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All of this trap and tell discussion is a tangent or red herring kicked off by @Lanefan. @overgeeked -the person who started this thread to get advice - created a separate thread to discuss traps/tells and has asked people to use it.

Tension with what I wrote? I don't quite follow.

I should have been more clear about how Rancourt's blog applies to this thread. I didn't introduce it to derail the thread with discussions about dungeon design philosophy. Look at the Auditing Guidelines near the start of the post. Those questions should be adapted (if necessary) into section...

To anyone with any remaining interest, I'd like to point you to Beau Rancourt's blog. He reviews scenarios and does it better than anyone else I've found. Here's his review of In The Shadow of Tower Silveraxe that also doubles as a rubric for his review methodology. No other reviewer I've found...

I didn't suggest that OP needs to create 15 Dolmenwood-like factions and ten Sandbox Settlements, so not a "ton of work ahead of time." With due respect to the OP, I don't think they're suited to low-prep play based on what they said initially. But I'm sympathetic to the idea of wanting to...

Look for the posts on this blog related to prep: Faction Turns, Sandbox Settlements, and Calendar Chronicles. They're all about setting up different systems and structures that undergird low-prep play. The author also posted about running his Dolmenwood game here and his GMing needs and yours...

"Book jacket teaser text" is a good analogy for what it is and how it reads. For better or worse, RPG scenario designers think of themselves as narrative designers rather than game designers. If the adjective is "narrative," you tend to think in literary terms and tropes. I go back and forth on...

Yeah, this is the right idea. (I'd still like to see more game-talk in it, but my memory of Trophy suggests there's not much to the rules.) I may have said earlier in the thread that scenario designers should share their design outlines with the GM. This sort of thing is what I mean. You can...

Great idea to put the DC of locked doors directly on the map. I wasn't confused at all because I read the map's key. ;) The Overview section of Abode reminded me of a metaphor that I haven't used before now. It would be great if sections like "Overview" were written like director's commentary...

A lot of what I've written in this thread relates to confidence rather than ease. I'd rather see GMs say that a scenario's presentation made them "confident to run." I find GMing easy when I'm confident.

I like this very much. That's great. You'd need to follow the same approach as comic book collectors then: one to play and one to put in a plastic bag. The metaphor wasn't that strong. The designer should be transparent about what they intended, but only so that GMs can feel confident when...

I thought of another potential idea. In games like 5e where DCs are included in the text, I might put a probability percentage next to it. For example, I might write: "It's a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) (60%) check to climb the cliff." The 60% figure would tell the GM how likely I, the...

Speaking of legacy board games, why don't RPG scenarios come with stickers? I can't think of a specific example, but tracking events during play with stickers might help in more complex adventures.

Maybe you use more pressure when you write, but I've never had a book physically disintegrate because I wrote a lot of notes in it. ;)

Yes, but the designer has to tell the GM what that is. If your design has a purpose, don't take the chance that the GM won't read between the lines. This is what I mean by the designer and GM being behind the curtain together. Maybe a sports metaphor works here? If a coach (scenario designer)...

I don't feel the same about marking up RPG rules texts. I'd be very reluctant to write in my corebooks or sourcebooks. Keep those pristine. Get the scenarios dirty. :)

Again, I sympathize, but people need to shift their perceptions on this. RPG scenarios should be thought of like tools, not heirlooms. They should be treated more like legacy board games, products that aren't produced cheaply just because players are going to mess with them.

I like your use of the symbols to signal the lighting of each room. Here's where I think a good example of repetition could be used. I'd put those symbols on the map for each room and keep them in the text. If you developed other environmental symbols, I'd put them in both places, too. Put the...

I would like to see scenario designers talk about, for example, why different dungeon rooms are designed and arranged the way they are. Full design notes for every room would be too much information. I could imagine a shorthand where a designer says, "This room's designed to challenge parties...

I sympathize, but I think the form would improve if we all got past that reluctance. I think people tend to confuse how RPG scenarios should be treated because scenarios are presented like books. A lot of folks don't like the idea of writing in their books. But if you call it a "workbook,"...