Project Update

Not much has happened this week so I'm just giving a short update on my various projects.

3.5 D&D mid-level campaign
2½ years ago I started a campaign based on a story-line I've been running in my homebrew setting of Aspenta for the past 9 years. This campaign focuses on the end of the world caused by a time mage who destroys everything using elemental and chaos forces. The current party is the 5th party to play this story-line and they have reached the mid-level adventure.

Previously they have gathered information and magical items that should give them an edge against the elemental forces. They are aware that they will not succeed in stopping the end of the world. Handling/experiencing the end of the world is part of the last adventure. Currently, I'm working on the mid-level adventure which brings the players into a mass-combat war against the elementals. They will have to gather allies, outplay temporal mages, and fight in great battles to defend their homes. What will remain of that last continent is dependent on the party's choices, which will affect the end of the story-line.

I should be finished with this mid-level adventure by the end of May since I'll start working on the LAN/Extra-Life project at the beginning of June.  

1-on-1 5th D&D campaign
More than a year ago I wrote an adventure based on the Quest for Glory computer game. I was told by Sierra that I was not allowed to publish it, so I'm keeping it to myself. I'm playing through the first game with my wife in a 1-on-1 game where she plays a rogue, unfortunately we play very short sessions very rarely.

I have plans to write the second adventure as well once she nears the end of the first adventure, but for now she's still assembling materials for the dispel magic potion. Hopefully, we'll play again soon.


5th D&D gamemasters campaign
A new project that we started in December brings a group of players together who take turns being the gamemaster. The first gamemaster will finish his adventure in one week, and then we'll have our first transition. After that, my wife should be the third gamemaster and then I'll take over as the fourth gamemaster with my published adventure "Elfhunt. I'm guessing Elfhunt will begin at the end of spring.

LAN / Extra-Life 2016
In two weeks I'm visiting a LAN to gather inspiration for the LAN that is going to be held in our local community. We'll have a test run at the end of May, and after that we'll start planning the LAN in the first weekend of November where we'll include TRPGs, probably D&D 5th edition. No details concerning TRPGs at this LAN has been made yet, but the way things look like now, we'll probably host a D&D 5th edition 24 hour Extra-Life 2016 game where visitors will be able to attend the game, and others will be able to see us play live on Twitch.

 

How to make a D&D adventure

With the release of the DMsguild I published an adventure called Elfhunt. Now other of our gamemasters are also interested in publishing a variety of things, including adventures. In that respect I've been asked how I set up my adventures. As an engineer working in R&D I have a very structured workflow when creating an adventure that I thought I would share with you today in a series of steps.

Step 1: Idea
D&D is an open game. Anyone can be a gamemaster and anyone can create their own adventure. When you create an adventure to be shared, you publish an idea. When you have an idea you can write a hundred pages about it or simply take a walk. Personally, I write a few notes on a piece of paper or my whiteboard.

Step 2: Flowchart

The Dungeon Master's Guide is a great tool to help you create an adventure. On page 72 they mention adventure types. In my opinion, the first thing you need to think about is whether your adventure is a location-based or an event-based adventure. Both of these, however, follow a certain flow. A location-based adventure requires you to create a flow through the locations while an event-based requires you to create a flow through time. In Elfhunt, for example, I created a flowchart through a variety of events.

If you have an idea of how long your adventure should be, then assume 1-2 hours per location or event, and you should set aside 1-2 hours for the beginning and the end. Note that this may vary form DM to DM, but also remember that it is your job as the gamemaster to get the flow of the game running and not simply let the story stagnate in one place for too long. When you write an adventure, take these facts into consideration.


Step 3: Encounters
Now for the bulk of the adventure. For every location or event I usually start by writing a sentence or two that describes when, where and why this happens. Then I have a box with a read-out text for the DM. I sometimes use it myself, but in my experience this is a great tool to add in published adventures. Then I describe in detail the location or the event and why it's part of the adventure. If there's a combat, I add the monsters. If there's a trap or a skill challenge, I write down rules about it or refer to what rules to use. If there's a puzzle or a riddle, I note it down. I usually end the encounter with a note about rewards and what happens afterwards. This may include XP, treasure, and what possibilities the players have afterwards.

Step 4: Fill
Once you've filled up your encounters, you'll notice that there are points in your flowchart that haven't been filled. This usually includes towns and NPCs, which are used to give hooks (which also needs to be added ), NPCs that serve as merchants or a source of information, or a place to rest. It may include cut scenes and other such things. Write a paragraph or two about each of these. If you are inspired to write more, do so, if not, then a single paragraph is usually enough. Remember to describe visually and in detail what you are explaining to your readers.

Step 5: Intro and Conclusion 
To finish off an adventure you need the introduction and the conclusion. This usually includes the introduction that explains what this published piece of writing is, a background explanation to why this adventure is happening, an overview of the adventure, and possible a prologue and/or a description of how the adventure should be used or run. The conclusion includes everything from a total reward (XP, treasure, renown, etc), what happens next, maybe an epilogue, and definitely appendix. In the appendix you should add new monster stats, magical items, maps, and other relevant pieces of information that you haven't found a place for in the adventure.

