Replay's Value: A Case for Replaying Adventures

Take a calm, pleasant moment to think about your most cherished piece of media: The magical movie, bewitching book, scary song, terrifying theater performance or vaguely spooky video game that has touched your soul in a way that nothing else really has. I bet that, like all people enamored by non-transient forms of entertainment, you've enjoyed that piece of media more than once. 

There's nothing unusual about wanting to revisit familiar favorites; it's fun to relive the adventure, to meet the characters again, to notice things you haven't before while looking forward to the parts you loved most. In a world already filled with more media than you could possibly enjoy in your humble human lifetime, and with a ceaseless discharge of ever more content barraging us from every possible outlet, it can be comforting - even therapeutic - to return to an old darling. 

So, how come we don't feel the same way about TTRPG adventures? 

No Going Back

Published adventures are an unusual beast: a pre-assembled chain of events for a hobby built on improvisation. Some of the groggier grogs and snootier snoots look down on using others' materials for your game (and I regret to say that I was once a member of one or more of those groups), but they're a valuable part of the hobby for GMs of all stripes. What's interesting to me is people's relationship with these pre-determined worlds.

For most adventures, people's experience consists of playing through them zero to one times; this is the accepted norm. Sometimes, a GM will find an adventure that they really click with, and it will become a reliable go-to that they run for multiple groups. And on occasion, more seasoned players joining new groups will find themselves playing in an adventure they've already been through. These two are also considered normal parts of the hobby. 

But something that I have seen very little regard for in the hobbysphere is a when the exact same group replays the exact same adventure. In fact, the rare times I did see it talked about, it encountered as much theatric confusion and derision as it did regular conversation. And this is fascinating.

"You can't possibly expect us to enjoy this daring escape a second time."

What does the collaborative storytelling experience lack that every other form of media doesn't? People revisit lengthy video games and movies, so it's not a matter of time commitment. Books are fairly static and it's relatively hard to "notice something new", so it's not the familiarity that's a problem. 

The only (slightly) convincing argument I've heard is that, since TTRPGs are about a continually developing narrative, the Groundhog Day approach is at odds with creating said narrative. I can accept this idea - but this is not the only way that we engage with the hobby. Many folks play games that consist of multiple disconnected one-shots, or games that focus on gameplay much more than narrative. If I can enjoy the same movie or board game with the same group of friends, why not the same adventure? 

So, at the moment, I see no problem with replaying adventures. Furthermore, I think the only reason people don't is because they haven't really considered it. So, next we must consider: 

 

Why would a group play an adventure more than once?

First and foremost, because you love the adventure! If you all enjoyed the places, people and drama of a storyline, and want to experience it again, why wouldn't you? Surely going through something good again is preferable to sitting through a less enjoyable sequel, just to satisfy some self-imposed standard of continuity.

Second, there's plain old fun to be had; specific kinds of fun that simply cannot happen on your first time through. You may create new characters to tackle the adventure's problems with, or go through with the same ones to keep it "canon". Beloved NPCs and moments can be experienced all over again and given more time to shine, while the less fondly regarded parts can be avoided or become appreciated with the new perspective. There is a delightful liberty in knowing what is to come. 

Finally, replaying an adventure is an opportunity to do things differently - or not! Maybe this time you'll stop the vizier from assassinating the king, or you might try to join the vizier in his doomed attempt to conquer the world. Perhaps you'll make some huge swerves and completely change how things end, or you'll simply enjoy the ride a second time through, making only minor tweaks.

A good story doesn't become boring just because you know how it ends, especially when you have so much control over said story; you merely replace the excitement of exploration and discovery with the excitement of comprehension and control. And what do players love more than being in control of their destiny?

"I can't believe how much easier it was to just blow the whole castle up."

Of course, some of you might be completely unconvinced by this premise, and rightfully decide that you'd rather not revisit the old. If that's the case, you probably won't care much for the rest of this post. Thanks for reading this far, you're a real sport.

As for rest of you, let's figure out...

What Makes an Adventure Replayable? 

A GM Who Loves The Idea

Without one of these, forget about it. If the person running the game doesn't share my enthusiasm for presenting players with the same world, showing them the same situations and giving them the same descriptions, the whole thing falls through. Faithfully recreating the original circumstances (within reason) is critical to making the new attempt fun.

