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Unfortunately, Jester, that's the nature of the business and of all business. Whether you're building houses or writing articles, if someone's doing it better, they're going to get more work. Is it discouraging? Yes. Are you helpless to change the situation? No. The more us folk who would like to break into this market try, the better our chances get. Just remember that on the other end of all the work, when you finally make it, you're finally going to be able to say that you've earned a spot among the best.

Do you need to make an estimated word count for an adventure?

Because the hardest thing for me is to estimate word count - the only way I can do that is to write the whole article or adventure and just run the word count (which is what I did for the article submission I made last year), and to be honest I don't have the time to write speculative articles at the frequency that would appear to be required to have a hope of getting published.

And if you have to estimate word count - any suggestions on how to do that without writing the whole thing?

I myself have found that dungeon adventures are either just dungeon crawls or even less. One adventure I ran was simply climb the tower fight battle, then climb some more then fight the BBEG on top (which my players knocked it off and proceeded to destroy it with ranged attacks since it couldn't really get back up).

I have been playing and writing adventures (non-professional) for over 20 years. I've just recently released my first adventure on www.drivethrurpg.com. Without going into too much detail it is rich with imaginative plot threads, quests, skill challenges, NPCs, and a small town. It has only a single small dungeon crawl. Then it has an entire dungeon (a castle really) that has only a single combat encounter in it. With the point being that the party is trying to find evidence for a crime while not being detected. The entire adventure ends with a series of skill challenges where they either prove the villain is guilty or not guilty.

I have sent multiple submission to dungeon magazine and not received a single response. So I have to say that it looks, to me, like the people that choose the submissions really aren't looking for anything that isn't a dungeon crawl.

By the way if you are interested in looking at my adventure send me a PM with an email in it, I'll send you a complementary copy to look over (provided you'll give me some feedback).

I have made all kinds of adventures in my lifetime. From simple dungeon crawls to complex webs of intrigue and mystery. I personally think there is no excuse for more than one dungeon crawl per issue of dungeon magazine. If they need to lower the payment for non-published people in order to get more adventures in the magazine I'd be completely willing to go down as far as say 4 cents per word.

Seriously my last submission was an adventure that took place in a dungeon, but was anything but a dungeon crawl. It had to do with being flipped randomly back and forth between the prime material plane and the ethereal plane. There were some combats, but the main plot was to find someone that was lost in the dungeon and to do that they have to find out why the flip effect was happening. The BBEG wasn't even a BBEG, it was an ancient machine that a wizard created for a different purpose.

DanBackslide wrote:

I think one of the problems might be the current adventure format. Right now, you get all of the exposition in the first part, then a string of combat/challenge-focused segments. It makes it hard to keep a narrative going through the entire adventure.

I have a couple of the Goodman Games 4e adventures, and they don't follow the Dungeon format -- the encounters are threaded into the story material. They read better, which in turn makes the easier to run, because I'm not flipping pages around and losing the story thread.

I do rather like the encounter format, but I think it'd be good to plan those encounter blocks in with the rest of the adventure, rather than packing them together far away from the storyline.

I agree. The Delve format is really, really good for a map-driven dungeon crawl, but I think Wizards could benefit from creating another format - something equally as understandable and brand-identiy-promoting - to use for more story-driven endeavours.

Actually there is a simple formula for story driven content.

First come up with a plot that is story based

Example: Joran of the high council is plotting to discredit the other council members so he can gain power.

Now come up with a few sentences on how Joran would go about doing this.

Example: Joran would frame each of them in a different manner to make them appear to be guilty and get thrown off the council.

Now come up with those specific situations.

Example: Belezian the celibate monk is framed by being witnessed in a compromising situation with a woman, by a group of very reliable witnesses.

Now come up with ways the players can prove them wrong.

Example: The players can interview the witnesses and through a series of roleplaying and skill challenges they can find clues that lead them to believe a doppelganger was hired to impersonate Belezian.

Now come up with an encounter(s) for them to deal with the imposter.

Example: They track the doppelganger to the sewers below the city. They square off with its minions in order to capture it. In many of the fights the objective is not to kill all the mobs, but to get to the doppelganger before it escapes the area. (each time they get closer to nabbing it). Finally in the final fight they must subdue the doppelganger and bring it back for questioning.

Now tie all of the plot threads together in a final climax.

Example: The players show the evidence and Joran is arrested. The council is thankful and rewards the players with a single gold piece.