delericho
Legend
When I first read about the Delve format on Wizards.com, I thought it was a very good idea, and would add a lot to the utility of adventure modules.
However, having just read through "Scourge of the Howling Horde", I'm afraid I've had to revise that opinion rather sharply downward. Although the Delve format does make setting up an encounter a little easier, it carries with it two significant weaknesses.
The first is that the Delve format ties things down a little too much, IMO, making it harder for the DM to see how to customise an encounter to reflect the actions of the PCs. Essentially, once the PCs have made their initial foray into the dungeon, and the goblins reorganise their defenses against the PCs, all the extra information provided is rendered worthless, and actually serves to confuse the issue for a DM later running the described encounter.
However, the bigger problem is of space taken up. Comparing "Scourge of the Howling Horde" with "The Sunless Citadel" (both 32-page 1st level adventures), the comparison becomes particularly apparent. The newer module cannot contain more than about a third of the adventure present in the older one. True, a lot of the extra space taken up is due to all the notes provided for newbie DMs, and that has value, but a lot of it is taken up by the Delve format sidebars, and especially the insistence on using a full page or even two pages for each encounter. In my opinion, this loss of space is simply not worth the (fairly small) benefits of the Delve format in published adventure modules.
However, having just read through "Scourge of the Howling Horde", I'm afraid I've had to revise that opinion rather sharply downward. Although the Delve format does make setting up an encounter a little easier, it carries with it two significant weaknesses.
The first is that the Delve format ties things down a little too much, IMO, making it harder for the DM to see how to customise an encounter to reflect the actions of the PCs. Essentially, once the PCs have made their initial foray into the dungeon, and the goblins reorganise their defenses against the PCs, all the extra information provided is rendered worthless, and actually serves to confuse the issue for a DM later running the described encounter.
However, the bigger problem is of space taken up. Comparing "Scourge of the Howling Horde" with "The Sunless Citadel" (both 32-page 1st level adventures), the comparison becomes particularly apparent. The newer module cannot contain more than about a third of the adventure present in the older one. True, a lot of the extra space taken up is due to all the notes provided for newbie DMs, and that has value, but a lot of it is taken up by the Delve format sidebars, and especially the insistence on using a full page or even two pages for each encounter. In my opinion, this loss of space is simply not worth the (fairly small) benefits of the Delve format in published adventure modules.
