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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8678686" data-attributes="member: 4937">To try to be generous to the guys that write published modules, a lot of the problems with published modules have to do with page count limitations.&nbsp; The economics of module publishing generally involve having to publish less than complete information about how to run the game, and generally they have to publish to the lowest common denominator - that least experience GM who hopefully stays on the happy path.&nbsp; Ironically though, it's usually that least experienced GM that is least able to deal with players getting off the happy path.I rarely find a published module that I don't have to rewrite or add notes to equal to about half the page count before I'm happy with it.&nbsp; For a good treatment of this problem, watch Seth Skorkowsky's CoC reviews on youtube (assuming you aren't spoiling yourself) where he talks about the work he does to make published modules playable.&nbsp; Sometimes he's fixing actual mistakes by the designer, but I think a lot of times he's fixing limitations of the page count by adding story details that in practice the module designer might well have added themselves if running the module, but couldn't fit into the 32 or 64 pages of text (or whatever) that they had to deal with.&nbsp; Still, whether it's just bad writing he's fixing or parts of the module left out of the published form, it's a very good primer in how to read and prepare a published module for play.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 8678686, member: 4937"] To try to be generous to the guys that write published modules, a lot of the problems with published modules have to do with page count limitations. The economics of module publishing generally involve having to publish less than complete information about how to run the game, and generally they have to publish to the lowest common denominator - that least experience GM who hopefully stays on the happy path. Ironically though, it's usually that least experienced GM that is least able to deal with players getting off the happy path. I rarely find a published module that I don't have to rewrite or add notes to equal to about half the page count before I'm happy with it. For a good treatment of this problem, watch Seth Skorkowsky's CoC reviews on youtube (assuming you aren't spoiling yourself) where he talks about the work he does to make published modules playable. Sometimes he's fixing actual mistakes by the designer, but I think a lot of times he's fixing limitations of the page count by adding story details that in practice the module designer might well have added themselves if running the module, but couldn't fit into the 32 or 64 pages of text (or whatever) that they had to deal with. Still, whether it's just bad writing he's fixing or parts of the module left out of the published form, it's a very good primer in how to read and prepare a published module for play. [/QUOTE]

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