Adding a minotaur ‘hunter’ mini to the Hex Flower maze & pursuit gave the kids more buy in!

PS – they made it to the center of the maze, got the prize (the gilded mushroom; which was siting on an island surrounded by a lake of mercury) and out again, evading the minotaur using: a bag of fine chalk (checking for drafts that tend to blow out of the maze), a bag of rats (to distract the minotaur when it got close) and a magic butterfly that helps guided anyone lost.

Mechanically, these items allowed the party to change the direction of travel on the HF by one face (or in case of the rats, the minotaur’s direction of travel by one face to help distract/evade the ‘hunter’).

That’s it
:O)

People use the word ‘terse‘ a lot when describing RPG content/adventures with concise content. I think they mean this in a positive way, but to me ‘terse’ has a negative quality – abrupt to a fault. I prefer the term ‘pithy‘.

I’m hardly a RPG publishing powerhouse – I’ve released 2 adventures and neither has exactly broken any records. Perhaps having Hex Flowers as a central mechanic limits them to a niche within a niche (at least that’s what I’m telling myself).

However, dusting off any self-doubt, I have something to say about words. Too many words dilutes a message.

Clayton Notestine said the below on the Between two Cairns podcast, and I agree:

“The more you say, the more you put on a page, the less important all those pieces become“
Between two Cairns, Warped Beyond Recognition episode, release date 6 November 2025; 23:28-23:34

May I also suggest you listen to Tod from As If Productions, who had something to say about overwriting:

http://On Overwriting, with apologies to Ms. Engle (3m54s)*

* = I have no financial connection with Tod, although before Patreon screwed up all my subscriptions, I did Patreonize Tod.

My personal learning about overwriting came from when I submitted some monsters for  Ford’s Faeries as coordinated by Eric Nieudan of The Merry Mushmen fame. The idea was to prepare a faerie type monster inspired by the art of Henry Justice Ford, but using no more than 300 words. My first try ended up being about 1500 words. I cut and cut until I got down to 300 words. I was fairly shocked, the result was 5 times shorter but I think about 5 times better.

Sure, I accept that there comes a point where you cut down to the bone and are left with only a bone and no juice. I don’t think most people get that far. Editing is hard, self editing is even harder.

My suggestion is cut your first completed draft in half and see if it is improved. Then again, what do I know!

Now, to practice what I preach …

“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter” –  Attributed to Blaise Pascal

That’s it
:O)