Third-Party Book Club: How To Write Adventure Modules That Don't Suck

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Hello, Egg podcast for role players
and gms to help level up your game.

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We are Dungeon Masters. I am
Jason Portiso, I'm Joe McCall,

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and I am Jim Crocker. So
today we are going to continue a series

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we started last month. This is
the Third Party book Club, you know,

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kind of behind the scenes here.
We relocated to my office to record

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for today, and I'm staring right
at my my my personal library and a

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lot of third party stuff in here. Yeah, so this is this is

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this is a fun one. This
is I think where you can really a

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branch out. We're gonna do that
episode on like what to buy and when

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and like how to how to flesh
out your library. We'll do that one

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really really soon to be books that
are just not published by Watts exactly.

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Yeah, sore. There's some really
common third party publishers like Coobol Press is

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probably the biggest one, the most
prolific for sure, definitely. Yeah,

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I mean seeing the Game Masters books
and the actually really popular two. Yeah.

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Took a took a little trip around
Target yesterday. Yeah, you know,

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just a little bit of a lap
around Target with a coffee and four

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later and we were under one hundred. I mean, we were very close

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to one hundred, but we were
under one hundred, right, right.

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But I saw the game Master's book, saw a couple of them. Which

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ones did I see villains? Is
that a newer one? I think that's

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the newest. Yeah, so I
almost picked it up. It was thirty

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percent off of target. So I
saw the book of Villains and yeah,

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with the other one, I might
have been random encounters. The random account

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was one was really good. It
was a Dungeons. I thought, I

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thought you had the Traps one too. I have traps at home, but

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this is what I saw at Target. Okay, gotcha, And so I

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almost picked up the villain Villain one. I thought that was really neat.

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We'll cover some of those books on
more. Tho. I love that you're

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the six about it, because then
maybe you can lead one. But yeah,

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but we can. We can go
ahead and do a book report on

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that one soon. Today though,
we're doing a little bit different book and

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I wanted to get this one done
because last time we did this, we

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did the Lazy DMS Guide and that
was one that's like, you know,

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it's like a must have for DMS
too to have in their collection. This

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one is a little more optional in
my opinion, and we'll kind of get

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into what it is and why I
think that. But today we are talking

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about how do The book is called
how to Write Adventure Modules that Don't Suck.

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I think we all want to do
that. I mean, it's yeah,

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this is the concept that we all
want to have with us. This

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is published by by Goodman Games,
and it is it is twenty five authors

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in there, so I'm not going
to list them all, so we're just

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going to say it is good.
I guess the thing we should the thing

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we should say about Goodman Games is
that they publish kind of a like a

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D and D adjacent game called Dungeon
Crawl Classics that has literally hundreds of dungeon

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modules associated with it that are like
that you could convert to five E without

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too much difficulty. I mean,
technically, it's its own system that's kind

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of like sort of a you know, like I mean, it's like a

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very traditional F twenty sort of thing. That's the game that uses all those

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weird like seven sided dice and sixteen
sided dice smallest kind of stuff, and

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that's a lot of fun and it
has a very kind of pulp you know,

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like like appendix En sort of sort
of feel to it. But this,

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even though like it's it's published with
their game, their dungeon crawl classes

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game, in mind, everything that's
in there is applicable to you know,

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your your ongoing five weeks. This
book in particular. Yes, and this

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is just role playing in general.
This is going to be the least dm

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D centric book that we're probably ever
going to cover. And that's because it

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is not a textbook. It's not
a playbook. This is not a book

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full of mechanics and tables and like
things are specific to any module. Is

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this the one that's kind of a
collection of essays? That's exactly what it

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is. Yes. So there's twenty
five authors and in here's like articles,

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essays, whatever you want to call
it. You know, there are anywhere

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between a page and the three four
pages. They're quick reads, all of

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them. So this is the Federalist
Papers of Dungeons and Dragons, Yes,

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except palatable. Yeah, and I
didn't our IPMPS Hamilton. And if this

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was a SIGNI me in history class, I would actually read it. Yeah.

