Ultimate User-Friendliness

[DangerousPuhson]

If you can see area B from area A, include what can be seen in the description of area A.

When creatures in area B react to things in area A, also include that in the description of area A.

I know I wanted to move past maps, but in deference to this - what I'm trying on my new designs is marking illuminated rooms (color of the light included) and putting "reaction routes" for enemies (also patrols) right onto the map, so I can de-clutter the Encounter sections of my room keys.

 

[The1True]

Yes Read aloud. Keep it brief, but it helps evoke images in the DM's mind while prepping and, as you said, it's something to fall back on if you blank during play (or were too busy/lazy to prep).

Put ALL maps/artwork*/diagrams in a separate document or together at the beginning/end of the document so that they can easily be printed out or flipped to for presentation to the players.
--* ALL artwork. If you paid for inset artwork, it's of no benefit to anybody if the DM's the only one who can see it. Throw it in with the rest of the handouts so it can be used at the table! I just got done clipping all the amazing shit out of Barrowmaze and adding it to the handouts section. Not a fun task...

---Leading on from this. Don't randomly number handouts. Give them numbers that connect them to the appropriate rooms.

Make player maps. More and more people operate off a virtual table top. Cleaning up a map is a total bitch and eats up prep time. Charge extra for the separate document with maps and handouts if you think you can get away with it...

A quick suggestion of monster tactics/buffs/combat preparations is handy. Include, but don't bake them into the monsters' stats so I don't have to do the math on the fly.

Unless the dungeon is a funhouse, the map can probably be broken down into themed areas or factional zones. Probably, that's the best way to do it if you're going to provide inset maps in the body of the text. Another benefit to this is you can add a lot of the annotations people were suggesting above to these map insets so you don't end up cluttering the full map.

Bookmark and Link the absolute shit out of your PDF. Man, would I love to be able to click on a link in the room description that takes me to the New Monster or Player Handout at the back of the book!

We're blue-skying it now: New Items; put them on cards in the Player Handouts so I can print them and hand them to their new owners.

 

[squeen]

I know I wanted to move past maps, but in deference to this - what I'm trying on my new designs is marking illuminated rooms (color of the light included) and putting "reaction routes" for enemies (also patrols) right onto the map, so I can de-clutter the Encounter sections of my room keys.

Harped on maps a bit, because Bryce doesn't tend to focus on that and its a big hook/aid for me---but otherwise I have "drunk the Bryce Kool Aid" on most other points (brief, evocative descriptions, bullet points/bold text, factions, some kind of brief section overview, don't state the obvious, most noticeable details first, etc.). You know the drill.

I also liked the Blue Medusa stuff that summarized: "What so-and-so wants...What so-and-so doesn't want..." as a concise way to express NPC motives.

The rest is an art---we all want to be surprised and astonished (in a run-able at the table way).

 

[DangerousPuhson]

---Leading on from this. Don't randomly number handouts. Give them numbers that connect them to the appropriate rooms.

We're blue-skying it now: New Items; put them on cards in the Player Handouts so I can print them and hand them to their new owners.

Very good call. I never really considered how helpful it is to be able to reference where your handouts originate, but yeah, good call.

Appropriating a new best practice.

 

[Malrex]

Keep it coming people!

 

[Malrex]

So...do people prefer just a monster roster for stats that they can print out and have at the table to see what monsters are in every room....or, do you like to see monster stats go along in the keyed areas....or both?

I did try putting parts of the map on the page that it was explaining about. Looks like the zoom to pdf works with the map program. It took longer to do layout, but I could see it becoming easier with practice.

 

[Palindromedary]

So...do people prefer just a monster roster for stats that they can print out and have at the table to see what monsters are in every room....or, do you like to see monster stats go along in the keyed areas....or both?

