Topic: Insect Shrine of Goblin Hill vs. The Grinding Gear comparisons

Insect Shrine's manuscript is effectively done, and just needs playtesting.

The Grinding Gear's manuscript just needs two locations written, but has been played in its entirety multiple times and the process of writing the manuscript is just turning scratch notes into English.

Insect Shrine is a grand adventure spanning a decent-sized wilderness area. It's huge. The Grinding Gear is a single location. Not so huge.

Insect Shrine is a sandbox with certain leading events drawing the PCs into a grand web of intrigue and danger. Starts slow (yet hopefully interesting), ends in madness. The Grinding Gear very well may be over the top insanity in the very first described location.

Insect Shrine and Grinding Gear both offer numerous opportunities for a TPK, but in my estimation the behavior that will lead to such is completely different in each adventure. The "moral of the story" playstyle-wise may be exactly the opposite between the adventures.

However, both share one thing in common: Challenge. One impression I get from online actual play reports is that when running their own material, referees will tailor it to their party, and will err on the side of survivability and player success. They don't want to be dicks to their regular group, and being a Killer DM is as undesirable as being a Monty Haul. However, they give themselves permission to be brutal, and players forgive such brutality much easier, if using a published adventure. Then the referee is more easily a neutral arbiter, and isn't directly responsible for whatever carnage ensues. Does anyone else notice this?

Now I don't believe I am publishing Killer DM stuff, but I do believe in a good challenge. And challenge means risk of failure. That I enjoy.

I can't wait to get both of these finished and out the door, and I can't wait to see how you guys react to them.

Re: Insect Shrine of Goblin Hill vs. The Grinding Gear comparisons

How much setting material do the adventures include? What are the page counts? Can you give us any estimates on how many game sessions or hours worth of material each of these are? Are we talking three, five, or ten game session adventure archs here? Is the material "system-free" in the vein of, say, No Dignity in Death?

Re: Insect Shrine of Goblin Hill vs. The Grinding Gear comparisons

james wrote:

However, they give themselves permission to be brutal, and players forgive such brutality much easier, if using a published adventure. Then the referee is more easily a neutral arbiter, and isn't directly responsible for whatever carnage ensues. Does anyone else notice this?

For me, it depends on the spirit that you went into the thing with:

-if I just grabbed a module so that I'd have something to run that night, then i adjust it like any other adventure (which is not to say I'd necessarily make it easier)

-if the module is some sort of legendary challenge, like Tomb of Horrors, then the idea is to run it totally "straight" and see if the players survive.

-if the idea is to review it or playtest it, then, again, you'd run it straight.

Re: Insect Shrine of Goblin Hill vs. The Grinding Gear comparisons

I pretty much modify all the modules I run. This might mean cutting unnecessary combat scenes, adding personal interests for the characters, adding plot-hooks I know my players or the characters they are running will respond to favorably, or adjusting the power level of the NPC:s (can go either way, really).

I agree to an extent that running a ready-made module allows a GM to be brutal on the characters and do stuff he wouldn't normally do, since at least some of the "blame" after, say, a TPK will land on the module instead of on the GM's poor judgment. However, something as severe as a total party kill needs to be justified by something other than "hey, its a killer module, don't blame me".

Last edited by Navdi (2009-10-10 23:38:45)

Re: Insect Shrine of Goblin Hill vs. The Grinding Gear comparisons

Navdi wrote:

How much setting material do the adventures include? What are the page counts? Can you give us any estimates on how many game sessions or hours worth of material each of these are? Are we talking three, five, or ten game session adventure archs here? Is the material "system-free" in the vein of, say, No Dignity in Death?

Insect Shrine is huge. Depending on which angle you take (and especially how involved the referee make the "home base"), it can be as little as four, but as many as a dozen sessions. I haven't done layout (proofing and such won't be done until after the full version is played), but keeping this to the originally planned 64 pages will be difficult. 72 might be more realistic including maps.

The Grinding Gear will probably end up at 20 pages including maps and might very well be a one-session dungeon if you have an organized party.

The statting will look like the previous releases, but the adventures should be a little less alien to the classic styles of play.