Writing Game Material: The Audience of My Audience
A published adventure scenario (or “module” as we used to call it in the old days) is not a game. It's a Do-It-Yourself kit the GM will use to run a game.
The players will never read the text of the adventure. At most they might listen to canned sections read out loud by the GM (the infamous room description or the villain's ultimatum broadcast to the world).
So if you are writing gaming material and you are trying to make it entertaining to the reader (the GM) you're only doing part of the job. Inspiring the GM and getting him or her motivated is great, but that alone doesn't translate to a good game.
Your direct audience is the GM, but the GM's audience is the players. If you really want your material to be useful, it has to prepare the GM to run a fun game. It's a tool, a kit, not an end product. The game is the end product.
Fancy formatting, same deal. It makes the scenario look like a professional product and that might impress the GM who buys it and improve your sales but it will not impress the players who play the game.
So think again: are you writing material just to be read, destined for the bookshelf, or do you expect a GM to actually run a game?
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Four years later, I find this article and I have to say – it’s so true. You gave me something to think about!
BTW: Things like the silent sound effects are very cool. Even Carly, normally uninterested in gaming stuff, was intrigued enough to make me scroll back to read through those. I am not sure if the players will hear all of those, but it gets the GM enthusiastic which will undoubtedly impact the players.
With the advent of D20… I’ve often thought a useful addition to “modules” would be color-copiable maps to miniature scale for use as battlemaps for the key encounter areas (not necessarily every room..). Maybe this would be for the deluxe edition.
If not on the paper copy, then on the pdf version..
This is assuming those encoutners take place in manageable 8-10 inch area (or areas you coulc put a couple of those things together). I’ve done that once or twice and really liked it. Time consuming though… hence the added value.
This is particularly useful in games where the design elements are important. But it could add to the perception value more than just good artwork.
I also like 3×5 cards with magic (or unusual) items on them. Arduin Grimoire used to do that, and we thought it was super cool when we were 13.
I think the idea of a gaming aide, is a good way to think of it. Little additions that would make running the game easier or more colorful are good.
I’m looking at a published module right now, and there are pages and pages of narrow-columned narrative with socio-political history mixed in with spot checks that culminate in completely unabsorbable and unusable text. What’s even more interesting to me than the lousy formatting or lack of any GM aides is that the writer chooses to use an “in genre” voice throughout. That’s expected for character quotes or for the “setting” section, but the rest of the module should speak to the GM and be in a plain, normal writing voice. The fact that it’s not only leads me to believe that it was meant to inspire and be read rather than run.