I think that if you're going to design a separate roster with the intent of printing it out, then you should assume that players are going to use it and not bother with anything in the room description beyond "14 Beholders (see p. XX)". I don't see the value in duplication here (as opposed to say, room dimensions, where I like to have the map but also hard numbers in the individual room entries; IIRC Bryce disagrees, but I don't want to be flipping around when I'm calculating encounter distance or how many 10 ft squares exist to be searched etc).

 

[The1True]

Maybe just the number of monsters and their hp (if you calculate unique hp for each monster) so I can scratch off hp right on the page if I have to. (yeah my classic TSR collection is worthless at this point. I buy used books all the time, so I know I'm not the only one who does this...)

AC, HD, dmg and the two or three key spells/abilities I'm most likely to see in the first couple of rounds if you've got a little extra space.

I've got to say, if your aim is to write an adventure that can be played right out of the box, a super-brief description of their tactics in an ideal scenario as well as bold notation of spells and special abilities/defences that the DM might otherwise forget about in the heat of battle is super helpful. I can't count the times I, or the other DM in our group has run a straight combat encounter on the fly only to half way through curse that they missed the cool power or immunity buried in the monster description that could have skewed the whole outcome. Obviously not a problem we encounter with prep.

 

[squeen]

I very much prefer the stats in-line (I use Swords & Wizardy + 1e, so the stats are brief), but if there is some reason the monsters/NPC's are likely to be involved in mass combat, or generally leave the region, then it's handy to have a stat summary table (too).

I never hand out stats to the players (as Palindromedary mentions)---not sure how that works.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

A monster roll-up index is nice because I can bookmark pages in the MM ahead of time, and it also let's me review at a glance which monsters are still alive in the dungeon so I can have them do stuff when the party steps out for a long rest, or scatter a bunch of random signs that the monster is moving around the area (footprints, dung, gnawed bones, noises, etc.).

As for in-line stats - I only ever care about four things when I run encounters: AC, HP, immunities/vulnerabilities, and attack options. The rest I basically hand waive at this point - CON save? I guess +3 sounds like a reasonable modifier for a cloaker... my party doesn't pay attention that closely to notice that it may be +3 in one encounter and +2 the next one, so why drag the game down by stopping to look up every little thing?

 

[Beoric]

I almost exclusively run on VTTs, so I think I have different needs from most of you. But I will tell you something I have noticed from running VTTs that would also be very useful if I was to run a pencil and paper game again.

When I run a dungeon on a VTT, I don't just drop in a map of the room where a combat is supposed to take place. I put in the whole dungeon level, and add all of the monster tokens, so it is easier for me to see who is available to respond to incursions, where monsters will run to get reinforcements, who will hear noise made by the party, where wandering monsters are coming from, and what direction they are travelling in.

Seeing the positions of static monsters laid out on a map is much easier than trying to remember it from a numbered key, and makes for some very dynamic encounters. I strongly recommend it. It doesn't have to be tokens, it could be a simple notation with tick boxes to track who was left.

 

[gandalf_scion]

Great site and great thread. I've been pondering this - how to make user friendly adventures - for years. It's time to apply all that we've learned about presentations to adventure design. Anyway, I agree it begins with concise, evocative text. And, cut down that backstory.

 

[squeen]

I am going to throw a bit more sand in the gears:

Something railed against around my work about 10-15 years ago was called "PowerPoint Engineering"...it happenes when bulleted, fragmented-sentences, and quick & dirty calculations is taken too far without a more complete analysis to back it up. Linked is an example of Lincoln giving the Gettysburg Address via PowerPoint.

My point? Bullets are there to help organize and make lists of facts scan-able---by somewhere (Appendix? Sidebar?) there needs to be some more detail.

Also, another thought: why isn't there an index at the back of adventure modules (especially longer/mega ones) to help you find relevant info?

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Also, another thought: why isn't there an index at the back of adventure modules (especially longer/mega ones) to help you find relevant info?

In the adventure I'm writing now, this is something I'm being very mindful of.

NPC roster index (name, location, appearance, voice), treasure roster index (description, location, value), monster index at the start of each section (monster, location, paginated reference, XP value) - these are the big items I'm appropriating to facilitate ease-of-use.

