challenges, do you have to advertise that? What about if you force a situation where you don't get to short rest? Etc. What is and isn't fair when you are talking about a special event?
And, what exactly is out-of-game-time vs. in-game time, again?
I keep being confused by this term "out-of-game time". What is this in terms of SPEC1-3? Isn't it all in-game time? The concept of SPEC1-3 is that this is a dungeon crawl, you don't have sufficient adventure time (magical portal expiring) to check everything out, thus you know you need to rush to complete your goals. It is all in-game. The only difference from a normal mod is the difficulty level and the aspect of having more rooms (filled with foes) than you need to fight.
...
And, what exactly is out-of-game-time vs. in-game time, again?
In game time is 1 hour if I remember, out of game time is 4 hours and change.
The difference is that it takes several minutes of out of game time to play 6 seconds of in game time during combat, and 6 seconds of out of game time to play 5 minutes of Short Rest, or even an extended rest.
Out of game time was explicitly a major limiting factor for the Ultimate Dungeon Delve. It was not so explicitly a major limiting factor for Spec 1-3.
(FWIW my last table I played in H1 failed due to lack of in game time. We were stomped hard in the second encounter and could not proceed without an extended rest, and therefore we turned back without saving the boy. There was plenty of Out of Game time left for that party.)
And, what exactly is out-of-game-time vs. in-game time, again?
Assuming the OP and I are on the same page, in-game time is the amount of time which has notionally passed for the PCs. So if the temple will explode in 45 minutes in-game, and the PCs take a short rest, they've only got 40 more minutes to get out before the temple explodes. That is in-game time.
Out-of-game time is time that passes in the real world, which has only a very loose relationship to in-game time. In combat several minutes of out-of-game time pass for every six second round of in-game time. When you take an extended rest, six hours of in-game time flash past in a few seconds of out-of-game time.
The OP dislikes scenarios where there is out-of-game time pressure, on the basis that this makes no in-game sense. For example I believe the most recent delve (Fall of Windrock Spire) had a strict forty-five minute out-of-game time limit for every encounter. So Group A might get through ten rounds of combat in forty minutes, win, and get to play the second encounter. Meanwhile Group B might play more slowly for whatever reason and hit the forty-five minute limit in the eighth combat round, instantly losing the event. That makes no in-game sense whatsoever, because in-game six seconds pass for every round whether Ted adds up his damage roll quickly or slowly.
Now personally I don't mind this at all as long as it is clearly flagged ahead of time. I can enjoy DnD as a vehicle for improvisational narrative or I can enjoy it as a board game, and I don't mind doing either. Adding out-of-game time pressure to a board game is just another way of making it more challenging.
However for people who primarily enjoy DnD as a vehicle for improvisational narrative that kind of out-of-game time pressure is going to bunch their pants, and fair enough too.
I have run the SPEC1-3 H1, H2 and H3 (only once) a couple of times at conventions and during non-timed playtests and slot 0s (in which case they still finished within 4 hours of actual gaming). Each and every time the PCs were out of resources anyway by the end of the slot and they decided to retreat, knowing there were still more encounters left, but having succeeded in the primary mission.
P1 is different from H3. In H3, it's possible to achieve the primary objective after the third (combat) encounter and then retreat. (The final combat is only necessary to achieve the secondary objective.)
In P1, the primary objective and the only way to escape (for most parties) is in the same room as the fourth combat.
I just played this module at Gen Con Oz (the level 1-4 version) as a matter of fact and I have to disagree.
I'm not sure who your DM was, or what choices your party made, but I know I shared my DME with the whole Gen Con Oz DM Team, so I don't know if that affected your experience of the module. But having actually read the module and played it is what informed my comments (and DME).
I just played this module at Gen Con Oz (the level 1-4 version) as a matter of fact and I have to disagree.I'm not sure who your DM was, or what choices your party made, but I know I shared my DME with the whole Gen Con Oz DM Team, so I don't know if that affected your experience of the module. But having actually read the module and played it is what informed my comments (and DME).
I don't know either, I can only recount what I experienced while playing this module at Gen Con Oz.
If the module as written does not allow you to use tracking or some substitute for it in order to head straight to the primary objective and ignore the first optional encounter then I agree that aspect of the module would devolve into random choice. Similarly if the exits from the subsequent encounters were indistinguishable in the module as written, as opposed to set up so you could take an educated guess at which led outside and which led to more encounters as it was in the version I played, those choices too would devolve into random choices.
* The argument being that the nest is riddled with tracks of ants carrying all kind of things and hence tracking is not going to be particular useful.
Steps A,B and C
By "out-of-game time" I mean the real time that we players share. Real actual time that blinks at us from the corner of our screens and pays many of our bills. The big issue of this thread is that it takes too much of it for what is generally scheduled to run an adventure to complete some recent and special mods.
