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A long time ago in Dungeon magazine, there were icons used for the sections. Putting one line of similar symbols at the start, say immediately after the name, might be a small start. This would give a quick heads-up that there are such sections to be aware of, while not limiting the GM to any pre-specified positions, etc., for them.
So, to use Shaedenfreude's example...
A2. Library (EL 3)
{lighting condition icon} {creatures icon} {treasure icon}
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This room is a library. Leather bound tomes fill the oak shelves that line the room. 4 unlit lanterns hang from the ceiling.
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{lighting conditions icon} Lighting: This room is normally dark.
More stuff
{creatures icon} Creatures: More stuff
{treasure icon} Treasure: More stuff
I'll admit, I've only skimmed the thread, but one point I didn't find is that an effort needs to be made to ensure that the PDF prints legibly in B&W. Laser printing in B&W is a *lot* more economical than any color printing format. I've had some problems in the past, especially with read-this text, with insufficient contrast when printed in B&W.
It's been mentioned, but the tendency for layout finagling to cause important box-text to be well after the relevant encounter is infuriating. "Oh! Oops. That almost-TPK has a 4-party adjustment two pages later, after the whole-page map of the next part."
Thanks for considering the poor GMs.
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I'll admit, I've only skimmed the thread, but one point I didn't find is that an effort needs to be made to ensure that the PDF prints legibly in B&W. Laser printing in B&W is a *lot* more economical than any color printing format. I've had some problems in the past, especially with read-this text, with insufficient contrast when printed in B&W.
It's been mentioned, but the tendency for layout finagling to cause important box-text to be well after the relevant encounter is infuriating. "Oh! Oops. That almost-TPK has a 4-party adjustment two pages later, after the whole-page map of the next part."
These are actually issues we can address pretty immediately (going forward, though, not changing existing products)—I'll add them to the check list. And could you PM me examples of products with insufficient contrast in B&W? It'd be helpful to have some specific examples.
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Something I've toyed around with in layout ideas is quickly indicating (by the room name) what things a GM can encounter: NPCs, Creatures, Traps, Treasure, etc. Haven't found a good home for that idea yet, though.
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I come from a user interface pov.
Ok, fair enough.
Would a short block at the start of the room that went something like
This Room Obviously Contains:
3 Spiders in their webs
Alter with a skeleton on it holding an axe
So gold coins in the corner
This way it makes no statement about what kind of spiders they are, the 4th spider that is hiding among the webs, whether or not the skeleton will come to live, exactly what kind of axe it is, whether the axe is magical, whether or not there is any more treasure hiding in the webs, and how many gold coins are in the corner.
Plus you know that that the spiders crawled through a hole in the wall and met the PCs 3 rooms ago, so you can just cross them off the obvious list.
All this is followed by the room description that does not mention the above, so that the room description is still the same, even after the spiders leave for the previously mentioned fight.
Thoughts?
The Alexandrian has a room key layout I've found useful:
+1.
Also AAW does some pretty innovative layout for their online accessible adventures. Not sure how much/what of that would be portable to print though.
A great thread with lots of good ideas.
* At the very least, not separating stat blocks by page breaks (and definitely not on right-hand pages) or around (yes, the awesome) artwork would be a great leap forward.
* I remember the symbols, but remembering the symbols was sometime difficult, necessitating just the kind of page flipping we are here trying to avoid.
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I would think you'd be better off saying, "4 spiders (1 hidden - Perception DC 25)" in your stat block, rather than not mentioning the last spider at all.
I'd prefer
3 spidersHIDDEN: 1 spider, DC 25
To avoid goofing up like "There are 4 spiders, oh, wait, one of them is hidden."
Or:
Visible:
3 spiders in a gigantic web
Hidden/ invisible:
1 spider (DC 25, deep in the web=
2 rogues (DC 30, hiding in shadows)
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I usually make a copy of the map and as I read through the scenario I write the location name, occupants, and any other important information on each area. For creatures that move around I list them in the margin and use a unique symbol to mark the places they are likely to be encountered.
