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So looking at different examples of what is easy to use, I can't help but wonder if the fundamental problem is simply different parts of the process are unequally difficult for different people based on a combination of natural talents and desired aesthetics. The people who like the bullet...

Well, yes. I don't have a problem with the idea of a zero-prep dungeon. I just think that a lot of the zero-prep dungeons don't feel particularly more zero prep than classic two column formats with condensed stat blocks, small, boxed text and so forth. I don't feel like bullet points...

I would love to get to that but my sessions are often really unpredictable, and invariably I have PCs or NPCs at places I don't expect them to be. Then I have to go look up the encounter location or the front/faction where that NPC is documented, or scroll to the encounter key for somewhere I...

Speaking of my experience, absolutely not. If they'd only been far enough along the Dunning-Kruger curve to recognize that if they wanted to run with little to "no prep" to buy any sort of prepared adventure or campaign to run, they wouldn't have been terrible. Rather, they invariably think...

I admit to liking that as a short note better than I like the stuff written with multiple fonts and parenthetical asides and out of natural language order. However, I also don't feel the advantage of your note is enough to make it worth the effort. My effort would probably be in adding more...

And that's my point. That is a You Thing. You have a way easier time with that. I can read very fast, taking in all thread paragraphs I wrote at a glance. But the staccato formatting you prefer causes my brain to halt and stutter with each format change and parenthetical, forcing me to...

So the bold stuff just interrupts my thoughts. Full sentences are there but they are written unnatural ways that just interfere with understanding. Too many parenthetical asides. There is no need for the bold headers. Reformatted as something like: An arched passaged worked into the stone...

One thing reading this thread presses home for me is just how vastly different people's tastes, preferences and needs are as GMs. I have looked at a lot of the examples that are raised as being made well and presenting information well, and I loathe them with all of my being. I feel insulted...

That would drive me bonkers. It hurts my head trying to read that just in the short example you've provided it.

Not what you got, though I recognize I'm different. So typically, I find when I have to prep a module it's not condensing or taking notes that I need to do, but writing out all the important bits that are left out of the module. When I look at the sort of presentations that are "easy to run"...

I don't think age has anything to do with play, and in particular if we just confine ourselves to Caillois's theory about play: It is free, or not obligatory. It is separate (from the routine of life), occupying its own time and space. It is uncertain, so that the results of play cannot be...

Starting from the main floor, you have 5 stairs down and 7 stairs up. Although the PC's don't know it, they probably want to find Strahd's main crypt on Map 12, which means they need to go down. How to accomplish that is far from obvious. Getting up is easy. But the paths down are...

I find them beautiful and elegant. I can't think of another map that better gives me the DM the shape of something, especially something as complex as the Ravenloft castle. It's a 3D map of a 3D structure and its disorientation comes not from the documentation of the map, but from the extreme...

I really hate that. It appears often enough in published works I have to rewrite it. And I will also say that boxed text is awesome when you can generally expect from what entrance players will enter a room, but becomes increasingly useless as the number of possible entrances increases and the...

I3 is also really good, though I do think I6 is the more sophisticated of the two. I think the big problem with I3 is it's not intended as standalone and I4 and I5 while ambitious are very flawed. If you mention monsters first, you're going to have people immediately declaring actions (on the...

So there is a lot to unpack here. First, I don't think people usually do a lot of roleplay when making a sand castle. The thing I think drives kids to make sandcastles is mostly the aesthetic of Expression - the pleasure of making or shaping something to your own design. "Look what I made."...

That's intuitive but also probably based off 40 years of doing this wrong. Because my experience with players is that they only tend to remember the last few things you said. So you want to keep it brief, because they'll forget. But you also can't keep it too brief because then you'll have...

Agreed. But it's also precisely how you describe a room that you try to present the most obvious features last. Why? First, because that's the part the players will remember the most. And secondly, if you describe the most important parts first, the players will be so distracted by that part...

There is a map. A really good one, actually. And I would say the only confusing thing here at all is K61 isn't actually marked on the map, possibly by mistake or possibly just because the 30x10 corridor is small or both. There isn't a trap at K31. All that is at K31 is the machinery that...

It's.... fine. It's a great teaching aid for novice GMs, and I would have very much enjoyed it at say 16 for a lot of reasons. The concept of a 5 room self-contained dungeon was something I very much needed at the time. And yes, statblocks on the same page as the encounter they go with is...