Those are great thoughts Steve (something to keep in mind if I ever prep something for publication). I have not run anything in a l-o-n-g time. I do remember a few module adventures that did indeed have such GM notes - and here I am specifically thinking of some of adventures for GDW's TRAVELLER. They tended to do well by this. But, I've seen others that did not. I am not familiar with any of the published stuff for Chivalry, so I can't give you any useful information there.

For my own LARP (Live Action Role Playing), we have large groups of people (20++) who are mobile in a location (not sitting doing tabletop) where they are 'herded' by a group of Staff Plot members [7+ for our Mage:The Awakening campaign] all of whom contribute scenarios and encounters - some of which are long involved story-arcs. All of our encounters are put into a binder so that any of us (Staff) can refer to them to keep the plotlines untangled and important information to be given the players correct and consistent. [Well, yeah, with that many people involved there are still bound to be foulups, even beyond "Oh, l did I fail to mention...".] Some of the contributions come in pretty sketchy on details (requiring instant brainstorming on the part of the Staffer ending up running the scene), but for my part I do try to to include the type of "GM Notes" of which you speak.

Those are all things I have complained to my group about in the past. It would be awesome if someone were to create a completed, generic scaffold (maybe with an example or two also). This would help immensely for the upcoming free rpg day (first time I will be running something for strangers).

This is probably lacking but, I will start it off:

Adventure Name
Character Level
Arc Length (this would be how much XP or maybe a rough XP count for the adventure)
Introduction (a paragraph or two to get the reader interested)
Background (more specific information - including specific things PCs need to accomplish before beginning)
DM Essential Prep Info
Hooks/Leads
Flow Chart of the entire adventure
Large Map of First Location
*Adventure Encounters/Social interactions #1-whatever
Plot Extension Ideas (where to go next/what if things didn't go as planned/etc)

*Each encounter should be similar in design also, in order to be familiar. This could be something like:

Map
List of Monsters/NPCs present with difficulty and XP total
Quick info paragraph
Something to read or at least guided text
Monster stats with Tactics
Notable Terrain features relevant to combat
Plot Recovery if Necessary

Somewhere should also include some additional info on behavior/knowledge/dialogue options/etc of the various NPCs.

Someone else care to organize that more efficiently and/or let me know what I missed or could be combined?

Looking good so far, and since the only pregens I have ever run were D&D, it seems at least TSR and WOTC hit most of the main point here.

I would LOVE to see a diagram/flowchart on expected A to Z but it would have to have a disclaimer a la "This is the way we ran and tested it but refer to scene end notes for alternate paths and ideas" or something to that effect.

Essentially, even though many of us seasoned GMs know it, that the presented flow is not a railroad - just one way to hit all the major plot points and earn the expected XP/items/etc.

Cool, you're running with it. THANK YOU!

Not a lot of time to respond now, but the lead-in should have a one-sentence 'scaffold' synopsis. E.g. "This is a 3-4 session combat-heavy D&D4e Adventure for players who like investigating before rushing in."

Maybe that's overkill, but I get frustrated when reading adventures and source books where I have to read 4 chapters before I get a sense what they are trying to accomplish, or who they think should be interested in the book. It's especially a problem when reading a PDF since I'm not likely to flip to a back cover summary before reading the rest.

Steve