I can usually run the whole adventure from that map. I almost never read the 'official' location descriptions to the players. Rather, if the map says 'library' I say there are a lot of books on shelves and other details I remember from reading it. If there was anything special about the location which would be missed that way then I'd have a note on the map to remind me or so I can check the actual write-up. I use the map as a bookmark in the adventure writeup itself and switch over to that for monster stats, loot, and any other details... but the whole process of moving around and telling players what they see when they enter the area can just be run straight off the map.
I do this too. I import the colored map in a Word document, put it in Gray and then play around with the brightness and contrast option until the map is more or less black and white. Then I print it out and I add my notes to the map with a simple pen, marking the creatures in green so I can easily recognize them; skill checks, traps or treasure are in red. Descriptive text is in blue. It works really well and I've been doing it for years.
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The best bet might be to tinker on things that aren't for public release—sort of an R&D type environment. But that's not something we at Paizo currently have the time or resources to pull off at this point.
And that's fair enough. I just hope Paizo is taking notes when the formatting is getting IN THE WAY of helping a GM run an adventure, because that means the formatting doing the opposite of what it's intended to do.
As I noted above, I deeply understand and value importance of standardized formatting, and know it's better to have it than not.
At the same time I have seen circumstances where the standard formatting was "forced" on a (normally unusual in nature) module/adventure and it made running the adventure overcomplicated and frustrating, which is not what you want your adventure/module designs to be. These things are supposed to save GMs time, and if they fail at that fundamental purpose, something is wrong.
So for now, my preference is to stick with what we have. It's familiar and while it might not be organized best for every single play style... it's fun to read AND even if it doesn't match your particular play style, the familiarity of it makes it easier to reorganize as you need.
While this isn't the main point of the thread, I wouldn't assume all of your audience finds adventures/modules fun to read. . Personally, I have always found them difficult to follow, and can't think of a time I have ever had "fun" reading through one in the 25+ years I've been gaming -- over time I've figured out how they work and valued them for all that they provide, so I can and do make use of them. I have had fun of course running the module once I made sense of it, but simply reading them, worthwhile experience though it may be, has never merely entertaining. (Thinking HOW to organize one's thoughts to fit the formatting when constructing, say, even a single encounter is also a huge challenge for me -- and is probably a major factor as to why my title above ends at "top 8." :) ) I know a lot of folks who certainly DO find reading adventures actually fun, but stating that "reading these is fun" as universal fact is inaccurate and even possibly detrimental.
If you're presuming all your readers find it "fun" and/or are veteran gamers used to this format--and thus solely designing for that section of your audience--you may be alienating newer players unused to both the formatting and what a module is trying to accomplish (deeply structured adventures are common in fantasy RPGs but not always used or even encouraged in other RPG systems). Of course you can't please everyone, and I am NOT advocating for a "let's make this fun for DeathQuaker personally" mentality (I am well aware what is "fun" for me is very definitely not for everyone). But remembering your--very, very wide with mixed experiences--audience is important.
Again I understand trying to change things would be hard and that Paizo doesn't have the resources for that right now, but I hope the company remains open to opportunities for trying alternatives as they may occur. Thanks.
Creative Director
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I've always had fun reading adventures, and in situations where I don't have a regular game group to play with, reading adventures is the next best thing to actually playing the game for me. They've also always been a font of ideas as well. From what I've heard on feedback on this over the past 15 years or so, that's a pretty common thing. I do understand that not everyone has fun reading adventures, but in my experience it IS a pretty widespread phenomenon.
No one thing can be perfect for everyone, but when it works... it works, and we tend to stick with things that work and don't do big changes to them.
I am always looking for ways to improve adventures, and threads like this are enormously helpful and insightful.
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The best bet might be to tinker on things that aren't for public release—sort of an R&D type environment. But that's not something we at Paizo currently have the time or resources to pull off at this point.And that's fair enough.
