Selecting a Module for RPGs

Selecting a Module for RPGs
Hi my name is Barry Osser from North Coast Role Playing and I’m here today to talk to you about module selection. So as a game master what you want to do is you want to be in a position to start thinking about what it is that you want to play. Again pick a setting and at this point we’re going to assume that you’ve chose Dungeons and Dragons because you’re listening to me blather about it. So you’ve chosen to do a fantasy setting, now you’re in a position to have to figure out how am I going to set it forth and generally in our terminology for this industry what you’re going to do is get a module. Now a module is a collection of written pages, generally that somebody else has done for you and those pages are going to tell you everything you need to know about the basics of game mastering. Something I’m going to give you as a hint, if you choose the game master, you better be quick on your toes because I can pretty much guarantee you at some point in the first night that you sit down and play, you’re going to tell the characters there’s only a left turn ahead and they’re going to say what if we went right? So plan on this. As far as modules go, you’re going to head into your local game store or local book store and you’re going to ask to see their modules and you’re going to be looking for a collection of different things. Initially you’re going to want to decide what level you’re running; now a beginning game master is probably going to want to run a beginning level dungeon and the levels go from 1 up. so you’re going to look for a level 1 dungeon, this is going to be the simplest one, this is going to have the least amount of work generally for you as the game master and also as the players. The creatures are not going to be that tough; they’re going to give your characters a chance to get use to this persona that they’re taking on. So you’re going to look for level first, whatever level you choose and then second you’re going to look for the number of players, you don’t want to buy a module that says good for players when you’ve got 22 people sitting at your table. So those are the two main things that you’re going to look for as far as the numbers and information on the outside of the module. So now you’ve got the basic numbers down, you know how many players you’re going to have, what level the modules going to be, there’s another piece that you have to consider and that is the type of module and this, you’ve got to be thinking about the type of players you’ve got. There are two basic types you’re going to have puzzle solving and you’re going to have hack and slash. Hack and slash tends to be the things you see in the movies, these characters go out and beat up everything whether it needs to be beaten up or not and the puzzle solving tends to be a collection of stuff. I’m going to go into the archives and tell you about G.I. Joe. You know how in G.I. Joe they had to find this piece, this piece, this piece, put them together – get them before Covert got them and throw the things out there. That piece would be built and fix everything in the world, that’s kind of what you’re doing in puzzle solving.