4th ed's adventure layout: best thing it has brought to D&D?

[Silverblade The Ench]

An odd thought:
As a DM, I adore the way adventures are laid out in modules in 4th ed. The format is so SO much easier and fun to use than what's been before, it makes my job as DM a heck of a lot nicer

It's obviously based on concepts that came up in very late 3.5.
You have overview of the story, with monsters/items in one booklet.
In the other you have teh adventure "path", and set encounters on the path.
Each encounter has it's own 2 pages, with stats, area info, and crucially, a mini map showing where NPCs etc are.
Plus 4th ed makes a lot of use of special feaures of an area: dangerous runes, sticky mud etc.
So on two pages, I have everything I need to reference for an encounter! (bar of course PCs and RP issues). Wow, lovely and simple!

Now, anyone recall the old 1st ed modules? dense blocks of text....trying to DM that was a pain!! Really, you had to copy stuff out into a writing pad so you could unscramble it, soemtimes fix errors, and it often had little or no data on the area of the encounter: simple fights chop chop chop...no tactics built into it most of the time.
And unlike 4th ed, where you get a full creature stat block, only the creature's hit points and maybe magic treasure are noted.

having the creature's stats, ALL of them, there, makes it easy on the DM as he doens't have to switch between the MM etc all the damn time, sigh. Do player's realize how annoying that is? In 1st and 2nd ed, mosnters were far mroe regimented and unchanging, so emorizing them MMs was ok (especially for being able ot throw in of the cuff encounters, which I loved doing)
But, in later editiosn we're moving more towars custom creatures, an orcis no longer just a !HD humanoid, so you cannot memorize all the variants, and therefor, must have the MM or combat stats, all at hand.

2nd ed, thank goodness, improved the module layout a bit, more formatting so it wasn't solid blocks, etc, see "The Book of Lairs" for example. Still pretty basic though. ALso, better artwork, I really appreciate nice artwork on pages!

3rd ed, ah, now we're seeing some changes! And by late 3.5 we see the format of 4th ed style evolving, a huge step forward.
See the "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil" for 3rd ed, a good, easier to work with layout than original IMHO, but by 3.5, maps, critters and encounters on pages, a LOT better! See "Return to Undermountain".

And then, we have 4th ed layouts.

IMHO, having more space taken up by 2 page encounter layouts is very VERY necessary, never mind worthwhile. The DM is not a robot, so ease of use, with reference ot the map at hand, critters and area features on a set of 2facing pages is a world away from the painful 1st ed layout.

Amazing change over the decades, and one I don't know if folk appreciate enough? It's like, oh cars from 1970s until today, we may love the styling of the oldone sbut they suck for safety and performance.
Again, not an edition war, please! talking layouts of adventures

I know purists may shriek but if I was wanting to play/buy 1st and 2nd ed game modules, I'd like that kind of layout it's just much nicer for the DM.
If folk are putitng them out as pdfs, well, consideration on page size, and thus bookweight and space, is less an issue?

For the future, it has been, for DMs anyway, a MAJOR improvement.
So just want to say thanks to whoever worke don evovling the format over the years, and hope to see it continue or improve

 

[Windjammer]

I'm not going to replicate everything that's been discussed in a thread I started on that topic on another forum, but I'd recommend you to have a casual read if you're interested. I linked a pretty interesting R&D article by WotC on the delve format later on in discussion, and there's other stuff.

http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=13909

My main point there is that the delve format has led to a deterioration of story-arc-heavy and (non-player)character-intricate content in modules. With the possible exception of Demon Queen's Enclave, the evidence on that is dishearteningly incontestible, if hardly surprising.

Ok, so what about the layout? I've got nothing else to say about the format except this. In terms of layout, of visual presentation, it's grand. You don't just have all the information you need at your fingertips - you FIND it in a heart beat.

But what about the selection of information, of the actual content being selected? Here things turn detrimental. The delve format (as a type of visual presentation) has led to an immense reduction of visual illustrations in the module. This has been compensated by the illlustration booklet (or section) in H2 onwards, primarily because of uniformly negative customer feedback on that point (have a look at H1 - no illustration of a major NPC (Sir Keegan), how ridiculous is that? - or any of the earlier 3.5 stuff in the "Expedition to..." product line).

So where has all the page space gone which was previously (in 3E) dedicated to wonderful, helpful illustrations?

The answer to that question brings us to the next great sucker of the delve format .... cartography. When I ran Scourge of the Howling Horde (late in 3.5), I blew up the dungeon overview to A3, and then .... made the SINGLE visual contribution that is added by the individual room maps within the module: capital letters with circles around it, these indicating the monsters' starting position.

Yep gentlemen, that's the visual contribution of the delve format. Encircled capital letters. I suggest we treat it as the second coming of our lord, sliced bread. Because indicating a monster's starting position in a room of 3x3 squares is a matter of character life and death, and makes all the difference in the world as to how an encounter plays out at the table.

Is there a rationale for repeating the enlarged cartography of dungeon sections in the main body of the product? Sure, it gets you a parcelled out understanding of the entire dungeon. Is there another way to accomplish that? Sure, just look at 30 years of (A)D&D modules and you'll see aplenty. Revert to that, and use the new space on the page for information (visual or otherwise) which COMPLEMENTS the product in a useful way, as opposed to wasting it on material that painfully reminds me, page by page, of pointless filler.