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Ok. Yeah, So uh so
let's get into the categories that we

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judge these books on so number one, we've got subject matter and author credibility.

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So, as Jim just said,
this is by Goodman Games. They

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do publish their own system, and
each of these authors have you know,

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multiple credits in multiple modules, most
of which you can find on Dungeon Master's

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Guild or draft the REPG. But
what this is is a, like I

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said, a collection of articles or
essays that cover either very specific or very

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broad areas of game design and explore
kind of like intangible concepts that are meant

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to more inspire the re Yeah.
I think that's right, And I think

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the thing that's really cool about it
is that because of the nature of that

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essay collection, they have people writing
about the stuff that they're genuinely interested in,

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you know, and passionate about,
which is really kind of cool.

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It's not you know, like,
you know, if somebody has like a

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page and a half of really interesting
stuff about how you can work interesting traps

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into you know, an environment,
but that's all they got is a page

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and a half. You know,
the book says, yeah, this is

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what we got for you as a
page and a half of this, But

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this person really knows their stuff.
You know, the kind of the that

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they've done, like the editing and
this is is real good. That's one

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of the things I think the best. I think the best books is RPG

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books. The RPG books specifically when
it comes to design, right, I

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think the best parts of those design
parts, if you will, are going

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to just are really their job is
to kind of get the old noodle working.

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Yeah, yep, you know.
I don't want to your point,

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Jim, I don't want a playbook, right, I want something that's going

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to inspire me to think up my
own things. Well, have you both

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in your collection? Is important?
No? Absolutely, And like I said,

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we're going to cover a lot of
examples. Yeah, or you are

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going to cover exactly that in a
very soon upcoming episode that we're going to

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record it today, so it's definitely
coming. But I give an idea of

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what kind of things that they're talking
about. I'm just going to read off

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just the titles of some of these
articles. There's twenty five of them in

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here, so I'm just gonna I'm
just gonna pick at random, so make

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your players world go around. Listen. Do you smell something? Is the

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names of the article logical first Contact
inviting, inventing intelligent science fiction aliens,

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making a villain, how to write
encounters that don't suck, keeping your encounters

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within the capabilities of your players.
So it is like it is kind of

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fairly to a point. It's not
as abstract as I may have made it

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sound. But is this isn't like, okay in five E use these stat

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blocks. It's not that kind of
thing, right, It's it's meant to

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kind of teach an educated audience.
Yeah, Like, because I love the

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I love that one that says designing
encounters that are within the capabilities of your

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players, because that's a very different
thing than you know, did I get

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the challenge ratings? Right? Sure, you know. Like, but but

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like, if you design an encounter
that requires them to approach it in a

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particular way, that like is just
a play style that they never use and

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has never shown any interest in.
Even if it's technically a you know,

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air quotes balanced encounter, it's not
a good encounter to bring to the table.

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And and the book is really good
about, like you say, those

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kind of kind of bigger picture sorts
of things. Yeah, And what is

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very cool is at the end of
most, if not all, of these

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essays. They end it with an
encounter that kind of highlights the point that

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they're trying to make. Right,
it's not a full flag one shot,

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but it's like it's it's a one
little part and you probably even string a

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bunch of these together and squeeze one
shot out of it. Yeah, you're

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trying to get you twenty nine.
That's where like the game Master's guides,

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like they they are just all example, you know what I mean? Yeah,

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And that's that's how I think the
point I was trying to make was

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just that this is a little a
little more abstract. It's not, as

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I mean, a lot more abstract. Yeah, right, right, but

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they're not just giving you They're they're
giving you homework. They're not just giving

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you the answers. Yeah, exactly. And like like I said, this

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is this is meant to be inspiration, right, I'm going to give you

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inspiration. This is the truest form
of inspiration. It's also very much one

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of those books where there's absolutely no
requirement to read it in order you can

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totally pop it open and go.
You know, I could use some I

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could use a little nudge on this
particular thing this week read that essay,

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you know, and and give yourself
some you know, like you say,

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some inspiration and you don't go cover
to cover on it. They're not in

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any particular. Each one is like
three to five pages, and that includes

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the encounter like this is like the
lightest of light reading. If this came

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in a paperback you it was in
my bathroom probably ye. So that's a

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subject matter of author credibility. Individually. I'm not going to go through in

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each of these authors you know bios, but they are all part of Goodman

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Games and that should be enough to
know that they know what they're talking about.