If you aren't one of these, I just told you that you can stop reading. You don't owe me anything.

A Short Runtime

Perhaps this one is obvious, but ideally the adventure shouldn't be longer than a couple of sessions of play, for the sake of making people more willing to go through it again. Of course, I don't know your group - if you're all excited to do a second playthrough of a months-long saga, then I envy your commitment. 

Predictability

If you're pointedly revisiting something, it's because you liked it. The adventure should be set up so that if the players do the same things they did last time, things should end up pretty much the same way. This type of stability is very important to a story feeling "alive", and adds a lot to the joy of shaking things up.

 

Unpredictability

No, this is not an editing error; you want both! The big picture should move in the same direction, but having some devilled details will keep things fresh. 

While most differences will be reactive (as in, things will happen differently because the players acted differently), some parts of the adventure should be left up to chance- Some NPCs might act differently, certain locations might change, and not all truths will still be true. It's a fine line - you want to randomize things enough that they will keep players on their toes, but not so much that the adventure unrecognizable as what they enjoyed in the first place.

The more unexpected the twists, the better.

Things that players can miss

In addition to the already-seen being different, you want to give players the chance to encounter something new as well. The winning combination of "A lot to see" and "Not enough time to see it all" is an easy way to implement this, creating opportunity to enrich the players' understanding of the adventure when they discover new characters and information. Make sure that the missable material is interesting for the bigger picture, though - if all they missed is a few random bits of gear and an unimportant leprechaun, it's not a very good incentive to keep exploring.  

Moments that feel like they can end in many ways

Big dramatic set-pieces are often the highlights of a campaign. They're even better if players feel like they can influence them; who isn't tantalized by the idea of trying to prevent the upcoming death of a beloved character, or stopping the villain's scheme before it can even begin? 

Observe the key words in this subheading: Feel like. Some events are just set in stone in order to keep the plot going, and players can be at peace with that if you make this clear. 

It's a great experience to try and alter the path of history, and both success and failure can be satisfying, but setting this up requires a skilled touch: making your railroad look like a forking path is tricky, and your players will feel cheated if they do everything right and still fail. Or, if destiny isn't tightly enough screwed down, they might actually manage to change the outcome. 

So, either be very thorough in ensuring stability while maintaining the illusion, embrace the possibility of dramatic derailment of the plot, or just tell your players that the following event cannot be changed and allow them to enjoy the ride with this knowledge. 

No "Tunnels"

You want to avoid any sections that grab the party by the hand and drag them along for a prolonged period of time - Long boat rides, escaping a burning city or prison, tournament arcs, so on. Even if they're great set pieces and/or have room for variability, long stretches on a rail get tedious on repeat trips. If these segments are helplessly baked into the adventure, consider giving your players the option of just "fast-forwarding" through.

Multiple Endings, Maybe?

This one is tricky, as both possibilities are good for different reasons.

Having multiple endings provides the obvious advantage of giving players a "goal" to shoot for. Knowing that they can change the final outcome is a good incentive to explore new options and make different choices than before. It's a gamey idea, but it's an essentially appealing one.

On the other hand, having the single ending is liberating. Because players know the outcome and aren't under any pressure to change it, the game becomes more about enjoying the moment. This doesn't mean that they wouldn't try to change anything, it just means that the act of "changing" is contextualized as something done for personal enjoyment rather than any more tangible goal.   

In the end, which you end up going depends on what you want, and on your adventure. You should also consider talking to your players about whether changing the ending is possible - making it clear from the get-go means that everyone knows what the purpose of the game will be.

"Yeah, looks like a lot of padding up ahead."

An Ending You've Seen Before

 Few of the published adventures I've read seemed to even consider being played more than once by a given group. Any thought put into replay value was either to provide a bit of unpredictability and personalization for the GM, or to prevent someone's knowledge of spoilers ruining their experience. The "published adventure" wing of my dark library is somewhat sparse, however, so do tell me if you know of any adventures that would be great for repeated plays - especially if you made them yourself! 

In the end, I understand that this post can be a lot to take in. I imagine that a lot of groups haven't really considered the possibility of just casually getting together and revisiting an experience. Hopefully, this post will have inspired you to try it yourself, and given you a good idea of where to start. And if you are unsure, you can always replay reread the post.