The NPC index is handy so you can recall at a glance who does what and what they're like (my dungeon has about two dozen NPCs, so it would be tough for a DM to remember which sections are controlled by whom, and where someone is when the players make reference to them and they need to be looked up).

The Treasure index is handy for those common scenarios when the party decides to finally investigate that potion they found five sessions ago and you've already forgotten what it does, or when they go to sell that platinum bracelet and you can't remember where to look to find its value.

The monster index I find is helpful in planning encounters or patrol routes, knowing at a glance how deadly the upcoming area is, getting a quick and easy answer for "where's the stat block for this thing?", and also to know which areas to fill with signs of the creature's presence (harpies in Area 17? I suppose I could put some feathers and broken egg shell bits in Area 16, and some harpy poop in Area 18).

 

[squeen]

@DP: With regards to your "Monster Index": Last weekend my group attacked a fortified tower. There were a lot of disparate and unusual characters in there. It helped a lot that I had (thanks to Bryce) put a list up front of the write-up (...yes, I type-set all my DIY stuff and I know that's nuts...) with all the bad-guy stats and what they would do as they became aware of the attack.

That simple roster meant I made fewer mistakes than normal running the scenario as everyone and everything piled out of their hidey-holes.
I learned a valuable lesson.

However...could it be even better with a small tactical map? Something with monster-type and numbers right on it and an arrow showing which direction they will initiallly head? Just a thought...

Another aside (I'm full of them today): One of the PCs gained the ability to leap great distances. The player loved it. It threw a wrench in to many of the traditional defenses and seriously encouraged risk-taking. I had no idea such a minor ability would be such a game changer. Very cool.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

However...could it be even better with a small tactical map? Something with monster-type and numbers right on it and an arrow showing which direction they will initiallly head? Just a thought...

if I remember later today when I get home from the office, I'll show you a copy of the DM map from a level of the megadungeon I'm writing up - I believe it reflects what you're trying to convey here. It shows the natural movement of creatures in the dungeon, as well as the "alerted" paths/action of creatures, and the routes they take to ambush or hunt the party.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

As promised

X's are enemies (black outline means passive, red means hostile). A big X is a cluster of enemies (in the case of G15, a nest of otter/weasel humanoids called Mustels) Black-outlined arrows are normal patrol/ambush routes, red-outlined ones are routes used during high alert. Green arrows indicated the movement of traps (in this case, the one from Area G24 is a giant demonic arm that reaches through a portal and stretches to try and catch players who trigger it and pull them into hell). If you're wondering why some room numbers are different colors, that's my way of indicating light sources (black means dark, the colored ones show the color/intensity of the light in the room). Exclamation points next to room numbers mean there's an immediate thing (environmental hazard or room-wide trap effect) that is noticed in the room which must be addressed by the party. T's are traps, green areas are areas of effect for the traps. Small xxx's next to doors are barricades (red indicates only there during high alert). Doors are marked to show which way they open, if they are locked (and difficulty to pick or magically locked by color) and difficulty to open by color.

That's the system I've adopted thus far. I plan to have call-outs to label the monster Xs, but I need to finish writing the adventure first so I can include a page reference for stats.

 

[squeen]

Oh my! You have been a very busy boy.

Very cool. Thanks for sharing that.

In my mind's eye, the scale was a bit smaller and the map had monster names and numbers on it---but otherwise, you did it.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

In my mind's eye, the scale was a bit smaller and the map had monster names and numbers on it---but otherwise, you did it.

Yeah like I said, I plan on putting Monster names/Page references in there, I just gotta finalize the document so I don't have to replace a bunch of placeholder page numbers. Also this is the section overview map - there's a bunch of interspersed B&W maps that cover only a handful of rooms at a time at a smaller scale scattered throughout the document, to minimize page-flipping. If you zoom in, you can see the image fidelity holds up pretty well.