The Joys of Javascript

Probably the single most useful tool I have for my 3e games, outside of the core rulebooks themselves, is my auto-calculating Character Form. Originally, this came from the Mad Irishman, although I've done a fair amount of work since then updating the sheet (to fix some errors and omissions, to incorporate some of my house rules, and to auto-calculate a few things that hadn't previously been done). It really is lovely.

However, there are a couple of things about the sheet that I don't really like, but don't have the ability to correct. The sheet actually predates the release of the "Expanded Psionics Handbook" but does include psionics. When putting the sheet together, the Mad Irishman made his best guess as to what the rules would look like, and didn't get them quite right. Unfortunately, while I can edit the Javascripts on the form, and so fix some of the calculations, I can't edit the form itself to eliminate the unnecessary elements.

(The Mad Irishman does provide some extremely nice 'fixed' sheets, but these don't exist in form, um, form.)

Where I hit a major snag when developing Nutshell, or even when applying some of the fixes that I think would really help 3e along (such as a reduced skill list) is that this will necessitate the creation of an all-new character sheet, and then a lot of work turning that into an auto-calculating form. Maybe I've become spoiled, but I really don't want to go through that!

(Especially after having just spent several hours this weekend changing the skill calculations from 3e style to Pathfinder style, and so eliminating the 'half rank' fix from the sheet, and adding an auto-calculate of the +3 bonus that Pathfinder gives for having a rank in a class skill. Acrobat makes this a long, slow, tedious process, such that every skill needs done separately, with a new cell inserted, reformated, set to 'hidden', and the calculation script inserted. That last is a copy-and-paste job, so it's quite quick... and prone to errors.)

Still, the upshot is that having done all this work, I now have a much better understanding of Acrobat's version of Javascript... and I also have a much nicer auto-calculating form.

An Amusing Omission

I'm always rather amused by a particular omission in the 3e PHB (both 3.0e and 3.5e).

If you look in the "Equipment" chapter, and at the table giving the "Adventuring Gear" (page 128 in the 3.5e book), you'll find a footnote reading, "These items weight one-quarter this amount when made for small characters. Containers for Small characters also carry one-quarter the normal amount." (The emphasis is mine.)

Now, that's a good and reasonably sensible rule. To be honest, it's probably a bit too much detail to worry about, but it does make at least some sense.

Except... find for me the place where it specifies how much "the normal amount" is. Or, probably better, don't bother - it doesn't exist. WotC went to the trouble of putting in an exception for Small containers, but then forgot to include the regular rule. And then, presumably because they enjoyed it so much the first time, they retained those rules exactly as they are for 3.5e!

Huzzah!

(4e, of course, doesn't have either the footnote or the capacities - it's encumbrance rules are even more absurdly generous than those of 3e, to the point where it's just not worth bothering with even if you're particularly anal about such things.)

Fortunately, the missing table does exist, back in 2nd Edition (which has the table, but not the exception for Small characters!). This gives the capacities for several containers, both in terms of weight and volume allowed. Perhaps notably, it does not give capacities for liquid containers in the table, but since the volume of water is proportional to its weight, and the weights given are for full barrels, waterskins, etc, this should be easy to work out.

Anyway, the capacities are as follows:

• Backpack - 50lbs - 3'x2'x1'
• Basket, large - 20lbs - 2'x2'x2'
• Basket, small - 10lbs - 1'x1'x1'
• Belt Pouch, large - 8lbs (400 coins in 3e/4e/5e) - 6"x8"x2"
• Belt Pouch, small - 5lbs (250 coins in 3e/4e/5e) - 4"x6"x2"
• Chest, large - 100lbs - 3'x2'x2'
• Chest, small - 40lbs - 2'x1'x1'
• Sack, large - 30lbs - 2'x2'x1'
• Sack, small - 15lbs - 1'x1'x8"
• Saddlebags, large (a horse, I guess) - 30lbs - 18" x1'x6"
• Saddlebags, small (pony or riding dog - and should be Medium in 3e-speak) - 20lbs - 1'x1'x6"

Why does this matter?

