Filler

A couple of things I want to establish right now.

1. Sometimes, a designer adds in some sort of mandatory dungeon or quest
that doesn't really have anything to do with the storyline and only exists
to make the scenario longer. This is called filler, and this is bad.

2. It's not THAT bad. Sure, try to avoid it, but it's not the biggest crime
you can commit by a long shot.

Bizarrely, it's short scenarios that tend to suffer most from filler. I'm
not sure why, but I'm guessing it's because they don't have enough story.

Probably the best example is the Blades of Exile scenario "Burned to the
Ground". The basic plot: A logging town is burned down by vengeful forest
spirits. Your party comes along to solve the problem. How do you do that?
Through one fairly interesting fight with the forest spirits.

But as he planned that, I'm sure it struck Wes Lewis (the designer) that
this would make for a VERY short and unsatisfying scenario. Nice concept,
but how to make it longer?

Well, why not throw in a goblin dungeon? And a werewolf subplot? And you
have to beat the goblins before you can deal with the werewolf, and you can
only take on the forest spirits after you've killed the werewolf - for no
reason at all.

Now, Burned to the Ground is better than it would have been if it had just
had the fight with the forest spirits, and it's still an okay scenario
despite being comprised almost entirely of filler - but it's not as good as
it could have been.

So, what do you do if you NEED to make your scenario longer and don't want
to choke it up with filler? I recommend making your villain active. Why have
him sit around waiting for your party to come and beat him up? Give him
something to do, and automatically your party will have something to do as a
reaction to that.

These forest spirits burn down the town before you even get there - and then
do nothing at all while you go through a bunch of hoops so you can find them
and fight them. Why can't they make the trees come alive and attack the
town, for example? After you've helped fend them off, you get told to go
back to Fort Ganrick and get help - but trees grow up and block the exit.
You're trapped.

And when you come face to face with the forest spirits, does it have to end
there? Perhaps you defeat them, and march off proudly to collect your
reward - only to find that the refugees are under attack again. It didn't
work. So you have to come to their rescue, and then find the bush that these
spirits draw their strength from and destroy it.

Now, that is a scenario that would be about the same length as Burned to the
Ground, but every mission is related to the central concept and to the main
plot. I think that would be a much better scenario.

But sometimes you need filler for reasons other than length. Sometimes -
rarely, but sometimes - you may find yourself needing it for dramatic
purposes. When I made Deadly Goblins, I wanted to spend time building up the
menace of the goblins before the party actually encountered them. To do
that, I had to make it so the first mission actually had very little to do
with the goblins themselves. So I had them go to a hermit wizard who could
find the goblins' hideout with his magic.

So, yeah, that's filler. I could have made it that everyone already knew
where the cave was, but I wanted there to be some expectation for when the
goblins actually come into it. But instead of just throwing up something to
delay the party for a while, I made sure it was the most entertaining piece
of filler I could make.

I made this old hermit have a paranoid fear of mushrooms. He has a bunch of
traps and barriers to stop any mushrooms from coming to kill him that you
have to get past. He has a mushroom torture chamber in the back, and if you
search his bookshelves you can find children's books. Because this part of
the scenario was connected somewhat loosely to the rest of the scenario, I
could do nearly anything I wanted with it. I don't think it's a coincidence
that this is the most enjoyable part of the scenario for many people.

So there you have it. If you need more length, create more story by giving
your villains actions, and if you absolutely need some sort of pause in the
story, make it fun and no one will notice.

- The Creator