I have no problem with the "in-game time" that the characters in Spec 1-3 and other mods subject the characters to provided there is some sense the players can pick-up on that they should be valuing the time their character's have. Spec 1-3 was very good about doing this. I believe it was so full of challenge(intentionally saturated with challenge?), that it should have been stated in it's description how likely an unsucessful time failure would be. (ie, "players may find the adventure difficult to complete in a standard RPGA round"). It's that big of an aspect of the play experience that it belongs in the mod's description.
I don't actually think the writers do a bad job with the notes for running the adventures but, felt that reiterating that the consequnce for taking too long be considered and noted and listed in my posted steps to improving this issue. I think there is always room for improvement and clarity and would hope that such time consequences would be included and noted clearly in a logical place as most DM directions tend to be.
I keep being confused by this term "out-of-game time". What is this in terms of SPEC1-3? Isn't it all in-game time? The concept of SPEC1-3 is that this is a dungeon crawl, you don't have sufficient adventure time (magical portal expiring) to check everything out, thus you know you need to rush to complete your goals. It is all in-game. The only difference from a normal mod is the difficulty level and the aspect of having more rooms (filled with foes) than you need to fight.
To try to clarifiy this point a bit more and to add my own opinion:
In game time for SPEC 1-3 (at least H2) is 1 hour before the portal expires. This is the time the characters experience
Out of game time for SPEC 1-3 is 4ish hours (at a con at least). This is the time the players experience.
Personally I enjoy what one might call the 'narrative' experience, i.e. the creation of a shared story between DM and PCs. Failing due to ingame time expiring is fine since it adds to the story; e.g in SPEC 1-3, the characters had to retreat or risk being stuck in the tower forever.
Failing due to out of game time on the other hand doesn't add to the story, rather it cuts it short and you never get to find out how it ends. Imagine you're reading a really exciting book, you're just starting the last chapter and then you leave the book on the bus by accident. Now you're never going to know how the story ends,* that's kind of the feeling I get if an adventure gets cut short due to out of game time running out. It creates a cliff hanger moment, a to be continued screen that will never be continued, which is something I really hate. To be fair I should state again this is a personal preference, I also really hate books / movies / etc. that have (too) open endings, I need a story to be complete.
Personally I think adventures should be written in such a way that it is possible for the average party to complete a certain adventure path within one convention slot. Note this doesn't mean that having more encounters in an adventure than can be played in four hours is wrong, as long as the story doesn't assume you're going to play them all. SPEC 1-3 is fine in this regard, it has more encounters than the average party will be able to complete in a four hour slot, but at the same time the story does not expect you to actually face all the encounters.
To put it differently:
- having to end an adventure due to in game reasons, be it running out of healing surges / resources or in game time limits (such as the portal expiring) - fine
- having to end an adventure because the time alloted for the slot has run out - not fun
I hope this clarifies some of the issues.
*unless you buy a new copy of course, but that's beside the point I'm trying to make
I have never had a group take the wrong turn.
Curiously I spoke to a DM who used my DME notes when running it at GenCon Oz, and he had a party choose the long way... sometimes you lead the horse to water...
It should be noted that if you rescued the child only, you did not complete the whole story of H1, and it is those potential extra encounters to complete the whole story where I start having troubles with the module in a 4 hour slot sense.
It comes down to the question of "what is a SPEC?"
If it is a race against the real world clock as much as the in game clock that should be made clear in the module's description.
But I think that is a poor way of making modules special in the scheme of things - what with the Delves doing that much better (due to lack of story, and better scope for building challenges).
It comes down to the question of "what is a SPEC?"If it is a race against the real world clock as much as the in game clock that should be made clear in the module's description.
But I think that is a poor way of making modules special in the scheme of things - what with the Delves doing that much better (due to lack of story, and better scope for building challenges).
You seem to understand and agree with my basic point!
Failing due to out of game time on the other hand doesn't add to the story, rather it cuts it short and you never get to find out how it ends. Imagine you're reading a really exciting book, you're just starting the last chapter and then you leave the book on the bus by accident. Now you're never going to know how the story ends,* that's kind of the feeling I get if an adventure gets cut short due to out of game time running out. It creates a cliff hanger moment, a to be continued screen that will never be continued, which is something I really hate. To be fair I should state again this is a personal preference, I also really hate books / movies / etc. that have (too) open endings, I need a story to be complete.
I find these sorts of endings extremely unfulfilling and know I like them less each time. If I knew I was walking into such a situation I would probably arrange my playing of it differently, taking only the tightest, most levelled party I could assemble, avoid it altogether or at least not sign up for mutliple playings of the adventure at a given con.
I know one person mentioned how the difficulty provided by adding in the time-pressures makes the adventures more replayable as they become so difficult, it takes several tries to defeat them. That sounds a little too much like some MMO design aspects I don't like in MMOs and a similarity the new edition of the game doesn't need when so many fault it, rightly or not, for being too MMO-like.
I think I'll step back from discussing better ways to run and design over-packed mods as I think it could be a good thread of it's own and I really rather just see the efforts of our many great writers spent writing material that most players will encounter and be able to complete and play-out to a fullfilling end.
