Location-based adventures are a staple of the GM’s art and form a kind of bedrock for scenario design. Even if a scenario isn’t primarily about ‘crawling a specific location, you’ll still find yourself frequently keying a map to describe wherever the action is taking place.

Which is why I find it fairly surprising that the location keys in published adventures are almost universally terrible.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE KEY

In 1974, the original edition of D&D included a “Sample Map” keyed with both numbers and letters. The description of the key, however, was instructional rather than practical. For example:

5. The combinations here are really vicious, and unless you’re out to get your players it is not suggested for actual use. Passage south “D” is a slanting corridor which will take them at least one level deeper, and if the slope is gentle even dwarves won’t recognize it. Room “E” is a transporter, two ways, to just about anywhere the referee likes, including the center of the earth or the moon. The passage south containing “F” is a one-way teleporter, and the poor dupes will never realize it unless a very large party (over 50’ in length) is entering it. (This is sure-fire fits for map makers among participants.)

Skip ahead a couple of years to 1976, though, and we’ve reached Year One for published adventures: Arneson’s “Temple of the Frog” appeared in Supplement II: Blackmoor; Wee Warriors released Palace of the Vampire Queen; Metro Detroit Gamers released the original Lost Caverns of Tsojconth; and Judges Guild released Gen Con IX Dungeons and City-State of the Invinicible Overlord.

Palace of the Vampire Queen featured a completely tabular key that looked like this:

The Lost Caverns of Tsojconth, on the other hand, featured the Gygax “wall of text” key which would become a staple at TSR for the better part of a decade:

K. COPPER DRAGON: HP: 72. Neutral, intelligent, talking, has spells: DETECT MAGIC, READ MAGIC, CHARM PERSON, LOCATE OBJECT, INVISIBILITY, ESP, DISPEL MAGIC, HASTE, and WATER BREATHING. It is asleep but will waken in 3 melee rounds or if spoken to or attacked. It will bargain to allow the party to pass on to the east if given at least 5,000 GP in metal and/or gems/jewelry – deduct 1,000 GP for each magic item offered instead. It will tell the party nothing, but it will ask about the fire lizards. If the party has slain these creatures, the dragon will attack them. 30,000 CP, 1,000 GP, 36 100-GP gems, 42 500GP gems, 13 1,000-GP gems, 9 pieces of jewelry (9,7,7,6,5,4,,4,3,3 in 1,000’s each). A jeweled sword (quartz), non-magical, will be hated by party’s swords at first, value is 783 GP. An ivory tube with contact poison contains a scroll of 3 spells (MONSTER SUMMONING III, LIMITED WISH, SYMBOL). Several pieces of jewelry radiate magic (they have a magic mouth spell on them with a nearly impossible speak command) for a 10^th piece of jewelry is a necklace of missiles (5), with each missile globe encased in an ivory block (which can be pried open along a hairline seam to reveal the missile).

In Gen Con IX Dungeons, meanwhile, Judges Guild was way ahead of the curve (as was so often the case). Bob Blake had recognized that a key with better organization would make it easier for DMs to run the adventure, and he introduced that organization by including a “DM Only” section in each key entry:

13. 30’ N-S, 30’ E-W. Enter by secret door in center of W Wall. There is a blackened firepit in the center of the room, and a barred opening into 10’x10’ opening in the center of the E Wall.

DM Only: The firepit contains nothing of value. The portcullis may be easily raised by pulling on a chain hanging from a small hole in the wall next to the portcullis. There is a secret door in the E Wall of the alcove.

Although not technically boxed text, this format was effectively accomplishing the same thing on a structural level. (Particularly interesting are the keys which feature two separate “DM Only” sections – one before the player section and detailing information necessary when entering the room and one after the player section detailing information on what investigating the room will reveal.)

Unfortunately, although Blake used this format through 1977, Judges Guild eventually abandoned it and also moved to “wall of text” keys.

