Another way to increase the usability of your D&D adventure is to improve the information architecture of your encounters. #dnd #ttrpg

Now, "information architecture" is a fairly new term with multiple proposed definitions (most related to digital content). The definition I prefer here is "The conceptual framework surrounding information, providing context, awareness of location and sustainable structure."

Information architecture is relevant to the whole adventure, of course, but it really comes to the fore when we are writing up our encounters. For a long time, many adventures have taken an architectural approach we might call the "wall of text."

This approach presents real problems at the game table, because it is hard for the DM to quickly find necesary information. In the above example, if I want to find out how to open the secret door, it's going to take some time.

Some folks defend the wall of text and say it is incumbent upon the DM to thoroughly learn the adventure beforehand, and make necessary notes. However, I believe that good information architecture would alleviate the need for notes.

Some of the tools we can use include bullet lists, callouts, sidebars, and pull-quotes. But the most obvious and useful is the heading. Well-structured headings let us immediately navigate to the required place in the text.

Headings can also provide an "at-a-glance" summary of the room contents. My preference is for headings within an encounter to have no more than about a hundred words, which enables the average person to scan the contents in a few seconds.

In rooms with several interactive elements, I like to "key" the headings back to the boxed text. Here is a recent example that I think works well (arrows added for emphasis).

I'll concede this is hardly a revolutionary idea, but I keep seeing adventures(from people of all levels of experience) featuring great walls of text. Putting a lot more effort into the structure of this information would go a long way towards more generally usable products.