The real answer is pairing adventures and gaming slots that match so whatever is in them can be enjoyed.
In any event, just to say it again: the intent of SPEC1-3 was never to have out of game time limit the adventure. With specials there is the inherent risk of it happening since they are designed to contain more difficult fights. We cannot please both crowds, and anybody starting on a special at a convention should be made fully aware of it (when I run such a game, I make very sure my players are aware of what a special is). I did my utmost best though to at least make it possible to finish the story within a convention slot, and from what I have seen, we have succeeded.
In any event, just to say it again: the intent of SPEC1-3 was never to have out of game time limit the adventure.
I'm not sure if I expressed this clearly enough in my post, but SPEC1-3 didn't give me the feeling it was limited limited by out of game time. The story was finished within the time slot. That we ran out of time during further exploration (a 'bonus encounter' as it were); oh well, it happens.
My post was written in response to the question whether we thought it was good if adventures were packed so full of encounters that it would be unlikely for an average party to comlete the story within a convention slot.
Obviously due to the tougher fights in specials there is a risk that you will run out of time, especially if you have a slow or unlucky group, but as long as this remains a risk and not an assumption I'm fine with it personally. (In other words: an average party might not finish in time -ok; an average party probably won't finish in time -not ok).
Still it might be a good idea to attach some kind of warning label to adventures that have a higher risk of running out of time so that people who like to take their time / know their group is not very fast during combat can avoid playing them at time-limited events. To most experienced LFR players I think the label SPEC does provide such a warning, but it might be good to spell it out somewhere more explicitly for newer players.
I can only really speak to my experience with the P1 version on Spec 1-3. It definitely felt like there was more in it than was likely to be completed, I didn't here of very many who got through it without at least some very focused play, lucky breaks and a fair amount of skipping/truncation.
The DMs at GenCon were good about telling you from the outset you'd need to rush but, I definitely felt like it was being run as if it were designed to be challenging because of the out-of-game time element and I had at least one judge of three play out some encounters very deep in rounds to "preserve" that challenge. From what I overheard about other tables, that did not seem to be too atypical. My guess would have been that many DMs felt they were directed to do so either by the adventure notes or the overseeing convention judges.
From what I have heard, it seems like an overstuffed adventure may even have been the expectation when writing duties were assigned.
Noting things that will dramatically impact a player's game experience (like probable failure) ought to be in the Adventure descriptions. The last two Specials seem to have hidden behind the "well people know what specials are like" defense. Spec 1-2 and 1-3 were good tough mods that got a little spoiled to me by how were "special". In 1-2, it was a big jump in difficulty over othe LFR adventures and both seemed quite lengthy for their listed number of slots. Having a warning of these issues would have changed when I played the mods and with what character and or party and most likely left me with a better opinion of the mods having been able to better enjoy the adventure within.
when I run such a game, I make very sure my players are aware of what a special is
I'm curious what you tell people a Special is?
I say this because to me there is nothing special about "made hard to complete in 4 hours, now you try" - that seems to be the role of the Delve mods - race the real world clock, why are Specials being used to fill the same role?
A special is almost always harder than a normal adventure. It also tends to feature things you don't see in regular adventures. It can be many things (grandiose plot, amazing location, canonical events/location, new mechanics, strange rules, etc.).
For this one, what makes it special is both difficulty and the dungeon crawl aspect. It just so happened to also coincide with a series of other competitive offerings (classic delve, ultimate delve, ADCP1-1). It wasn't done on purpose, and it should be clear that authors seldom have any idea of what will be offered by other authors at the same con. Similarly, regional admins and maybe even global admins may not be aware of the other offerings. That might seem crazy, but if you consider their workload and the need to keep secrecy around big releases, it isn't so crazy.
Many people enjoyed the time pressure and dungeon crawl aspect, please keep that in mind. And, don't think that the delves were made without a lot learned from specials. Thus, they have a similar background and may resemble each other in various ways. But, they are written for different audiences. Tons of Delve and Ultimate Delve players filled out their very first RPGA cards and never intend on playing LFR. Many LFR players (like me) never intend on playing delves.
Dungeon crawls are not special, grindy combats combined with to many encounters are not special, competing against a real world clock is an artifical constraint and is not special (because if you remove the real world clock you could easily complete the content).
What seems to be meta-campaign plot, as in the first 2 SPECS is special.
Being "canon" in LFR is the default position.
New mechanics take the form of monsters, traps etc, all of which can be included in a standard LFR mod with approval.
So while it gives me an understanding of what you think, it doesn't actually say what the Global Admin I asked tells people.
What do you mean with 'meta-campaign' plot? I haven't played SPEC1-2, but I played SPEC1-1, and plotwise, I do not see any difference with some of the core or regional adventures.
I felt the assault approach, one team of many, leading the way, then being the strike team to enter the final location was very cool in Spec 1-2, a very epic plotline. I've really not seen another adventure give me the feeling of scope that it gave us. I've played a lot of mods at this point, and I have really enjoyed most of them but none have really come close to the feel that spec 1-2 gave.
