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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 5182228" data-attributes="member: 1210">Makes:Cool locations. The crashed spaceship in S3, the Tomb of Horrors, the Desert of Desolation, the Trollhaunt Warrens and their Feywild mirror- these are cool places, with cool names. They each have a theme, they have internal logic and consistency. Contrast with some of the early "random monster in every room" dungeons that are just an excuse for a zoo, with no thought given to an ecology.Empty space. Look at the 4e modules- every room is full. Compare to the original Ravenloft- lots of areas to explore, with clues, tricks and just plain empty space. Not every room needs an encounter. Ravenloft is one of the great classics for a host of reasons, but the creepy exploration of the castle is one of them.Bad guys with agendas, that aren't there just to die on the swords of the pcs. Check out Red Hand of Doom, Return to the Tomb of Horrors or Dead Gods. The bad guys have an advancing agenda. The assumption is that they will succeed unless stopped. Contrast with those modules which seem set up with no consequences for failure. Breaks:Lack of creativity. I've done a simple dungeon delve a bazillion times before; a module that focuses on a dungeon better be creative. Lack of creativity, overreliance on cliches, etc. kill my appreciation of a module. Pyramid of Shadows, I'm looking at you. Contrast with Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan. Contrived crap. I'm talking stuff like the mirror being excavated in Keep on the Shadowfell- it doesn't have any effect on the game one way or another, yet it pretends to. Blah. Stupid.Boring BBEGs. I'm calling out the 4e module line again here, at least the H modules. Once you hit Trollhaunt Warrens you start to get much better adventures, with better villains that you have a chance to interact with before the showdown. You care about stopping them.Poor organization and editing. Delve format, with your information on one locale split across two booklets or two sections of a book, I'm looking at you. I used to think it was ok, and it is ok, but it's only ok. Having everything in one spot is good and with talented writing and editing can be great. Editing- things like rooms that are referenced by different numbers than they are on the map; tactical references to powers and abilities that the bad guy doesn't have (hi there Kalarel!), things like that.Here's a final pet peeve. This, again, is aimed squarely at the 4e WotC modules. I hate the overreliance on dungeon tiles. An adventure writer should make good maps, tiles be damned, but I've seen a lot of things that imply that making your maps from the published tile sets improves your chance of selling an adventure to WotC. While I understand the profit motive here and don't condemn it, I feel that it's contrary to the goal of making the best maps for your adventure.</blockquote>

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