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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EpicureanDM" data-source="post: 9801106" data-attributes="member: 6996003">Folks might have a better idea of what’s possible if they looked for examples beyond the two-columns of narrative text model popularized back in the AD&D days and the two-columns-but-with-bullet-points-and-spot-map-inserts style of OSR scenarios.Sometimes the answer seems to lie in graphic design and sometimes there’s glimmers of something new there. When people aren’t reinventing the paroxysms of White Wolf’s Inphobia magazine, good ideas can be found. Clever approaches are sometimes buried in Mothership adventures, for example.This debate between whether adventures should be written to be read or written for use at the table obscures the middle option: write for both. Look at <a href="https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product/337531/the-last-barrow?language=enfilters" target="_blank">The Last Barrow by Aegis & Gorgon</a>. The front section of the scenario is written mostly to be read. It presents tons of lore and dungeon room descriptions alongside incredible art. The back section contains stats for three different RPGs. I don’t think the execution of the idea succeeds. There’s not enough information repeated in the stats section. Far too much setting fluff burdens the descriptive section. But you can see the glimmers of something new and good. GMs can read the front section between sessions to get inspired and internalize the vibe. During the session, they can have the rules-specific section in front of them to actually manage the game. Aegis & Gorgon also provide separate art PDFs that GMs can use to show the excellent illustrations to players.That’s really the problem that needs to be untangled by ambitious adventure designers: what pages of your text do you think a GM should have in front of them when actually running your adventure? Do those pages need to look the same as the pages the GM reads between sessions? Everyone complains about having to make notes to run published adventures. If you were going to do that work for them, what would it look like? Figure it out and give it to the GMs. Even if they don’t use it verbatim, you’ve given them a massive headstart on actually playing your adventure.<a href="https://sixsidedgnome.itch.io/the-house-under-the-moondial" target="_blank">The House Under The Moondial by Hexagnome</a> points the way here. It includes an entire Referee’s Toolkit intended to serve as GMing notes. This toolkit contains a single, landscape-formatted page that GMs can use to track an entire faction, including enough information to run battles. The scenario contains a detailed timeline of events. The toolkit provides a four-page, day-by-day tracking sheet for the GM. Not only does the timeline tracking sheet duplicate the information in the main scenario PDF (so that the GM doesn’t have to refer back to the main PDF), it contains spaces so that the GM can make notes about what occurred in play during each phase of the day. This toolkit literally wants to be the scratch paper that a GM can use to keep track of stuff during play. Print this out and write on it; that’s a novel idea.Information and tables presented in the main PDF that will see repeated use are duplicated in the toolkit, stuff like the hex crawl map and the random encounter tables. Part of the scenario envisages the PCs needing to convince the townsfolk to join together against the evil religious faction that is preying on the town. The toolkit contains a landscape-oriented page for tracking every NPC and the events that might have happened to them that could influence their votes. It includes space at the end for a GM’s notes next to each NPC.The ability to produce something like Moondial’s toolkit demonstrates to prospective GMs that the designer knows what’s important to running their scenario, knows where the GM might need help keeping things moving, and wants to help the GM succeed.D&D and now the OSR have cast long, deep shadows over how people think scenarios should be designed and presented. There are a few folks out there holding lanterns, but we’ve got to look closely to find them.</blockquote>

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