The Process of Converting a Classic Adventure Into An Original Adventure Reincarnated By Chris Doyle When interacting with the fans of the Original Adventures Reincarnated books, often the first question I get is, “How do you go about converting the module to fifth edition?” (This is usually followed up by, “How can a 32 page 1st edition module end up as a 300+ page homage?”, and “How come a pdf doesn’t come with the book?”). Today I’m going to discuss the design process I use when approaching a project such as this. The first step involves re-reading the source material (the original module) and any additional later edition conversions. And then I read it again, this time in pdf format, so I can print it out and scrawl notes and highlight important sections. Next, a search of any other articles or source material directly related to the module. For The Lost City, this included Chapter 10 (Zargon) of Elder Evils (2007), a 3.5 edition WotC supplement, Mystara: Return to the Lost City by Mike Mearls in a 2004 Dragon Magazine article, and Masque of Dreams, an adventure in Dungeon Magazine (2007) by B. Matthew Conklin III. During this process, I develop lots of notes and generating concepts for newly designed encounters. Next come the spreadsheets. You can never have too many. The first is an overall summary of the project. This is a tracking document, to guide the tasks of the conversion: assign natural chapters, identify additional sections to develop, assign due dates, and track word counts. The next spreadsheet is the Creature Log. This is a list of all the new 5E converted monster stats and where they came from. Some are new monsters in the original module, some are in other official WotC sourcebooks, and some are new designs, although these tend to be based off critters originally designed from the Basic or Expert rulebooks or 1st edition monster books. This tool is designed to make the editorial department’s (I shall call him, “Tim!”) life easier to track down where these creatures came from. Now I’m ready for converting monsters to 5E. This is the first actual writing task. I generally design most of them before I get to converting the original material, but a few extra always pop up. I’ll also try to develop any new...