Sean Hynd’s The Mad Dance caught my attention because it had a really good blurb. I read a lot of the advertising copy for adventures on the DMs Guild, and seeing one that was short, to-the-point, and giving all the important information about the adventure was much appreciated. For those unsure about what a blurb needs, the basics are: What the adventure is about, the level of the PCs, and how long it will take to play. In this case, it’s a 3-4 hour adventure for level 1-2 adventurers.
This adventure takes the characters to a mansion which is magically sealed after a farewell party from which none of the guests returned. The mansion has four areas that can be explored, each of which is well detailed.
It’s an interesting, creepy adventure. The events that the characters investigate are unsettling, and there’s more going on than first meets the eye. All of this makes for an adventure where the players have a good time working out the true details of what has occurred.
The formatting of the adventure could be much better: the space between columns is not wide enough, text boxes don’t break over pages, the fonts are erratically deployed (and once again, the problems with the Wizards template not using the fonts correctly appear – whenever a monospaced font appears in a DMs Guild product, it’s because the font is wrong). A few inline headings could be called out with bold and italic fonts; as such, they tend to be lost. The rules terminology used is occasionally non-standard; we say a DC 13 Intelligence (Medicine) check, not just a DC 13 Medicine check.
However, the formatting problems don’t detract from the strength of the adventure material. It’s a fun adventure, slanted towards role-playing and investigation. Recommended.
Out of curiosity, how do you, as an author, rate the amount of time an adventure is expected to take? My groups, either due to my style as a DM, or my long standing familiarity between players, proceed aft something generously described as “a snail’s pace”. Glacial epochs might be a better measure aft times.
Lots and lots of practice. No estimate of time spent will be appropriate for all groups. When I DM, I typically run things very fast, a four-hour adventure will typically take 2-3 hours in my hands. As a result, I tend to underestimate time groups will take to play through an adventure. The more playtesting an author does, the better the estimate gets, of course.