Adventure design

[Infje]

So, I feel I want to add to this site as well. I want to create my own adventures for all to (hopefully) enjoy. I've read the "Adventure design booklet" and looked at other custom quests. I've installed Heroscribe and I'm ready go. Except, I've got a few questions that need answers. Perhaps you can help me?

Every official expansion has a certain entry level. How do I determine these?

How do I measure the difficulty per quest? I remember seeing a post from someone who had an algorithm for that but can't find it anymore.

Based on the answer above: How do you insert a steady incline in difficulty

How do I calculate the impact of traps and how do I determine how many of them I can use?

Same goes for Chaos spells and other artifacts. How do you balance that?

Are there certain people who usually play test these custom quests? Or is there perhaps a test group? I know the Ragnar quest line is a community effort but what about other custom quests that are posted?

That's it for now

[Maike05]

Hello infje, the algorithm is pretty simple and you can make your own: just assign a value to any monster based on their strenght or hp, beginning with lowest being value 1 ( eg. Goblin) then proceed with traps and hidden doors.

For instance:
Goblin=1
Orc=3
Skeletton=2

Trap against which you defend 1 and traps that are undetectable and against which you cannot defend 3 for instance..

Based on those value, you can roughtly calculate the difficlty of a quest and compare it to one from the core quest book.

Hope it can help you. Also remeber that the more difficult the quest, the treasure the heroes should get !

[Goblin-King]

I will start by saying that there isn't a recipe for making balanced quests - 2 lucky goblins can kill the wizard in the first round while 4 chaos warriors might die without inflicting a single BP worth of damage. The best tool is to use common sense.
That being said I'll try to actually answer your post:

Some people want to start out fresh with new heroes.
Other use their fully equipped heroes.
Some even have extra high end gear from the expansions.
And then we have those who use homebrew equipment and rules.

It's almost impossible to determine a fitting entry level for a quest. I suggest you simply add in an introduction which level the heroes are expected to be at when entering your quest.
If the players disregards this they'll know they might be playing at a too easy or too hard level.
Just choose a player level e.g. new (naked) heroes or fully equipped according to having played through the game system. Then stick with that and set the difficulty accordingly.

There are many ways to steadily increase difficulty.
More monsters
Monsters equipped with certain weapons (crossbows, spears etc...)
More traps
Combinations of monsters and traps so the heroes can't search

But I'll also say this - What really makes or breaks a quest is the "events". Those unique unexpected quest notes that add something special to the quest.
A metal door locking up, separating the heroes
A hero being possessed by a demon
Escaping before the dungeon collapses

That's why RotW is such a great expansion. It has lots of new stuff in most quests.

[The Road Warrior]

But I'll also say this - What really makes or breaks a quest is the "events". Those unique unexpected quest notes that add something special to the quest.
A metal door locking up, separating the heroes
A hero being possessed by a demon
Escaping before the dungeon collapses

This is probably the best advice you can get. Adding something new and special to a quest is what really makes it stand out.

[torilen]

I'll go ahead and toot my own horn...give you MY idea for how to balance quests...I've posted it somewhere else,
but you'd have to go through a couple of pages to get to the heart of it, so I'll post the final suggestion here, since
you asked.

ANALYSIS OF CHARACTER POWER
1 point per Body Point
1 point per attack die
1 point per defense die
1 point per spell (if caster)
2-3 points per special ability (as Dwarf's Traps ability, or Elf's Casting Check reduction) - typically, go with 3 points unless the special power doesn't play a large part
2 points for use of all weapons and armor; 1 point if only minor/small restriction
Optional: 1 point per Mind Point, as these come into play occasionally - if, for instance, the quest involves a spell caster on the side of the evil wizard


THEN you have to look at the monsters
goblin: body = 1;attack = 2;defend = 1;total = 4
orc: body = 1;attack = 3;defend = 2;total = 6
fimir: body = 2;attack = 3;defend = 3;total = 8
---------------------------------------------------------------
skeleton: body = 1;attack = 2;defend = 2;total = 5
zombie: body = 1;attack = 2;defend = 3;total = 6
mummy: body = 2;attack = 3;defend = 4;total = 9
---------------------------------------------------------------
chaos warrior: body = 3;attack = 4;defend = 4;total = 11
gargoyle: body = 3;attack = 4;defend = 5;total = 12
**And, of course, if there is an evil wizard spell caster, or someone with poison or such, you'd have to figure that in, using the same rules as above

THEN any other extraneous things that might come into play
traps = +1 per BP lost
other = +1, +2, +3, etc.
-----monsters aware/surprise = +5

So, let's look at the first five quests from the original, basic questbook:
Q1 = 160 - individual rooms = 35/22/21
Q2 = 109 - individual rooms = 14
Q3 = 115 - individual rooms = 26/25
Q4 = 122 - individual rooms = 39
Q5 = 122 - individual rooms = 31/18

Hope this helps some. Again, this is just my idea...but it works very well for me so far.

[torilen]

Oh yes - to answer your question about play testing quests. I don't have a group with which to play, so unless others
on this site play and give me critique, the only play testing my quests really get is from me. But I can tell you that,
usually, I go through a lot of thinking and planning while putting quests together - might not seem like it because it
seems like everything I put out on here has some sort of typing error (sorry for those, by the way).

I do play small pieces here and there. I'll take various characters and put them through the motions against certain
monsters, or certain rooms in a quest, to judge for myself whether it might work well or not. That's the best I can do
for now...but I do what I can.

That's for me...not sure what others do.

[el_flesh]

Why not just play with some ppl from here using Vassal?
We really don't need to find players near us any more. We can do it well from ALL AROUND THE WORLD!

[Infje]

Excellent feedback! But to be honest, I wouldn't have expected less from this great community. Thank you guys!

[Daedalus]

thequester has come up with a program that demonstrates a "monster slaying cost". He just finished the base Game System Monsters in this thread. Basically, he figured how much damage a monster does before a Hero kills it, then he assembled the data in a table. It's a work in progress, so if he can keep at it then we'll all have a lot of data to determine how the published Quests are valued, at least from the monster end. From there, you would know how many monsters you would want in your Quest, based off of how a similar published Quest was rated. Everything is raw right now, but with some applied thought a workable system seems possible.