Could this type of brainstorming be a paizocon event? it could be interesting..
A long time ago in Dungeon magazine, there were icons used for the sections.I had thought of that (but sadly, thought it was an original idea - there's nothing new under the sun).
The problem with icons is that they're potentially too brief to be helpful.
e.g. If you've got a sun for fully lit, a half sun for dim light and a black sun for darkness, what do you do to indicate that half the room is lit and half is in dim light?
For that reason, I prefer short descriptive text as a quick reference rather than an icon.
Of course, 90% of the time, they'll be fine.
That wasn't quite what I was getting at.
The summary line of icons has only those icons needed to indicate that there is related text following that needs attention. If there is no "monster" icon, then there should be no "Creatures" section, for example. It is purely there to give the GM a quick "these are the things you should know", and putting the same icon in the margin or at the start of each section may help more visually-cued readers to find them (or, in PDFs, even be bookmarked to them.. though that would be adding a lot to the layout tasks).
I would not expect different icons for varying degrees of light (though that would be nice), as I think to be effective as "heads-up" types of things, only a small number of icons should be used.
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Creative Director
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Could this type of brainstorming be a paizocon event? it could be interesting..The best bet might be to tinker on things that aren't for public release—sort of an R&D type environment. But that's not something we at Paizo currently have the time or resources to pull off at this point.And that's fair enough.
It certainly WOULD be interesting, but in my experience this type of brainstorming works best with smaller groups.
These are actually issues we can address pretty immediately (going forward, though, not changing existing products)—I'll add them to the check list. And could you PM me examples of products with insufficient contrast in B&W? It'd be helpful to have some specific examples.I'll admit, I've only skimmed the thread, but one point I didn't find is that an effort needs to be made to ensure that the PDF prints legibly in B&W. Laser printing in B&W is a *lot* more economical than any color printing format. I've had some problems in the past, especially with read-this text, with insufficient contrast when printed in B&W.
It's been mentioned, but the tendency for layout finagling to cause important box-text to be well after the relevant encounter is infuriating. "Oh! Oops. That almost-TPK has a 4-party adjustment two pages later, after the whole-page map of the next part."
I'm having trouble finding any by looking at soft-copies on my phone. I'll try to remember to dig through hard-copies at home. The biggest problem I can remember off-hand, is the red read-this text.
On a related note, the non-lite versions of hardcover books are a great example of the wrong thing to do. A complex, yellow and brown background that creeps under the text. It all comes across as ~50% in grey-scale and makes for horrible contrast.
For layout, "Scaling Encounter D1" in _The Golemworks Incident_. The encounter is page 17 and a little bit of 18. The scaling box is on 19, in the middle of D3, whose scaling block is on the 4th page of the encounter.
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This is a harder nut to crack than it sounds, honestly. WotC's "delve" format, which they started using toward the tail end of 3rd edition, was one attempt to make adventures easier to run, but it made them VERY difficult to write and quite unsatisfying to simply read.
Having gone through several "rework the format" attempts for adventures before, I'm pretty hesitant. Each time, what seemed like a good idea kinda ended up backfiring in the end, and we've always gone back to the "standard" set by early 3rd edition's Dungeon Magazine.
One of the things you mentioned in the first quote James was, I think, perhaps lost upon some of the people who read it and then posted here. DeathQuaker got it right. It's not a small point, so it bears repeating (if I may be so bold).
The OP and others mention a number of things that might make the adventure easier to use during play by a GM on the fly. These comments are not wrong. I am not suggesting that they are wrong. Most of those comments are right.
The problem is that those who posted them are approaching the utility of the adventure merely as a game product, the purpose of which is to aid a GM in running an adventure. That's actually not what a published adventure by Paizo is; or rather, it is that, but it is also something else.
A Paizo adventure (and most definitely an Adventure Path volume), is a published book whose "value in use" lies not only in the using, but in the reading of it. In fact, its principal value probably lies mainly in the reading, and not in the playing.
