Adventure Site Review Standards

​  As we embark upon this contest, I suppose I should publish my targeted review standards for these adventure sites. I’ve certainly reviewed enough with my Crapshoot Monday series to give contestants my kindly standards for that; I will still be looking to highlight what I liked in submissions, give some ideas about what might be improved, and the use case evaluation is what I’ve outlined in my last article. I won’t be giving direct ratings as I go, but I will release my ranked choice evaluation in the end. Generally, here are the things I’ll be looking at:

• Adventure Structure.

Basically, I will be looking to see that the adventure(s) in the site flows well as written, enabling a wide spectrum of gameplay and interest. Ideally, PCs should be able to solve challenges with a wide array of solutions, leading to “boy that was a fun night of D&D”. This means narrative satisfaction and engaging gameplay both.

• Site Geometry.

The physical geography of the site needs to be fun and provide interest, and actually matter. Now this is not an art contest…nobody is getting dinged for a map in MS Paint, nor elevated for full-color 3D modeling. As long as the map is clear and understandable, it can be ugly…but there needs to be a good site to explore, something that’s cool and gives some choices in the act of play. Personally, some well-integrated verticality is usually worth bonus points.

• Descriptive Power.

The writing should be strong and efficient (remember, only two 8.5x11 pages at max), conveying the situations, monsters, and challenges evocatively and in a way that sparks the imagination. This is not an English assignment, please do run some basic copyedits by your text but grammar and spelling errors won’t be held against you. As an aside, do try to give some thought to how the information is formatted/conveyed, things like bolding, underlining, italics, map labels…all can definitely help, but just know it can be overdone as well.

• Nifty Stuff.

Creativity is a plus, cleverness is a must. This isn’t No-Artpunk, if you want to make new monsters, items, spells, etc that’s fine, but everything new is going to push against the strict page limit here. Better to use some orcs and a pit trap cleverly than to stat up a new Living Mobile Orcish Pit Monster. Nasty traps that are well-telegraphed? Great. Secret doors with subtle clues? Wonderful. Focusing on using the elements already available can lead to very engaging, impressive moments. Neat personalities for the NPCs help too.

• Plugability.

Some thought to how the adventure site fits into the broader context of the game is warranted. Hooks, rumors, how the PCs find the site are good. Tagging the environment, like “forested hills” or “seedy vice district” where the site gets placed is a good exercise. If someone wants to run your adventure site as a one-shot, great, but putting thought into how it integrates into a campaign world will do wonders for the verisimilitude of your submission.
  I’ll also have a few little things I personally look for to give bonus points. Crediting playtesters is good practice, I give a bonus nod for playtesting. I’ll be looking favorably at higher-level sites, just for sheer value-add compared to the trillions of “level 1-2” content already. Original cartography is also going to be a bonus over repurposed Matt Jackson or Dyson Logos map. None of this is to say that an unplaytested level 1 Dyson map adventure site will dinged for all that, just like to see the stretching.
  Get stoked. Contest opens FRIDAY, although submissions will be accepted through January 31st, 2024. I’ll be writing up my own contest entry for playtesting over Christmas. Feel free to ask whatever you want.