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Next, we go through a complexity
level and depth of analysis. So

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while the articles themselves are all easy
to read and follow, and the book

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is itself is pretty much devoid of
all technical game mechanics. So the only

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reason I'm not going to call this
low complexity is because everything it takes a

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little bit of interpretation to apply to
your games is a little more a little

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more abstract inspiration than it is a
game guide. So it is a very

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easy read, but getting the most
out of it is no just you just

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have to go into it with with
intention to be more and more inspired than

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learned. Yeah, those, I
mean they do. They do have the

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like like you say, like sample
encounters and stuff like that. But like

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specifically, if you're if you're looking
this with an eye towards five E,

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you're gonna need to do a little
bit of Okay, well they say there's

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five goblins in this room. But
you know, like I said, if

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you want to set the you know, the challenge ratings or whatever, that's

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going to require a little bit of
work on the back end. It's definitely

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something that presumes you've got some chops
as a d M before you're popping the

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cover hunt. I almost see that
as an advantage too, though, because

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then you can apply it if you
play And I think, Jim, maybe

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you are guilty of this. Uh
you don't just play one system of tt

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RPG like you. Oh yeah,
I don't think that's guilty. Well yeah,

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that stuff black, right, And
so I have friends that exact same

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way over the pandemic. Like one
day I'd be playing in the Alien,

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playing the Alien tt RPG. Next
day I'd be playing an OSR game and

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then a five game. And that's
how we got through the pandemic. The

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pandemic, Yeah, the game I
was playing just before I joined you guys,

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we're at the end of it.
I'm like, okay, we got

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to wrap it. I gotta go
record a podcast. And it was like

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nothing like D and D completely separate, you know, one of these like

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indie story game things that I was
playing in the morning. So yeah,

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yeah, but I do like that
aspect of this that you can apply it

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to anything. Yeah, yep.
And and it's books like this, and

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it's concepts like this that like,
I know, even in our little speech

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at the beginning of the episodes,
I specifically do say game masters and not

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specifically dungeon masters. While and while
this podcast is mostly D and D centric,

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and you know, we're just kind
of playing the numbers on that one.

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But it's you know, we we
do hope that this show is educational

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for people who just want to be
or you know, DND players that want

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to branch out. Even I think
it's probably the most the most fair demographic

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for this. Yeah, but that
then that requires finding like like six friends.

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We know, we need more friends
than I'm a couple that I played

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Dungeons and Dragons with almost on I'm
not getting new friends ball I barely the

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ones I have. So as far
as complexity level and depth analysis, it's

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not a super deep, divy type
of book that there's no charts, there's

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no grassters or anything like that.
Uh, there's no stat blocks. This

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is you know, kind of I
don't want to say surface level. This

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is like it's meant to be a
simple read of complex ideas that come from

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you know, combined decades and decades
of experience and kind of all just put

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into a nice little stack of papers
that you can peruse at your leisure and

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complexity level, you know, easy
to read. But then like you know,

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I wouldn't blast this book in a
day. I would read you know,

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one or two essays even a week
and just kind of like really process

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and really learn from them. GMing
is a fairly abstract concept as it is,

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and like you know, being able
to shape like your your version of

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doing that, it's a it takes
a little introspection. This is an introspective

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kind of book. Hello Adventurers,
Thank you so much for listening. If

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you enjoy the show, the absolute
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get seen by more D and D
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200
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just tell your friends about us.
If you like what we're doing here,

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then there's a good chance that your
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And you don't need to loop gold
to do any of that. We

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appreciate your listening. Now back to
the show. Next is innovation, and

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I said, this is maybe not
a fair category for this book because we're

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not introducing anything like mechanics. Wise, there's nothing in this book that you

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can't find in the Dutch Master's Guide. And you know, as far as

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like learning from others experiences, you
know you can eventually learn from experience yourself.