This all ties in to my pesky obsession with encumbrance, or more specifically with what PCs can carry. If a backpack has an effectively unlimited capacity, then there's no point keeping track - pretty soon the party Fighter will have a massive Strength and can just carry everything they could possibly need. Whereas of course if the backpack can only hold 50lbs, then it doesn't matter that the Fighter has a Strength of 50 - he can still only carry so much.

And, of course, there's the tedious matter of realism. Next time you do your weekly shop, compare how much you can carry if you just use your hands, versus the amount you can carry if you put it into shopping bags first!

Of course, all that said, it's probably not important enough to worry about too much!

Death and Dying

Speaking of house rules, I've made a bit of a mess of applying one for death and dying rules in "The Eberron Code" - roughly half of two different house rules are in place, applied rather intermittently. Still, it seems to work okay. The house rule deals with the subject of death and dying, which is an area in which my thinking has gone back and forward more than a few times.

The truth is, I'm not really a fan of 3e's -10 hit points death threshold. The problems are two-fold:

Firstly, at anything above very low level the buffer is sufficiently small that it doesn't really provide any great protection against death - characters are pretty likely to just blow through it and go from "okay" to "dead outright" in a single blow. Secondly, in cases where the buffer does apply, it tends to provide far too much comfort - if a character is at -6, the Cleric knows that he has three full rounds to get over there to provide healing.

The 4e model is, at least in places, somewhat better. Here, there's a "three strikes and you're out" rule - characters have to make a Death Save every round, and after they've failed three they die. However, character's don't die from damage until a much lower threshold, so they're very unlikely to be killed outright. Actually, this latter is the one thing I don't care for about the 4e model - I think it's an unnecessary complication.

So, the house rules:

Characters at any positive number of hit points operate as they do currently. Characters cannot be reduced to fewer than 0 hit points.

A character reduced to 0 hit points is dead. The character drops prone, and drops anything held in his hands. However, the character is only quite dead - in fact, he may not even be unconscious!

Each round on his turn, a character who is quite dead must make a death save. Roll d20 - on a roll of less than 1 - 9, the character slips into unconsciousness and becomes mostly dead. On a roll of 10 - 19, nothing happens. And on a roll of 20, the character becomes stable, and need make no further saves.

A character who takes further damage while quite dead must make an additional, immediate death save, as above - even if he was previously stabilised.

A character who is quite dead may take free actions normally. Alternately, he can take a single action (standard, move, or swift) on his turn; however, after he has done so he must make an additional, immediate death save - even if he was previously stabilised.

A character who is quite dead can benefit from healing as normal - whether from a spell, magic item, or application of the Heal skill. Such a character starts from 0 hit points, so any amount of healing will return him to a positive value.

A character who is mostly dead is unconscious and may take no actions of any sort. Such a character does not need to make further death saves, but is also beyond immediate help.

If a character who is mostly dead receives powerful healing (that is, any single effect that would normally restore him to 50% of his normal total or more), he is instead restored to 1 hit point. Likewise, the application of the revivification spell can restore the character to 1 hit point. Any lesser magical healing, or an application of the first aid use of the Heal skill, leaves the character stable; thereafter, a full month of long-term care will restore the character to 1 hit point.

If the character is not stabilised within 5 minutes of the end of combat, the character becomes completely dead.

A character who is stable remains at his previous status - whether that is quite dead or mostly dead, but is not at risk of getting worse. Such a character does not need to make death saves each round. However, if a character who is stable suffers damage, or if he takes action then he immediately returns to his previous status.

Most save-or-die effects immediately reduce the character to 0 hit points, and leave them mostly dead. Likewise, a successful coup de grace leaves the victim at 0 hit points and mostly dead. The death knell spell applies to a character who is quite dead or mostly dead, and leaves them completely dead. The disintegrate spell, and any other spell that specifies that it destroys the body, renders a victim completely dead.

Action Points and Advantage

I'm not a fan of Action Points as they appear in 3e-derived versions of the d20 system (whether that's Force Points in Star Wars, or Action Points in d20 Modern, "Unearthed Arcana", or Eberron). There are various reasons for this, but the biggest is the per-level nature of the Action Point pool, which in my games at least has the perverse effect of making the climactic encounter in many adventures near-trivial, as the players realise they're about to level-up and have loads of APs left.

