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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GuardianLurker" data-source="post: 2245807" data-attributes="member: 786">AnnoyancesThis one is literally universal - I have yet to see *any* module, no matter how good, that doesn't suffer from it. Sometimes it's a minor problem, sometimes it's a major problem.A door has two sides: By this I mean that if the characters can approach location X in multiple ways, the module should account for it. A perfect example of this is from the Vault of Larin Kar, which is, in all ways, an EXCELLENT module.Spoiler Warning.In the entrance hall to the tomb, there is a secret door. There is also a secret door in the room at the end of the entrance hall. My players found the latter first. So they came up from under at one point (where the tactial situation assumes a level approach) automatically avoiding some traps. Then, afterwards they started exploring, and found the first secret door from the other side. Now, the VoLK sets up a nice, short puzzle for opening the door from the other side - but all the *triggers* were on the other side.Both of these were minor issues. I improvised a logical fall-back trigger for the first which restored the same basic tactical setup as the level approach. I also improvised a method to open the door from the back side. Not all that hard, but mildly annoying. But I've played some modules where I had to fall out to the meta-game level to solve it, and others where I've had to ripslat-improvise an entirely new module right on the spot because there was no solution at all.Mind you, I'm not talking about inventive players who do whacko things that no-one could anticipate, but logical things that are well within the scope of the module. Most of the time these are problems that the players won't ever be aware of. But I've sweated more than a few.The dark stranger in the bar: This one's a little harder. In some ways, it's the complement of the previous one. In this case, it's situations instead of locations. Generally it expresses itself as a lack of robust plot hooks, but it can also be a lack of motivations. This doesn't mean it should be a linear rail, but that there should be multiple "handles" to get the characters where they need to be. An adventure gap instead of an adventure bottleneck, if you will. Any time you hear yourself thinking "Why would...?" you've found what I'm talking about.PDFs without bookmarks: If you're releasing a PDF use the "Bookmarks" feature, it makes navigating the product so much easier. Scrolling through thumbnails *sucks*. If you want hosannas, use the hypertext features of PDFs. If an encounter uses MonsterX, put the stats for MonsterX in a pop-up box behind a link.Scaled Maps: I've actually seen this in a few adventures, and I wish I saw it more often. Provide a little note that indicates what magnification needed to expand the map's scale grid to 1"=5 ft versus it's as-printed-scale.</blockquote>

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