I tell the following to the players at the table:
"A special has much more xp then a regular adventure. It is a combat orientated adventure. It is set in an iconic location or based on a classic adventure. The result of this is a more challenging adventure, and hence it is going to be more difficult to finish it in the typical convention slot. You might not be able to finish the adventure in the slot, but chances are that even when you don't you end up with more xp and gp then in a standard adventure. You should be able to reach the primary goal though within the slot. If you don't like fights, really want to do everything or want to take it easy (assuming you want to get far), it is probably better not to play the special in a convention or at all. I can change any of these aspects, but realize that doing so increases the likelyhood of not reaching the end or getting full rewards."
It two bold faced parts are the core of a special. The timing issue is a side effect, and if you really dislike it, then do no play the adventure at a convention.
Many people enjoyed the time pressure and dungeon crawl aspect, please keep that in mind. And, don't think that the delves were made without a lot learned from specials. Thus, they have a similar background and may resemble each other in various ways. But, they are written for different audiences. Tons of Delve and Ultimate Delve players filled out their very first RPGA cards and never intend on playing LFR. Many LFR players (like me) never intend on playing delves.
Reading back through the entire thread, I found only Ughman and Heroic Serge stepping forward to claim a preference for the practice of over-packing the mods for difficulty and Heroic Serge's seemed more a tolerance of it with a want for players to play more quickly. Keith53 felt we needed to consider the validity of catering to those who do enjoy such mods as you yourself have and while you have probably been the the most staunch defender of the practice, you have stopped short of saying you enjoy the out-of-game time pressure.
-+-
The thread seems to parrot the feelings I have seen across many players I have spoke with in my local gaming community and a several conventions. Many tolerate, understand and perhaps even justify the method of designing in difficulty via actual clock time pressure but only a very small percentage LIKE it. Those who enjoy and even those who might say it is "fine" are still heavily outnumbered by by people who are "annoyed". "disheartened", "frustrated", and "disastisfied" by adventures coming to a cold end purely on a real life time limit basis.
Yes, they can just be avoided and played in non-convention settings but, who does that serve? It only makes such offerings less attractive as draws for conventions and leaves a sizeable number of harder-core LFR convention goers with empty slots, re-runs or frustrating finishes. Those looking for the time-pressure could just as easily agree to play their properly encounter-packed adventure in 3hours if that sort of challenge is desired.
Forum threads only offer so good of a picture of what is going on but, I think the campaign might be well served by looking into this and possibly finding some data on average running time of adventures, non-completion due to slot end times and perhaps a poll of the community on the topic.
Lee
Reading back through the entire thread, I found only Ughman and Heroic Serge stepping forward to claim a preference for the practice of over-packing the mods for difficulty and Heroic Serge's seemed more a tolerance of it with a want for players to play more quickly. Keith53 felt we needed to consider the validity of catering to those who do enjoy such mods as you yourself have and while you have probably been the the most staunch defender of the practice, you have stopped short of saying you enjoy the out-of-game time pressure.
Since I got called out by name allow me to expand on what I said earlier: I like a challenging scenario, I like anything that makes people play fast since the single biggest avoidable time sink in 4e is individual participants wasting time on their combat turn, and I've got no objection to "arbitrary" out-of-game time limits as in the most recent Delve as long as everyone knows the score in advance including the DM.
I think that objecting to time limits on subsections of a module is perfectly defensible on aesthetic grounds. It does make no damn sense that you lose the most recent Delve if you take 46 minutes to mop up a given fight. It's a nonsensical limitation I personally can live with for the sake of a fun tactical boardgame but I understand completely if it drives you nuts.
What I don't have any time for is people complaining about the overall four hour (or so) time limit on a SPEC module or similar. It's a convention event, so it must finish on time. If you don't understand that then do not play at a convention where the other people at the table have a schedule to meet. If there is going to be enough content in a SPEC module to challenge the people at the far right hand side of the bell curve, the people at the far left hand side are simply not going to finish it all in the allotted time. Those modules are there as a challenge for the right hand side of the bell curve, and those on the right hand side of the bell curve are entitled to some challenge every now and then too. If those modules are too hard for you then console yourself with the fact that the overwhelming majority of LFR modules are written to cater to you.
the validity of catering to those who do enjoy such mods as you yourself have and while you have probably been the the most staunch defender of the practice, you have stopped short of saying you enjoy the out-of-game time pressure.
If you want to cater to me, gimme story and setting. That was my favorite part about SPEC1-2.
What I'm saying is that there are many ways to make a special. Having a time pressure (too much to do, too little time to do it in) is one (in my opinion) valid way to make a special. I would not expect or want the next Special to do it. It's just a valid way to make a special, that's all. I come into a Special wanting something different, and since I'm not a delve or Udelve player, this gave it to me.
But, again, my love is for story and setting. I also like epic scale. When I mentioned canon earlier, what I meant is that a special tends to get special permission to deal with canon that a normal adventure would not. You end up in Myth Dranor, or in Undermountain, or...
