Published adventure modules - what's included and what isn't ?

[phantomwhale]

Hi,

I haven't yet bought any of the published adventure modules from the FGII store (nothing yet for the systems I play !) but wondered what what typically included in them, or indeed what people would assume to find in them ?

Obviously, I'd expect to find Story elements, Images (floorplans and graphical), Items and Monsters / NPCs. And perhaps even a tiny library module, if there were any adventure specific rules / edges / feats etc...

And for floorplans, I'd expect a map of the principal locations. Where I wasn't SO sure was if you'd expect a map for every fight (e.g. a wilderness ambush, or incidental tavern brawl) ? Or if people would normally expect to draw up a quick empty image battleground to accommodate these ? Most pre-published adventures written for tabletop play would not include maps for these, but then again FGII adventures rely a lot more on graphical elements to bring the adventure to life.

This train of thought also extends to tokens. Would people expect tokens for the NPC / Monsters in an adventure ? Or are these things people would expect to have themselves in token packs ? Especially when you have adventures making heavy use of "standard" monsters from the main GM book or a Monster Manual - and even more so when the adventure publisher may be a third-party company to the Monster Manual publisher, are we entering a grey area of copyright ?!?

Clearly I am asking this as I am looking at module conversions I am doing for myself, and wanted to gauge what the "expected" level of graphical inclusions were, and equally what is currently being done in the marketplace, to make these up to a publishable standard ?

Regards,
Ben

[VenomousFiligree]

When I've done some of the SW conversions, it's been a direct conversion, ie what comes with the pdf comes with the module. No map or figure flats with the pdf, then no map or tokens with the module.

[ddavison]

Murgh is correct, the original Publisher is the one that sets the content level available within the modules. Some publishers, like Triple Ace Games, focus more on the story and NPCs with not much in the way of maps -- but then they offer free maps online for their modules. Whenever this option is available, we encourage our commissioned developers to add them in.

I did a bunch of the One-on-One conversions which has pretty good map support for the most part. For these, the maps are optimized and included and then linked to story elements using the push-pins. Images related to story elements are included and linked from the appropriate story page and side-bars are broken out and linked to as additional story elements that appear at the bottom of the lists.

There is also a basic outline of the adventure so you can pull up the story-line separately. Monsters are typically a mix of standard SRD stat blocks for monsters and more custom/detailed NPCs for some of the bad guys to reflect different weapons they might have, spells they have memorized, etc. Since those don't also include images for each monster, the tokens I assign are typically the letter tokens that come with the base program. If you are fighting a large Ooze, you'll be fighting a 2x2 "O" unless you replace it with an appropriate token from another token pack or from your personal collection.

For the adventures, we prefer to deliver them as story elements so they can be customized by the local GM within each of their campaigns.

[Viz]

Our White Haired Man adventures include maps of most locations the GM would expect a fight to occur. We also include custom tokens with all of our full-length adventures. In general, if an enemy appears in the adventure, there will be a token, with few exceptions.

[Invain63]

When I've done some of the SW conversions, it's been a direct conversion, ie what comes with the pdf comes with the module. No map or figure flats with the pdf, then no map or tokens with the module.

I would like to encourage developers to do some thinking about the unique needs of a FG GM when creating conversion products. The main reason I pay for adventures is so I don't have to do as much prep work! I can plot adventures just fine. What I lack is time to enter NPCs, set up combats, make maps, etc.

For example, I just finished GM'ing a Zombie Run game and would really have really appreciated versions of the maps that didn't include grid in the image. Having the grid embedded in map graphic made it pretty much impossible to use the grid function within FG to track movement/reach/etc. If the grid in FG could be made invisible I might have been able to get by, but it can't AFAIK.

While we did have a good time playing Zombie Run, it did make me a bit more reluctant to pay for modules in the future without some sort of guarantee that it is more than a bare bones conversion.

Just my $0.02.

