Salvaging/learning from the days of railroad

[Mike Holmes]

Moreno, do not attribute to endurance that which can be attributed to insanity. Or, from a more self-serving perspective, an insatiable urge to research. Or perhaps curmudgeonliness. I went through that module word by word, because I wanted to be sure that I can tell anyone as I did above that the module has, in fact, zero dramatic potential built into it, beyond the merest suggestion of a conflict between some noble houses.

The fact that Vault of the Drow punts on the drama explicitly is fascinating to me. On the one hand, it seems to be abdicating all responsibility to make the adventure an interesting story. On the other hand... I think that modules are pretty much doomed as a means of conveying situation. Take a look at the etymology: it's a MODULE. Meaning it's modular. Plug and play. As such, it CANNOT possibly have any sort of built-in interest for the characters, other than the vague assumption that they are "adventurers" who are interested in "adventures." In point of fact, the whole series starts with G1, in which it explicitly states that the PCs are shanghaied into performing the task. The assumption is that they, in fact, have NO particular interest in accomplishing the adventure. Given this set-up from the beginning, how could the author have known what the characters would be like, or, worse, what would interest the players dramatically as it would relate to said characters?

I think it's possible to publish interesting situations, but that to make them interesting to the players from a dramatic POV, they have to design their characters with the situation in mind. Pregens work fine. Inserting the situation modularly cannot work.


Also note that given the illusionistic nature of the Ravensloft module (as opposed to the G series, which is aimed at pure dungeoneering play), there is a TON more information in there to sift through. More than twice as many pages, IIRC. So kudos for even cracking it open. And, again, in the end, it would basically boil down to the situation map of Dracula, even if you'd done it, right? In which case it's a lot easier to just refer to that.