However, I most definitely am a fan of Action Points as they exist in 4e. Here, when you spend an Action Point, you get an extra action. Simple, clean, and fun - I like it. The one change that I would make to 4e Action Points would be to the rate of acquisition - basically, I would give each PC one AP when they roll initiative, but allow them to have no more than one AP at a time. Effectively, then, they become a per-encounter resource.

I'm also a fan of the 5e notion of Advantage (which, due to NDA, I cannot describe here). Critically, if the player makes the roll and then remembers that he has advantage/disadvantage, it's an easy thing to fix - in effect, advantage/disadvantage can be applied even after the success/failure is known. (This last isn't true of 3e Action Points, another weakness of that mechanic.)

The upshot of that is that if I run another 3e campaign, and especially another campaign set in Eberron, I'll be adopting the following house rules:

Action Points

At the start of each encounter, each PC will receive a single Action Point (generally when rolling Initiative). You can use this in one of three ways:

1. You can spend your Action Point immediately to negate surprise for your character.
2. You can spend your Action Point immediately to take-20 on your Initiative roll. You can spend the Action Point in this manner even after rolling initiative.
3. On your turn, you can spend your Action Point to gain one extra action. This can be a standard, move, or swift action, at your discretion.

Action Points that are not spent at the end of the encounter are lost. No character can have more than one Action Point at a time.

(The other uses for Action Points given in the "Eberron Campaign Setting" apply to Advantage Tokens instead. See below...)

Advantage Tokens

At the start of the session, each player will receive one Advantage Token per hour of expected playtime (or fraction thereof). That is, for our standard evening sessions, running from 7:30 to 10:30, each player will receive 3 Advantage Tokens.

You can spend Advantage Tokens in the following ways:

• When making any d20 roll, you may spend an Advantage Token. (Insert the 5e Advantage mechanic here...)
• When suffering from Disadvantage, you may spend an Advantage Token to negate Disadvantage.
• When your character is dying, you may spend an Advantage Token to automatically stabilise.
• (Insert all the other uses of Action Points from the Eberron Campaign Setting book here - that is, speeding infusions, allowing extra uses of per-day powers, etc.)

You may spend no more than a single Advantage Token per round. That is, if you use one to negate Disadvantage, you cannot then spend a second to gain Advantage on the roll.

(Actually, I'm halfway inclined to present all this to the players in my current Eberron Code campaign, and see what they think about adopting it immediately. But I do so hate changing the rules in mid-campaign...)

The Red Box and the Beginner Box

I've been convinced for a fairly long time now that the single most important in-print product for D&D is the Introductory Box. The future of most rules material seems to lie online, either through the DDI or through the use of eBooks or the like - basically, the ability to carry an entire library of materials on a smartphone or similar, coupled with the easy ability to reference such books, would seem to outweigh most other concerns. (Indeed, it gets to the point where DMs should strongly consider disallowing any materials that cannot be easily referenced online.)

However, the game needs new players, and needs them in large numbers. And online materials make for a really poor introduction to the game. Additionally, the core rulebooks of recent versions of the game also make for a very poor introduction - they typically run to 1,000 pages of text (or as near as makes no difference), and although we know there's no need to read all of that before play, a new player does not. Hence the need for a really good Introductory Box.

(Actually, ideally, the core game would be sufficiently simple that the Introductory Box could serve as the Core Rulebook for the game, with all expansions then building from that. Unfortunately, it looks like WotC, not to mention the community itself, are absolutely wedded to the three-book model, despite that it's probably killing the game. But I digress)

A few months ago, I picked up the starter sets for both 4e and Pathfinder: the Red Box and the Beginner Box, respectively. And, until last Friday, they were happily sitting on my shelf, unread. My reading of reviews online had given me a strong impression of both, but I hadn't actually gone through them, so couldn't really speak from a position of knowledge.

That changed on Friday. And so, here are my impressions:

First, let's dispense with the peripheral components, of which there are several.

On opening both boxes, the thing that is immediately noticable is a bag of dice. These were inevitable, and pretty dull. Both sets include a single set of the standard polyhedrals. I was a little surprised to see that the Red Box didn't include a d10 with the 10's marked... until I remembered that 4e doesn't actually use d% anywhere in the rules. Otherwise, there's nothing to separate the two sets. (One criticism I have of both is that the dice are all of one colour - all red or all black. I've found that colour-coding the dice by type has a surprisingly large impact on the speed of play, and especially for new players. Still, a mismatched set would be significantly more expensive, so...)