In 1978, B1 In Search of the Unknown effectively created the idea of separating the key into distinct sections:

30. ACCESS ROOM. This room is devoid of detail or contents, giving access to the lower level of the stronghold by a descending stairway. This stairway leads down and directly into room 38 on the lower level.

Monster:

Treasure & Location:

Although this division superficially resembles later “adventure formatting guides” (which we’ll get to momentarily), it was actually an accidental by-product of In Search of the Unknown being designed as a training tool for beginning DMs: The adventure included prepared lists of monsters and treasures which the neophyte DM was supposed to assign to various rooms throughout the dungeon. (Which is why those sections are blank in the example above.)

THE ERA OF BOXED TEXT

In either 1979 or 1980, depending on how persnickety you want to get with definitions, boxed text — prewritten text designed to be read aloud by the GM — arrived for the first time in Lost Tamoachan: The Hidden Shrine of Lubaatum, a tournament module by Harold Johnson & Jeff R. Leason that was originally printed for the Origins game convention.

In the original version of the module, the text was not yet boxed, instead appearing between quotation marks:

But in 1980, TSR reissued the module as C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, placing the prewritten descriptions in a box for the first time:

Like Blake’s “DM Only” section from earlier in the decade, the boxed text clearly delineated the elements of a given area that should be immediately shared with any PC entering the area.

Later, of course, the role of boxed text would be expanded to include any sort of “read-aloud” text intended for the players, but its function as a narrative device is beyond the scope of location keying. In this context, however, an honorable mention should perhaps be given to Quest of the Fazzlewood, a 1978 “head-to-head” tournament module designed to be played with just one DM and one player. In addition to a lengthy introduction designed for the player to read, the finale of the adventure is presented with read-aloud text:

(photo from Explore: Beneath & Beyond)

The formatting is quite similar to the later Lost Tamoachan, and one could argue that this is, in fact, the first example of “boxed text” (albeit of the not-yet-boxed variety).

In any case, at this point, things basically settle down: When Dungeon #1 appeared in 1986, it still featured the familiar boxed text paired with a “wall of text” key for the DM. In 1988, monsters and NPCs in the magazine received a standardized stat block that gets clearly delineated from the text. But that basic format can still be seen in The Apocalypse Stone in 1999 (the very last adventure produced for 2^nd Edition).

ADVENTURE FORMATTING GUIDES

When 3^rd Edition arrived, however, an effort was made to introduce a new “standard format” for published adventure modules. First appearing in The Sunless Citadel, this format had the familiar boxed text and wall of text, but supplemented this with a specific set of bold-faced sections:

• Traps
• Creatures
• Tactics
• Development
• Treasure

Not all of these appeared in every location, but if they did appear then they appeared in that order and no other.

As noted above, this format recalls B1 In Search of the Unknown. There were also a handful of other examples between 1978 and 2000, most notably 1982’s I3 Pharaoh which featured headings for:

• Play
• Lore
• Monster
• Character
• Trap/Trick
• Treasure

Tracy and Laura Hickman, the authors of Pharaoh, also dedicated a full page to explaining what each section of their key was designed to accomplish. For example:

Play: This outlines the general sequence of events that may take place in the room. For example: “Players entering the room from the door must first encounter the Trap, which releases the Monster. Only by defeating the Monster can the Treasure be found.” Play explains the general order that the sections should be used. Additional size and dimension information about the area is also included here.

And that largely explains what the intended purpose of the standardized adventure format is: To break up the wall of text and clearly communicate to the DM where they should look for a given piece of information.

It’s a noble intention, but the problem with this specific approach to adventure writing is that it tends to encourage writers to “fill the format”. You probably don’t really need to tell a DM that the orcs attack people using their swords (since that’s the only weapon they have)… but the format says you should have a “Tactics” section, so you might as well write two or three paragraphs about it.

An even bigger problem, in my experience, is that of sequencing information: A room with an ogre standing in the middle of it should talk about the ogre first; a room with a goblin hiding behind a tapestry, on the other hand, shouldn’t lead off with the goblin.

