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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 5182297" data-attributes="member: 20741">Keys to an Interesting Module?  1 . Solid Hook: this doesn’t have to be perfect, but I want something to hook me into reading it in the first few paragraphs. I may well end up ultimately using the adventure for something COMPLETELY different than the story the module is actually depicting. But there are virtually ZERO “classic” modules that don’t have a good hook – and there aren’t many adventures I bother to run “as the adventure” without one.  2. Solid Story: The story the module is trying to tell is the story your game session will be telling. If it’s nothing but a loosely connected hack and slash fest, that’s likely to be the only story the players will be experiencing too. Sometimes, that’s ok, but that’s a rare event. If a hack fest is all I need – then I’ll just pillage a module for a map and ignore the rest of it, frankly.     3. Memorable Villain: This is a exercise which is part artistic, part mechanical, and part fluff.  Getting those magic elements in place in the right proportion to make it all work is not easy. If it was easy – movies, TV, video games, comics and RPG products would all be a lot better than most of them are. I don’t pretend to know that secret formula - but I do know the end result when I see it.   4. Great Map: It’s all about the maps really. You could have everything else right – get the maps wrong – and I’m not going to like the module, no matter what. A great map, on its own, cannot turn a bad module into a good one  (though it CAN turn an otherwise bad module into a still useful product). The point to take away is that there are no great modules that do not have a great map. I’ve been trying to think of an exception to that rule and while there might be one – I can’t think of one.   In particular, a great map can rescue a module that is not very engagingly written, so as to encourage you as the DM to run it anyway. In that manner, you then discover how well the module actually plays and can then overlook the fact that the module is a dull read.    5. Strong Environmental theme: Sea adventures, Urban adventures, Ruins, Dungeon/Castle, Caves, Wilderness, Different Plane of existence. It doesn’t really matter what the theme is as long as the module uses the environment and theme to present the rest of the module's high points (Hook, Story, Villain, Map) as a coherent whole.   6. Engagingly Written: There are a few adventures which are actually very good modules in terms of how they play, which are not well written modules in terms of how they read.  Skip William’s Raiders of Galath’s Roost is a module that comes to mind as a good example of this. Great map, good design -- but a dull and dry read. I’m sure there are other and better examples too. Some of these modules are otherwise so exceptional that if you ever bother to actually play them, the quality of play is so good that you can overlook how the adventure reads. However, this tends to be the exception to the rule. Generally speaking, the module doesn’t just need to play well – it needs to read well, too. Otherwise, it's rare that I bother to ever run the thing to find out how it actually plays to discover how awesome it actually is.   The use of the passive voice, especially for exposition within the module, tends to be one of the main culprits in terms of writing style here.</blockquote>

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