Both boxes also include character tokens and a battlemat. In the case of the Red Box, these consist of the traditional "pog" tokens that lie flat, and a paper battlemat with scenes printed on both sides. They're nice, and functional. In the Beginner Box, they have instead included thick cardboard "pawns" and plastic bases, giving a more 3-dimensional effect. Additionally, the battlemat is printed on thick card, with one side showing a dungeon scene and the other being blank (and suitable for marking with either wet- or dry-erase markers). In terms of the tokens, there's frankly very little difference - my preference is for the pawns, but it's a marginal thing. However, the Beginner Box battlemat is clearly the better of the two - both because it is sturdier, and also because the blank side provides better opportunities for reuse.

Both boxes also provide a small number of blank character sheets. In both cases, the sheets are fine, though they lean rather towards the "spreadsheet style" of all post-3e versions of D&D. That's a weakness in the game, though, and not something that these boxes could fix.

The first key area where the boxes diverge comes here. The Red Box supplements each character sheet with a set of power cards, providing a nice, if limited, set of powers for each class. These are a really nice addition; it would have been good had the Beginner Box been able to include spell cards.

Conversely, the Beginner Box provides character sheets for four pre-gen characters, one of each of the "big four" classes. However, these are not simply pre-filled character sheets - in each case the sheet is presented at the centre of a four-page spread, with the borders being used to explain key sections of the character sheet. This is a spectacularly good idea. Hopefully, when WotC do the 5e Introductory Box, they'll do the same.

Each box also includes a couple of flyers, giving instructions on how to use the set, links to further materials, and the inevitable adverts for the 'real' version of the game. Nothing much to see here.

So, until this point, there's really not a lot to swing it one way or another. The Pathfinder box has a slight edge in terms of content, but the D&D set has a big advantage in terms of cost (since it costs half as much). And, in each case, there are some components that may see reuse - dice, tokens, and battlemat.

And now we get to the 'meat' of the products: the rulebooks.

In each case, the sets include a Player's Book and a DM's Book (though they may not be called that). That's about as far as the similarities go, though.

The Red Box Player's Book is a 32-page "choose your own adventure" book that also doubles as character creation rules. You step through a very simple adventure about goblins attacking a caravan, and the decisions you make define your character - if your first impulse is to cast a spell, you're a Wizard... and so on.

This is okay for first use, but not so good beyond that. Once you've created that first character and need to create your second, you don't really want to be attacked by goblins again. And that's the extent of the Player's Book.

I have one other key criticism of the Player's Book, and the Red Box as a whole - when discussing actions that characters can take, there's a very distinct emphasis on using the power cards provided. You're expected and encouraged to stay "on book". But, of course, one of the very significant (and generally unfair) criticisms of 4e is that locking down all those powers stifles creativity by causing players to fixate on the cards. It was a real shame to see the Red Box explicitly encourage this.

The DM's Book picks up exactly where the other leaves off. It presents the DM with a starter adventure, then quickly presents the rules of the game, then presents another adventure, some monsters, some treasure, and then it's done.

I don't really have any great criticisms of the DM's Book. It does its job reasonably well. The end.

Where I do have a significant criticism of the Red Box is that it provides rules for levelling up the characters created, but only to 2nd level. Basically, it's a set that's good for three or four sessions, if that, and then you have to advance to the 'real' game.

Oh, there is one other criticism I would level: the adventures are presented in the now-defunct "Delve" format - every encounter area is presented across two full pages. This makes adventures easy to run, there's no denying. It also means that that first adventure takes up 14 pages - a crippling blow when space is at a premium.

By contrast, the Pathfinder books are much more what I expected from my experience with the old Red Box - the Player's book opens with a very short "choose your own adventure", then presents character creation rules (with 3 races, 4 classes, a limited set of skills, feats, and spells), rules for levelling up, combat rules, and so on.

The DM's book is likewise as I would expect - a couple of pregenerated adventures, a limited bestiary, some magic items. It's all laid out concisely and clearly, despite the greater mathematical complexity of Pathfinder over 4e.

