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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 3945344" data-attributes="member: 2011">For me, it is because they are not next to each other.I think the separate booklet idea is not a very good idea.It will get lost, even during the game. It will get dog earred.And, it doesn't really solve the problem. Flipping from one book to the next is nearly as bad as flipping back 10 pages. Sure, I can have them side by side, but I do not use a GM screen and it just takes up space that I would have to cover in front of me that I'd rather not use up.I agree with your assessment that elements of it should stay, it is just my contention that those elements should all be in one single place in the book for convenience.I disagree. Usually, the descriptive section is 1/8 page to 1/2 page. And, the tactical section is often 1 page. When the tactical section is 2 pages, it often has a lot of page white space in it. 3 required pages would be rare. And even when it occurs, it would be better flipping a single page than flipping back 10 or more pages in the book.Here is the problem for the designers. In order for the sections to be combined, the encounters have to be:1 1, 2, 1 1, 3 1, 2, etc.They cannot be:1 2, 2, 1, etc. because the 2 pages in this example go front and back on a single page in the book (i.e. it has to be flipped mid-encounter) as opposed to left page and right page.This forces the designers to put two small 1 page encounters next to each other. They probably consider this limiting.However, with the new 4E concept of "wide open dungeons" where enemies can approach from multiple directions, it really doesn't matter that much. Most of the encounters should be 1 page encounters (where enemies can reinforce each other) anyway. Plus, it is not so much that adventurers then become linear, it is that the DM just needs to go to the proper page when the players are in a given area of the dungeon. Rooms (i.e. encounters) do not have to be perfectly labeled sequentially through the module.Quite frankly, enounters that are even 2 pages (map included) should be somewhat rare. In the current 3.5 format, they are putting a lot of fluff and page white space into an encounter that just does not need to be there. Encounters, especially with the 4E smaller stat block, should almost always fit on 1 page, 2 pages at most. They could even put in a tiny "min-map" in one corner where the current encounter location is highlighted on the larger map and still have a boatload of room left over for an encounter.It is just a matter of efficiency.Btw, one other problem I noticed with the current 3.5 version. There are sometimes conflicts between information in the descriptive section and the tactical section, especially the map. If it were all on one or two pages, the editors would have an easier time of checking for accuracy.</blockquote>

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