Modules: Made to Read vs Made to Run?

[Micah Sweet]

No, but it has started to feel a little hostile, with a pretty explicit correlation between "not wanting to read a lot of text" and "lazy GM".

The two sides do seem pretty diametrically opposed. I know some have suggested otherwise, but personally I find it hard to believe that, for any given product, it doesn't have to be one way or the other. And if what one side wants actively harms what the other wants, conflict is likely.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The two sides do seem pretty diametrically opposed. I know some have suggested otherwise, but personally I find it hard to believe that, for any given product, it doesn't have to be one way or the other. And if what one side wants actively harms what the other wants, conflict is likely.

We really need 2 versions of each.

Times 3 media: print, PDF, and HTML.

Also, I prefer my adventures in Old English. kthnxbai.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

Yeah. That's what set me off initially. I'm generally more familiar with OSR-style easy-to-run modules and in a fit of nostalgia started looking over some of my Call of Cthulhu and Trail of Cthulhu modules. They are the epitome of walls of text you have to dig and dig and dig through to get anything useful.

When many of them could just as easily be presented as:

[X] dabbled in something they should not have and unleashed [Y] into the world. You have to follow the clues to piece together what happened and prevent [Y] from destroying [Z].

Now here's a list of far too many NPCs, a few locations with bad maps, and the most convoluted and largely irrelevant backstory we could come up with.

Hmmm. This is very far rom my experience of CoC modules. There are a lot of CoC source books that have this style of presentation, but the ones that are actually modules have seemed pretty good to me, almost always starting with a "ways in which the investigators get involved" section, then usually a set of scenes and how they are linked together with an end scene (or scenes) described which clearly state what the players must do to attain different goals.

If you are looking for a more plotted scenario where there is a single clear path through the module, then there are some modules like that, but it's not really the investigative style. It is fair to say that investigative modules do need more prep and this more GM time investment than the standard linear plot modules; a mystery has to make sense when looked at afterwards, whereas heists, gang wars and other standard RPG tropes don't as much.

For me the most annoying modules are investigative modules written for people playing a non-investigative system. When I had to run such a module in LG or LFR, I knew I'd have to spend time reworking it or trying to make the investigation actually meaningful, as opposed to making random skill checks until the time ran out and a goon attacks who gives you the info to lead you to the boss and final fight.

 

[xoth.publishing]

You might like adventures that Joseph R. Lewis writes. He takes great care to be succinct but have some flavour text. He puts a lot of thought into layout, writing and design.

Nice, thanks for the tip!

I googled his name, and the first thing that pops up is a new adventure called "Lovely Jade Necropolis", inspired by the writings of Clark Ashton Smith. I will definitely have to check this out!

 

[LordEntrails]

What the hobby (industry) needs is digital publishing software for adventures, so that authors don't need to know how it works.

It exists. It's called Content Management Software or sometimes Typesetting software. And one of the big players actually started over by Mongoose in Swindon, UK. It's now called Arbortext and owned by PTC. There are others.

Nobody in the RPG sphere uses CMS because it's hard to teach creatives new tricks or to get them to comply with standards. Teaching them a new tools where they enter the words and then the visual aspects are controlled by someone else via style sheets and similar goes against their grain. Or, on a not so pessimistic reason it's because the CMS apps target technical writing as their market and not creative writing. Because large companies that do technical products are willing to spend the large licensing costs and setup costs involved, and RPG companies are not.

But a CMS system can easily take the same content and format it for a printed book, a web page, ebook format or multiple VTT formats. And a change in one place updates all the downstream formats.

But not cheaply. When I was involved a decade ago with Arbortext, a typical setup started at about $250,000 USD with annual license costs of $10k/user. No idea what it is now, but you can see its substantial.

I will go to great lengths to convert material out of HTML into a form that doesn't require an internet connection and/or a subscription.

HTML does not require an internet connection. It is simple a digital format designed for web browser use. Web browsers can open local or web served html files (pages).

Pdfs do exactly what I want: allow for a personally owned electronic library as close as possible to my physical one while providing the huge advantage of digital storage.

Yea? But then again so do all the eBook formats like ePub and with none of the fixed format problems of a PDF.

I get that you like PDFs, probably because they are easy to come buy and its what you know. But they are a horrible digital format for doing anything but preserving a printed page format.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It exists. It's called Content Management Software or sometimes Typesetting software. And one of the big players actually started over by Mongoose in Swindon, UK. It's now called Arbortext and owned by PTC. There are others.

Nobody in the RPG sphere uses CMS because it's hard to teach creatives new tricks or to get them to comply with standards. Teaching them a new tools where they enter the words and then the visual aspects are controlled by someone else via style sheets and similar goes against their grain. Or, on a not so pessimistic reason it's because the CMS apps target technical writing as their market and not creative writing. Because large companies that do technical products are willing to spend the large licensing costs and setup costs involved, and RPG companies are not.

But a CMS system can easily take the same content and format it for a printed book, a web page, ebook format or multiple VTT formats. And a change in one place updates all the downstream formats.

But not cheaply. When I was involved a decade ago with Arbortext, a typical setup started at about $250,000 USD with annual license costs of $10k/user. No idea what it is now, but you can see its substantial.

HTML does not require an internet connection. It is simple a digital format designed for web browser use. Web browsers can open local or web served html files (pages).

Yea? But then again so do all the eBook formats like ePub and with none of the fixed format problems of a PDF.

I get that you like PDFs, probably because they are easy to come buy and its what you know. But they are a horrible digital format for doing anything but preserving a printed page format.

You are welcome to feel that way, but that doesn't mean what you think is beyond debate. Like I said, pdfs do exactly what I want for digital media in a practical way that actually works with existing systems and network owners. I can't see your opinion as anything more than personal taste.

 

[LordEntrails]

You are welcome to feel that way, but that doesn't mean what you think is beyond debate. Like I said, pdfs do exactly what I want for digital media in a practical way that actually works with existing systems and network owners. I can't see your opinion as anything more than personal taste.

Ok... I didn't mean to make you feel defensive, if I'm reading your response correctly. Just trying to point out that their are other, arguably better, solutions that get you exactly what you stated you wanted. Happy Gaming.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ok... I didn't mean to make you feel defensive, if I'm reading your response correctly. Just trying to point out that their are other, arguably better, solutions that get you exactly what you stated you wanted. Happy Gaming.

Like what? I want a personally owned format that does require or usually lead to requiring an i termet connection or a subscription. I prefer it to resemble the print version it is designed represent and/replace. And I want it to be accessible on my PC or Kindle and easy to store and access digitally. Pdf does all those things. I feel you are using metrics I don't care as much about to "prove" your opinion is better.

 

[Lanefan]

No, but it has started to feel a little hostile, with a pretty explicit correlation between "not wanting to read a lot of text" and "lazy GM".

Hey, I'll happily cop to being lazy, in that if there's two ways of doing the same thing to the same result I'll almost always choose the one that requires the least effort on my part.

In other words, I'm fine with people making this correlation and don't see it as a negative.