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So with this kind of fast tracking
the years of experience that it would

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take to you know, kind of
even consider a lot of these concepts in

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your normal games. So innovation is
not it's not breaking any mold, it's

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not any it's not any new information
that's out there. It's just kind of

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like putting things that you may not
have tangibly put ideas took yeah, or

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or that you would normally only figure
out through trial and error exactly, like

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like you do things wrong a few
times and you settle on some best practices.

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I mean, and I like I
like that word that that phrase best

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practices, because there's a lot of
that kind of thing going on throughout this

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book, you know, like like
philosophical approaches and you know things that people

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have tried that you know that they
found work that might work for you kind

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of thing going on with it.
Yeah. Yeah, So being in non

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a non game book, it's hard
for me to call this particularly innovative.

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So our next rubric is relevance.
And you know, we're huge fans of

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the lessons that are in this book. I can totally see this as being

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a very optional in your collection.
But as far as like the the concepts

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being taught are just super relevant to
DMING, and it's this is it's it's

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years of experience condensed into a book, right and specifically DMING if you're making

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content, like if you're doing like
I don't like the word homeword to describe

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people, you know, making their
own adventure, making their own adventures and

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building their own encounters and stuff like
that. But but this is particularly useful

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if you have taken that step from
exclusively running out of you know, published

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modules, and you are, like
the title says, writing adventure modules.

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They use that that phrase modules to
describe the you know, like kind of

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the old school you know, in
a cardboard cover stapled on the side,

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you know adventures that Yeah, the
way that they used to publish them before

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they were all you know, big
like hardcover mega dungeons and stuff like that.

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But but it's it's like most particularly
useful, especially if you're relatively new

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to just sitting down and going all
right, I'm going to write the dungeon

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tonight. But you know, if
you're kind of in that stage of GMing

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where you're starting to do your own
content, or if you're you know,

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picking and choosing, doing a little
bit of a you know, kind of

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a buffet style thing and picking from
other modules to kind of k bash your

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own stuff that's more relevant to your
own campaign, that's really the sweet spot

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for it. I think, Yeah, players don't need to read this,

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it's not There may be some interesting
stuff in there, but it's very much

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aimed at people that are that are
creating content for their players. Yeah,

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and like you said, like creating
content if you're just running out buying the

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Crisis Straw book, you know,
curs. The stradbook tells you everything you

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need to know about how to run
that campaign and make it not suck.

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Yep. But if you wanted to
run your own campaigns in what's it?

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No, yes, Brovia, If
you want to run your own campaign in

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Brovia, then this would really start
handy. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's

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probably the way that I like to
do things, Like I want the world

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established. Yeah, I want to
tell my own story, right. Word

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building is hard. World building is
very difficult, So I don't want to

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do that part. Yeah. And
Joe, you started to you, I

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mean you started to say strix Haven, but there are some more sandbox y

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kind of settings for five, the
strix Haven aberon, you know, the

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the Ravnika book for the you know
that like spins off from the Magic Thing.

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Wild is pretty much that book.
Yeah, what is the Explorers Guide

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to Wild Explorer's Guide to Wild Mount? I was like myself, Explorer's Guy

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to Wild Mount is really just the
setting, Like they give you some stuff

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to do and they're like, yeah, here's this, but a lot of

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it is just like this just the
world, thankfully. Yeah, and and

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this book interacts with those, like
I say, kind of sandboxy sort of

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D and D books really really well
definitely, you know, tells you how

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to drill down and you know,
run that run that alley way, set

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up that alleyway, encountering Sharn for
your ebon game. You know, but

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but it relieves you of the burden
of like who what are all these factions

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and nations and all that kind of
stuff. But it does that for you,

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like, yeah, so you can
drill down into the you know,

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the you know, the individual countersun
parts, right, the actual fun parts.