An alternate route
As an R&D engineer I need to be flexible and sometimes a project takes a completely different route than the structure I've presented above. My greatest advice to anyone who want to write and publish adventures is to follow your inspiration. If you have no idea, but feel like drawing a map, then do that first. Put that map into the appendix or write some text about the map and put it into the "fill" in the introduction. The map may lead you to get inspired to run an adventure on an island in the middle of lake, which may lead you to write about a nearby town and a ruined castle on the island which includes all the encounters. In the town you may then want to add NPCs to give the players a hook or two to go to this island in the form of quests. You may then feel like you want to add a few encounters on the trip to and from the island, and before you know it you have an entire adventure.

Take it in steps. Don't try to write everything at once. Follow your inspiration and try many things. Eventually, you'll write something awesome, and even if it's not awesome, publish it. Others may find it better than you do.

Dungeonmaster's Guild Review

This week Wizards of the Coast released Dungeon Master's Guild, an online market where you can buy and publish Dungeons and Dragons 5e Forgotten Realms material. Along with the Dungeon Master's Guild they also released their OGL (Open Game License) allowing you to publish your own setting as well.

Dungeon Master's Guild
More than a year ago I looked into publishing my own 5e material, but couldn't find any legal authorization to do so. My wife discovered a kickstarter by a guy who was publishing a 5e adventure, and it seemed like he broke a lot of the copyright rules. I wrote to Wizards of the Coast, mainly to get authority to publish my material or get an explanation why this other guy was allowed to do so. I got no response.

Now Wizards of the Coast has unveiled their online market place called Dungeon Master's Guild. This focuses on the Forgotten Realms. According to their podcast and other similar sources, they chose only to focus on the Forgotten Realms to begin with because it's a way for them to gather writers, bloggers, game designers, etc. It makes it easier for them to find material for their computer games, books, and future D&D material.

Open Game License
They haven't excluded the possibility to publish your own setting using dungeons and dragons 5e, but they won't publish it on the Dungeon Master's Guild. Instead, they released their OGL and their SRD (System Reference Document) allowing you to self publish your own material.

A research into artwork showed that artists that made a lot of material created better content than artists who focused a long time on one piece, so get cracking and create lots. Publish it here and there and see if you can't create something awesome.

The Future
Personally, I'm already writing an adventure. It is designed for our multiple gamemaster game and set in our collective setting. However, I've adjusted the adventure so that the published adventure is set in the Jungles of Chult. I should have it up on the Dungeon Master's Guild next week. After that, I might start looking into finishing my Orcslayer campaign, which was my plan when I started thinking about publishing my material. Still, I mustn't discard my other two projects: D&D at a LAN in November, and my 3.5 high level campaign that I'm hoping to resume this summer.

Multiple gamemasters and rule interpretation

We have now had our second gamemasters session, still with the same dungeonmaster since this project only just started up. I did things that I'm not proud or happy about, but which I felt necessary and want to write about here, which is mainly rule interpretation and talking about rules during gameplay.

The Rules
Our current dungeonmaster continued the story where we had to track down a fellow member of our adventuring order, a dragonborn called Lady Namur. In our quest we traveled to an abandoned farm infested with undead, to a cursed forest filled with giant spiders, and into various small dungeons. Usually, I'm not the type that talk too much about rules during the game, since the story is more important. But this specific session was plagued by the dungeonmaster continuously coming up with his own interpretations of the rules, dismissal of written rules, and new house rules on the fly. In a standard TRPG game it doesn't bother me, but when we all have to be dungeonmasters at some point, I feel that it's important that the players can expect the same set of rules from each gamemaster. I have two examples, both positive and negative, to show why this is important.

Example 1: Wild Shape (positive)
At the farm we sneaked past the undead and into a hidden cellar. The first character down was our druid, who discovered that the floor of the cellar had magical traps. She didn't dare touch the ground and wanted to let one of the other party members go down first. No party member could get past her on the ladder, so she wanted to wild shape into a spider so that the other party member could get past her. This specific situation is very unique and not described in the rules, and even though I disagreed with the dungeonmaster's ruling, it is fair enough that in such a situation he can rule that if she wild shapes, she will fall to the ground anyway.

This example shows that unique situations need the rulings of a dungeonmaster, but some rules should be decided by the majority of the party. This happened when we started to discuss whether or not a druid could wild shape into a swarm of beasts. After a short discussion we voted and we voted against that possibility, hence we all agreed how the rules will be no matter which gamemaster is running the session. When discussing rules like this it is also important that if it's not important here and now, that the current dungeonmaster moves the game along by letting the group know that it's a discussion that will be taken out of game after the session. Further investigation of the rules has revealed to me that wild shape transforms the druid into a beast and a swarm is described as being multiple beasts. I haven't found specific rules for or against, and thus it's a question of interpretation, but in this case we agreed as a group how to interpret the rules.