I'm not really a combat fest person. I enjoy the challenge (does our group 'bring it' enough to win) and I like the rewards. But, at the end of the con, the normal mods with great RP are generally the ones I like the most.
I also like seeing stories advance. Specials generally have not done that, but I think they should, especially in the absence of battle interactives. I loved BIs because they were huge momentous advances of plot on a scale not otherwise possible. You could still have that story advancement with specials. Take a thread, grow it, and really advance it in a special. The Ether special was probably the closest to this, taking a thread and launching several bits that would grow later, all while giving you some real "oh, wow!" moments. Actually, the special where the Circle started destroying bits of their castles and clones... that was full of story/setting and really set things in motion. You had a lot of story in that one.
Ideally, for me, I would like me / the players to feel this way going into a special:
- Interested in the story (SPEC1-2 had this to an extent, as it continued from SPEC1-1)
- Ready for a huge challenge, nervous with sweaty palms
- Eager to see the story advance (despite a combat emphasis)
- Expecting to see things they have not seen before
And, ideally, at the end of it me / they feel they got that and more and can't wait for the next one.
I tell the following to the players at the table:
"A special has much more xp then a regular adventure. It is a combat orientated adventure. It is set in an iconic location or based on a classic adventure. The result of this is a more challenging adventure, and hence it is going to be more difficult to finish it in the typical convention slot. You might not be able to finish the adventure in the slot, but chances are that even when you don't you end up with more xp and gp then in a standard adventure. You should be able to reach the primary goal though within the slot. If you don't like fights, really want to do everything or want to take it easy (assuming you want to get far), it is probably better not to play the special in a convention or at all. I can change any of these aspects, but realize that doing so increases the likelyhood of not reaching the end or getting full rewards."It two bold faced parts are the core of a special. The timing issue is a side effect, and if you really dislike it, then do no play the adventure at a convention.
I think I'm going to do that now that I have better access to playing them away from the con setting. I have the patience to wait for them to be available for home play, and to be able to enjoy the experience so much more as a result.
I suspect that many more people would be happier to see and hear: A special is set in an iconic location or based on a classic adventure and has a key role in the campaign's story arc.
Things like xp and combat should be secondary lures to play the module.
Frankly the SPECIAL mindset illustrated above seems to be a hold over from LG, and if it remains that way I will be taking your advice, and just not playing them at a con.
Maybe it would be worth the RPGA/WotC's time to do some research on what players want in a SPEC?
Maybe it would be worth the RPGA/WotC's time to do some research on what players want in a SPEC?
Are you so sure that what you like is closer to the truth than the current model?
I know that what I like is not what most players want. The vast majority of players in LFR and LG that I play with and judge seem to really want big rewards as reasons to play the special. They seem to want high difficulty. They seem to want special settings. They don't seem to want normal rewards, more RP, sticking to normal rules, etc. They do want fair, but they seem primarily interested in high challenge and high rewards.
I'm pretty sure all those things can be obtained without it being restricted by real world time to create a challenge.
Consider that for a level 1-4 module the target levels are 2 for low tier and 4 for high tier for each encounter. Change those to 4 and 6 and allow xp accordingly and the difficulty of the module will go up significantly even while keeping the time frame of 2 or 3 encounters and 1-3 skill challenges in mind.
For example:
Encounter 650 xp (32.5% of low tier budget)
2 Fire Bettle (Level 1 Brute)
6 Goblin Raider (Level 1 Minion) (Cutter with a Short Bow as well)
3 Orc Raiders (Level 1) (Level 1 Skirmisher)
Encounter 800xp (28.6% of high tier budget)
2 Fire Bettle (Level 1 Brute)
6 Goblin Raider (Level 1 Minion) (Cutter with a Short Bow as well)
3 Orc Raiders (Level 3 Skirmisher)
If you use the High Tier encounter for Low Tier it swallows 40% of the xp budget of a normal module, yet the fact remains that a party of level 1 character can reasonably be expected to overcome the encounter in a timely fashion (I know this from experience).
The interesting thing is the encounter is more challenging and the monsters are not going to drag it out to make RW time a huge issue. PCs will get hurt, and you can reasonably expect level 1 or 2 PCs to see 2 or 3 of their party, maybe more finish the fight bloodied, and have exhausted their in fight healing. (Watching those just bloodied Orcs heal 10hp always makes players wince).
You also still have 75xp to play with for the high tier encounter above to hit the standard DMG expectation for a normal encounter for a 4th level party. So you could have:
Encounter 950xp (33.9% of a high tier adventures xp allocation)
2 Fire Bettle (Level 1 Brute)
2 Goblin Warriors (Level 1 Skirmisher)
4 Goblin Raider (Level 1 Minion) (Cutter with a Short Bow as well)
3 Orc Raiders (Level 3 Skirmisher)
Notice how the 3rd encounter compares to the first in terms of the relative XP budgets?
Notice how much more challenging the 3rd encounter is than the first? Yet it remains beatable by a low tier party in the expected time frame due to the Defenses of the monsters.
