i have a newfound respect for people who make system neutral adventures

tuypo1 · March 19, 2015, 09:47:23 PM

because holy shit this is hard sometimes you can get around the problem with in depth explanations of how hard something should be to do but it takes up a lot of space

and other times it just cant be done

im working on a small adventure on a pirate ship for the 1 page dungeon and my first instinct is always whats the dc on this climb, whats the reflex dc to avoid falling to your death from this trapdoor opening, whats the hardness and hp of the floor so the gm can determine if somebody will break through when they hit the floor.

and thats just some of the things.

to those who manage to do this successfully i salute you

Monster Manuel · March 20, 2015, 08:06:23 AM

I think you could probably get away with writing it in Fudge terms; so a trap might have "legendary" difficulty. Fudge is a great lingua franca for RPGs; I know that when I convert legendary to D&D 5e, it's going to be DC 26-30 or so.

tuypo1 · March 20, 2015, 08:10:10 AM

that could work

Necrozius · March 20, 2015, 10:21:23 AM

Good topic, actually. Does anyone have any tips for making system-agnostic dungeons?

I mean, most d20, D&D and OSR retroclones have similarities, like bestiaries. So, instead of writing out stats for new creatures, one could say "Gobbledgook monster (troll)".

Is that sort of thing acceptable or useful?

tuypo1 · March 20, 2015, 10:29:53 AM

i would think monsters are easy if your system does not have a monster just substitute something else in

Sacrosanct · March 20, 2015, 11:41:37 AM

I've actually just recently finished two 1 page system neutral adventures. It's not as hard as you might think. Just use common terms. For example, with traps and secret doors and such, I use terms like "moderate" or "hard"--terms that have already largely been defined in the particular version the players are playing in.

For example, a hard trap might give a -10% penalty in AD&D, while it's a DC 20 in 5e. I keep monster stats very vague, if at all, leaving it up to the particular edition. For bonuses, that's the only time I list two options. For example, a ring of necromancy protection would be listed as, "either a +3 bonus to saves, or save at advantage, depending on edition."

VengerSatanis · March 20, 2015, 03:48:06 PM

Quote from: tuypo1;821071because holy shit this is hard sometimes you can get around the problem with in depth explanations of how hard something should be to do but it takes up a lot of space

and other times it just cant be done

im working on a small adventure on a pirate ship for the 1 page dungeon and my first instinct is always whats the dc on this climb, whats the reflex dc to avoid falling to your death from this trapdoor opening, whats the hardness and hp of the floor so the gm can determine if somebody will break through when they hit the floor.

and thats just some of the things.

to those who manage to do this successfully i salute you

I either ignore those types of things like floor hardness or come up with my own simplified mechanics, such as: "There's a 2 in 6 chance that falling through the trapdoor will cause the victim to crack the floorboards." Something like that.

In my opinion, there's no harm in letting the Game Master decide what's possible and what rolls are required, though suggestions are usually helpful.

VS

Justin Alexander · March 20, 2015, 04:07:59 PM

Quote from: Necrozius;821119Good topic, actually. Does anyone have any tips for making system-agnostic dungeons?

There's only one thing to be said about making system-agnostic adventures: DON'T.

As Monster Manuel says, the easiest way to make these modules is to define an arbitrary scale that the GM can convert to their system of choice. But instead of inventing an arbitrary scale, it would probably be more efficient to use a scale that already exists. What's the easiest pre-existing scale to use? A specific game system.

Kashirigi · March 20, 2015, 05:21:01 PM

Quote from: Justin Alexander;821146There's only one thing to be said about making system-agnostic adventures: DON'T.

As Monster Manuel says, the easiest way to make these modules is to define an arbitrary scale that the GM can convert to their system of choice. But instead of inventing an arbitrary scale, it would probably be more efficient to use a scale that already exists. What's the easiest pre-existing scale to use? A specific game system.

Of course, the great flaw with this argument is that the end user would need to know two systems. The one in which the adventure is written, and the target system.

A system-agnostic system using natural language removes half of that burden.

RPGPundit · March 22, 2015, 03:51:06 AM

You could always half-way cheat by putting a sample set of difficulties based on a specific system.
If someone knows that doing x is supposed to be at an equivalent level to a DC15 check in the D20 system, they'll probably be able to at least roughly convert it to whatever system they're using from there.

Exploderwizard · March 23, 2015, 09:40:03 AM

Quote from: Sacrosanct;821122I've actually just recently finished two 1 page system neutral adventures. It's not as hard as you might think. Just use common terms. For example, with traps and secret doors and such, I use terms like "moderate" or "hard"--terms that have already largely been defined in the particular version the players are playing in.

For example, a hard trap might give a -10% penalty in AD&D, while it's a DC 20 in 5e. I keep monster stats very vague, if at all, leaving it up to the particular edition. For bonuses, that's the only time I list two options. For example, a ring of necromancy protection would be listed as, "either a +3 bonus to saves, or save at advantage, depending on edition."

This is a fairly decent way to go. I would add a rough percentage conversion for terms such as moderate, hard, etc. Chances expressed as a percentage for the typical adventurer in addition to being system neutral, also allows for easy scaling to various power levels within whatever system is chosen.

So if you say that the lock on this door is fairly hard and the typical adventurer with the proper skills has about a raw 30% chance to open it, the DCs or odds in number of systems for varying levels becomes easy to calculate.