Vertical vs Horizontal Presentation

There are two basic visual modes to consider when developing what your adventure module will look like.

You can develop the adventure with a vertical presentation or a horizontal presentation. Hey, that's one more choice than you have with print or PDF formats that are vertical only presentations.

Mobile devices will rotate the presentation screen so you think that it may not matter much which direction you build your maps and design your layout. But you also need to consider that presentations on non-mobile devices may not be able to rotate the screen, like a desktop, tv or other display devices that GMs may utilize.

You may just reject that idea and only develop for mobile presentations and that is fine but you still need to consider the totality of how the entire adventure, especially the maps, will look and impact your target audience, the GM.

It is still going to be a best practice to decide ahead of time to develop all your maps and similar graphics using a vertical or horizontal presentation so that your publication has a cohesive look.

It still beats print or PDF formats that limit your design choices to vertical only. don't get me started on 2 and 3 column text presentations in PDFs where you have to scroll up and down just to read everything on a page, that is a rant for another day.

One aspect of the EAS design philosophy that does allow for a blending of V vs H is the ability to link or jump from one page to another with minimal game delay. This allows adventure developers to be released from standard publication guardrails.

Since EAS is specifically meant for all design considerations to be GM friendly it is still best not to throw a mix of visual directional changes at a GM that can break their brain as they try to orient themselves to what it is you are trying to convey.

Remember who your target audience is when you are designing an adventure. It is the Game Master. Not the players. It is the Game Masters job to present the adventure to the players, not yours. Do not design your presentation based upon how it will be perceived by a player.

Of course, when we are considering the art of creating an adventure there are always exceptions to the rule, either because the artist has a vision of how they want to design or present an adventure or because the target audience is not a GM.

Solo Adventures. If you are designing for Solo Adventures your target audience is more of a player and so your presentation will probably have a very different visual approach.

All of this is to say, you should think ahead when considering the overall look and feel of your presentation and that the EAS method unlocks a multitude of creative ideas for RPG adventure design.