Awhile back, I posted my thoughts regarding the adventure Doctrine of Ghul. That particular adventure uses an isometric map for the location of the Frozen Cyst. Since I was playing on a VTT with this particular group, I decided to redraw the map in a two-dimensional style for easier use and tactical positioning for us. It follows the descriptions provided in that adventure. Here is the result:
See below a simple map I created for my home Ptolus game, outlining a simple tomb. I created an original quest arc based on a story seed in the Ptolus sourcebook. The party needed to prevent religious inquisitors from dispelling the ghost of a kindly minstrel (the titular character of the Ghostly Minstrel tavern and inn, an iconic and central location in a Ptolus campaign).
They discovered that this particular tomb was the resting place of the spector's wife, who with her husband was tragically killed by fiend-worshiping cultists many years prior. The adventurers found evidence here of this story, which they used to successful defend the ghost in a religious court. Then they returned, following a group of cultists who kidnapped a friendly acolyte and planned to sacrifice him in a terrible ritual to summon Lord Karcius, the patron of the same group of cultists.
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Image courtesy of Pixabay |
A few months ago, I had the opportunity to write my first published adventure. It was a rewarding experience and one that I learned a great deal from. Here are some reflections and thoughts that this process prompted.
When I pitched my idea, I did not expect to be picked for the theme of apocalyptic fantasy. I felt my concept was relatively undeveloped, and when the editor mentioned that for that particular adventure slot and another issue that nineteen pitches had been submitted, I was even more sure that mine would not be picked.
How wrong was I...
I was flattered to have mine picked, but slightly alarmed that I had one month to write and submit the text. I had other adventure pitches that went unselected that felt more developed to me and which I thought I could write faster. But this particular theme?
Setting some goals, along with a convenient trip that gave me some more personal time to write managed to make up for that, and I somehow completed the work on time.
Immediately upon being selected, I reached out to the editor to look for feedback or thoughts regarding the pitch concept. As I suspected, major portions would need to be altered, and the desire was tight integration with the other authors of the articles appearing within.
As this collaboration developed, active brainstorming and discussion within the designer Discord provided me the revised antagonists for my adventure, along with major details of the plot. And the suggestion that it would be great if a complimentary article of monsters was integrated into the adventure too!
Pulling all these disparate bits together was a challenge. Initially it felt like I'd lost a degree of creative control, but I did my best to embrace the challenge, and enjoy the constraints. That is how we grow, yes? Through the experience I realized how much constraints can actually enhance your creativity, as you are forced to ask "how can I realistically get all these pieces to pastiche into something unique that works?" It also requires an author to set aside their personal thoughts and accept other perspectives and ideas, even if they are not exactly what you had initially envisioned. This seems to be a crucial still for collaborative development projects.
Some authors might find these constraints limiting or frustrating. I empathize with that, particularly as they piled up and I had to organize myself to make sure I hit all of the boxes. But exactly that experience was extremely valuable. Because the process of collaboration with editorial feedback and interacting with other creators helped me grow. Although this was a short project, I felt like it was training me to be able to navigate requirements in future larger collaborative projects. I had to let go of some of my own desires for independence and work to make something better than I would have on my own.
So next time you examine a sourcebook with highly integrated lore, or cross references to other material, consider the massive effort than a group of writers and editor(s) had to put in to ensure that their ideas were complimentary and met the requirements for that product. Communication is hard in most industries. Communicating creative vision is even harder, because our opinions are strong and do matter. I truly appreciated the collaborative environment, and openness to discussion that our editor fostered with that group on that project.
This was an amazing experience overall—and even better, if you would like to check out the adventure I wrote, go subscribe to the En5ider Patreon campaign. To be upfront, I don’t get anything for promoting their page, but I true appreciate their efforts and willingness to allow untested and untrained RPG designers and writers who are just starting out to write for them. Any support you can give them will enable that to continue!
Perhaps I'm unique, but I always find trying out a new setting or even RPG system intimidating. I've noticed that a major aid for me in approaching these is to use an adventure for that setting or system.
For example, I had a hard time feeling comfortable in my Ptolus campaign until I finished the Doctrine of Ghul as a mini arc. While I have my critiques of the adventure, it provided strong inspiration and examples to emulate for future games in the city setting that matched the flavor and scope that I'm trying to capture.
Perhaps that strikes at the heart of the issue. I try new settings and systems because I want to feel the things that the creator intended. I don't want my Midgard campaign to feel like the Forgotten Realms. But the nuance can be hard to create in our own adventures until we have seen something to influence their design. Empire of the Ghouls helped give me a good starting point and things to draw upon when my campaign went off it's rails in the Blood Kingdom with the regional fight against Lady Illmalad.
These thoughts were spurred by reading through the lovely Broken Weave sourcebook recently. It represents some major departures from the fundamental assumptions of 5e play. Ones that create tonal and narrative differences I want to lean into. The short adventure, the Titan's March, enabled me to get in the right headspace to do this, providing a framework to get started and things that I can copy and completely mix up in future games in the setting. I think in the case of single sourcebooks like this, such an example is even more critical as the entire burden of learning, teaching, and then creating an original adventure otherwise falls squarely on the GM.