I have no idea what percentage of adventures Paizo sells that actually end up being run as part of a RPG session. I could pull a stat out of my colon, but it wouldn't be very reliable. I am not sure that anybody knows the answer to that question - in Paizo or outside of it.
Erik Mona has mentioned to me some years ago that Paizo had data on the number of Adventures that were actually run when Paizo published Dungeon. Erik told me it was actually quite low for the most part, and that most often, an adventure was never actually run by a GM at all.
Fast forward in time to Pathfinder RPG and those adventure and subscription lines and matters may have changed somewhat. But whatever the "real" answer is, it is still merely a subset of those who buy the adventure, read it (if they do even that) and put it on the shelf to be used "someday". Often (if not most of the time), "someday' never comes.
That's right, the adventure is purchased, sometimes read, and even less frequently than that, actually used in play as a RPG aid.
Consequently, Paizo must publish adventure material that is not only interesting to play, but is also interesting to read as a form of (non-fiction) gaming fiction, as it were.
It's not just important to their business, it's very important. You can't sacrifice that value-in-use for another purpose which you might prefer without consequences.
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I'd add that readability is pretty important for the adventures as game products as well - I know I'll probably never run any of the adventures Wizards put out with the delve format exactly because I never managed to read all the way through them, which makes it hard to tell if it'd be fun to run them.
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This is a harder nut to crack than it sounds, honestly. WotC's "delve" format, which they started using toward the tail end of 3rd edition, was one attempt to make adventures easier to run, but it made them VERY difficult to write and quite unsatisfying to simply read.One of the things you mentioned in the first quote James was, I think, perhaps lost upon some of the people who read it and then posted here. DeathQuaker got it right. It's not a small point, so it bears repeating (if I may be so bold).
I think this is spot on.
I would say, though, that reading is not like reading fiction. When a GM first looks through an adventure they read it in order to get a sense for the feel of it and how much enjoyment it would be if they ever got a chance to run it. The writing, therefore, has to have a narrative flow to it and be enjoyable to read, but when it comes down to running the thing the requirement is quite different.
During running, the adventure becomes both a handbook and a work of reference. Information has to be easily found and presented in a way that minimises GM "gotchas".
When I wrote Dance Macabre I tried to solve this problem by marking the GM "reference" stuff in bold but leaving the writing otherwise in narrative format. I'm not sure how well that worked. It looked a little bit like a patchwork quilt.
Later on I realised that the problem had been exacerbated with Dance Macabre because that adventure contained a lot more interrelated plot (i.e. complexity) than usual and this tended to obscure the reference information.
The answer might be, therefore, to present the narrative in such a way that the location descriptions are self-contained and easy to understand, especially since the beauty of adventures is that generally speaking when PCs are in location A the GM doesn't have to worry terribly much about what's going on in location B. If the writer can keep location descriptions relatively simple then the GM will quickly be able to readily read or go to the information that she needs in the heat of the moment. You still need the narrative / flavour / why-this-adventure-is-cool writing around there, but it has to be placed in such a way that it doesn't obscure the heat-of-the-moment stuff, while still delivering an enjoyable read.
Richard
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Just wanted to point out, that there are already scenarios, that include the creatures (sometimes) in the text.
Take the Penumbral Accords, for example. In the "Entry and Atrium" the read aloud box includes the skeleton.
If you don't want to add a lot of info above the read-aloud,just add something like "Hazards: slippery floor/ strong winds/ whatever (see below)" and "Creatures: 3 Large Fire Elementals (see below)" above the text.
This doesn't take up a lot of room, helps the GM to remember that room ("Ah, that was the room, with the hidden pit and the fire elementals, where I wanted to do this and that") and ensures that nothing is missed, w/o having to change too much.
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The Alexandrian blog does a lot of R&D/analysis on encounter design and adventure design and while not always (but sometimes) explicitly about presentation, you can still glean insight from them I think. Read the series on node based scenarios design starting here ( and going through several follow up posts, and also Don't prep plot prep situations.
