The strength of most "old school" settings come more in the adventure modules that come from them rather then the big fluffy setting books (perhaps because of the model set forth by TSR in the original releases). So, while I'm still working on the Player's Guide (and to lesser extend DM's Guide) I can't help but think about the modules.
While we have plenty of ideas about the modules from the various "lairs" we set-up during Step 15 of our Sandbox Design, I'm think more in terms of what to do about layout.
Most LL and other retro clone modules are sticking with "paying homage" to the classics, you get a map on the inside cover, several pages with numbers corresponding to rooms, boxed text of a line or two of description and then a paragraph for the DM with what's in the room and the stripped down stat line for monsters.
Now while that's fine, I have a slightly different idea.
Despite my whole plunge into the OSR and the enjoyment of the simplicity of the rules allowing for building a more "anything goes" world that doesn't have to confirm to the more explicit rules of other systems, I'm not one of those folks that hates every other version of D&D that's come out.
In fact, I'm quite a fan of 4E, it's not perfect, and it's getting more clunky as more and more powers and feats are released, but I think it did many things right, especially on the DM side of things.
I began playing 4E almost the day it came out and as we played several of the players, who had never DMed before, decided to give it a go and had a blast. The way adventures/encounters are laid out makes it very easy to figure out what's going on and give that information to the players.
So why not use a similar approach for our modules? Each piece that has an encounter should get it's own page with read out loud text boxes in one section, DM notes about the room in another, traps and terrain hazards with their relevant information about what they're doing in yet another, treasure/rewards in it's own, and full monster stat blocks as well! It's an elegant system that makes everything easy to locate when a player interacts with something and allows a DM to quickly describe the effects of those actions without hunting through text. One thing it wouldn't need, however, is the blown up map section with the little letters that show you where each mini is supposed to go on the battle tile, I think we should still hold fast to the idea that older D&D (and the clone AEC we're using) does not emphasize using mini's to enjoy the game (which also means we'd have to have better descriptive text that doesn't rely on the picture of the map to explain the scene, which I actually think is a good thing)
So, is the idea crazy or could it work?
I like it, at least. The one good thing I've consistently heard about 4e is that running it is not that much of a pain in the ass crunch-wise, leaving you to deal with the many personality problems of your group. Plus, not having to flip around when reading from a module makes you look like you know what you're doing.
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