This sort of one-size-fits-all formatting becomes both a straitjacket and an excess. And the culmination of this approach is the infamous “delve” format, which I’ve talked about extensively elsewhere.

The fundamental problem (which the delve format simply metastasizes) is that the rigid adventure format forces information to be presented out-of-sequence or breaks that information up in a way that doesn’t make sense during actual play. Instead of making the information easy to parse and reference, a rigid format ends up having the opposite effect.

Go to Part 2

THE ART OF THE KEY
Part 2: The Essential Key
Part 3: Hierarchy of Reference
Part 4: Adversary Rosters

Should the Bluff skill be usable on PCs?

Hypothetical situation proposed on another forum: Billy doesn’t trust Sue. Billy’s player argues that, even if Sue succeeded on her Bluff check, Billy still wouldn’t believe her. It doesn’t matter how good a lie is if the person being lied to inherently doesn’t trust the speaker. Counterargument? If you inherently distrust someone, that’s what roll modifiers are for.

This is a common discussion. I had a couple of immediate reactions to this particular scenario that I thought might be of general interest.

Note that there are, in fact, two different issues here.

First: Whether or not social skills should compel PC behavior.

One group will argue that playing an RPG is fundamentally about making choices as if you were your character. Therefore, a mechanic which effectively “plays the game for you” is really problematic, particularly if it fundamentally disrupts a player’s conception of the character they’re playing. (The GM gets to create and control the entire universe; it might be best if the player gets to at least have undisputed control over his one character.)

The flip-side of this argument is that being forced to believe a lie against your will is not fundamentally different than being stabbed through your kidney with three feet of steel against your will. Both remove character agency and there’s really no reason to distinguish between the two.

What decides the issue for me, personally, is that I’ve never encountered a player in the latter group who has their enjoyment of the game negatively affected if compulsory social mechanics aren’t used: They’re OK with them, but they don’t need them. On the other hand, I’ve met lots of players in the first group who have their playing experience totally ruined by the presence of compulsory social mechanics.

So, for me, this is kind of a no-brainer: I’ve got an option that will make a lot of people happier and which will have no negative impact on anyone else. That’s the option I should go with.

Second: How the specific mechanic is being applied.

Is the mechanic sufficiently taking into account the level of distrust that Billy has for Sue? It looks like there are roll modifiers, but are those modifiers large enough to truly represent the amount of distrust he has?

Also, should the outcome of a successful Bluff check be “you believe the lie and you have to act as if you are completely gulled and have no doubts whatsoever” or should the outcome of a successful Bluff check be “she looks like she’s telling the truth / you don’t see anyone reason not to believe what she’s saying”?

This ties back into the question of whether or not the social mechanics should be compulsory or not.

To put this in perspective, imagine that this was a Poker game: Someone makes a Bluff check and succeeds against your Sense Motive check. Should the mechanics force the PC to call his bet (or go all in) without having any choice in the matter? Or should the mechanics simply report back “you think he’s got the better hand” and then let the player make the decision?

In general, I prefer social mechanics to either (a) provide information or (b) have a mechanical impact without compelling action.

If you make a Spot check to see someone hiding in a room, a successful check doesn’t compel you to attack them: The Spot check provides you with information (“there’s a dude hiding in there” or “the room appears to be empty”) and then you make a decision about what to do with that information. Similarly, a Sense Motive check should provide you with information (“you think he’s in love with Sarah” or “you don’t think she’s lying”) and it’s still up to you to make a decision about what to do with that information.

Similarly, a successful Intimidate check might apply a morale penalty to your action, but the ultimate decision of whether you drop your sword and run away screaming is up to you.

What about NPCs?

I’m perfectly OK with social mechanics being compulsory for NPCs. In fact, as a GM, I generally prefer it. The difference is that I don’t think of them as “compulsory” — instead those mechanics are the oracle that I consult to tell me what’s happening in the game world. (It’s very similar to a random encounter check: I don’t know what’s going to happen. Let’s consult the mechanics and find out.)

