MT Black (who has written many DMGuild advs) wrote:
Hi Paul,
Nice to hear from you, and I'm always happy to encourage more Australians to write for D&D.
I had a look over your adventure and I've got some comments. My time is limited, so you'll need to excuse me if I'm blunt and to the point.
On the good side, you write good prose, which puts you ahead of about 90% of people trying to write for D&D. It's a good base to work off. I also think the basic outline of your adventure, Village=>River=>Swamp=>Goblins is sound.
However, I think the adventure has some problems that will stop it from doing as well as you might wish. Here are some of the key issues:
- The title is a bit weak, especially given only a small part of the adventure takes place on the river
- 11,000 words is lengthy for a first adventure, and also lengthy for a "short" adventure. Cut ruthlessly. Every extra word makes your adventure harder to use at table.
- The lack of header numbers is a big problem. Really makes it hard to follow the flow. You need chapter or part numbers at the top of each section, and then episode or location numbers/letters below.
- This is pre-layout, I know, but we are all so used to two column layout that it is hard to grok.
- I saw evidence that you have not used the WOTC style guide. I strongly urge you to get familiar with it - it will help your adventures sell.
- Your decision not to use maps is a mistake. D&D players love maps and will struggle without them. Try the free commercial maps of Dyson Logos as a first stop.
- The adventure is a bit linear. That's ok, but when you make the structure highly linear, you need to give people good, meaningful decisions to make within each part. Making meaningful decisions is essential to a good game experience. For each part, ask "What meaningful decisions can the players make (outside of combat) to affect the outcome".
- I didn't get much of a sense of the town. I need a couple of short, evocative sentences to help me understand what it is like (don't give me half a page or I will fall asleep). Same with the swamp and goblin village. Short, evocative, descriptions.
- You suggest players seek help in town, but I had no idea how you go about that. For example, who are the "town leader(s)" and how do I find them? A map would help here as you could annotate the locations. As it is, DMs and players alike will probably feel a bit lost.
- You spend a heap of time detailing little sub-systems. This is a mistake. People who buy adventures generally don't want new rules, they want a scenario they can run with existing rules. The most excessive example is with the big battle and victory point system you detail at the end. There are mass combat rules in the DMG, simply refer the DM to those and save yourself two thousand words. The other thing I've done in similar situations is just say, "Every round, Side A loses 4 goblins and Side B loses 4 goblins". Nice and easy.
One further thing. You say you don't do Facebook, but you are probably going to need to if you want to sell products on the DMs Guild. It is a prime source of information and also a key place to market your product.
Good luck!
MTB