Published scenario roundup

Nearly two years ago, I realised that I rarely run published adventures or scenarios. So I resolved to change that, and in this post, I look back at them and reflect on what I’ve learned.

Scenarios I’ve run

So since May 2020, this is what I’ve run (all online because, well, pandemic).

• Prodigal Son and The Haunting both by Paul Mitchener for Liminal.
• The Lightless Beacon by Leigh Carr and Lynne Hardy for Call of Cthulhu (although I used Cthulhu Dark).
• Lady Blackbird by John Harper. Is it a scenario or a system? It’s both.
• Hope’s Last Day, Chariot of the Gods and Destroyer of Worlds by Andrew EC Gaska for ALIEN.
• Dad Overboard and Jingle Bell Shock by Jason Cordova for Brindlewood Bay.
• Lost in Translation and Ex Libris by Paul Baldowski for Liminal.

(The links above all go to blog posts where I talk about each.)

The best and the worst

So, taking them in terms of easiest to run at the table. (So that’s a combination of layout, writing, how much preparation they needed.) This is how I would order them.

• Lady Blackbird—concisely written situation and setting with delightful, proactive characters. Needs almost no GM preparation to run, easy to improvise.
• Dad Overboard and Jingle Bell Shock—short (two sides of paper each, mostly bullet points), easy to run and improvise with. Although I’ve realised Brindlewood Bay isn’t for me, they were both easy to run.
• Lost in Translation and Ex Libris—traditional RPG scenarios in an old-school style. Neither needed much preparation, but they both required a fair amount of reading to understand them.
• Prodigal Son and The Haunting—short, traditional RPG scenarios. However, some structural issues meant a fair amount of preparation to get them to fit my GM style.
• The Lightless Beacon and Hope’s Last Day—short scenarios, but overwritten. I found it difficult to find key information and I extracted the key points so I could run it.
• Chariot of the Gods—again, overwritten and poorly organised. Needed some work before I could run.
• Destroyer of Worlds—overwritten and extremely badly organised. A lot of work required beforehand.

Key takeaways

So the main takeaway for me is that I like to see concise writing and the layout designed to be easy to run at the table. If I have to spend time just trying to figure out how to run the scenario, well, that’s never going to endear a scenario to me. 

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the scenarios by the established big-name publishers (namely Chaosium and Free League) are at the bottom of this list.

I find the pretty, coffee-table book layout that typifies most of the mainstream RPG adventures and supplements is generally hopeless for actually running the things. I’m pleased I had digital copies of the scenarios at the bottom of this list, as that meant I could extract the text into something more usable. I probably wouldn’t have run them if I had only physical copies.

I have a theory

While I find it depressing so many modern RPG adventures are badly presented, I have a theory why this happens. I think it’s for a few reasons:

• The modern coffee-table format, with full-colour pages and lots of words clearly sells. They look attractive in the shops, they’re attractive to read (although the font is often too small for my ageing eyes), and they sell. And that’s what matters—play is less important than sales.
• A high word count creates the illusion of value. Lots of words gives the impression of quality and depth—even if those words aren’t important or obscure the key messages.
• Authors are often paid by the word and aren’t incentivised to write concisely.
• The layout person and the author are different people with different needs. Neither is specifically thinking about how GMs will use the scenario.
• There are few examples of excellent scenario layout. The existing model sells, so why change it?
• Publishers are not getting the feedback they need to improve scenario layout and design. (Are they even wanting it?)

So?

As an occasional RPG scenario writer, I try to make my scenarios easy to run. As I’m not selling to the publishers (not any more, at least), I’m not constrained by their house styles. I’m also not trying to fill a book, and because this is just pocket money for me, I don’t have to worry about making it seem like value for money.

So I write and format my adventures so it works for me—and hopefully for others. I like to think that they’re easy to run—although feedback is scarce, so who knows? (You can find them here.)

Clearly some designers/publishers understand how to lay out a scenario to make it easier to run. If there were more of them, I’d be delighted.