Lou Agresta used some similar techniques in presenting a roadmap to the massive Razor Coast.
Also Monte Cook's Ptolus has several useful ideas to mine from presentation wise.
I think keeping the narrative flow intact for readability makes much sense. Presenting an adventure overview first. Maybe even a node map/flow chart. But making actual encounters and/or statblocks easier to read/access can be done in addition to readable text.
We (we being JBE) talked about it and came up with a modified adventure design format. Check it out at JonBrazer.com and please tell us what you think.
Pretty good. I'd like to see a fully fleshed-out version (and a comparison in terms of space/word usage to normal formats), and I think the editor needs to recognise that the trapped skeleton is actually lying on an "altar" (:p), but it's a really good step in the right direction.
I like the idea of skill checks for each encounter area being in its own area in bullet-point format. Especially perception.
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We (we being JBE) talked about it and came up with a modified adventure design format. Check it out at JonBrazer.com and please tell us what you think.
I like the order of information given(e.g., creatures, traps, room desc.), especially creatures being listed first (we can skip it easily if the creatures left). But personally I do not like that the sample puts things in "read aloud text" with a lot of wordy (space consuming) fluff I don't need. As GM, I don't want to be told what to say, I want to be told what is there, and for the developer to trust me to determine what to describe or not myself---especially if I've tweaked the adventure or my players have taking things off the rail--I just want to know what is there. If I want to read purple prose, I'll buy a novel, that's what they're for.
It also does not follow the for-good-reason standard that you don't describe monster actions, as you can't always presume what they do, again based on player actions (if the players saw spiderwebs at the edge of the cavern and just threw a fireball in there pre-emptively, the spiders don't "turn to look at you" because they are already dead. (But you DO need to know spiders are in there to see if the fireball killed them.)
Using your sample, I'd want something like this:
Monster:
Three spiders sit in the NE corner of the room. A fourth (Perception DC 12 to notice) hides on the ceiling. They will attack the first living creature they spot.((Personally if it were MY adventure, I'd put the statblocks in the back of the book with a page number here for where to find the stats. That way if the same monster is used later, I don't have to flip back to this encounter but one easily bookmarked spot.))
Room:
This is a 10x10 room covered in cobwebs. There is a crumbling stone altar near the western wall with a skeleton grasping an axe lying upon it (the skeleton is trapped). A small pile of coins sits in the SE corner (Perception DC 10 to see they are gold coins).Trap:
The skeleton arm is rigged to swing an axe when a creature stands adjacent to it.((Trap statblock--or at the end of the entry or back of book is fine))
Treasure:
21 gp.
I'd like all the skill checks in another color rather than bolded. This of course only is what I'd like and can't speak for everyone. This isn't necessarily the best either (not to say it isn't good or better) and for sandbox adventures a different, looser format might be better. Adventures are often more sophisticated than they used to be and a one-size-fits all approach may (note I said may) not be ideal.
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Sorry DeathQuaker, but read aloud text is definitely staying for many reasons with one in particular standing out: brain fart. No matter how prepared I am, no matter how many times that weekend I ran that adventure already, even if I wrote the adventure, I've had brain farts as to what makes a given room unique that reduced me to reading the read aloud text right off the page.
Its not a matter of trust. Its a matter of giving the GM all the help he or she can have to run that adventure and making it easy to rely upon. If a GM is going to modify the adventure, then the GM can do exactly what you are already talking about, just with the read aloud text.
As far as the monster actions in the read aloud text goes, that was me just writing something fast and not able to think of anything better on the fly.
You heard it here, folks. We have read-aloud text because designers have brain farts.
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You heard it here, folks. We have read-aloud text because designers have brain farts.
I'll admit to that. I'm willing to bet that I am not alone in having that happen.
It's okay, Dale, I can live with different GMs having different needs than myself. You've got to determine what works for the majority of your audience.
I don't buy a lot of modules anyway (though I buy more than I used to) so you're not trying to sell to me. (Of course I might buy more modules if they were formatted differently, but if the cost is losing other regular custom then it's not worth it.) Still you asked for feedback and that's what I've got.
