OK, having just come back from GameholeCon this past weekend, I've got some ideas of things I like and dislike in Organized Play modules. Before I start, though, I have to point out that even the worst-designed module can be extremely fun if you've got a fun group of players with a prepared DM, and even the best can be a slog if the other players at the table are only there to pull off their 'l33t comboz' and bury their noses in their Kindle Fire tablets when it's not their turn in combat and the DM is a zombie from running 6 sessions in two days. Of course, these are factors outside of a module-writer's control, so I'll focus on things that should be under the control of the folks publishing the modules.
- Investigation
I was a fan of investigation modules back in LFR, especially in the Waterdeep region where they seemed to be really well-designed. However, the more I play modules that have investigative elements, the more I realize that they've become something of a formula -- put together three or four 'hubs' that, when the players are there, they can make skill checks that will provide them a clue they need to continue as well as a reason to move to one or more other hubs. Poorly-designed investigations require you to go to all the hubs before you can move on; better-designed modules might let you do something at a higher difficulty to skip a hub or to move right on to the rest of the module.
Problem is, to make the 'hub' concept work, it's got to be obvious that the players are in a hub, and the DM has to be willing to move the game along once the hub has exhausted its utility, otherwise you run the risk of the group burning an entire hour of adventuring time exhaustively investigating the opening scene (that isn't really even an investigation hub).
Many AL investigation modules basically boil down to 'you must make this number of successful skill checks before you can continue with the adventure'; I'd like to see fewer of those, with the remaining investigation adventures being investigations to provide alternate paths into the rest of the adventure or (as another poster already mentioned) provide minor boons or advantages for parties that are interested enough and skilled enough to uncover the clues in the first part of the adventure.
- In Media Res
I played DDEX 3-5 and enjoyed it, because it was a type of adventure you don't see much anymore -- the 'you're doing something and whoops, roll for initiative' module. I don't think I want to see every module turn into a roller-coaster from the first five minutes, but it would be cool if there was enough of those sorts of modules in the library so that any given convention could have one on its menu.
I really wasn't bothered by the chase because, despite the precautions taken by the designers (armored wagons with armored steeds and armored wheels and even armored harnesses!), our wizard derailed the chase with a well-placed Grease spell.
- Combats and timing
I'm not sure how effective timing a module by its combats is going to be in AL. Back in LFR, when your tables were between 4 and 6 players, there was a difference in how long a combat took with 4 PCs versus how long it took with 6, but the difference wasn't always huge.
However, I noticed a significant difference in the time it took to run 5E combats when I was sitting on a 4-person table than when I was sitting on a 7-person table, to the point where I'm not sure you can generally say 'let's have three 1-hour combats in this adventure'. If you time the combats so that they last an hour each for 7 players, then when scaled back for 3 or 4 they'll take far less time and leave a lot of open space, while if you time them for 3 or 4, then they'll scale up and take far more time for a table of 7. And if you scale for a table of 5, then the 7 player table will take too long and the 3 player table will be done too quickly.
The alternative would be to scale encounters by having numerous small planned encounters, but combine them to scale them up for a larger table. So you're navigating through some kobold caves, for instance, where a three-person table will have four small encounters, while a five-person table will face two encounters (with the kobolds from one encounter joining the other in each case), while the seven-player table will have just one massive encounter. This is easier to do in a site-based adventure, but it's not impossible to do in a more free-form travel adventure (a four-person table has time for a short rest before the orc envoy and his party arrives, while a seven-person table arrives just before the orc envoy does, who then joins the combat at the start of round 2, for example).
Oh, and as long as I'm mentioning it above...
- Short rests
Of the five different DMs I had over the weekend, most seemed reluctant to allow the party to take a short rest between combat encounters. This is a problem because some classes make more use of the short rest mechanic to recharge their abilities, and if they don't get those short rests, they seem less useful than classes that get all their power up-front but only recharge on a long rest (i.e.: after the adventure ends). It was hard to find people running warlocks, for instance, I suspect because without short rests, they seem like very limited spellcasters when compared to wizards and sorcerers.
AL adventures should be published with explicit guidance for DMs as to where to allow short rests to allow classes that rely on those short rests to get them. Ideally, this guidance should allow a typical AL party to gain the number of short rests expected in a typical adventuring day as described in the DMG.
There's my $0.02US.
--
Pauper
