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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5609051" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think the basic problem here, and the basic problem I have with a lot of modern adventure writing, is that realistically a module has to be either in a 32, 48 or 64 page format in order.   If you've tried to write in the frame work, you know how challenging it can be.  In order to have a price point that is close to the entertainment value the module is going to provide, there is very little room in such a format for wasted space (on that I think we can agree).  So the odd cooking habits probably just need to go, and the critical motives, methods, and mistakes have to be confined to a paragraph or two at most.  In my opinion, the biggest problem of modern modules is that they have too much fluff in them, and not enough crunch.  The author spends too much time trying to tell the DM how to run the module, which I think is a reactionary result from the fact early modules often told too little. I partially agree with you here.  A column and a half for a monster can be justified, if its intended to be an introductory module that is instructive to the DM.  Inexperienced DM's can't just read a stat block and figure out how to run the monster.  So Paizo does a good job of using a stat block to provide the sort of crunchy bits of information about running the encounter that a novice needs.  But yes, I agree that often times more space is given to stat blocks than is needed.  I prefer a 1e style condensed stat block, with 3-7 lines of text.Honestly, I'm not fond of Monte's organization.  In particular, I detest moving all the stat blocks to a key'd list at the end of the module.  I want as much information as necessary for running an encounter on that page, and if there is any space saving to be had it should be by referencing something in the core rule book.  For example, it's perfectly fine organization to write: 1st level orc warrior, and bold it.  I'll know what that means and where to look it up.   If its a 3rd level orc warrior, then I'd like a 5 line condensed stat block where if you write out 'Initiative', 'Armor Class' or 'Attack' you've failed.  Where it can get tricky is complex monsters with lots of special powers, especially if they are in an obscure book.   You can probably expect any DM to have the MM or at least access to the SRD.  It's a bit much to expect them to have MMIII or a third party book.  Then you need a fuller stat block.I continue to use organization inspired by Tracy Hickman's best work.  I think that's fairly definitive and has been unsurpassed. This I can partially agree with depending on what you mean.  I don't like adventures where critical plot elements depend on highly specific elements of a particular campaign world.  However, things like trenchcoats, tieflings, horror, psionics, and so forth are often little more than window dressing that has no real impact on the plot and which can be suitably and easily switched out for something that suits you better: cloaks, hobgoblins, pulp adventure, and necromancy if you like.   I did this with PiCat's otherwise excellent module, 'Of Sound Mind'.  It's a module about Psionics, but really nothing about the module depends on psionics and the whole thing can be dressed as black magic without harming the core of the module.  A few reworkings of the map, some changes in a few of the descriptions, and me and PiCat were on the same page - which is a pretty remarkable thing if you think about it.I think complaining of a trench coat is a very small thing.  Call it a great coat or a buff coat and you get back at least 300-400 years; the 16th century may well be appropriate to some settings.  Change it to a cloak, and you've gone back as far as you may like.I think you are mistaking the marketting for the substance.  Try as the author might to cast things as a edgy, simplistic, all shades of gray world, in the hands of a mature GM the story can I think gain more depth provided that the underlying conflicts provide actual oppurtunity for depth.   And besides which, I generally incorporate a module not to provide a source for the deep intellectual concepts of the campaign, but to provide a source for the specific locations of the action and, if you would, some of the stories action scenes.  When Kevin wrote, 'Of Sound Mind', I'm fairly certain one of the things on his mind wasn't whether or not the gods are worthy of worship, or to what extent the ends justify the means.  'Of Sound Mind' does not directly illuminate such questions, and you won't get that directly from the text.  Nonetheless, thats the sort of uses to which the interludes therein were being employed by me.   What you do get from 'Of Sound Mind' is a dungeon interlude with a challenges from the full spectrum of RPG challenges - combat, social, problem solving, investigation, dungeoneering, evasion etc. tied up in a package and exportable with a little work.   It has its problems, but I wouldn't put among them that it has flavors I don't like - although in fairness, it was probably the psionic flavors that kept the module from recieving the success it was due.</blockquote>

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