Not at all.So, in your mind, an RPG is akin to technical writing? No emotion whatsoever.
[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] is the person who introduced clarity as a desideratum. My point was that clarity is not really connected to literary quality, and pointed to instructions as an example.
If you agree that instructions don't typically display literary quality, then I think you should agree that - to the extent that clarity matters in RPGing - then that doesn't really bear on the issues raised in the OP.
The comparisons that I have made to the sort of communication that takes place in RPGing are other forms of more-or-less intimate communications where artifice and literary quality are not pre-eminent concerns, such as conversation and letters. These don't evoke emotions because of their literary qualities. They invoke emotions because they pertain to things the interlocutor cares about. In conversations and letters, the caring is about actual things that matter to the interlocutor. In RPGing, the caring is the result of the player wanting to play his/her PC - because that's the point of the game - and feeling the invitation to do so in the situation the GM presents.
[MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] describes this as immersion in the character and situation. I haven't myself used this term, because it brings baggage with it that I don't feel is helpful for my purposes. When I want a phrase to describe what is going on here, I tend to refer to "inhabitation" of the PC. But regardless of the particular terminology used, I hope the general notion is clear enough.
This is why I keep coming back to action declaration and protagonism.
Who disagrees with that? (Subject to presently irrelevant exceptions - I don't think a dungeon crawl like ToH or even B2 is really supposed to evoke emotions, any more than a typical wargame is - but I don't think either of us has that in mind as the paradigm we're talking about.)When writing a scenario for an RPG, evoking an emotional response very much IS the point.
The OP is about the manner whereby this evoking of emotions occurs.
What excites me about a module - as a GM - is not the quality of its writing but the power of the situation it presents. Four examples, each a module, or a bit of a module, that has excited my interest enough for me to use it (spoilers, but mostly for very old adventures):You definitely want modules* to excite interest in the GM.
* The Haunted Manse (?), a mini-module in Best of White Dwarf Scenarios vol 2, put together by Albie Fiore using monsters submitted by readers for the Fiend Factory column. I remember nothing about the prose, and the layout is typical of an early-80s magazine. But the idea of a son returned home with 12 dwarven retainers, who is in fact a shapechanged demon with 12 dream demon companions, has always caught my imagination.
* The evil priest in B2. B2 has terrible prose and layout. But the idea of an evil priest - whom I've always treated as part of the cult in the caves - who befriends the PCs and then tries to bring them into evil ways or sacrifice them to evil has always been compelling to me. It emphasises the whole tone of the Keep, that there are borderlands in which chaos can seep into and undermine ordinary civilised life.
* The old man in Death Frost Doom, who can tell the name of a dead person by touching them. I first read this module in its original form (before Zak S prettied it up). The layout is bare bones and the prose is nothing special. But this idea really grabbed me, and a version of this NPC was at the centre of one particular situation in my 4e game.
* Robin Laws Demon of the Red Grove scenario in his HeroWars Narrator's Book. I thought the ideas in this scenario - which begins with an apple grove that is not bearing fruit because it's haunted - were imaginative and engaging. I adapted it to Epic Tier 4e play, setting it in the Feywild.
* The evil priest in B2. B2 has terrible prose and layout. But the idea of an evil priest - whom I've always treated as part of the cult in the caves - who befriends the PCs and then tries to bring them into evil ways or sacrifice them to evil has always been compelling to me. It emphasises the whole tone of the Keep, that there are borderlands in which chaos can seep into and undermine ordinary civilised life.
* The old man in Death Frost Doom, who can tell the name of a dead person by touching them. I first read this module in its original form (before Zak S prettied it up). The layout is bare bones and the prose is nothing special. But this idea really grabbed me, and a version of this NPC was at the centre of one particular situation in my 4e game.
* Robin Laws Demon of the Red Grove scenario in his HeroWars Narrator's Book. I thought the ideas in this scenario - which begins with an apple grove that is not bearing fruit because it's haunted - were imaginative and engaging. I adapted it to Epic Tier 4e play, setting it in the Feywild.
It's a scenario's promise for play that excites me as a GM.
That's not remotely compelling. It has no situation at all.A perfect example of a dungeon that is pure content without any literary elements would be the dungeon I attached to this post. Would anyone say that this is what a module looks like?