First impression:
the format looks amateur. There's a nice density of information (and a lot of info), but the presentation looks like 1990's M$ Word. I've been doing word processing since 1980, publishing hundreds of technical reports and conference papers professionally for 30 years, I use LaTeX because it kicks everything else's ass (looking at you
In Design)---and this looks like you care about your ideas, and not-so-much how they appear on the page. You have not been kind to your Reader's eyeballs. Here's my
three five lowest-hanging-fruit:
- There needs to be more space between the two columns. A single em-space is insufficient to break up the perception of a wall-of-words. Steal from the outer margins. Most modern printers can handle 1/4" margins.
- Serif fonts (Times Romans in particular) look dated. Everyone started using them because they gobbled up the swill Microsoft was dishing out when they first started using Word. San Serif (literally without little letter decorations) looks less cluttered for small print.
- There is a monotony of font sizes and a general lack of (well used) white spaces. Lay-out is almost like painting a picture. The result needs to please the eye...and the eye occasionally needs a rest. White space allows for sections/ideas to be compartmentalized in the Reader's brain. It let's them consume in small chunks. You've hit them with a fire hose.
- You haven't made good use of tables or bullets. That's a whole other topic.
- Do you hate commas?
I get that this is a rough draft. You're so excited that you've written all this stuff up, and just want to get it out there. You wanted some feedback on your
ideas. Making it pretty can come later,
right?
Wrong. Lack of consideration for the Reader means no one reads it. If it's hard/impenetrable (or just plainly not visually enticing), most folks will give up. Time is precious. That's why art helps sell D&D products. Eye candy is like a trail of crumbs that leads your audience down the Rabbit Hole (or into the Witch's Oven!). Good layout (like nice maps & tables) are artwork too. All are vehicles for conveying information.
--- b r e a t h ---
Next, I mentioned how you've envisioned a path-to-glory for the players. It's good to have a notion of how the adventure can be won, BUT I think you are walking the line between
winnable path and
only path. You
may have a disguised railroad here, and I think it's affected your choice of content.
I'll elaborate. While there's a tremendous amount of detail, and nice little (extraneous?) bits---like the NPCs in the scenario hooks---I think you imagine there is only one (good) way things play out---the battle at the end. Most of the actual playable stats solely support this outcome.
But (and here comes
the Existential DM Question in a moment),
there's a surprising lack of boots-on-the-ground info. Everything is abstracted...
in a sense. The whole scene is described in a weird sort of quasi-
third person.
"What?", you say.
"I've jammed this thing full of evocative details. I put in stats. I've even included a selection of conversations between NPC's as flavor!"
"What on Earth is squeen getting on about?"
OK. Here's what I'm struggling with:
You and others (in particular
@The1True's
Volatile Skies comes to mind) tell the DM what you think he needs to run the sandbox---all the pieces in your mind that describes the necessary action-elements you envision playing out. It's like a proto-script for a movie.
But it doesn't really have the mundane details the players will actually interact with. It's something less than a keyed dungeon room. It's not written from the perspective of "
Here's a concrete setting...now watcha gonna do, PCs?". It's instead painted in broad strokes with the expectation that the DM can put meat on the skeleton. It's more than just an idea, but something less than a playable module (in the traditional sense). Even with a movie, it's frequently not the plot that makes it great---it's the little moments.
This is a problem everything
except keyed dungeons suffer from, in my opinion. That's why they work...and things like city adventures and domain-play seldom do. Why, I imagine, splat-books can be read, but not played. They, like Shadow Pearl, are more elaborate ideas than a place to adventure. For example, the Dam-Dungeon at the end of
Deep Carbon Observatory works for me, but all the lead-up (river vignettes) are just border-line okay (again, for me)---what happens if the players don't stay on-script? As DM, it's all on me. Sure, I'll manage, but it's not terribly
exciting for me to see up-front that I'll be flying without a net for large stretches of the action.
That's the
Existential DM Question:
Is a written adventure truly an adventure if it requires a DM to improvise large portions on the fly?
A DM
has to be able to improvise, I know, but I also know I am not at my best if it continues for an extended period. I feel like that sort of game-play is not quite D&D---it's more story-like...too linear. Too predictable? ... Too loosey-goosey make-believe for a great game.
The part of Shadow Pearl that is complete is the mass combat at the end (and that requires
Domains at War and therefore comes with a steep learning curve). At no other time could I imagine (without prepping large swathes of info that doesn't exist in detail) dumping a PC anywhere in the Lost Leagues and being able to immediate describe the environment except in a vague way. In no location --- even the Baron's Keep --- able I am to describe a detailed
boots-on-the-ground PC experience in the
first-person, like I can in a traditional dungeon crawl.
"So what? Does everything have to be a dungeon crawl?", you ask.
I don't know. But we do know when that first-person experience arrived on the wargaming scene in Arneson's basement...that's when D&D was born. That's what people like. I know my players prefer it...and seeing first-person details in a product make me want to take them there.
Is there a usable D&D product besides a keyed "dungeon" or random tables for procedural improv?
Does a 3rd thing exist? How do we collectively bridge the gap that allows the Big Battle to be a fitting capstone for a campaign?
Dunno.
Now, back to Shadow Pearl in the specific:
It lacks
that detail. You've thoroughly imagined the final battle...but the
arrival is sketchy. What's it like that first session when the PC's literally land in the Lost Leagues? Where can they go? Who do they see to talk to? What can they touch? Where's the seduction of the slow reveal?
Imagine that there is a random table that each PC rolls on as they enter the Pearl. It drops them naked into the environment. They are immediately in exploration mode---what happens next?
There's a lot I think is missing to make that happened out-of-the-box. (e.g. Where is a detailed key that makes the Baron's Keep come alive? Something that transforms it into an unforgettable piece of fantasy real estate? A typically cope-out, IMO, is a random table in lieu of real content.) I think the solution is
play testing --- BUT if you are a story-leaning super-creative improv-DM, you may not notice that anything is lacking. I am not. Hex crawls and city adventurers (as written) leave me feeling flat. They make me sigh at the amount of work I see myself doing, and I think I might as well just write the whole darn thing myself....keying it to my comfort level. I can't even read them and get excited (because that excitement come from the anticipation of actual play) --- and in the zoomed-out sandbox-product, I can't mentally connect the dots.
So that's my beef. Sorry to be such a Party Pooper.
If it's any comfort, I think you've tapped into a hobby-wide problem.