Consider 3 encounters at that difficulty plus a skill challenge - well over the usual xp budget for a low tier 1-4, but RW time is no longer the defining factor in the likely success of the party, rather their ability to actually over come the challenges of the module is going to be defining.
So I'm pretty sure that "challenge" doesn't have to mean "race against the clock to get as much done as you can before real world time runs out".
So rather than assume that anyone knows what people really want, why not put some effort into actually finding out?
I've been reading this thread so long that I don't even remember if I've replied to it yet. I don't like adventures that are designed to not be completable in a 4 hour window by an average group of players with an average DM (or only completable by the finest players, or designed to challenge you to play faster, or however you want to word it). Not even occasional exceptions. I would be happier if exactly zero future adventures were designed this way.
Anyway, since the 4-hour restiction wasn't hard-coded into the adventure anywhere that we could see, we just ran SPEC1-3 only at the end of the day at our con this weekend and let it run until it finished, observing strictly, of course, the in-game limit of one hour.
Some people may have finished in 4 hours (if they did I didn't see it, but I didn't see everyone), but the tables I observed were more like 6-8 hours.
Frankly, again from what I observed, the shortest run of SPEC1-3 ran longer than the longest run of MINI1-1 (again, I didn't see everyone, just most). People were universally pleased with the runtime of MINI1-1, and universally disappointed with the runtime of SPEC1-3.
I've been reading this thread so long that I don't even remember if I've replied to it yet. I don't like adventures that are designed to not be completable in a 4 hour window by an average group of players with an average DM (or only completable by the finest players, or designed to challenge you to play faster, or however you want to word it). Not even occasional exceptions. I would be happier if exactly zero future adventures were designed this way.
I understand that you don't like them, but some of us do like them. Can't you just not play them if you don't like them, rather than call for them to be discontinued? It's a big tent, there's room for above average players too. If volunteers are willing to write modules for the better players, I don't see why we shouldn't be allowed to play such modules.
Some people may have finished in 4 hours (if they did I didn't see it, but I didn't see everyone), but the tables I observed were more like 6-8 hours.Frankly, again from what I observed, the shortest run of SPEC1-3 ran longer than the longest run of MINI1-1 (again, I didn't see everyone, just most). People were universally pleased with the runtime of MINI1-1, and universally disappointed with the runtime of SPEC1-3.
We finished it within the allotted time without any problems, and without even taking the most optimal path. You just have to play fast and smart.
There is some apples-to-oranges possibility here. Is amysrevenge talking about completing everything in the SPEC? If so, then that time (6-8 hours) is entirely possible, even probable for a normal table, given that it contains more encounters than you are supposed to take on. But, for completing the module, I've seen it run in a 4-hour slot a bunch of times, each time with a really nice final result of XP/gold and all story awards, but without completion of every possible room. Few groups manage to do everything in 4 hours, though it is possible.
I would find it really unusual for a table to need 6-8 hours to accomplish any of the SPEC1-3s, unless they are insisting on completing every room they come across... which was not the point of any of the SPEC1-3s. Playing that way outside of a con is your prerogative, but isn't the intention nor the point.
What I don't have any time for is people complaining about the overall four hour (or so) time limit on a SPEC module or similar. It's a convention event, so it must finish on time. If you don't understand that then do not play at a convention where the other people at the table have a schedule to meet. If there is going to be enough content in a SPEC module to challenge the people at the far right hand side of the bell curve, the people at the far left hand side are simply not going to finish it all in the allotted time. Those modules are there as a challenge for the right hand side of the bell curve, and those on the right hand side of the bell curve are entitled to some challenge every now and then too. If those modules are too hard for you then console yourself with the fact that the overwhelming majority of LFR modules are written to cater to you.
I actually have little problem with limiting how long slots run, it's a neccessary thing to maintain a convention schedule. The issue is how much is being pushed into some mods intentionally. There is not much that could be done about needing some sort of cap on run-times at conventions but, what content goes in to a mod is much easier to control so, we should look into doing so.
I'm not trying to edge out the right side of the bell curve but, the thing with bell curves is that the extremes represent definitve minorities. I feel like very few people with only mild preferences for out-of-game time pressures are being overrepresented by the practice to the frustration of many convention goers and can't help but, think there are better ways to cater to this minority without funneling so many toward a frustrating ending or reducing the draw of Specials at conventions. Not playing such mods at conventions may be a good strategy individually to avoid the annoyance but, is that really the message LFR want to send to so many.
For me, it's not even so much of a success/failure thing as much as frustration with story disruption. I can deal with character death and can even like them as they can drive story and validate the risks our heroes take. When a mod times out, it just leaves a hole in my character's story along with the bitter taste of defeat. Plus, I have endured a whole bunch of time pressure for the last four hours making time choices in some cases over good game play ones.
