The Anatomy of Adventure, Second Edition

by M.T. Black

M.T. Black is one of the most successful indie-creators on the D&D scene, with more than fifty platinum best-sellers and over a hundred thousand book sales. In this practical and engaging book, he steps you through his creative process while sharing the principles, tricks, and secrets he has learned along the way. A fantastic resource for beginners and professionals alike, there is no other book quite like it!

Genres: Role Playing Games

195 pages, ebook

First published November 9, 2022

Reviews

[Jake Chesser · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really helpful introduction to adventure design, especially for novices like myself. It’s light enough that it’s not a chore & practical enough to make the advice useful. The examples also play the role of advertisement for the author’s own adventures, but they’re good examples so I can’t fault him for that!

[Dana Larose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent book on advice for writing D&D adventures from a prolific creator. A lot of it was fairly high level and a bit on the fluffy side. I think the book would have benefited from at least one long, more fully worked example.

The target audience is very much people who want to write packaged adventures for, say, DM's Guild and less so DMs just crafting the encounters for their next D&D session. This made the book a bit less useless for me (I don't have that much interest in publishing adventures) but isn't a flaw. Although that said, Black doesn't mention game balance or play testing at all.

[Oscar Cecena · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains solid advice for Game Masters, especially new ones. Every time I read one of these books, I think of how good it would have been to have them when I started GMing 30+ years ago.

Still, as an experienced GM, I got excellent ideas from the book. I'd recommend this to any person who wants to begin (or improve) their game-mastering journey.

[Ladyjack · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great resource a new gm or if you've been gaming for a while. All tips are very applicable and can be applied many rpgs. This was written in a conversation style. I really enjoyed that aspect. Be sure to check out the bibliography. Many sources to check out for added information. I don't know how many times things were pointed out in Dungeon Master's Guide. I've used it for some things, but no the extent I should have. That will definitely be my next go to book for reference. Sometimes the most obvious source is not used to it's complete potential. I highly recommend this book!

[Matthew Davies · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic resource for game masters beyond the rules.