I'm actually in the DeathQuaker camp - I don't believe in read-aloud text at all.
I would write something like this:
"Four giant spiders live in the room. The ceiling is covered in webs. At any one time one of the spiders is likely to be concealed by the webbing as they scutter about, requiring a Perception check DC 12 to spot, otherwise their presence is pretty obvious as they weave and re-weave their webbing in an attempt to construct the perfect fly-trap.
Not that it's done them much good - they haven't had a decent meal in a fortnight and are now more than likely to attack anything that comes in here even if it's wrapped in plate armour."
And so on.
The key thing about this approach is that it makes no assumptions about the circumstances under which the PCs will encounter this situation. PC action could result in them all clattering in here at the same time, or one of them creeping by himself, or perhaps they chase a goblin into this room, may be one that's carrying a torch. Alternatively the GM might decide that some of the spiders are going to go out hunting, or perhaps something else in the dungeon will come and hunt them.
With this sort of approach to writing, you're providing the GM with the information that she needs in order for her to run it in her own way. You're explaining why things are the way they are, rather than presenting a karaoke-style set of instructions. Clearly some people prefer the latter, perhaps most people, but this alternative does exist, and it's in fact how things used to be back in the very early days of D&D (I remember how shocked I was when read-aloud text first appeared in module A1).
Richard
Still you asked for feedback and that's what I've got.
Don't get me wrong, your feedback is good. We've been toying with ways of having skill checks stick out and making them a different color is something we will definitely try inhouse before showing it off publicly. Thank you.
I was just commenting on the flavor text, because cutting it was a discussion we did have amongst us at JBE but ultimately we decided to keep it for a number of reasons (tradition and running an adventure when you have little to no time to prepare were among the other reasons).
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I suspect most GMs have brain farts at one time or another.
I once hosted a Star Wars Saga game in which the Jedi PCs had to get an artifact away from hostile gangsters in a factory. The plan was for the artifact to fly from a dying gangster's hands, land on a conveyor belt, and lead everyone on a merry "running battle" through the hazardous factory.
Except I got so wrapped up in turns and rules minutiae, that I totally forgot to have the artifact fly from the dying gangster's hand and land on the conveyor belt. What we ended up with was a very traditional standing battle with the artifact (presumably) laying on the floor.
Total facepalm moment when it finally hit me at the end of the fight that I had actually forgotten to detail THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF MY OWN ENCOUNTER.
Happens to the best of us.
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To clarify something earlier, I don't mind if the text itself is descriptive (provides color and detail) and of course it needs to prioritize the GM needs to know and needs to share with the players... I just don't personally need it in the format of "you see X as you enter the room." I think the issue is I'd rather the text "speak" to me as the GM and not alternate between "speaking to the PCs" (I want complete control of that) and providing GM only detail. I think the constant perspective/POV shift is where I get lost (and MY brain farts).
I also grok that other people need that "you" POV to keep them on track.
If only all our brains farted in the same way!
Wait a minute...
Anyway.
Don't get me wrong, your feedback is good. We've been toying with ways of having skill checks stick out and making them a different color is something we will definitely try inhouse before showing it off publicly. Thank you.
Cool. While I like in theory listing all the checks separately (that someone else suggested upthread) I think that does add wordiness and space-taking issues. As bold text is used for other purposes, another color (or perhaps font--e.g., gothic if the running text is roman--if you're publishing in B&W only) is the easiest option I could think of.
Glad you and other 3PPs are thinking of this, and maybe that's the best/most obvious place such experimentation can take place.
many people will print in B&W
True that. Always a good reminder.
When I bother to prepare notes for adventures I'll often have sections like Traps, Monsters, and Treasure, each with the Perception DC needed to notice it. Having a brief but conspicuous encounter listing like "CR 8: 2xCR4 Bugbear Bully, 4xCR2 Bugbear (Perception DC 5)" in bold and red (or some other color) might be pretty helpful whether it is listed on its own line or embedded in other text.