We have mentioned the delves and championship as timed play offerings that are already easily accessible at conventions. We could also probably schedule the current amount of content for two slots or at least more hours and add a more restrictive time limit for those who crave it with a special rerward cert and the ability to play something in the next slot as their boon. Another, idea I offered was a resource penalty on slow encounter completion. There are alot of smart people who can probably figure out a better way than the current. I believe the campaign's writers can find less artificial or widely frustrating ways to manufacture difficulty for that right side of the bell-curve.
I don't claim to have all the answers or even know where further discussion, polls and investigation would take us. I have a very strong feeling that there are very few who sort of like the time pressure but, not the unfulfilling endings being put before a much more considerable number of players who really dislike mods that just come to an end under very typical play efforts in timed slots. If you knew me better, you'd know I prefer to open things up for improvement in general rather than pushing too specific of an agenda. I believe the current method of overfilling mods for difficulty does a disservice to the campaign and it's players and hope a better way can be found. I do have time to consider the problem and think we should help fix it.
Are you so sure that what you like is closer to the truth than the current model?I know that what I like is not what most players want. The vast majority of players in LFR and LG that I play with and judge seem to really want big rewards as reasons to play the special. They seem to want high difficulty. They seem to want special settings. They don't seem to want normal rewards, more RP, sticking to normal rules, etc. They do want fair, but they seem primarily interested in high challenge and high rewards.
I am not sure at all but always think making inform decsions is best. I personally heard alot of complaints about this from fellow players and nearly know appreciation of mods that time out.
I have been finding as people get adventures under their belt, they are looking more for story, smootlhy run adventures and challenge. Revcent mods seem to have stepped up to people's liking while desire for treasure and xp have been falling off. they want and pick the best tiems they can but, don't want the camapign to give out too much good treasure. Most wish there was less motivation for picking the few notable REALLY good items that everyone seems to have. Many players I know actually complain levelling is too fast.
I understand that you don't like them, but some of us do like them. Can't you just not play them if you don't like them, rather than call for them to be discontinued? It's a big tent, there's room for above average players too. If volunteers are willing to write modules for the better players, I don't see why we shouldn't be allowed to play such modules.We finished it within the allotted time without any problems, and without even taking the most optimal path. You just have to play fast and smart.
I can take or leave playing in a rushed manner depending on my mood but generally play more leisurely and enjoy potential RP while keeping my own turns brief as possible and keeping the game moving but, the cold ending really annoy me as I know it does to others. I'd rather see what I believe to be your less popular form of play catered to in more optional ways as opposed to requiring it of large groups of con-goers who would have to otherwise give up participating in the newest and sometimes exclusively convention-offered adventures. My take on it is why can't the players craving a time pressure just add it themselves?
The big tent I am seeing has a large portion roped off offering a similar thing as two tents just next door and many of the people in that area don't seem to be enjloying themselves. I want everyon to have tent space just hat too crowd larger groups into smaller areas when there could be plenty of space for everyone. If it was just a matter of having volunteers write for people they know would like it, that would be fine but, the campaign largely limits what it commisions and we all need to share.
The Specials are raised up and promoted more highly and offered to premier at prime conventions then held from home play for a time. Does it make sense that they be designed for a small fraction of the LFR community to enjoy until they can be enjoyed in full form to a wider playstyle preference in home play many months later? A non-Special timed format offering could be a nice option but, not as prime adventure to the campaign.
We finished it within the allotted time without any problems, and without even taking the most optimal path. You just have to play fast and smart.
You also said that you played the 1-4 version, wherein the main plot objective is obtained 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through the mod, after which point you can just call it good and leave. This is not true of all of the other versions. Also, the 1-4 version is the least control heavy on the DM side of the three versions I have played (H1, H3, and P1). P1 in particular took us six hours in the slot 0 and we still had to skip the final encounter, meaning the part where we actually accomplish the goal was left undone. And thanks to WEEK 1-3 we actually were not subject to the 1 hour time limit in game. (When would you ever need a linked portal sequence in the shadowfell? Well...) If not for that, we would have left unexplained how we could even get back to Faerun, since the way back in that one is past the final encounter. What made it so time consuming is massive amounts of action denial and insubstantial enemies. Our ability to "play fast and smart" was being reduced to "take your standard action, and then wait while the DM has several monsters that attack the entire party and daze you all for another round".
The H1 version was much better from my experience. I played it twice, and the second time we had to retreat before accomplishing our goal because we got stomped hard by the ankheg and her buddies. Believe me, barely scraping out without a TPK and then retreating in failure after two encounters was a far more satisfying experience than being timed out due to being pushed, immobilized, and dazed into irrelevance for a dozen rounds, two fights in a row, struggling to have an attack roll (especially when it takes a round just to pull out a javelin).
What made it so time consuming is massive amounts of action denial and insubstantial enemies. Our ability to "play fast and smart" was being reduced to "take your standard action, and then wait while the DM has several monsters that attack the entire party and daze you all for another round".
This is an related but seperate issue, and a lesson I had thought was learnt from the feedback from SPEC1-2 - apparently not. Fun encounters do not involve locking the party down so they do nothing for 30 minutes or more of real time. Fun encounters are about giving the players dynamic choices as much as possible.