Simply put, the Pathfinder box makes much better use of space, with the consequence that the box includes rules for advancing as far as 5th level - the set is good for several months of play.

But... the Beginner Box commits what I consider to be the cardinal sin of designing an Introductory Box. Because of the space constraints, it is inevitable that the box has to include a cut-down ruleset, and so things like disarm, sunder, and grapple are omitted. That's fine - there's nothing wrong with a cut-down ruleset. But what it should never be is an incompatible ruleset. A player who has used the Introductory Box to learn the game should be able to sit down at a table with a group using the 'real' version of the game and understand what's going on; he should not have to unlearn what he has learned.

But the Beginner Box omits attacks of opportunity (good idea), but does so in a manner incompatible with the 'real' game - moving past an opponent is unimpeded. Fixing this would have required the introduction of the five-foot step into the game (itself a weakness of post-3e D&D, but that's an aside), but failing to do so is a major weakness in the box.

(In fairness, I should also note that the Red Box contains a handful of discrepancies with Essentials, and of course several of the powers have since been errata'ed. However, the differences here are rather more minor.)

Conclusion

Ultimately, both sets aim to do the same thing, and they do so in extremely similar ways. It is the details of how they go about their task that are key.

And in that regard, the Pathfinder Beginner Box simply blows the 4e Red Box out of the water. By making better use of the space, and thus being able to present the game up to 5th level, they've provided a set that allows new players to get really comfortable with the system before they have to upgrade, and face up to those 1,000 pages of reading. By contrast, the Red Box is very much a "pay-for preview" - it's a product to be used a couple of times and then discarded.

This is not to say that the Pathfinder set is perfect. As I noted, it commits one of the cardinal sins. Additionally, it is rather hampered by the high level of complexity of the 'real' game itself - it was always a really big ask to present a coherent Introductory Set when the core rules run to nearly 1,000 pages.

(My overwhelming impression of the Red Box, as with the DDI, and as with 4e itself, is one of disappointment - not at the quality of the product itself, but that it represents such a missed opportunity. Until the Pathfinder set, the game hadn't had a really good Introductory Box for decades, and a really good set could have done wonders for the game. As it is, this wasn't that product, it failed to recapture the millions of lapsed gamers they wanted, and now the opportunity is lost.)

My final thought is this: if you have a young relative who you think might like the game (a nephew, say), the best way to introduce them to the game remains to do it yourself - teach them the game yourself, take them through some introductory adventures, and then ease them into a group. And, of course, the game to teach is the one that you prefer.

However, if life doesn't permit you to do this, then an Introductory Box is the next best thing. And here, my recommendation is clear - get the Pathfinder set.

What if? Spellbooks

Under 3e Rules as Written, when a PC wizard captures a spellbook from an enemy wizard, he is not able to use it right away. Instead, he must first decipher the spell (read magic) then learn the spell (Spellcraft check), then copy the spell into his own book (100gp per page, one page per level, and IIRC one page per day). After which, he must consult his spellbook every day to prepare the spell, and has no further use of the captured book - he can sell it on to recoup his costs.

But what if...?

• The requirements to decipher and learn spells were the same, though spells could only be learned during downtime (between adventures). However, the requirement to copy spells is removed.
• Captured spellbooks were prohibitively expensive to copy - say 1,000gp per page and one month per page, because they must be copied exactly and with lots of rare materials.
• Between adventures, Wizards were assumed to refresh their memory of all their spellbooks. During adventures, he can prepare any spell from any book he owns, without needing to carry his books with them.
• If a Wizard lost a spellbook, and so couldn't refresh his memory of it between adventures, he lost access to the spells it contained, and would then have to relearn them if he acquired a new copy.

Additionally, spells would be split up into three categories: common spells (those in the PHB), uncommon spells (those in the Spell Compendium), and unique spells (everything else, notably the Complete Book of Eldritch Might).

When the Wizard levels up, he is allowed to add four spells to his spellbook (as normal, except it's normally two), but these have to be common spells - chosen from the PHB.

