Preferred Format: Ret. to the Temple of Elem. Evil or Exped. to the Ruins of Greyhawk

[Jhaelen]

I voted for the new format because it's easier to use than the old one. It's still far from ideal, though. It simply doesn't work well for dynamic locations which I prefer for my adventures.

The only thing the delve format is ideal for is (unsurprisingly) playing a delve!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The H series format is very much to my liking, but I agree that it promotes railroading.

The format used in Dungeon is different in that they put the encounter blocks at the end. But I feel that this makes it harder to understand the scenes that are referring to the encounters.

There should be a short "blurb" telling what opponents will be found in the encounter and what their general goals or tactics might be. This will lead to some information repetition, but that is far preferable to page flipping or feeling unsure what will really happen in the described scene.

It's definitely very useful for use to have all encounter information on one (double) page. Monster stat blocks, maps and tactics must be referred to constantly, and page-flipping must be kept to a minimum.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I prefer the later Paizo Dungeon format, which is like the old-school format but has dungeon dressing early in the room description, and the stat blocks following the descriptive and DM text.

I've never gotten into the Delve format. Too much flipping.

 

[Dykstrav]

Between those two formats, I definitely prefer the older, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil type. The new format just has far too much detail in most cases--that level of detail is nice sometimes, but often, it clutters the pages with too much information. Alot of the encounters in Keep on the Shadowfell, for example, could have been handled in a short paragraph rather than a two-page spread.

Have you ever seen Rappan Athuk Reloaded? it's had about the best formatting for a dungeon that I've ever seen in a print product. The product includes three booklets: one just decribes the dungeon setting and adventure events, another contains nothing but the monster stat blocks, and the third contains the maps. It's amazingly easy to use and has far less page-flipping than anything else that I've ever seen.

 

[buzz]

I've used products in the original 3e format (City of the Spider Queen), the Paizo-era Dungeon format, the delve format (Eyes of the Lich Queen), and whatever the delve-derived new format is (Keep on the Shadowfell).

The current format used in KotS is, by far, the easiest, most DM-friendly of the bunch. I cannot thank WotC enough.

In contrast, the "paragraph of stats, everybody at the back of the module" format from CotSQ was, IMO, completely unusable. I dance a jig upon its grave.

 

[malraux]

I definitely prefer the H series style of delve format over the older ones like RttToEE. IME, the older style is pretty good if the DM wants to do a lot of prep, with dynamic monster locations, regrouping, etc. But doing that well takes a lot of work, as you can have no idea what combo of monsters the later ones of the night will involve, so you need to be read to run them all. The delve format, and I think the 4e presentations is significantly better than the ones at the end of 3e, works much better for lazy DMs. Its much easier to run an encounter with 30 seconds worth of reviewing.

 

[JeffB]

Both RttTOEE and Exp to GH have horrible formats- I don't like the early 3E one or the late 3.5 Format/what they currently use in Dungeon mag- to the point where I avoid purchasing such things (I don't care how good a module is if It's a PITA to run because of the format)

KOTS has the best new format I've seen in years LOVE IT LOVE IT! otherwise I'll take the "old school" format of GG products, original AD&D modules, C&C modules, etc.

 

[timbannock]

I think Red Hand of Doom did a better job with the downloadable PDF.

Absolutely QFT, yes, positively, you are the man for mentioning this, truer words were never spoken, yes.

I like tweaking my encounters, and having them in a format where I didn't have to rewrite the whole thing or start dumping ink all over my shiny D&D books was the way to go.

Admittedly, I've been *OK* with the 4e version of the tactical 1 page thingy, my experience with this has only been Kobold Hall, so I don't know how it really plays out in a larger module or for a larger in-game environment. I suspect it's a lot of formatting hassle that's probably driving up the workload and cost of the books, but not really necessary.

So my answer would be "some combo of Red Hand of Doom [downloadable stats all in one place] and 'old style' where everything (tactics and description info) are in the same place"

I guess I'm picky...

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

My ideal module format would appear in two booklets. One for the description text, maps, DM notes, and background material, another for statblocks. That way, I could get the benefit of the Paizo-era Dungeon modules while not cluttering up page after page with huge statblocks. Just arrange the statblocks into room-by-room organization, something like the H-series format.

I don't mind having two booklets open side-by-side on the table, or putting one on top of the other and switching them during combat. But I don't like in-line statblocks, nor do I like when combat scenarios are the dominant feature of the text.

And I agree, the H series is railroady.

 

[Betote]

In fact, what I generally do (and I suppose I'm not the only one) is using "old format" adventures while keeping by my side a deck of cards with the stats for the monsters/NPCs. It's not as much flipping as it's shuffling

I like "living" adventures, where the world reacts to the PCs (and even acts on its own), so what I find most useful is a description of the places and the general intentions and most common locations of the NPCs, while I keep their stats in cards so I can "place" them wherever I feel to.