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Message: <blockquote data-quote="bryce0lynch" data-source="post: 8061492" data-attributes="member: 6688546">I strongly disagree, even though I'm quite late to the party.A review, based on play, is not an actual review. They tend to be more of a session report. My group did this. My DM did things this way. We had fun. Nice, maybe some tips, but not a review. Is your DM any good? Did Bob loose his job today? Mary had a hard drive over? DM unprepared? A million different things influence a session and one of those is the actual published adventure. This is why I am dismissive of rebuttals that say things like "well, WE had fun." I'm glad you did. But that generally happened IN SPITE of the adventure, not BECaUSE of it.Because the purpose of an adventure is not to have fun. The purpose of an adventure is to help the DM create fun for you at the table. It's a tool for the DM and only then, by consequence, of interest to the players. Thinking about it more, recall that the primary objection to most people to adventures is that they are hard to run, take too much prep time, etc. These adventures (which are the vast VAST majority of adventures) are failing at job 1: being a tool for the DM at the table. Thus, the primary objection being "pain to run" then one of the focuses should be "easy to run." Having staked out this position we can talk about what makes something easy for the DM to run, what makes it possible for the adventure to facilitate the DM creating "fun" (whatever that means to you.) These elements then almost certainly DO NOT come up in actual play. Do you have to spend 12 hours preping the adventure? You know that by reading it. Does the adventure excite you, the DM, to run it? Does the writing style lends itself to being able to reference easily during play? Can you locate information easily? Are the descriptions evocative, causing the environment to spring in to your brain where you mind fills in the rest? That's good evocative writing if it does. Is it an interactive adventure? Does it contain the possibilities for more than just stabbing things? Don't get me wrong, I lvoe stabbing things, but are there people to talk to, plot against, conspire, buttons to play with, riddles, and do on that bring those core elements to the game?All of that, what I would assert is THE MOST IMPORTANT parts of an adventure, are easily discernible through a read-through. And those elements, if present, will be a home run of an adventure that has done every thing possible to allow the DM to create a fun game night for the players with little prep on their part. Session reports are their own thing and not to be trusted as a review. First and foremost: can the DM use it easily at the table.</blockquote>

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