Pointless filler? Oh, there's more to be had - the stat blocks. There's a great line by Rich Baker and James Jacobs in Red Hand of Doom as to why they organized the stat blocks the way they did (print them in a separate appendix): every repeated stat block sucks up product space that could be used to, you know, ENHANCE the product.

This point blends over into my final one. On top of everything else, the delve format has led to something else: each encounter is treated as a self-contained unit with next to no impact on the encounters surrounding it. (In H1, a monster stat block - that of the Kobold Dragonshield - was repeated on two non-facing successive pages, because, you know, A DM FLIPPING A SINGLE PAGE IS THE PITALL OF A PROPERLY RUN DUNGEON.) That's something else that you have, when the dungeon - both visually and in content- is no longer conceptualized as an integral, dynamic whole.

Gone are the good times when Mike Mearls would write articles in Dragon magazine on how to make things in one dungeon room interact with things happening next door.
Gone are the good times when Dan Noonan wrote a module in which these things were a HUGE part of the challenge in exploring a dungeon.
Actually, gone are the good times when Dan Noonan WROTE stuff for WotC.

Is the delve format good? It's visually pleasing - I mimic it in my own dungeon write-ups.

But does it carry conceptual persuasiveness? No, sir.

 

[Wormwood]

For the future, it has been, for DMs anyway, a MAJOR improvement.
So just want to say thanks to whoever worke don evovling the format over the years, and hope to see it continue or improve

Hear hear.

I'm a graphic designer, and layout is one of the most challenging aspects of my job. It is often difficult to organize information in such a fashion that it is both accessible and pleasant.

4e's design is a striking blend of utility and clarity. I can open nearly any spread of Dungeon and run a complete encounter without ever feeling overwhelmed. Even ad hoc/random encounters are easily accomplished by just flipping open the Monster Manual and running them directly from the book.

By allowing me to run the mechanical aspects of an encounter so easily, I find myself able to concentrate more on flavor, strategy, and my own enjoyment.

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

Windjammer,
Remember "The Books of Lairs"? I loved their ideas and artwork....delves, hm?
Anyone remember the old AD&D computer game "Dungeon Hack"? random dungeons...D&D ha salways been about such things.
Delves are great for use as "inclusions into any story a DM wants". Also not all gorups have time to play a nice coherent story arc (which woudl suck IMHO but tha'ts life)

And having things replicated is good because I suspect they know many DM's will slap their books down onto a copier and print it out, taking htos epages to their sessions, rather than the whole heavy book

Some folk liek deep involved RP (me and my mates do, plus heavydollosp of over the top mayhem and skullduggery, hehe)
Others just love dungeons crawls.
Each to his own So it's not an issue for me. Except the art (note below and other thread)
(And less said about WOTC the better, sigh )

Wormwood,
agreed!
my one gripe though is lack of artistic evocation in page layout in 4th ed.
Great for clarity, bad for evoking "D&D".
Personally I wish they'd add nice borders around the crisp text blocks, use evocative fonts for "fluff" and so on, so you have crisp precision for crunch, and beautiful fluff to evoke the atmosphere (hence my other post today).

 

[Wormwood]

my one gripe though is lack of artistic evocation in page layout in 4th ed.
Great for clarity, bad for evoking "D&D".
Personally I wish they'd add nice borders around the crisp text blocks, use evocative fonts for "fluff" and so on, so you have crisp precision for crunch, and beautiful fluff to evoke the atmosphere (hence my other post today).

Surprisingly, I actually agree with you on this.

I agree that the D&D style sheet could be a little more 'D&D evocative', but NEVER at the expense of clarity and ease of use.

But honestly, it'd take a better designer than me to come up with a happy medium in this case. Of course, that's not really saying much.

 

[Shemeska]

I truly, truly abhore the "delve" format. I loathed it during 3.5, and I still loathe it now.

I've found it to be a real disconnect when trying to follow any sort of story or suggested plot within a module. It's a testament to Wolfgang Baur's talent that I liked 'Expedition to the Demonweb Pits' as much as I did, in spite of the awkward, annoying presence of the "delve" format.

I really wish they'd dropped it after its first uses in 3.5 and not returned to it.

 

[Hussar]

Honestly, I wish they'd go even further. Why have maps with only the initial positions of bad guys? Add in all the things you need to know about the room ON the map. If a fight in room X brings reinforcements from room Y in Z rounds, put that on the map. If there are lighting issues, or any sort of terrain issues, put that on the map.

I should be able to look at the map and get a very good overview of the entire adventure without even opening the module. The location of every enemy, every trap, every terrain feature, and probably more information, should be on the DM's map.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I like the delve format and have no problems with info being repeated a couple of pages later. I do not find any problem with it making the encounters static or the bad guys running away and reinforceing other encounters and so forth.

 

[Windjammer]

As an example of enhanced visual content to a module, consider these fan-made visuals for Goodman Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics.

Goodman Games • View topic - None the Wiser's 3-D Wildsgate Excursion...

I pick them any day over bland repetitions of 2D visuals.

 

[Jack Colby]

The new style is a mixed blessing. Maybe if the adventures had the substance of the old Gygaxian era ones I could better compare, but they are just fluff nowadays (fun tactical fluff, but still fluff - and no, not in the fluff/crunch meaning of the word). Easy to read and run they may be, but I really have to wonder what the point is given the shallowness of today's "adventures", at least from WotC.