Let me define "good module design" as meaning good module layout.

Seriously, I will straight up buy a d20 adventure if the map is laid out properly.  What will send my $5 pdf purchase straight into the recycle bin is a module with garish, multi-colored maps that are supposed to look old-timey and at the same time have photoshopped drop-shadows, orange lava, grey stone, etc.

Just two-tone, thanks.

Regardless, the map has to be whole.  Putting a tiny little postage-stamp sized chunk of the map on each page = no sale.

So to recap: they shouldn't try to make it look DAAAAAARK and MYSTERRRRRRRRRIOUS - if the content won't sell it to me, all the photoshopped brass fittings on the cover and cockroach-colored glossy pages inside sure won't.  It damn well better have readable maps.

Even if the content is meh, I can always salvage a thing for maps or mine for general ideas...but crap layouts get thrown in the trash.

Agreed. Some of the 4E adventures WotC did were pretty good, but the layout made my tear my beard out at times. It might have seemed a good idea "on paper" so to speak, but as it turns out, no. I find the older style much easier to use.

Hell yeah. I want actual maps of areas not just combat tactical maps. I don't care if they are color, B&W or whatever just give me the the whole map please.

Well, if we're gripping about maps, I've got one:  put a damn scale on each and every map!

Quote from: Drohem;562281Well, if we're gripping about maps, I've got one:  put a damn scale on each and every map!

Not needed on 4E maps. A square is a fucking square and the world is measured in them. :rotfl:

This is so true.

I stopped reading Dungeon Magazine when they went full-color and made it "impossible" to photocopy the maps.
The way I prepare adventures is to copy the maps and redo the text* to make it fit my campaign world. Only very very seldom I have used the original book or magazine the adventure came from at the actual game table.

For that reason alone the Pathfinder stuff is of no use to me (apart from other shortcomings their adventure paths have, IMO), and even much-lauded Ptolus is a failure in that aspect.

* Oh my, I just saw that there were questions in that old thread that I missed, and never answered...

Quote from: thedungeondelver;562073Let me define "good module design" as meaning good module layout.

Seriously, I will straight up buy a d20 adventure if the map is laid out properly.  What will send my $5 pdf purchase straight into the recycle bin is a module with garish, multi-colored maps that are supposed to look old-timey and at the same time have photoshopped drop-shadows, orange lava, grey stone, etc.

Just two-tone, thanks.

Regardless, the map has to be whole.  Putting a tiny little postage-stamp sized chunk of the map on each page = no sale.

So to recap: they shouldn't try to make it look DAAAAAARK and MYSTERRRRRRRRRIOUS - if the content won't sell it to me, all the photoshopped brass fittings on the cover and cockroach-colored glossy pages inside sure won't.  It damn well better have readable maps.

Even if the content is meh, I can always salvage a thing for maps or mine for general ideas...but crap layouts get thrown in the trash.

I agree 100% TDD. IMO everyone could take lessons from Harn's map designs. It's meant to be functional and convey useful information, not be fine art. If a map does not give me a plethora of useful info, IMO it was not worth the time to make, and the module is most likely not worth my time to read. Any module or setting I intend to buy, the map is the first thing I look at to decide how much, if any, money I'll be willing to spend on it.

My gripes for modules; things that make me rage:

Maps that make it difficult to see how one area connects to another.

Modules that are nothing but back to back combat encounters.

Monster stast not in the module.

Bizzarro monsters that don't really fit the setting location.

overly linear design

I'm not even looking at 5e until I hear about the brilliant modules coming out for it. They need to be at very least Necromancer Games level of good.

I strongly agree about plain, utilitarian maps and easy to read, concise text.

Adventure writers need to ignore the fact that they get paid by the word and cut the module's exposition down to a couple of clear paragraphs.

The wordcount used to  outline of what is exactly going on in a Pathfinder module, for example, is outrageous and makes my eyes glaze over.

Quote from: Planet Algol;562701Adventure writers need to ignore the fact that they get paid by the word and cut the module's exposition down to a couple of clear paragraphs.

Eight pages.

G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief is eight pages long.  It is included in every "best of" poll regarding D&D modules (note to cockmonglers who vote by mashing their 4essentials boxed set on the keyboard: your opinions don't matter, your game was thrown in the trash...to move on...).  G1 is eight pages long, is one of the best, and remains so for a reason.

What a good DM is supposed to do is take a module like that and use it as a framework for a good adventure.  What terrain is the steading in?  That's up to you.  What about the discussed hide-out for the players?  Is there a chance you'd have an encounter there?  What about supplies for the long term, if the party isn't raiding the steading for that kind of thing as well?  Are there nearby towns?  How about encounters per hex?  What's the backstory of the dwarven fighter imprisoned in the steading?  All that's up to the DM.  Burying that in flowery prose (paid by the word, as said) or worse still doing it all beforehand would wreck such a great module.

Adventure writers need to embrace that again.

I am flabbergasted by the notion that "oooh, people need modules completely fleshed out because they have to open them and run them right away with no prep because who has time for that everyone's lives are too busy" and many of the same people have these gargantuan campaign worlds they've tweaked out to the max or they've "fixed" xyz setting and modified it.

Do your damn homework, prep a module for play.

This is made difficult by poor module construction, as I mentioned in my original post.  Make things simple again, and you make module prep easy again.

Framework for the win.

When I gm a published module I use what I can in the module as written, but flesh things out as needed. After a few years of experience, I was able to do that on the fly.


Besides, don't 95% of modules have wacky stuff in them that will not fit your campaign?

Quote from: thedungeondelver;562739Burying that in flowery prose (paid by the word, as said) or worse still doing it all beforehand would wreck such a great module.

Adventure writers need to embrace that again.

I am flabbergasted by the notion that "oooh, people need modules completely fleshed out because they have to open them and run them right away with no prep because who has time for that everyone's lives are too busy"...

Actually, the reason most modern adventures are full of background and descriptive texts is most are never used at the table; adventures need to read well in order sell well. If adventures were only bought by those who needed one to one in a game, on a 1:1 buying to playing ratio, I doubt they would be a viable commercial product. Paizo is the most successful adventure publisher going - it's the foundation of their business - and they pretty much admit as many people buy them strictly for reading material as for game aids. That's just a business reality.

Quote from: Haffrung;563413Actually, the reason most modern adventures are full of background and descriptive texts is most are never used at the table; adventures need to read well in order sell well. If adventures were only bought by those who needed one to one in a game, on a 1:1 buying to playing ratio, I doubt they would be a viable commercial product. Paizo is the most successful adventure publisher going - it's the foundation of their business - and they pretty much admit as many people buy them strictly for reading material as for game aids. That's just a business reality.

Whoah! Have you got a link to quote where they say this? I am flabbergasted by that...I mean, I knew that some people buy RPG stuff as reading material, but that this number would be a significant proportion of sales? Had no idea.

EDIT: the more I think about this, the more I think it would explain many of the changes in module presentation over the years...

That's why I'm reading multiple paragraphs about a white dragon's issues with her mother in a Pathfinder adventure? Good grief.

Those bastards! They blew it all up!