Judgment

Currently at the American Airlines Lounge of the DFW, drinking an extra dry Bombay gin martini (three olives) and wearing my 'Hawks jersey as I watch the Seahawks game...we've got three-four hours before our next flight so we should be able to watch the thing in its entirety. Had a bit of a WTF moment today when I turned on the internet and found we'd invaded another country and kidnapped their president (and his wife), but...well, the booze and the football helps take my mind off that particular piece of madness.

So instead, let's talk adventure writing contests.

Once again it is time for Ben Gibson’s delightful Adventure Site Contest (ASC3), in which dungeon designers from around the globe test their design chops in delivering a delightful evening’s play in the form of a smallish adventure…something larger than a lair, but not quite a full-blown dungeon. An adventure site…something that might be stumbled upon during a hex-crawl or between larger mission objectives.

There are, of course, parameters for the contest. Gibson has stated that:

• The site must be small, something in the neighborhood of 8 to 24 keyed locations. 
• There should be a coherent “story” to the place (one I would call a “theme”) not just a bunch of encounters thrown together. 
• There is a hard limit of two pages of text, not including maps and (possibly) a title/cover page. 
• There must be at least one map.
•  And the adventure must be written for an “old school” edition of Dungeons & Dragons, specifically OD&D, AD&D, or Basic, or a “very close” retro-clone. ACKS, itself a BECMI (Basic) derivative, is specifically noted as a example of the latter.

These are the criteria for being legal entries in the contest…the regulations one must consider to be the “rules of play.” By my count, this disqualifies nearly half the entries from consideration.

Yeah. I’m a hard ass like that. Also, my time is finite.

Every ASC judge has their own personal criteria for judgment, and I am no different. Every entry I review will be given a “star” rating…from zero to five…that best describes my opinion of the adventure as a “made for use at the table” adventure module. For me, three stars (“***”) is the MINIMUM level to be considered playable D&D.

What is “playable D&D?” Playable D&D means: an adventure that a DM can pick up and use, at table, as written, within the designated system, regardless of the adventure’s subjective “quality.” Most, if not all, pre-1985 TSR-era adventure modules fall into this category. Before D&D began to drift into a region of posturing and railroad stories, the game was still a game to be played, and the designers (generally) knew the rule systems within which they were working, and adhered to those systems. While some may consider procedural-based D&D an obsolete relic of the past, the fact remains that it is a functional mode of play, ignored only at one’s peril, unless one’s group wishes to drift wholly into the realm of freeform, narrative-driven play (which may indeed be a form of enjoyable entertainment but is not, strictly speaking, a GAME with rules and objectives).

Four stars (“****”) is what I refer to as “solid D&D,” what every designer and Dungeon Master should aspire to. Five stars (“*****”) is a rating I reserve for truly triumphant game design…not only does it exhibit exacting and appropriate knowledge of the system, but it ELEVATES the material, using it in original or unusual ways that demonstrates exemplary design chops. Last year, I only awarded five stars to two of the thirty submissions.

Anything less than three stars falls outside the realm of “playable D&D.” Two stars (“**”) generally indicates a lacking or deficiency in one or (more usually) several categories. In my opinion, this often comes from the designer’s attempt to translate what “plays” at the table to the medium of the published adventure…things that designer (as DM) simply assumes or “wings” in play gets left out of the textual instruction, forcing the consumer to have to improvise in a way that may or may not conform to the designer’s expectations. This is BAD design…DMs who use published adventures are doing so for a multitude of reasons, but clearly they want the adventure to be functional without the need to do extra work themselves (reading the thing should be enough “preparation”). A two star adventure requires additional work on the part of the would-be DM just to run the thing, i.e. to make the adventure “playable.” One-third of last year’s entries fell into the two-star category.

A one star (“*”) adventure is one in which the designer exhibits a lack of understanding with regard to the game and/or system they purport to be designing for. Such designers are advised to go back and study the rules and instructions for which they are designing, because it matters little to a DM how creative and imaginative a scenario if it fails to function in the system for which it has been designed. For example: if an adventure is written for B/X or OD&D and uses monsters only found in the (AD&D) Fiend Folio, this is an example of non-functional, one-star design. If I am a B/X DM and I pick up a pre-written adventure “written for B/X,” I am expecting an adventure that can be run with the books I own and use. I should not be expected to know what a “githyanki” is (for example) because there is no such creature in the B/X rule books, and the inclusion of such a creature in the adventure requires the inclusion of its stat block and description or else the adventure is non-functional. Nearly one-quarter (7 of 30) of last year’s entries fell into this category.

Finally, the coveted “zero star” rating is reserved for adventures that are NOT adventures. These are ideas…perhaps even INTERESTING ideas…but not actionable content. A very rare categorization for Mr. Gibson’s contest; in the past, I’ve only seen fit to “award” this rank to one submission.

We’ll see what happens this year.

To ALL the contestants that I am about to read (and cast judgment upon): congratulations for making it this far. Regardless of how I judge your entry, you should take pride in the fact that you created something, that you got off your ass and put your name and reputation on the line. Regardless of whether or not I like your adventure, you have already shown your courage and mettle and should take pride in the accomplishment. You’ve put in the work. And if I judge your adventure harshly, please know that I am not saying QUIT. YOU SUCK. GO HOME. I am only asking you to try again and do better.

Please do not be discouraged. You’ve already beat out countless numbers of DMs who couldn’t be bothered to try.

Judgments to come.