You also said that you played the 1-4 version, wherein the main plot objective is obtained 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through the mod, after which point you can just call it good and leave.
Unless I misunderstood the setup of the module, once you have the objective you still have to slog your way out, thanks to the one-way waterslide. There were still two rooms worth of encounters along the shortest route out in the 1-4 version as I played it.
Obviously not having played the higher level versions I have nothing to say about them.
You also said that you played the 1-4 version, wherein the main plot objective is obtained 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through the mod, after which point you can just call it good and leave.Unless I misunderstood the setup of the module, once you have the objective you still have to slog your way out, thanks to the one-way waterslide. There were still two rooms worth of encounters along the shortest route out in the 1-4 version as I played it.
I believe there is another path to the bottom that does not involve the waterslide.
Unless I misunderstood the setup of the module, once you have the objective you still have to slog your way out, thanks to the one-way waterslide. There were still two rooms worth of encounters along the shortest route out in the 1-4 version as I played it.
Hmm..
Similarly if the exits from the subsequent encounters were indistinguishable in the module as written, as opposed to set up so you could take an educated guess at which led outside and which led to more encounters as it was in the version I played, those choices too would devolve into random choices.
So you were given information by the GM that allowed you to choose a shorter route with fights or a longer route?
I'm also curious if your group faught the Hive Queen?
I'm also curious if you are a Fast Break regular, and if you will be there Friday during the day this week?
This is an related but seperate issue, and a lesson I had thought was learnt from the feedback from SPEC1-2 - apparently not. Fun encounters do not involve locking the party down so they do nothing for 30 minutes or more of real time. Fun encounters are about giving the players dynamic choices as much as possible.
It's a seperate issue to be sure but, goes to the cause of how many of the mods under discussion get over-filled with content when designed to be time-pressured.
Controlling the PCs can be a very effective way of adding challenge and difficulty to an adventure and remain within it's XP budget. I know the writer of Spec 1-3 (P1) can be pretty adept at it. Taking the characters out of their "game" and removing the tactics they want use can be a good counter to overly focused builds and very often provide the players with fresh battle experiences but, at the same time, they can easily become grindy timesinks. The additional saves and secondary attacks alone can eat up a fair amount of time. Not to mention making it harder to pre-plan your next action and requiring more actions dealing with damage control as opposed to damage dealing.
Simply put, the NPC control blunts how quickly the PCs deal damage in rounds and in real time. As each round will generally require more rolls and accomplish less.
I am fine with the occasional control encounter and even enjoy some but, I feel such challenges should generally be limited to one per adventure and not be set up as "the big fight" of the mod. Since they generally yield more challenge for their XP spent from the adventure's budget and can easily mushroom into a very lengthy encounter from a real time perspective adding in too much control can add a lot to the play length of the mod as well causing playtime to vary greatly amongst different party compositions.
Similarly if the exits from the subsequent encounters were indistinguishable in the module as written, as opposed to set up so you could take an educated guess at which led outside and which led to more encounters as it was in the version I played, those choices too would devolve into random choices.So you were given information by the GM that allowed you to choose a shorter route with fights or a longer route?
From memory we just chose to go up whenever possible, under the assumption that up = out. The DM didn't say "that looks like the passage out" or anything like that, we just made educated guesses that turned out to be correct.
I'm also curious if your group faught the Hive Queen?
Nope, we made a Nature check to infer that the Queen was thataway, and we promptly went thisaway instead.
I'm also curious if you are a Fast Break regular, and if you will be there Friday during the day this week?
Nope and nope. I played a couple of games at Gen Con Oz and I'll probably end up dropping in on a UQ session at some time in the future since it's close to my house, but Nundah is a bit out of my way.
You also said that you played the 1-4 version, wherein the main plot objective is obtained 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through the mod, after which point you can just call it good and leave.Unless I misunderstood the setup of the module, once you have the objective you still have to slog your way out, thanks to the one-way waterslide. There were still two rooms worth of encounters along the shortest route out in the 1-4 version as I played it.
I believe there is another path to the bottom that does not involve the waterslide.
Both times I played it my party concluded the waterslide could not feasibly be the right direction and took the tunnel along which the insects could feasibly have taken the child we were seeking. This leads to another combat, which the party barely scraped past without a TPK the second time, but defeated handily the first time I played it. (Very different group of people, and the second time I think we were all level 1s.) After that there were I think three paths to go, which with some skill checking we were able to make an educated guess based on tracks. The first time through we managed to find the boy shortly thereafter (don't remember if there were even any more fights before that point). We had plenty of time left, so we decided to explore further, with I think some thought of eliminating the hive queen (so the problem doesn't just repeat), but we went another way first and found a guy surrounded by very mean mushrooms whose death triggered the whole place starting to collapse.
The waterslide actually surprised me. Obviously it is not the main entrance, and it looks really risky. Out of the 6 times that I now ran that adventure 5 actually took that route (4 tables on purpose).