What I Value In Adventure Design

I’m new to The NSR Cauldron, so I was digging through some of the archives and looking at the threads that had been posted there in the past when I found a particularly interesting one titled “Talkin’ ‘Usefulness’ in Adventure Design.” It hit home for me because it touches on issues related to graphic design, storytelling, and usability—all things I debate daily in my day job as a creative director.

In the post, andymc wanders through several points about adventure design, based on their length and formatting, pontificating on his preferences. And, by the end of the post, he has developed a list of criteria that he looks for in an adventure, quoted here:

1. A module should inspire wonder in the DM

2. A module should give the DM useful tools to transmit this wonder to the players

3. These tools should focus on the fictional world’s reactions to the players’ actions rather than the pre-defined narrative in the DM’s head

Thinking about these, I began to ponder what I look for in an adventure. Quickly, I realized these are also the same things that have led to my personal style. Starting out, I would typically write an adventure to fit the system’s conventions. For example, the 5e work that I have done was longer form with bolded paragraph leaders and verbose descriptions of every situation and scenario. Truthfully, that style never served me particularly well, as my semester in technical writing was always subconsciously nagging me. Not to mention that the speed at which I could recall information from these paragraphs was far too slow for practical use at the table, which, by my definition of success, is a total failure.

So, I evolved and started to work toward the opposite side of the spectrum, focusing on short, bulleted phrases and bolded areas of importance. But personally, I felt this was maybe a little too sparse and, honestly, still a little too slow at the table. Yes, the bulleted lists are much easier to parse from a usability perspective, yet they ask a lot of the GM in the heat of the moment, which is when I started doing something I think a lot of OSR-style adventure writers view as blasphemous, I introduced boxed text back into my typical formatting.

Why I like boxed text

But before you gasp and call me a loon, let me let me explain why. First, all my boxed text is precise, and it has been designed to be short, typically three lines, and never longer than five. No long-half-paged rants where the player’s eyes glaze over and they stop paying attention. Secondly, it can be relied on; you, as the GM, can read it aloud, and it sparks your memory from prep. In practice, it has sped up play, making it feel more natural and less like following a flowchart. The GM doesn’t have to read “dark, smells like sulfur,” pause for a second to think about it, and then build some flowery prose on the spot. And most importantly, it allows me, as the designer, to help set a base-level tone for each room. I think this is important because if you can’t help inspire the GM and paint a picture of what the characters are experiencing, how can you hope to have them communicate it effectively?

Still think I’m crazy, I’m not alone. Joseph R. Lewis talks about a similar point in this killer Ship of the Dead Podcast episode around the 19-minute mark. In fact, the way he handles it has me thinking about evolving my style even further.

Beyond the Tangible

But most of that is very tangible stuff. I think the trickier component to pin down that I look for in a stellar adventure is more about how exciting it is and how novel the ideas presented inside are. Usually, for me, this is less about the overall hook of the story or some giant looming threat and more about what happens at the lowest levels of the design. Yeah, those things are cool, but if you are level 2 and the big baddy is an end-game threat, it is going to take endless sessions to get there. So, some cool stuff better be happening along the way to keep the players and the GM interested. Luckily, I think a lot of modern OSR-adjacent adventure writing now shares this perspective, so you get all these fun micro scenarios baked inside of adventures that often become the most memorable moments.

So, what is my list of essentials?

1. A module must be surprising enough to inspire the GM.
   This is the intangible part: how unique is the adventure when looked at from all levels of play?

2. A module must be functional enough to be used quickly and effectively in real-time play.
   This is the design and usability of the piece.

3. A module must be open enough for the GM and players to make the story their own.
   The narrative isn’t so tight that the GM has to keep the players on the rails the whole time.

Some Inspirational Examples

These are the adventures I return to for inspiration, the ones that really hit most of the points on my list.

• Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow

• Neverland

• Halls of the Blood King

• Sepulchre of the Swamp Witch

• Winter’s Daughter

• Another Bug Hunt