OSR Modules with the best layout & presentation

[overgeeked]

I’m looking for OSR/NSR modules that are examples of the best of the best in regards to layout, design, information presentation, usefulness at the table, ease of reading, finding information, running the content from the module at the table, etc.

The actual game system doesn’t matter. The actual content of the module doesn’t matter. Just the presentation.

If you could show designers one module and have them mimic the presentation of information in the future, which would it be?

 

[Simon Miles]

We spend a lot of time over our layout and presentation. We are going for the look and feel of the classics but with more useful and playable environments. We've been criticised for being too wordy but that's our style, again, inspired by the classics. We also go for the boxed text for players which is out of fashion as it feels clumsy in play and some struggle to read aloud consistently (which is fine of course); the main reason we persist is because we have a lot of solo players buying our stuff; the player's intro to every location allows them to decide their actions before getting the low-down on the real problems. www.dunrominuniversitypress.co.uk - if you click through to the DriveThru pages all the scenarios have samples you can look at.

 

[Evaniel]

I'm not as well-versed in this as I'd like to be, but I'm deeply impressed with Necrotic Gnome's approach to layout and accessibility: DM facing maps with brief notes and room numbers that are colored to better stand out; doors designated (and color coded) on the map to let you know which are locked, trapped, or stuck; entries that use bullet lists to convey the most immediate information first; summaries of all the treasure in the module and where it can be located; sections of the map parked by the relevant entries to better show what's going on.

Love 'em.

 

[Scribe]

Man, I wish I had taken better notes. I was reading up on all the highly rated modules over the summer. I'll see if I can find my list.

 

[zakael19]

I'm not as well-versed in this as I'd like to be, but I'm deeply impressed with Necrotic Gnome's approach to layout and accessibility: DM facing maps with brief notes and room numbers that are colored to better stand out; doors designated (and color coded) on the map to let you know which are locked, trapped, or stuck; entries that use bullet lists to convey the most immediate information first; summaries of all the treasure in the module and where it can be located; sections of the map parked by the relevant entries to better show what's going on.

Love 'em.

Yup, gold standard IMO.

 

[kronovan]

I haven't bought a lot of prewritten adventure modules, but I bought Necrotic Gnomes's Incadescent Grottoes and Hole in the Oak, after having the pleasure of playing through them. I'd ditto the praise already given to them as a publisher that designs a good adventure, lays it out well and presents the info effectively. They take a minimalistic approach to delivering details, leaving a lot of white space per page. Personally, that suits me fine, because I usually only bullet point or write paragraphs with short sentences for the content in my homebrewed adventures.

I particularly like how NG's descriptive sentences for locations contain the lesser detals in plain text, with the more detailed in parantheses beside it. It allows you to quickly give a high level description of a scene, then a more detailed one after a pause, or as players query for more details. That said, as a player I've experienced a DM that didn't queue on that style and made a mess of describing scenes. For most DMs though, that format is going to be very easy to read and narrate.

The maps are well crafted too.

 

[kronovan]

We spend a lot of time over our layout and presentation. We are going for the look and feel of the classics but with more useful and playable environments. We've been criticised for being too wordy but that's our style, again, inspired by the classics. We also go for the boxed text for players which is out of fashion as it feels clumsy in play and some struggle to read aloud consistently (which is fine of course); the main reason we persist is because we have a lot of solo players buying our stuff; the player's intro to every location allows them to decide their actions before getting the low-down on the real problems. www.dunrominuniversitypress.co.uk - if you click through to the DriveThru pages all the scenarios have samples you can look at.

I just checked out the previews for your adventures The Warren and The Pit of Panzar. Those are nicely layed out and look to be good adventures. I can see what you mean by the boxed text - looks like you're using it for 2 purpose; as a means to highlight dialog/spoken text; as a way to provide location details, intros and choices in an solo adventure. Either way, as a formatting tool those work for me. I've seen the alternate approach of providing a shaded region with a different font tint for such highlights, which seems to be a formatting technique that's a bit more common.

TBH either way works equally for me. If I use a prewritten adventure, I read through and lift out what I deem the most pertinent text, then write it into bullet points or short paragraphs. My brain just seems to be wired in such a way that I never really develop an even flow while reading an adventure, let alone narrating it live to a group of players. Once read through and with my own talking bullets or short sentences, I can ad lib the gist of it. Layout can definitely help - the Necrotic Gnome adventures I mentioned in my other post contain descriptions that're short and concise enough for me to narrate live without any rewriting. It's not that they're taking a better approach, as much as they're approach is more akin to the bullet points and short paragraphs I create for my own adventures, or those I'd form from a prewritten.

[Edit] BTW - really like your maps in the Pit of Panzar preview.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Kelsey Dionne's The Secrets of Skyhorn Lighthouse is a great example.

...and apparently free?