Reading in the Dark

Today I picked up The Dark of Hot Springs Island again($15 digital, $60 physical, published by Swordfish Islands, written by Jacob Hurst, Gabriel Hernandez, Evan Peterson and Donnie Garcia). I’ve had it for a while. It’s a system-neutral module that has so much promise, and which has been highly recommended to me. A survival hexcrawl on an island. I really thought I would run it. I picked it up and started to prep it. I got really confused. I put it down again. I picked it up again. There was some nasty art and hateful descriptions. I put it down again. Then, earlier this week, I listened to an episode of Mastering Dungeons where the hosts had some of the same issues that I had. In particular, they called out the bait-and-switch style of the module’s writing. It will indicate that things are important, only to tell you they are not important, while things that are actually important are glossed over. I decided that this module was not going to beat me, and I went back to it. This…