Adapting Adventures: Adapting Material Between Systems

One of my secret pleasures as a game master s adapting adventure material to my own purposes. I find a special joy in reworking material from another source, a puzzle to be worked out, whether it is just adjusting the plot to fit the campaign or adapting material from one game system to another.

This week I muse on what lessons I’ve learned from doing so.

Adapting Material Between Systems

Loom of Fate (Mage: the Ascension to Mage: the Awakening)

I was recommended this adventure by the Darker Days podcast. The scenario’s plot revolves around a young woman fated to save a city by sacrificing her humanity. It raises the question whether she has free will and leaves the final decision in the players’ hands. Cosmologically, it deals with a lot of the big elements of the game (the Weaver, the Wyld, the Technocracy) as the protagonists deal with growing chaos in San Francisco as an ancient force of the Wyld slips its bindings.

To adapt this, I needed to decide how close to those defining concepts I would stay. My game was based in Chicago. So earthquakes were replaced with the threat of fire,a resurgent spirit of the Great Chicago Fire. I let one pylon (or cabal) of the Seers of the Throne take on a technognostic element so as to approximate the cyberpunk feel of the Technocracy.

Some changes were easy. The fated orphan mage became an Acanthus as did the other fated figures. The Weaver elements became simple spirits of order and the city.

Some things required more work. The Men in Black did not fit well in my established Seer Hierarchy. I replaced them with the Men in Black from Summoners, positing that they are an Abyssal manifestation due to the new mage’s early spells. The same thing happened with the Marauders who became demon and fire worshiping vampires known as the Malpheans.

In each case I needed to decide what was important from the core story and what could be replaced with an element more appropriate to the game I was running. In some cases things dovetailed nicely (I had already plotted to have something Bound beneath the city). In others I nearly rewrote the character or scene entirely.

The Banewarrens (D&D 3e to Arcana Evolved)

This was my most ambitious adaptations as I translated large numbers of opponents between systems. A megadungeon meant to take PCs from 5th to 10th level, it includes many mid-level foes and leveled monsters. Even though both are d20 based, doing a complete translation was not simple. In addition to different spells (and magic system), classes, and races, it even has strange new armors and weapons for higher powered foes to use.

For example here are my notes for Navanna at some point through the game (sans spelling mistakes):

Navanna

Female Tiefling Unfettered 11-CR 11; HD 11d8+33 (94 hp), -4/-17; Initiative +7; Speed 40 ft.; AC 25 (+3 Dex, +6 armor, +2 shield, +4 dodge), +2 vs. one melee/ranged, +4 vs. attack of opportunity, +4 against missiles if move, expertise; Base At +11/+14; Attack longsword +16/+11/+6 melee (1d8+5/19-20) or longbow +15/+10/+5 ranged (1d8+3); SA sneak attack +2d6 (+3 At/dmg for sword), evasion, 1/day-veil of darkness (heightened); SQ darkvision 60 ft., air, fire, cold, electricity resistance 5; Save: F+6, R+10, W+5; Abilities: S16, D17, C17, I14, W14, C15.

Skills & Feats: Balance +5, Bluff +12, Climb +4, Diplomacy +8, Disguise +15, Escape Artist +11, Jump +5, Open Lock +10, Search +4, Sense Motive +10, Sleight of Hand +11, Sneak +13, Spot +7, Swim +9, Tumble +11. Defensive Move, Expertise, Fleet of Foot, Improved Initiative, Mobility, Speed Burst, Weapon Focus/Specialization (longsword).

Treasure: Cloak of charisma +2, headband of dimension door (1/day), +2 leather coat, +1 buckler, +1 longsword of subtlety, MW composite longbow (Str 16), 12 MW arrows, deathblade poison (2-DC 20 1d6 Con/2d6 Con), gold necklace (500 gp), emerald ring (1700 gp).

Potions of greater battle healing, ability boost (lesser), nondetection, glibness, invisibility (heightened), potion of lesser battle healing x3.

She was relatively easy to move over. Others like rangers and bards have poor fits in the other system.

There it helped that this was one of the first games I wrote entirely electronically (way back in 2004). Cut and paste templates for the stat blocks quickened my work also letting me grab specific elements of text from the adventure pdf (my preferred format for adventures) for my own notes.

Still it was a lot of work and I doubt I'll ever want to do that much again.

Next time we'll look at some instances of my plot modifications/synthesis and how that helped reduced the prep I needed to do. Even as I add more work to my to-do list.