For similar reasons, I find it perhaps unsurprising that people have a lot less problem with compulsory social mechanics in STGs: They are playing a game of narrative control and the relationship they have to their character is very different than the relationship a player has to their character in an RPG. An oracular consultation of the mechanics to determine what their character is doing is more likely to fit into their mental landscape; it also just becomes one more mechanic for determining narrative control among a plethora of such mechanics.

The map for Dweredell was originally created with large key entries. It looked like this:

It’s a beautiful map, but I always wished that I had a version that had no map key numbers on it.

Then a fellow by the name of Andrew Shields contacted me: He’d done an absurdly awesome amount of Photoshop work and managed to rebuild the map sans numbers. Instead of posting it here, I’m going to point you over to Andrew’s website: Here.

It’s well worth checking out, particularly if you’re the proud owner of a copy of City Supplement 1: Dweredell. (And if you’re not a proud owner of that book, you should check it out. Hint, hint.).

My original essay on the Three Clue Rule has been translated into Czech for an awesome-looking fanzine:

Direct Link (PDF) / Facebook Page

I’ll be honest: I can’t read a word of it, but I think it’s pretty cool nonetheless.

… and by that, I mean that they should be inspiring good, old-fashioned awe with the things that they do.

This is something I first talked about in D&D: Calibrating Your Expectations and I developed the theme in E(X): The Many Games Inside the World’s Most Popular Roleplaying Game.

Recently I was speaking with someone who was unhappy with the “crazy scaling” of Perception checks he was seeing in the arms race of high level Pathfinder games: The players crank up their Perception modifiers. The GM responds by simply cranking up the DC necessary to accomplish previously much easier tasks. The result is “silly” and “ridiculous”.

This is what I said:

FIRST, CONTEXTUALIZE THE NUMBERS. Instead of just blindly cranking up the numbers, think about what those larger numbers really mean. If a DC 30 check reveals a “well-hidden secret door”, then what does a DC 40 check really mean? Well, it means something that no one in the real world without special tools would ever be able to detect. So maybe that means that the door has been phase-shifted onto the Ethereal Plane; or painted with the illusion-infused blood of a demon; or covered with the alchemically-treated hide of an animal that has evolved the ability to make people psychically ignore its presence.

In other words, embrace the fact that the PCs are doing awesome things and really emphasize how awesome it is.

SECOND, EMPHASIZE NOT CHANGING THE NUMBERS. Instead of trying to keep the same old tasks challenging, focus on the paradigm shift that’s occurred.

Yup. They’re really, really good at finding hidden things. Similarly, they’re really, really good at killing 1st level goblins. Instead of resisting that change by leveling up all the goblins in the universe to match their new abilities, focus instead on exploring how their interaction with the world shifts.

A mechanical option along these same lines would be to include guidelines for improving the quality or speed of a check by accepting a penalty on the check. For example, I have a generic set of guidelines for “quick checks” that drop the time required for the check by one category in exchange for accepting a -10 penalty to the check. (High level characters, for example, can make successful Gather Information checks in 1d4+1 minutes instead of 1d4+1 hours by accepting a -20 penalty on their check.) For Perception checks, you might apply a -10 penalty to allow characters to notice hidden doors/objects/etc. without actively searching for them. (They just walk into a room and spot the hidden door in the corner.)

An extreme example of this sort of thing is Doctor Who: The Doctor can open the door of the TARDIS, sniff the air, and instantly identify the atmospheric content, the planet he’s standing on, and the time period. (I like to imagine that this is based on complex spectrographic analysis compared to charts which Time Lords study in school much like we study multiplication tables.)

ALTERNATIVELY, PUT A CAP ON THE AWESOME. If you don’t want to embrace the awesome, on the other hand, you’ll be much happier simply stepping out of the arms race. Cap their advancement before they become “too awesome”, either drawing the campaign to a close or finding other ways of advancing their characters. (This is where E(X): The Many Games Inside the World’s Most Popular Roleplaying Game comes back into the picture.)