Uncommon spells are those found in rare tomes, but there are multiple copies of them floating around. So, if a Wizard captures a book containing these spells then it's a good find... but there's no guarantee he won't run into another Wizard with the same spell. Additionally, if a Wizard wishes to explicitly research an uncommon spell, he may do so - the nature of the spell is well enough known that dedicated effort can unlock it.

Unique spells are just that - there's only one copy of each of these spells floating around, so if the PC Wizard has it, he can be sure nobody else can match him!

(Under this model, it wouldn't be possible to learn a spell from a scroll. Under strict 3e RAW, this is actually already the case - the strict rule is that scrolls can be used only to aid in spell research. However, I don't think anyone actually uses that rule.)

The effects of all of this should be primarily flavourful, although one key advantage is that the Wizard ceases to be so utterly dependent on his one and only spellbook. In terms of flavour, it means that Wizards have a strong incentive to seek out new spellbooks to find lost and unique spells. It also means that if the Wizard does get his hands on such a book, he doesn't need to spend huge amounts of money adding it to his own book before he can use it.

(I would probably also match this with an adjustment to the starting spellbook - instead of getting all the 0-level spells for free, I'd probably change that to 6+Int mod.)

While I'm on the topic - Clerics and Druids

Of all the classes in the PHB, the Cleric and Druid are both probably the most powerful, the ones that gain most from additional supplements, and also the most difficult to play. The reason for this is simple: they gain access to all the spells on their list, of which there are a huge number. And if you add the Spell Compendium of other books, they automatically gain access to those spells as well.

(The same also applies to Rangers and Paladins, of course, but to a lesser extent.)

Fundamentally, I'm inclined to do the same for Clerics and Druids as I've just done for Wizards - they too must keep a record of their known spells (in a canon for Clerics, or in the form of stone tablets/wood carvings/whatever for Druids). And as they level up they, too, add more spells to their selection, or can learn yet more by capturing holy works from other casters.

(This probably works best in a setting that doesn't have strictly defined gods, or one where one of the underlying mysteries is that the gods are a front - there's no difference between a Cleric of Pelor and one of Vecna because they're both actually tapping into some grand, impersonal source of divine magic.)

Building a Better Adventure

If there is one area of GMing in which I feel I need to hone my skills, it is in the creation of adventures, and especially adventures intended for campaign play. In general, I do pretty well with rules knowledge, I'm pretty good at setting a scene, at pacing a combat, and can generally run an enjoyable session. And adventures for one-shot games are likewise okay, for the most part, as these are much more linear than those intended for campaign play.

So, I've been musing on how to build a better adventure. I think I'll post a few times on the subject...

(I should note: I won't be dispensing any holy writ here. To a large extent, these are my thoughts on how I can create better adventures. They're ideas that may not even work, at all, even for me.)

My starting point for all of this was to look at a lot of published adventures, notably those from Paizo Publishing as part of their Pathfinder Adventure Path line. By and large, these are considered excellent adventures, so they should be a decent place to start. I've also thought quite extensively about the WotC published adventures, which mostly range from 'shocking' to 'poor' quality - there are a tiny number of good adventures that serve as shining exceptions. So, that's where I'm going to start:

Background

Most modern published adventures start with a long section on adventure background, in which they explain how things came to be the way they are - they explain how the dungeon was built, they explain the motivations of the villain, etc.

It's all stirring stuff, of course, and quite an interesting read. It's also largely irrelevant in play - the players never really become aware of this, and the background seldom influences much of what actually happens, so it never again comes up.

Now, that may suggest that that material can just be dropped - if it's irrelevant then it's just wasted words, and if it's just wasted words then they can be cut. However, I would suggest the opposite - that the background should exist, but that the adventure should be built to make it a lot more relevant.

It's also worth noting that there are three kinds of background: there's the background that the adventure writer needs to know in order to create the adventure, there's the background that the GM needs to know in order to make sense of the adventure, and there's the background that should be given to the players to set the scene. Very often, adventures provide a combination of the first and second, while ignoring the third altogether.

I would suggest that when building an adventure, the designer should first start with a "requirements spec" for the adventure background, quickly sketching out the key salient points. When building the adventure, this should always be borne in mind - everything that is relevant in the background should have some expression in the adventure, while there should be nothing significant in the adventure that is not in the background.

