Creighton Broadhurst on Mistakes in Adventure Presentation
In a recent article, Creighton Broadhurst, the head of Raging Swan Press, talks about
six module presentation mistakes to avoid.
In a recent article on his blog, Creighton Broadhurst, the head of Raging Swan Press, talks about
six module presentation mistakes to avoid.
In summary, they are the following (I am paraphrasing a bit):
- no stat blocks (meaning that stat blocks of standard monsters are missing in the publication, forcing the GM to do more preparatory work if he doesn't want to waste time looking things up during the game)
- no monsters in room descriptions (meaning that something as obvious as a monster about to attack you should be right in your face at the very start of the encounter description rather than somewhere three paragraphs into it.)
- walls of text rather than text broken down using sub headings and bullet points
- text not laid out in the order that best serves the GM
- give-away cover art (meaning that the cover art spoilers some major part of the adventure for your players)
- bad color choices (meaning that information should not be conveyed by colors alone, since there are also colorblind GMs)
I greatly admire the work of Creighton and Raging Swan Press. His observations on presentation mistakes are spot on -- any publications of Bent Goblin Press (once there are some) shall be measured against them!