Dating back to B2 - Keep on the Borderlands, players have loved the combination of village and dungeon within a module. By creating a starting adventure module with a dual focus, the GM provides the players with a highly focused sandbox to explore. The adventure supplies opportunities that appeal to the different gameplay pillars of exploration, roleplay, combat, and shenanigans. The village portion of the module usually focusing on roleplay, allowing the characters to converse with the inhabitants and discover what is plaguing their village. The dungeon focuses on combat, with plenty of monsters to fight and traps to overcome. And exploration and shenanigans are split between the two sections of the adventure, though module authors inevitably focus more so on one of the two locations. I'm not going to go over what makes a great dungeon, as I feel that that topic has been covered by countless writers. Check out my post on Sailors on the Starless Sea if you want to hear how I reverse-engineered that adventure to create my own dungeon-focused starting adventure. I think that the qualities of a great village are somewhat under discussed in the current TTRPG milieu, but more so talking about how the village and the dungeon interact to make a truly memorable adventure.

First and foremost, the village + dungeon starting adventure should have the design goal of giving players impactful decisions to make. Which persons or factions to they align with? How do they investigate the dilemma? If they botch the investigation, do they react with violence or attempt a clever plan? These decisions should add up to a satisfactory conclusion. As a starting adventure, the module should inform the players about the world that their characters live in. And the decisions that they make should be fully realized with positive and negative consequences that are properly conveyed. This practice of showing the consequences tells the players that they have a real effect on the world and goes a long way to preventing murderhobo-ism.

Now, I'm focusing on low-level adventure modules that themselves focus on a dungeon-style adventure and a village. I'm not including what I'll call "micro-campaign" modules, such as Fever Swamp, Desert Moon of Karth, Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow, or Buried in the Bahamas. Those are all excellent starting adventure modules, but they have a wider scope. They present multiple dungeons that are usually smaller than when a singular dungeon is presented. They also tend to have multiple communities, though a single large community is usually there so that the PCs have an accessible place of safe harbor. This makes them much more sandboxey in nature and worthy of their own examination at a later time. So let's take a look at a few published adventure modules that fit in this paradigm to see what makes some good and some great.

Subscribe now

Great Dungeon, Decent Town

A lot of level-1 adventures that include towns will actually have very minimal descriptions of the town. That doesn't mean that the written material for the town is bad, but it simply wasn't the focus of the adventure. Let's look at The Laughing Idol of Lar-Shan and The Sinister Secrets of Saltmarsh. Each of these has a town that the PCs visit and interact with the population. However, the written material typically takes up around 10-20% of the overall module. You can get a good hour of fun from just the written material, but more would require work from the GM. In general, the written purpose of the town is primarily to supply a foundational reason for the PCs to go on their adventure, but not necessarily to supply roleplay opportunities such as faction-based intrigue. But both these adventures have great dungeons that feel like they have their own complete story, fun exploration, and combats that feel consequential.

Decent Dungeon, Great Town

I find that not as many well-remembered introductory adventures have great towns, but only decent dungeons. The only example I can truly think of is Against The Cult of the Reptile God. This adventure is about 28 pages long and only about 6 are dedicated to the dungeon! Similarly to the towns mentioned in the previous section, the dungeon is good but not quite great. The dungeon in this adventure makes great use of the environment, has some solid roleplay opportunities, and decent Jaquaysing. However, there's only a single entrance to the lower dungeon floor and some rooms where the populated monsters don't quite make sense. But the village portion is filled with intrigue, factions, and NPCs who proactively seek out their own goals. This town feels fully-realized and Douglas Niles’ writing is better written than most TSR adventures. It's a place where the players could spent several sessions during the adventure, but also provides the support needed in case they need the village to be a reoccurring place in an ongoing campaign. More recently, we can look at The Bloom to see how this adventure has been reverse-engineered and reimagined to become a truly new adventure.

Great Dungeon, Great Town

These are the truly great starting adventures where the total is greater than the sum of its parts. After their publication, other authors look at these modules to see how it was done so that they can reverse-engineer them to create their own starting adventures. The first great example I can think of is T1 - The Village of Hommlet. Though Gygax's writing is not perfect, the village gives context to the dungeon in a way that makes them both feel even more well-realized than either would feel individually. Interplay between the two locations has ongoing impact during and after the dungeon adventure is completed. The village has multiple distinct factions of different alignments so the PCs will always end up with allies and enemies. The dungeon itself is well Jaquaysed, has interesting combats and puzzles, good loot, and some opportunities for roleplay. I still recall when my players celebrated completing the dungeon by bringing the giant crawfish back to Hommlet so that the whole village could have a crawfish boil.

Another fine example of this category is Doom of the Savage Kings. This adventure starts off with a choice that affects their relationship with different factions for the rest of the adventure. The village is well-detailed without being overwritten. It includes an excellent rumor table and a variety of unique NPCs. And the whole adventure feels very much set in a world that feels fully realized. There is a primary dungeon and then a secondary dungeon that is entirely optional to the goal of "completing the adventure". This is an excellent adventure that modern game masters should look to when trying to understand the different elements that should be mixed together to create a great starting adventure.

What's your favorite village + dungeon adventure module? Or what module do you think do you love but didn't quite nail the both elements?

Leave a comment

What Else Is Going On?

Bloody Barbershops & Sanguine Scissors - Live on Kickstarter!

Next up from Dragon Peak Publishing! Bloody Barbershops & Sanguine Scissors is a zine full of magic items, spells, a new PC class, and a level-0 funnel for Dungeon Crawl Classics!

Deities and Demi-Bros & Deadly Dudez/Toxic Creeps

Deities and Demi-Bros will bring to life the gods of Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland. Deadly Dudez/Toxic Creeps is a stand-alone manual of monsters, baddies, creeps, and weirdos. 100+ more deadly things for your scumdog players to kill and loot their dead bodies.