So, if the background makes mention of an ancient lost love of the villain, there must be some mechanism for the PCs to find this out and apply the knowledge; conversely, if the background doesn't mention an ancient lost love, then there shouldn't be one in the adventure!

The other two types of background should then probably be written quite late on in the process, once the adventure is settled, and any changes required are fed back to the "designer's background". The GM's background can then be presented much as it is now, although probably in an abridged form (just the key facts are needed, really).

However, in addition to this, there should be a section for PC knowledge (the player's background mentioned above). This should contain of several lists of facts - one for Common Knowledge about the adventure, one for each of the 'lore' skills (the Knowledges, plus Gather Information, and anything else that is relevant), and one for each 'special skill' that applies (Bardic Knowledge, Artificer's Knowledge, etc).

I'm torn as to whether you should just give these out to the appropriate characters at the start of the adventure, if you should expect players to ask, or if they should ask and then roll. My inclination is to err towards just giving the information out, as otherwise they're likely not to know to ask.

(For added fun, some of the low-DC entries can contain false information. Even better, some of the entries could contain contradictory information, leaving the players to figure it out for themselves. But maybe that's just cruel...)

There are several advantages of giving out these "knowledge blocks":

• As with the "five things you know..." lists, they provide a lot of information in a small space.
• They help set the scene for the adventure.
• They reward those players who had their character invest in 'lore' skills, rather than the more obvious Athletics and Find Traps skills.
• They can then serve as clues for the various mysteries that are going to exist later in the adventure.

Plot Hooks and Goals

Most published adventures give the PCs a clear reason to be there, and a clear objective in the adventure. Some go a little further, giving alternative hooks that the GM can use, but these tend to amount to the same thing, since the adventure tends to be rather static in its construction.

I'm inclined to think that a more satisfying adventure is likely to result if the PCs instead have several goals in the adventure. Especially if those goals are then to some extent opposed, and especially if different PCs have different goals in the dungeon and those are opposed. That way, the PCs have to determine which of their priorities is most important; and that in turn means that they have to roleplay.

Tracking Progress

The last of my three points (and the last point for now), concerns the PCs' progress through the adventure. Very often, published adventures are basically static - the players clear out a bit of the dungeon and then retreat; once they've recovered they pick up where they've left off. And so on, until the adventure is done. Huzzah!

But that's almost non-sensical in its implementation, and in any case a much more satisfying experience is surely possible.

Instead, the adventure should provide a mechanism for tracking the PCs' progress towards their various goals, and provide feedback on the same. This allows for them to adjust their strategy, to reap the rewards of partial success, and is also generally more realistic.

Of course, the consequences of their actions need not all be positive, and indeed those consequences should generally be logical, but need not be obvious...

Imagine an adventure where the villagers ask the PCs to deal with a troublesome orcish tribe. So, the PCs, as is their wont, immediately set off to the orcish lair to kick butt. Of course, after the officially-approroved four level-appropriate encounters they retreat to rest and regroup...

Whereupon the orc king calls in his outriders, and launches a massive reprisal assault on the village. And so, suddenly instead of a bog-standard dungeon crawl, we have the PCs beating back an assault by overwhelming forces, plus the inevitable reprisals...

If the PCs instead sneak into the orcish lair and assassinate the orcish king, then all hell break loose - the orcs split into many factions each doing their own thing. And so, we have a much smaller assault on the village, many of the orcs are killed fighting other orcs, and some orcs simply leave. Of course, the eventual winner is most likely an even more bloodthirsty brute than the old king, and he has to show his power by smashing the village...

Alternately, if the PCs choose to spend some time hunting down and ambushing the orcish raiding parties, they can keep their presence hidden for a time, whittle away the orcish forces, and thus make ready for their final assault. Sure, it doesn't have the same visceral appeal as the other two approaches... but isn't it the player's choice whether to go for the glory or to take the slow and steady route?

(Even better is if you have multiple factions at play - perhaps the PCs ally with the orc king's son to arrange a coup... of course, they then have to watch for a sudden but inevitable betrayal. Or, if they ally with the lizardmen against the orcs, what happens when the lizardmen start to get too bold? Or, even better, what happens if some well-meaning but foolish young villagers decide to help by wiping out a party of 'monsters' - the village's lizardmen allies?)