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So that kind of brings us to
the last section here, which is

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to me the most important one.
Who is this for and when is the

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right time to buy it? Yep, and this and we kind of just

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covered this. This book is specifically
for experienced DMS. I would not get

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this for a new DM, and
I definitely want to get this for a

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player. Yes, this is specifically
for experienced d MS. Kind of the

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opposite of the last book we covered
where we kind of would recommend this for

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a newer DM new where newer or
maybe not brand new? Yeah, so

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this I would get this after So
you, in my opinion, you would

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you would get, you know,
get your DMG stuff once you kind of

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learn the concepts from that, then
get lazy Dungeon Master, and then once

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you've kind of internalized that stuff,
this is going to kind of get you

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to that next level. Yeah.
And I would get this after like years

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of dming not a whole not a
whole lot if you wanted to. Yeah,

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I think it depends too if if
if you're playing three four times a

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week, yeah, for a few
months, like you could probably and you're

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ready, Yeah, sure, you
could probably do this. Back in my

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retail days, this book this was
the go to to the question that I

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00:19:44.920 --> 00:19:51.319
would get asked relatively frequently, which
is very specifically like, hey, you

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know, we just finished out of
the Abyss and like, with that experience

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that I've gotten under my belt,
my next campaign, I really want to

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do my own stuff, Like is
there a guidebook to help me do that?

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And I would be like you,
you know, you, sir madam,

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you want this book right here how
to write a venture modules that don't

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suck. And one of the cool
things about it is that title is just

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so great because people look at it, they chuckle a little bit, and

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like it's a title that says,
look, you can do this. It's

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not that big a deal, sure, which is one of the things that

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I really like about it, and
kind of consistently throughout the book, the

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tone is not, you know,
like like somber, like this is a

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huge responsibility and you don't want to
get it wrong. It's like, this

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00:20:33.160 --> 00:20:36.799
is super fun and it's really easy. Let me let us show you how

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we do it. It's such a
really good book book in that regard.

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00:20:40.400 --> 00:20:44.759
Yeah, and I like too that
it's like not how to write perfect adventure

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00:20:44.799 --> 00:20:48.359
minds, it's great exactly. It's
just just ones that don't suck. And

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that's really listen, that's the bar, friends, that's the bar of suck

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00:20:52.960 --> 00:20:56.759
in dming, like just just don't
let it, don't let people have a

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00:20:56.799 --> 00:21:00.279
bad time. You know, you
don't have to be you don't have to

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00:21:00.279 --> 00:21:06.160
be Matthew Mercer. You don't have
to be my man, Joe Manjanello from

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00:21:06.200 --> 00:21:10.440
a Dealer No Deal Island. You
know, you you can just be you

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can be Joe the or just be
the person that like you're as having fun

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00:21:15.839 --> 00:21:19.559
with your group of friends, yeah, and making that fun. So I

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got this book at Jim's recommendation.
Actually, when I actually said that,

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I asked the community. I put
it in the Facebook group, I even

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00:21:26.640 --> 00:21:30.400
put it out on Reddit, and
the question I said was, you know,

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my bookshelf was looking pretty full,
what else could I possibly add?

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00:21:33.720 --> 00:21:37.279
Hey, guys, how do I
write adventure modules that just don't? And

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that's that's all. That's the other
question too, But that's the question Jim

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00:21:41.119 --> 00:21:42.839
got. And like, no,
for me, my collection felt fairly complete

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because I had tons of resource books
and I was looking for things that were

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like beyond that, and this was
this is the perfect first book to reach

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beyond the resource books. Yeah,
and for me, like when I when

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I said to myself, what else
could I possibly get? Was the perfect

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time for me to get this?
Yes, And I'll also say that this

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is this might be because it's not
game mechanics. It's because there's not resource

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00:22:07.599 --> 00:22:11.839
stuff in there, there's no spoilers. This makes probably the best gift out

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00:22:11.839 --> 00:22:15.240
of everything on my shelf for your
d M. Yeah, I think this

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00:22:15.359 --> 00:22:18.359
is a isn't a must buy.
No, I think this is a This

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is a It depends on your circumstance
exactly, but I think I think this

