The Hole in the Oak: A Masterclass in Adventure Design
The Hole in the Oak by Gavin Norman is one of my favourite adventures. It’s absolutely fantastic - and it’s an absolute masterclass in how to lay out modules. Anything Gavin Norman does is laid out immensely well.
It’s written for Old School Essentials, but if you run 5e you need to look at this. It shows you how to lay out a module to make it a joy to run, and converting it is straightforward - there’s already stuff online that’s done it for you.
The Map: Loops, Loops, Loops
This map is Loop Galore. This is how you do an amazing interactive map.
Why do loops matter? There’s no singular way for players to explore the dungeon. Doesn’t matter when you run it, who goes in, or when they come back - they’re never going to take the same path twice.
That gives players:
- Tactical options - drive a faction somewhere and have them fight each other
- Escape routes - ways to get away when things go wrong
- Agency - options to avoid things they don’t want to face
- Monsters sneaking up on them - works both ways
Compare this to linear maps and it’s kicking their ass already.
Two-Page Spread Layout
One of the things this module does amazingly is the book layout. If you’ve got it open on the table, everything you need to run is on those two pages in front of you.
They’ve got the big map, but in the top right corner there’s a smaller version showing just the rooms you’re currently in. You don’t have to flip back and forward. Simple, but beautiful.
Bold Fragments Instead of Boxed Text
This gives you a different option to boxed text. Instead of paragraphs to read out, you get bolded words you can riff off.
“Sandy floor. Hoof prints. Roots blocking passage. Moss on walls. Tunnels about 6ft high.”
One glance and you’re describing the scene naturally, looking at your players instead of reading. It breaks down what happens when players do things - slash through the roots? Here’s what happens. Lose gear? Here’s how to recover it.
Random Encounters That Feel Alive
The random encounters aren’t just “bad stuff happens.” There’s a procession of frogs hopping towards the river. A swirling purple vortex that teleports anyone who enters. A root that burrows out and points toward the nearest danger with a finger-like appendage.
These are things that make the dungeon feel alive. They’re callbacks to things happening elsewhere in the module.
And the monsters have behaviour: “Giant fire beetles engaged in a mating dance, their light glands pulsating joyously.” Everything has flavour and feel baked in - you don’t have to add it yourself.
Factions With Relationships
How many modules don’t have a faction list? This tells you immediately what factions exist and their relationships to each other. Smart players can start playing them off against each other.
The heretic gnomes are a small group of forest gnomes cast out of their community for dabbling in evil magic. They worship an evil tree stump. They have earthy flesh, rooty hair, and pointy red felt hats with items hidden underneath.
There’s a table of gnome names so when players ask “what’s your name?” you’ve got it. There’s a table of what a gnome has underneath his hat. Come on.
The Evil Tree Stump
When you enter the altar room, there’s a pile of humanoid bones, 12 red candles in gold holders, blood streaks on the floor, and the corpse of a dwarf. But it’s not just a dwarf - it’s a naked dwarf, blue, with hair and beard shaved off. Who would do that to a dwarf? That’s proper evil.
The stump has a creepy face that follows you around the room. Roots twitch randomly. It laughs to itself. One root comes up and slowly caresses the bold face of the dwarf.
The stump is an overconfident megalomaniac that demands the PCs fall to their knees and worship. Have you ever read a module with an overconfident megalomaniac tree stump? Yeah. It’s wonderful.
Breadcrumbs Throughout
Little things players can pick up and use later. In the fishing store there’s a spray bottle with sticky liquid - lizard repellent. If they’re smart, they figure out how to use it elsewhere in the module.
The gnomes seem friendly. Their home feels like an actual home - communal kitchen, hall of portraits, fishing store. But the truth is they’re going to try to feed you to the stump.
There’s a tactical room with a map of a magical forest with odd sites marked on it. If players take it, these gnomes might start hunting them. Books with hidden compartments covering “rites common to evil spirits.” A 2-in-6 chance the gnomes are scheming when players listen at the door.
Why I Love It
As a GM, what this does - apart from doing the heavy lifting - is you do not know how this module’s going to turn out. You don’t know what’s going to happen. That makes me feel like I’m actually playing the game instead of just running it.
It tells you how to expand it, where you can add bigger encounters, where you can extend the dungeon. There’s another module called The Incandescent Grottoes that links upstream - you can string two decent-sized modules together.
This thing is absolutely fantastic. Until you run something like this you just go “why the hell is everything else not like this?”