Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
What does well designed mean?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="ThirdWizard" data-source="post: 2948272" data-attributes="member: 12037"><p>Because it helps you learn to <em>write</em> good poetry. Yes, there are ways to look at a poem that I don't like and utilized parts of it to improve my own writing ability. The same can be said of any artform: literature, painting, music, etc. You can look at what Ornette Coleman did for Jazz and hate it, but it is a mistake to not recognize the genius behind what he was doing and learn from it, even if you don't want to sound like him.</p><p></p><p>It's the nature of the beast. The way to learn to do something is not some inborn talent that you're born with. The way to learn to write good modules is to read good modules and learn what makes them good modules. This goes beyond whether you like the module in question or not. You might hate a module for mixing genres or having NPCs you find annoying or whatnot. It doesn't mean it was a poorly designed module.</p><p></p><p>I hate big dungeons. I think big dungeons are to be avoided at all cost. I do not think all modules with big dungeons are badly desgined modules. There's a difference, and I think its an important difference to make. Even though I dislike big dungeons, I know that it is possible to design a big dungeon well. See the difference? The amount you or I like a module is not indicative of how well put together said module is.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Nope, you can't do that. Just because contemporary poetry, for example, is Existential does not mean that throwing in tons of description text makes a good poem any more than running up and down jazz chords makes a jazz piece well written music. The basics are there, but actually putting these things into use is a completely different matter. On the other hand, a piece that completely ignores these tropes is going to be immediately recognizable, and while, say, a Romantic might like the poem in question, we can observe it for what it is, and that is a bad piece of contemporary poetry.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Objective from a contemporary viewpoint. IE objectively good or bad taking into consideration things like whether or not something is postmodern, whether it uses abject generalities. These things can be looked at regardless of placing value judgements on the subject matter itself.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Sort of. Predicting people's enjoyment should be a part of the module, but that is a subjective viewpoint that is difficult to figure out based on the guidelines I would be considering. In other words, people have a tendency to look at something and use their own viewpoint on whether or not it would be enjoyable to determine whether or not something is good or bad. Perhaps not so much around here, but it is quite a common occurance in the world. "This sucks" instead of "It isn't what I prefer."</p><p></p><p>I think in order to determine a module's worth on the grounds of pure design, one should try their best to ignore what they prefer. They might hate elves, and this module is full of elves (as a simple example), but one should be able to ignore this and figure out if the module is well designed without being biased for or against a module based on these things.</p><p></p><p>I'm not saying that value judgements aren't worth making. They are. You should know what you like and not be afraid of saying it. I just think the two can be uncoupled.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm not exactly sure what you mean here. Admittedly, for me, critiques and objectively viewing something are more important bases for emulation. So, I didn't really mean a literal scale of 1-10, but more along the lines of "This module used a de-linearized plot with rolling site based encounters" and then we could weigh the merits of using a de-linearized plot with rolling site based encounters and then determine whether the module in question succeeded in those various merits and whether or not it used them in a way that is deemed poor.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I hope I've clarified myself. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="ThirdWizard, post: 2948272, member: 12037"] Because it helps you learn to [i]write[/i] good poetry. Yes, there are ways to look at a poem that I don't like and utilized parts of it to improve my own writing ability. The same can be said of any artform: literature, painting, music, etc. You can look at what Ornette Coleman did for Jazz and hate it, but it is a mistake to not recognize the genius behind what he was doing and learn from it, even if you don't want to sound like him. It's the nature of the beast. The way to learn to do something is not some inborn talent that you're born with. The way to learn to write good modules is to read good modules and learn what makes them good modules. This goes beyond whether you like the module in question or not. You might hate a module for mixing genres or having NPCs you find annoying or whatnot. It doesn't mean it was a poorly designed module. I hate big dungeons. I think big dungeons are to be avoided at all cost. I do not think all modules with big dungeons are badly desgined modules. There's a difference, and I think its an important difference to make. Even though I dislike big dungeons, I know that it is possible to design a big dungeon well. See the difference? The amount you or I like a module is not indicative of how well put together said module is. Nope, you can't do that. Just because contemporary poetry, for example, is Existential does not mean that throwing in tons of description text makes a good poem any more than running up and down jazz chords makes a jazz piece well written music. The basics are there, but actually putting these things into use is a completely different matter. On the other hand, a piece that completely ignores these tropes is going to be immediately recognizable, and while, say, a Romantic might like the poem in question, we can observe it for what it is, and that is a bad piece of contemporary poetry. Objective from a contemporary viewpoint. IE objectively good or bad taking into consideration things like whether or not something is postmodern, whether it uses abject generalities. These things can be looked at regardless of placing value judgements on the subject matter itself. Sort of. Predicting people's enjoyment should be a part of the module, but that is a subjective viewpoint that is difficult to figure out based on the guidelines I would be considering. In other words, people have a tendency to look at something and use their own viewpoint on whether or not it would be enjoyable to determine whether or not something is good or bad. Perhaps not so much around here, but it is quite a common occurance in the world. "This sucks" instead of "It isn't what I prefer." I think in order to determine a module's worth on the grounds of pure design, one should try their best to ignore what they prefer. They might hate elves, and this module is full of elves (as a simple example), but one should be able to ignore this and figure out if the module is well designed without being biased for or against a module based on these things. I'm not saying that value judgements aren't worth making. They are. You should know what you like and not be afraid of saying it. I just think the two can be uncoupled. I'm not exactly sure what you mean here. Admittedly, for me, critiques and objectively viewing something are more important bases for emulation. So, I didn't really mean a literal scale of 1-10, but more along the lines of "This module used a de-linearized plot with rolling site based encounters" and then we could weigh the merits of using a de-linearized plot with rolling site based encounters and then determine whether the module in question succeeded in those various merits and whether or not it used them in a way that is deemed poor. I hope I've clarified myself. :) [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
What does well designed mean?
Top