JP On Gaming

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

What is the ideal size for an adventure? Part 2

Check out Part 1 of this essay or sort.

The Convention Adventure

What used to be called "tournament modules" during the days of RPGA... These are mostly self-contained adventure designed to be run and played in a 3-5 hour time slot. These are the adventures for Pathfinder Society (PFS), the Adventure League(AL), and the Legacies Organized Play Campaign. They adventures average around 20-25 pages, with a high variance (typically on the higher end).

The Adventure League has a large boiler plate that takes a number of pages, but that provides a good way for the GM to interact with the setting.

Pathfinder Society adventure do not have that, and tend to get right to the point, often without giving the GM some important setting notes or sending the GM to a different book with more information, later years have remedied this problem to an extent.

Legacies adventures are the shortest of the lot, around 15 pages. The older Pathfinder averaged around 20 pages, while those for 5th edition average 13 pages.

So there is a wild disparity of size here. The amount of dungeon and plot differs wildly between all of them, making an accurate comparison difficult. I personally like the idea of doing 1 thing on 1 place to avoid confusion. Since there is limited time, focus is better. I think the 2-hour adventure of the AL are a great example of this. You have one job and you do it. There is little side plots to speak of.

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