This is one reason I think open licenses are so important for RPG systems. It enhances the ability of GMs to obtain adventures to learn and emulate, and means that publishers creating a system don't need to invest as many resources into creating a large adventure product or many smaller products if they choose not too. A dynamic TTRPG community enables us to experiment and combine elements from different products and systems to enhance our own games.
Mild spoilers for the adventure...
By M.T. Black, the Fraternity of Ash is a mystery adventure set in a small village primarily focused on investigation and social interaction, culminating in a climactic set piece battle.
This is the first work by M.T. Black other than his Anatomy of Adventure which I've read, but it is impressive. I found it's forty five pages to be outstandingly organized and the prose to be tight. Sometimes unclear text or continuity errors can make both reading and then running mysteries difficult. No such issues in this case. The node map of the adventure helps provide a great organizing framework to facilitate a nonlinear adventure emphasizing player choice.
I also thought Black's design note at the end of the adventure was a nice touch, acknowledging the influence of Justin Alexander's work on mystery structures and recommending other works. It’s just classy, and demonstrates how much Black does the homework.
This is an extremely well put together product, and I would highly recommend picking it up if you’re at all interested or familiar with MT Black’s work.
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| EN5ider Magazine #9, image belongs to EN Publishing |
Another awesome experience with the writing team on EN5ider Magazine #9, for the December issue on Spaceship Crash! My contribution is a Villain Spotlight on Krurcain the Conqueror, a psionic warlord, marooned on your campaign world after a ferocious space battle. He is mean, nasty, and coming for magic items to rebuild his ship! Please consider checking out EN5ider Magazine, where you also gain access to the entire backlog of ten years of EN5ider materials by subscribing to their Patreon.
Like many fantasy TTRPG fans, I initially had some mental barriers on having sci-fi in my fantasy setting, but I think the articles in this issue can sit faithfully alongside classic 5e monsters and themes.
As I gradual work through my massive “to-be-read” pile of RPG materials. Advanced FASERIP caught my eye.
Advanced FASERIP is the second edition of a retroclone based upon the mechanics of the original 1980s Marvel Superheroes Roleplaying Game from TSR. This game is produced by Gurbintroll Games, which appears to be a single creator adapting legacy materials as retro clones under the OGL. The best thing about this is that the creator has released the book along with the first edition of the game as free products on DriveThruRPG. So there’s no reason not to grab your own copy after this article.
It’s noted in the intro that, like many retro clones, this version differs in several ways, such as allowing for more player choice in character creation, and other things to make it easier to play. I’ll note I have no previous experience with the original licensed game that FASERIP draws inspiration from.
While it took a couple read throughs of the basic rules for me to really grasp it, I was struck by how simple the core gameplay really is. Every attribute or ability is rated on a relative scale. How good a character is determines where they consult the x-axis on a universal resolution chart at the end of the book—this can be modified by various powers or circumstances. The y-axis result depends on your percentile die role. Then different categories of success drive interpretation by the GM. While tables aren’t most modern players preferred action resolution system, this isn’t a bad way to go, particularly considering the complexity of other options available when the original game was created. Though not from TSR, my thought often turn to Classic Traveller’s lack of such a common resolution mechanism in its skills application. As what many might consider an OSR game, Advanced FASERIP seems easier to both teach and implement as a GM for modern players to me.
The available powers provide a diverse set of options to create most popular superhero archetypes. As the book notes, it doesn’t seem difficult to design new powers or reskin existing ones either if you find a particular niche lacking. The rank system ensures that they should maintain parity if you model custom ones on those in the book.
NPCs are built on the same mechanics as player characters, which coming from modern asymmetric monster and NPC design, seemed odd to me. However, since all actions are based on the same core resolution mechanic, once NPC villains are made, it seems relatively easy to use them—certainly easier than some 5e stat blocks! The book provides some helpful stats for regular persons or bystanders that might appear in adventures, along with simple goons for those more bespoke supervillains. There are also options for random character creation that I imagine could be used to quickly create a group of villains.
The GM advice section is also worthy of some praise. It provides some useful general advice on creating adventures using the system while threading the needle on avoiding language or examples treading too close to its copyrighted inspiration.
Overall, I found this to be a retroclone I could actually use and teach players—which is perhaps the best praise I can give. The reference tables at the back make this even easier, however not all the info for action resolution and interpretation of the various color categories of success and failure are contained on those sheets, so those might need modifications for some GMs until they become familiar with them. My major criticism is that some of the explanations of rules are inconsistent in using their own mechanical definitions, making some sections more difficult to parse. There are also some tables within the rules that probably should have also been included in the consolidated reference sheets at the end for easy consultation.
These aside, Advanced FASERIP offers rules-lite superhero game for perhaps the best price point possible. With such a low barrier to entry, I recommend at least giving it a look.