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00:22:22.279 --> 00:22:26.279
is an excellent addition to an already
complete collection. Yeah, what do you

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00:22:26.319 --> 00:22:29.480
buy the DM that has everything?
Yeah, you know, and but and

332
00:22:29.480 --> 00:22:33.960
and they don't have this book this
book, yeah, and and and more

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00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:37.160
so and and because like I said, there's no game mechanicsts in here,

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so like it's not like the I
would say, hey DM, here's a

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00:22:38.799 --> 00:22:41.000
straw book. And then I was
like, okay, I guess that they're

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00:22:41.000 --> 00:22:44.759
on straw now cool. It's like, hey DM, here's a book on

337
00:22:44.920 --> 00:22:48.480
just how to just my mother was
killed by a vampire. Thanks. It's

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like, here's a book that just
is just general concepts in dming. Yeah.

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Yeah, and you and you get
to imply that the reventure modules suck

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00:22:55.799 --> 00:22:59.039
without really implying it, and the
straight their face Yeah, actually that's not

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00:22:59.039 --> 00:23:03.000
auctually might be kind of I mean, no perfect gift, perfect gifts,

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00:23:03.240 --> 00:23:06.279
so what they call it backhanded?
So hey, I saw this book and

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00:23:06.319 --> 00:23:15.440
it made me think of you.
There's also breath strips end. Yeah,

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00:23:15.720 --> 00:23:21.599
your mom letting you know you well
every Christmas made me think of you.

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00:23:21.799 --> 00:23:26.039
Oh because my adventure modules don't suck. Yeah yeah, but still read the

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00:23:26.079 --> 00:23:30.480
book, yeah, yeah, the
whole thing. Yeah, but read it

347
00:23:30.519 --> 00:23:36.200
though, Yeah, listeners can't see
that you just did the slow, slow,

348
00:23:36.599 --> 00:23:41.000
slow slide across the table as long
as you just like two little pats

349
00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:42.000
on the top of it. I
actually feel really good. None of my

350
00:23:42.039 --> 00:23:45.559
players have bought me this book,
so I have encouraged you to borrow my

351
00:23:45.640 --> 00:23:49.599
copy though, So yeah, but
I think that's can cover for today.

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I do like this book a lot, and I know I kind of like,

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00:23:52.480 --> 00:23:55.720
you know, spend a lot of
time in the episode saying like this

354
00:23:55.759 --> 00:23:59.079
is not an absolutely must have,
but I am very glad that I do

355
00:23:59.200 --> 00:24:03.039
have it. I think that's that's
the fairest way to makes what makes break

356
00:24:03.039 --> 00:24:04.920
your figure DM. And if you
want to get into D, I mean

357
00:24:04.920 --> 00:24:10.400
this should be on your list of
things to eventually get. We'll get to

358
00:24:10.759 --> 00:24:15.200
where it fits exactly on the list. I'm a very assumed forthcoming episode.

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So we'll put a link in the
show notes below where you can find the

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book. Looking for a hardcover copy
right now, they may be in between

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00:24:21.920 --> 00:24:23.960
print runs at the time of this
recording, but you can get the PDF

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00:24:25.079 --> 00:24:26.880
off of drive through our PG so
we'll have a link to that at least,

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00:24:26.880 --> 00:24:30.799
and if we find a good link
for a hardcover copy. We'll throw

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that download too. I did a
bunch of researcher this episode, but not

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that much, so missed that one. But that's going to wrap it up

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for today. Thank you for listening
to Hello Adventures. We're your host Jason

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00:24:41.960 --> 00:24:45.599
Portiso, Jim Crocker and Joe McCall, producer, editor and engineer Jason Portiso.

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00:24:45.960 --> 00:24:48.519
Music by Nick Spurrier, artwork by
Kristin Roderick and you can reach out

369
00:24:48.559 --> 00:24:52.359
to us with any feedback, ard
suggestions by emailing Hello Adventures podcast at gmail

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00:24:52.400 --> 00:25:03.880
dot com. Hello Adventures is a
JTP audio production. Goodbye Adventures, The l