I like boxed read aloud text. It is a "classic" tradition. I think it also offers a chance for adventure writers to show off their prose skills, and I guess that can create some of the reading enjoyment folks have mentioned. One proud moment I had recently as a DM was when a player mistook some descriptive text I'd written as part of a sidequest for published "box" text from the AP. I don't always bother to write descriptive text for my own adventures, but it can be kind of fun since it gives me a chance to think of some adjectives and add a little detail.
Fast forwarding straight to "There are 6 bugbears" and letting the PCs leap into action could kind of rob you of whatever unique and interesting description the room itself might have had. Yeah, there are 6 bugbears, but keep quiet for a moment while I read The Box. You might even learn something potentially fun or useful like there's a chandelier your PC could swing on, a stack of crates or a boiling cauldron you could knock over, etc. Sometimes I go light on the description and use custom maps with props to help flesh things out, but that's not always practical.
Speaking of custom maps, can you separate the layers in PDF maps Paizo sells so that you can print a map without the numbers for the map key, secret doors, etc? If so that would be pretty helpful for my buddy who uses a projector for maps as well as for me if I want to print them out or maybe turn an old TV into a gaming table.
Ah, now we're getting somewhere.
There's a huge difference between a room description and read-aloud text.
Consider the following:
This library is lined with cobweb-covered bookshelves. Light reveals three spiders. (Hiding near the ceiling is a fourth spider.) (DC 25 perception check). There is a heavy wooden desk to the south side of the room, a rotting leather chair, and an old oil lamp sits upon the desk. Behind the desk is a large wooden chest with a rusted lock. (DC 22 disable device to open)
"As the door swings open you see an old library, cobwebs covering the walls. Your light reveals three large spiders, which turn towards the door as it creaks open. Atop an old desk you can see an old oil lamp, and one of the spiders crouches upon a rotting leather chair. Behind the desk is a large wooden chest with a rusted lock."
There is a fourth spider hiding near the ceiling (DC 25 perception check). The disable device DC for the lock on the chest is 22.
The way I see it, as long as there are entire descriptive sentences that I can choose to read out verbatim, but with differentiated mechanical information, then I'm doing well. It then becomes a question of what order to present information about the room.
Fast forwarding straight to "There are 6 bugbears" and letting the PCs leap into action could kind of rob you of whatever unique and interesting description the room itself might have had.
That is one of the advantages of this format. As the GM, if you want to start with the room description, you can. It is separate from the monster description. Or if you know your players just won't listen to the room description at all, you can just skip that part. Its more modular in that sense.
Speaking of custom maps, can you separate the layers in PDF maps Paizo sells so that you can print a map without the numbers for the map key, secret doors, etc? If so that would be pretty helpful for my buddy who uses a projector for maps as well as for me if I want to print them out or maybe turn an old TV into a gaming table.
With Deadly Delves: To Claw the Surface, we started including maps with a grid (for projector-wielding GMs) as well as gridless maps (for VTT programs so you don't have to line up their grid to the map's grid) in a separate, included PDF for the GM. Adventures before that all had grids and some had room number flattened right on the image. Those that do not, we plan to go back as time permits and include the unnumbered images in a separate, included PDF.
Speaking of custom maps, can you separate the layers in PDF maps Paizo sells so that you can print a map without the numbers for the map key, secret doors, etc? If so that would be pretty helpful for my buddy who uses a projector for maps as well as for me if I want to print them out or maybe turn an old TV into a gaming table.
If you select/extract the images in the PDF, the maps do come away without the text. I use them all the time in MapTool. I believe the only way to get them with the text is to take a screenshot.
Paizo also makes Interactive Map Packs for some products, which, I believe, are meant for exactly the purpose you describe, though I've never used them.
@Dale - That sounds good. I'll check out your products when I get a chance.
@Joana - I'd want to be sure that the PDF version would work the way I want before buying it.