-Kevin McD

[Viz]

While we did have a good time playing Zombie Run, it did make me a bit more reluctant to pay for modules in the future without some sort of guarantee that it is more than a bare bones conversion.

That is a valid concern. I know some products in the FG store include the name of the person who did the conversion. Perhaps you could write to learn what is included.

Since White Haired Man games are designed for FG from the start, we do include all of that information.

[ddavison]

I would like to encourage developers to do some thinking about the unique needs of a FG GM when creating conversion products. The main reason I pay for adventures is so I don't have to do as much prep work! I can plot adventures just fine. What I lack is time to enter NPCs, set up combats, make maps, etc.

For example, I just finished GM'ing a Zombie Run game and would really have really appreciated versions of the maps that didn't include grid in the image. Having the grid embedded in map graphic made it pretty much impossible to use the grid function within FG to track movement/reach/etc. If the grid in FG could be made invisible I might have been able to get by, but it can't AFAIK.

While we did have a good time playing Zombie Run, it did make me a bit more reluctant to pay for modules in the future without some sort of guarantee that it is more than a bare bones conversion.

Just my $0.02.

-Kevin McD

Any module that includes map grid that I have done or that I have reviewed (all of them since October 2009) should be scaled precisely so an FG grid can easily be overlaid. I've taken to including the pixels per square measurement in the link description or just above it for modules that include the maps in multiple resolutions -- like the 0One Games maps. From a usage standpoint, I find this to be the best because it ensures your don't end up with grid squares cutting half way through doorways or other weirdness.

[Invain63]

Any module that includes map grid that I have done or that I have reviewed (all of them since October 2009) should be scaled precisely so an FG grid can easily be overlaid. I've taken to including the pixels per square measurement in the link description or just above it for modules that include the maps in multiple resolutions -- like the 0One Games maps. From a usage standpoint, I find this to be the best because it ensures your don't end up with grid squares cutting half way through doorways or other weirdness.

Thanks! That would definitely help. The problem I had with the ZR maps was that no matter how hard I tried I couldn't match the FG2 grid to the grid on the map.

This problem isn't confined to FG2, BTW. I have the same problem with Maptool, although in that program the grid can be made invisible - so at least it doesn't LOOK bad - and you can tweak the grid on the fly during a game. Maps are what Maptool does best, though. FG2 is stronger in other areas.

-Kevin McD

[Invain63]

Just a quick update - I finally managed to get the grid for a Zombie Run map to line up reasonably well with the FG2 grid. The solution was to set a grid size in FG2 and then resize the map outside of FG2 (I used Photoshop) using the editing program's grid as a guide. It took a frustrating amount of trial and error to get it right, but it now works. This is probably a common tactic for experienced FG2 GMs, but I didn't think to try it until much digging around in the forums.

Naturally, this is the sort of thing I would expect the adventure designer to do for a product - and from the sound of it the current Smiteworks management has a policy of doing this.

Now, if it only included tokens and had the new edges, etc encoded in the library for drag-and-drop use. :)


-Kevin McD

[phantomwhale]

Well, reason I asked was I've been converting some Deadlands mini-adventures to playtest the extension with, for instance "Abracadabra and An Arab Cadavar". This requires some Arabs (oddly enough) for which I cannot find a good, no restrictions image to use to make a token, most are marked as "not for commercial use". Equally I have produced a nice map for the main encounter of the scenario, but cannot be sure of if all the images I used are allowed for commercial resale.

What feels like the right thing to do here is to ensure the adventures comes with everything you'd get in print, as well as some FGII concessions (tokens for Deadlands creatures should be OK if using Pinnacle images, on the assumption this might be released under there IP, and some basic maps are do-able, again using pinnacle and open materials).

Then I guess the other images that might contain material not for commercial resale could be offered via the forums as a freebie - if they assist with the commercial adventure, so be it, but strictly speaking they are a free offering. And since they are just tokens that might help with a Pinnacle adventure, but contain no elements of the Pinnacle IP, there shouldn't be a problem there either.

Of course, I am not a lawyer !