Adventure design? (Patreon)

Yea I dunno. I make the adventures I want to play/run so they usually end up being exactly what I wanted and therefore perfect inside a narrow band i.e. me. If something is written with sincerity and joy it will find its audience and hit them hard. If something is written with arbitrary best practices and a target audience that doesn't include you it'll probably be boring or bad. 

That being said, here's what I like:

1. Mysterious things to touch and figure out the purpose of or be mauled by. Everything must have a purpose! Even if the players have no chance of learning it. Especially, even.

2. Weird NPCs with their own agenda that doesn't include the PCs particularly.

3. Man-apes/monkeys

4. Cool maps, twisty turny, multi directional. Rhizomatic design.

5. An idea of how things will go if the players aren't there.

6. Things that the players can mess with that can explode the whole campaign. Literally or figuratively. 

Really, just a cool map with stuff on that you giggle at the thought of the players finding. It is enough in most cases. The PCs motivation can be 'we agreed to come to Dan's House and play ganes from 7 till 11'. Done.

How you know it's good is if you and the people you play it with have a good time.