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I'm actually in the DeathQuaker camp - I don't believe in read-aloud text at all.
I would write something like this:
"Four giant spiders live in the room. The ceiling is covered in webs. At any one time one of the spiders is likely to be concealed by the webbing as they scutter about, requiring a Perception check DC 12 to spot, otherwise their presence is pretty obvious as they weave and re-weave their webbing in an attempt to construct the perfect fly-trap.
Not that it's done them much good - they haven't had a decent meal in a fortnight and are now more than likely to attack anything that comes in here even if it's wrapped in plate armour."
And so on.
The key thing about this approach is that it makes no assumptions about the circumstances under which the PCs will encounter this situation. PC action could result in them all clattering in here at the same time, or one of them creeping by himself, or perhaps they chase a goblin into this room, may be one that's carrying a torch. Alternatively the GM might decide that some of the spiders are going to go out hunting, or perhaps something else in the dungeon will come and hunt them.
With this sort of approach to writing, you're providing the GM with the information that she needs in order for her to run it in her own way. You're explaining why things are the way they are, rather than presenting a karaoke-style set of instructions. Clearly some people prefer the latter, perhaps most people, but this alternative does exist, and it's in fact how things used to be back in the very early days of D&D (I remember how shocked I was when read-aloud text first appeared in module A1).
Richard
+1. I like the telling a story, with some fun background facts, but not assuming any particular action on the side of the PC's. This makes the adventure fun to read, can easily serve/be adapted as read aloud text in an emergency and does not prep plot but sets a up a situation. (See Alexandrian blog post: don't prep plot)
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Something on the scale of Paizo's APs or the 64-page modules, you really do have to prep plot if you want any and railroad the PCs to some extent. That's what you're selling. A prepared adventure. If you want to have prewritten stuff for the PCs to encounter, you've basically got to decide where they're going to go and roughly when.
I tried the plotless adventure once with Encounters and Maps: Cave of Kobolds. Emphasis on the word "once." I had a whole line planned (2 more of them are all but done and have never been released).
The review entitled "Avoid" with the line describing it as "some thing I could knock up my self in Herolab given a few minutes," and that it took "five minutes to write" killed that idea for me. Sales were beyond terrible, and it shattered any confidence I had in myself for even trying it. It was years before I tried a proper adventure.
It taught me that people pay for plot more than anything else.
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Seconded, or thirded, or whatever. As a GM, I sometimes get stuck in a plot line rut, and being able farm published material for ideas is vital. But I don't just want ideas, I want that idea developed, and some of the work done for me.
I absolutely LOVE detailed side-quest style stuff: an entirely self-contained micro-plot that I can throw into an existing adventure.
I think it's a matter of degree.
Although I think it is perfectly possible to produce good plot-less adventures (all of the MERP and Rolemaster stuff tends to be along those lines, for example), my preference is to have a plot going on which draws the players into it without it being so fine grained that it assumes room by room what the PCs are going to be doing.
In fact this naturally falls out of the way that I design adventures, which is first of all to construct a situation and plot which has no reference to the PCs at all, and then to add in the plot hooks and elements which draw the PCs into the story.
That spider example I gave earlier is a case in point. There is "plot" there, even in such a small description, because there are creatures living there and interacting with the world around them, and you can imagine a broader environment like a dungeon or a temple or something where things are going on and progressing in a PC-less plot. Then you hook the PCs in with some motivation which will eventually take them into that particular room to explore the altar, collect spider eggs, or what have you, and presumably put them in conflict with the plot's protagonists. If the spider's room has two doors into it, however, you don't have to assume which one the PCs will use. You don't have to assume room by room where they'll go, what they'll kill, what they'll befriend, how long they'll take over it, and so on. The plot holds the setting together and integrates it with the PCs without being any more prescriptive than that.
Like I said before, though, that's just one approach to Pathfinder and it may not be the most popular, but it's the one that I prefer as a GM and therefore the one that I prefer to write.
Richard