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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 5513683" data-attributes="member: 29398">Having run some delve-format adventures, I'll add my voice to those saying the format is sadly lacking as it is now.There's hope for it though, after a fashion; with the following changes:1. One map per dungeon level.  Only one.  It covers the entire level.  It is physically separate from the adventure booklet, with each room/area clearly labelled and-or numbered.  All relevant information is on this map including (where required, which isn't always) starting locations for opponents.  These separate maps for the DM completely replace battlemaps, which often give away far too much information about areas the characters cannot have seen yet and are thus (almost always) useless.Now there is no need to waste space in the adventure book with a separate map for each area.  Pleasant side effect: it becomes much easier to see and remember how the different areas interact with each other when viewed on an overall map; it's easy to forget such when you're concentrating on a map of only one room.2. Reduce the size of the in-book monster stat blocks.  Come up with a shorthand form that gets the relevant info across without using the space-eating 4e format.  If needs must, put the 4e-format stat blocks on a physically separate-from-the-book sheet somewhere for easy reference.  That said, leave the basic monster info where it is.  The 3e format of having all the monster write-ups together at the beginning or end was a bloody pain.2a. Some delve adventures list treasure carried by monsters in the "treasure" block rather than with the monster write-up where it makes sense.  Fail.3. Now the stat blocks are reduced in size and the maps are gone, go for one page or less per room/area.  If this means using a smaller font and less white space, good.  In cases where there's lots going on in an area, expand to a page and a half or two pages.Look back at 1e modules for examples on how to save space.  Much less page-flipping is required when several areas are described on the same page!4. Take much more care with how the "boxed descriptions" are written.  Far too often they assume (wrongly) the PCs are entering from a particular direction and can see the whole area.5. Then, design bigger and-or more complex adventures.  Marauders of the Dune Sea, for example, consists of a single set-piece battle in town, a journey, another set-piece, a skill challenge, and a 7-room dungeon.  Some judicious trimming of wasted space would allow for a far more elaborate dungeon complex in the same page count; the foundations are certainly there.Lanefan</blockquote>

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