Example 2: Tracking (negative)
One of our party members is playing a ranger specialized in tracking, a bloodhound type of character. It was first during this session that it occurred to me that the gamemaster had no grasp whatsoever on the tracking rules and that the player had thus created a character that was really bad at tracking but that it worked as long as the dungeonmaster's rules were used instead of the rules in the Dungeon Master's Guide. When we then switch dungeonmaster and the actual rules are used, then that character would end up being the opposite of a bloodhound character, with skills and features that can't be used the way he thought and is used to. It is therefore very important that the same set of rules apply to every gamemaster.

I therefore brought this up, and also mentioned other rules, something I hate myself for doing, but felt was necessary since the dungeonmaster was clearly going against the rules as described in the core rulebooks. The player thus stopped using Perception for tracking and started using Survival instead, changing his character while the gamemaster also changed his rules on tracking.

Talking about Perception also revealed that the dungeonmaster's understanding of active and passive Perception was also something very different from what the core rules explain, and thus many situations will be very different when we change dungeonmaster. This is why it's important to run with the core rules and alterations agreed by the entire group, and not simply run the game by how the dungeonmaster thinks the rules should be. In the first example there's a very specific scenario that requires that the dungeonmaster decides, but generally this should not be the case.


Next Session
Our next session will be held in a month and be run by the same dungeonmaster as the previous two sessions. This will be his last session as a dungeonmaster and one of our other gamemasters will take over. If we end the adventure too early, then we'll start the new adventure with the other gamemaster, or else we'll wait for the next session. So we're very close to our first switch, which will be very exciting, and I myself will most likely take the role as the fourth dungeonmaster when that time comes.
 

Real first session with multiple gamemasters

Less than a month ago I wrote an article about our first session with multiple gamemasters. We didn't actually play during that meet-and-greet, but we did create the foundation for our project and our characters. This week, however, we actually played our first session, which has been recorded and summarized by our GM Pelle. I'll set up a link when the story is official.

Missing Gamemasters
We had already created four characters. One of us, the gamemaster who created the half-orc (Gist), was going to be the DM for the next few sessions, so his half-orc wasn't going to be part of the game. We had two players who hadn't created characters, but one of them didn't come. We've had a newcomer to the group, but she was also indisposed. This meant that we were three characters  ready and a player who needed to create his character.

The Party
The three characters already created was the Aasimar Ranger (Tschepon) who was playing a bloodhound type character with a mix of melee and ranged combat along with a number of tracking skills. Our half-elf druid (Amber) was actually playing a character that grew up in an elven society. I had misunderstood that and thus my description of her character in the previous article was wrong. She was going to be playing a shapeshifter, but that requires a few levels, so she's sticking to a spellcaster druid to start with, a character reminiscing of Zyra from League of Legends. I myself had created a half-elf bard. Since the other half-elf grew up among elves, I decided that my half-elf grew up among a nomadic tribe of humans who hunted and gathered food in a forest/jungle environment and then traded in more civilized lands and cities. My bard was going to be a wanderer, a diplomatic type character focused on illusions and deception, which he had learned from his elven mother. I've defined his mother to be an illusionist, which is why my character is so keen on that type of magic.

The new character created became an elven monk (Akai) focused on combat and weapons. He would probably take a more magic oriented path in the future, but that would require a few levels. One of our missing players has also stated that he wants to play a wizard.

The Game 
With the party set, we started playing our first game. As part of the Order of the Black Phoenix, we were sent to the city Eastgate to set up a chapter of our order there. After months of work our order was up and running and we got our first contract. We were sent to get another member of our order and bring her back to Eastgate, a blue dragonborn called Lady Namur. The group synergy was surprisingly cooperative. We were good at coming with various plans and accepting each others' plans. The most notable example would be when we deviated from our main quest to search for a missing huntsman. We tracked him to a bandit camp where 11 thugs were keeping him captive. We made a plan where I cast Disguise Self on myself to enter the camp at night while most of the thugs were asleep. Using Minor Illusion I would try to distract the guards. I overdid my illusion though, and they attempted to wake up the camp. Tschepon and Akai were our plan B, so when they saw that things didn't go our way, they started to shoot at the guards while Amber ran in to help me get to the captured huntsman. We killed a few guards, freed the huntsman, and fled with the rest of the camp on our tale and two of our party members at 1-2 hit points.

There were a lot of other small details and choices that showed that even though we didn't exactly agree with one another, we found a solution and worked together, both ingame and outgame, which is something I'm sure will be very important once we start switching DMs.

Next Session
Our next session is already next week, where we're expecting to finish our first adventure and reach level 3. After that, we'll switch DM and start a new adventure created by another gamemaster, while our current DM will start playing with his half-orc. A very exciting development to our project, so stay tuned.