This is a great article for people getting into designing adventures and such. It really hits home people attention span and speed of reading to give a mindful upper limit of words of 250 words and to keep things to one page. Thank you for sharing.
I like this idea of a benchmark 250 words per paragraph and intend to review my own writing against it. Thank you for sharing it.
That said, using your example from the Haunting, there is really nothing on that page I would need to consult in session. Maybe, the damage and sanity stats. I think a gm is insufficiently prepared if they have to read significant sections of text in session.
By the time I run a game, I've read a published adventure multiple times. I will read through the entire adventure once when deciding what to run for a group of players. Making a basic outline of the plot and how much I think the players can accomplish in a session. If the adventure is long, like many 5e ones, I will reread the part I expect to complete in a session. I use post it notes for names and places on my gm screen. In my experience, a prepared and experienced gm will likely not need to consult the text for skill tests or target numbers as those are intuitive based on player actions.
If I am running something of my own creation, the amount of preparation varies widely. I have adhd. I may have hyperfocused and spent an afternoon writing a novella, only a tiny fraction of which I will use in game, or, I will have waited until the last minute to prep an adventure seed that has been floating in my head and only exists in written form scribbled across a journal page or on a series of post it notes--also sometimes in the margins of a work meeting agenda because I lost focus during the meeting itself.
The vast majority of games I run are at conventions in either 2 or 4 hour time slots. I'm in Ohio right now for Origins. This also dictates my prep style to a certain extent. I need to rely on prep that will fit it my backpack. Electricity and wifi at a convention game table are rare and precious commodities, so I can't rely on a laptop or tablet. Just a good understanding of the material, a solid outline, and maybe some hardcopy creature stats.
I realize I'm odd and my style may not be applicable to all.
Whilst I think some GMs will prep from a module, I think it’s good as a designer to assume they won’t! Unless you preface your module by saying ‘hey, so you need to read this, significantly internalise all of it and make your own notes too’. And I think the reason we don’t see that is because it’s not a sign of a strong module. I think the Haunting in its current state asks that of a GM running it, but re-written it could achieve that.
> using your example from the Haunting, there is really nothing on that page I would need to consult in session.
I think it's certainly worth noting that The Haunting is *the* beginner scenario for CoC (at least, until the starter set suggested people run Paper Chase first). So while an experienced Keeper can read that room once and realise what they need to bear in mind, a brand new Keeper WILL stop to reread it
My job involves a lot of writing (and public speaking) and it's always harder to write less than more, at least in a meaningful way. Concise writing that conveys the meaning and tone is hard to do and the mark of a good writer, IMHO. A hack can spew verbal diarrhea across the page but a good wordsmith can convey meaning and information with very little. Thanks for the article!
Good article. I appreciate how you posed the question and approached an answer logically. As a 25 year HS English teacher, this would get an A.
I'll take that grade!
This is a great article for people getting into designing adventures and such. It really hits home people attention span and speed of reading to give a mindful upper limit of words of 250 words and to keep things to one page. Thank you for sharing.
You’re welcome!
I like this idea of a benchmark 250 words per paragraph and intend to review my own writing against it. Thank you for sharing it.
That said, using your example from the Haunting, there is really nothing on that page I would need to consult in session. Maybe, the damage and sanity stats. I think a gm is insufficiently prepared if they have to read significant sections of text in session.
By the time I run a game, I've read a published adventure multiple times. I will read through the entire adventure once when deciding what to run for a group of players. Making a basic outline of the plot and how much I think the players can accomplish in a session. If the adventure is long, like many 5e ones, I will reread the part I expect to complete in a session. I use post it notes for names and places on my gm screen. In my experience, a prepared and experienced gm will likely not need to consult the text for skill tests or target numbers as those are intuitive based on player actions.
If I am running something of my own creation, the amount of preparation varies widely. I have adhd. I may have hyperfocused and spent an afternoon writing a novella, only a tiny fraction of which I will use in game, or, I will have waited until the last minute to prep an adventure seed that has been floating in my head and only exists in written form scribbled across a journal page or on a series of post it notes--also sometimes in the margins of a work meeting agenda because I lost focus during the meeting itself.
The vast majority of games I run are at conventions in either 2 or 4 hour time slots. I'm in Ohio right now for Origins. This also dictates my prep style to a certain extent. I need to rely on prep that will fit it my backpack. Electricity and wifi at a convention game table are rare and precious commodities, so I can't rely on a laptop or tablet. Just a good understanding of the material, a solid outline, and maybe some hardcopy creature stats.
I realize I'm odd and my style may not be applicable to all.
Whilst I think some GMs will prep from a module, I think it’s good as a designer to assume they won’t! Unless you preface your module by saying ‘hey, so you need to read this, significantly internalise all of it and make your own notes too’. And I think the reason we don’t see that is because it’s not a sign of a strong module. I think the Haunting in its current state asks that of a GM running it, but re-written it could achieve that.
> using your example from the Haunting, there is really nothing on that page I would need to consult in session.
I think it's certainly worth noting that The Haunting is *the* beginner scenario for CoC (at least, until the starter set suggested people run Paper Chase first). So while an experienced Keeper can read that room once and realise what they need to bear in mind, a brand new Keeper WILL stop to reread it
My job involves a lot of writing (and public speaking) and it's always harder to write less than more, at least in a meaningful way. Concise writing that conveys the meaning and tone is hard to do and the mark of a good writer, IMHO. A hack can spew verbal diarrhea across the page but a good wordsmith can convey meaning and information with very little. Thanks for the article!
That bed killed more CoC characters than Cthulhu.