Game Design Inspiration

One of my favorite tools to use when developing an adventure, magic item or even a story is using tarot cards.  I've got about six or seven different decks.  For my current task, I'm using the Dark Grimoire Tarot.  It's a tarot deck inspired by HP Lovecraft stories.  Need I say more? 

I'm working on a the micro sandbox, Misanthropic Islands, and in area two the players encounter a area blasted by shards of stone.  Mixed within the stones is a massive 100' diameter wheel with script in the center and symbols on the edge. 

It's what I am currently calling Wheel of Fate, a tool of judgment used by the stone giants.  The wheel is divided into a 12 equal parts.  Some good, more bad.  I'm using it like a Deck of Many Things. 

How do the cards come into play?  I grabbed the tarot deck, give them a good shuffle then start flipping over the cards and stop on ones that strike some spark for me.  Some symbol and a consequence/reward that goes with it.  I keep the game mechanics very simple.  But using the wheel can be deadly.  Here is some of what I've come up with.

Okay, back to work.

Micro-Sandbox...

While I was writing up my 7th micro-adventure, a series of islands that the party can explore, something happened along the way.  I wrote, and as a jammed up the first page with words, another half page was filled also.  This was way too long for a micro-adventure.  I looked over what I wrote and the map and realized, that's because it's not an adventure, it's a micro-sandbox!

But if its gonna be a sandbox, it's gonna need some hexes.  I didn't know how to do that.  So I did what nearly everyone does these days and Googled it.  I found a add on for paint.net to make hexes.  All you have to do is DL it and put it in the effects folder.  And BAM!  As you can see above, I got some hexes on my map.  You can alter and change the hexes.  Excellent addition.

So my next Patreon offering will be a micro-sandbox and within the sandbox I am placing two micro-adventures within.  And I am really excited that I now have 15 patrons.  Once in a while I've been sending out the laminated adventures.

On the back of the maps are the area descriptions.  So if you need to run an adventure, a couple of minutes of reading and you'll be all set.  I think with the micro-setting I'll be offering something different.  I'll have to see.

Anyway, back to work.  These maps won't describe themselves.

Mail Call: Part 2, Revenge of the Old School

These came in the mail yesterday also, but I didn't want other gamers throwing themselves off of dice towers in a wave of jealousy. 

I found these on eBay.  Very happy to have scored them. 

I had the Rouges Gallery when I was a little puke, but somewhere it went missing.  This one is marked up a bit, highlighted a bit, but I wanted a copy to go with the rest of my stuff.

Lankmar, it took my a while to get my hands on this one.  I tried to score other copies on ebay, two times the person I bought it from did not deliver and a third time I was outbid with minutes to go.  Going to read through and may need to start collecting the Lankmar supplements. 

The Book of Lairs.  I don't think I ever had the first one.  I've had the 2nd one since I was a little puke.  Again, got this one to fill a whole in my collection and I want to get some good ideas.  Really, these were the first micro-adventures I remember and where I got the idea from.

Ebay treated me well this time around.  

Mail Call! Zine-pocolypse

Look at what came in the mail today.  Just take a look.  Over here.  Yeah, all the zines.  The best part....two of the zines are from new dudes still wet from the placenta. 

I got the 2nd issue of Crawling Under the Broken Moon.  Put a little space in your dungeon.  If you want to run a sci-fi DCC game, this is where you're going to want to start.  +Reid San Filippo looks like he's got something very cool on his hands.  Well done.

The Well of Souls is brought to you by fellow Pennsylvanian, +Carl Bussler.  This is an adventure for the DCC system.  I play in three different groups and not one uses the DCC system and I've got more DCC zines than anything else.  I guess I'll have to tell Ivy that I'm starting a 4th group.  Carl does an incredible job with presenting his adventure.  The zine itself is stylized with deckle edging of the pages, his choice of card stock and interior pages.  Carl did it all, wrote it, drew it and mapped it.

And the other newb to the zine ring is The Undercroft by +Daniel Sell.  You thought I was going to say this one was for DCC also, nope.  Daniel gets down with Lamentations of the Flame Princess.  For some reason I always want to write flaming princess.  As Daniel puts it, this zine is full of death & disease. 

Two out of three zines are new, the third one is still wet behind the ears.  But I think zines are kinda like dog years.  One zine equals 5 to 7 magazines. 

Please give these guys a look.  Grab a copy.  Support their work.  This zine thing is contagious. 

MA #7: Misanthrope Islands Map

Tuesday got wiped out by a migraine.  Arg.  Yesterday was crazy work.  Today a repeat of yesterday, but some how I managed to sketch out a new map for my micro-adventure series, The Misanthropic Islands.  Mini islands with various horrible things for your players to experience. 

This time around I am breaking my barrier of a single, half-page of description.  I'm going to try out something a little different.  Some layout options.  I want to present the information a bit different and it will require more space.  But I want GMs to look at the description and not have to hunt for the information they're looking for.

Over all I like how the map turned out.  I wish the deep sea blue would have blended better.  I'll have to look up a better technique on how to do that. 

I'm hoping to complete Misanthropic Islands this weekend.  I also have some Manor #7 work to do.  I'll post later, about how much great stuff is going into the next issue. 

Until then, enjoy the beaches...just keep your axe and shield within reach.

A Lesson in Adventure Writing

I've been blathering on about my micro-adventures for the past couple of weeks, about my Patreon page and getting people involved or at least grabbing a copy of my latest creation.  I like folks playing my adventures.  It's a cool kick.  When I read about game sessions where the players have run through my adventure and how the GM has tweaked the adventure to fit their world/party/system, that's what it's all about for me.

But I'm not here to write about that.

Writing these one-page micro-adventures has been a fun challenge.  I love drawing the maps.  It allows me to do grown up coloring.  But trying to fit a fun, interesting adventure with possibly larger implications on half of a page, forces me to be concise.

Here's some examples from my most recent mico-adventure, The Crypt of Volkov.  It originally was going to be a page and a half, but I went through and slashed the shit out of it.  Waaa!

Here's the initial entry for the room #2 Tomb of Victor Volkov.  The stat box has been removed.

The door to this room is locked.  Opening the door will trigger the pit trap.  Inside the room is stone coffin.  It is carved from the natural stone.  There is a copper plate (long turned green) with an inscription scrawled into the metal.  Also in the room are two gargoyle statues.  They are made of a different, darker stone.  They are perched on pedestols.  The inscription is an archaic form of common.  Any player with a intelligence over 14 can read it, Risen from the ground.  Returned to the ground.  May the ground accept and protect you.  If the statues are attacked or if the party attempts to remove the coffin lid they will attack.  The statues are small, stone golems.  When attacked they get an roll at the same time.  If the golem scores a ’hit’ they grab the weapon.  If it’s a normal weapon it will be broken.  If magical the golem will take any damage the weapon normally does, but they player will need to win a contest of strength to use the weapon again.  The golem’s have an effective strength of 19.

Once activated they will remain so for one day.  They will chase the players to the entance of the crypt.  If destroyed, both have Golem Hearts (valued at 1000sp each) inside.  The coffin lid can beremoved with a combine strength or 30.  Inside is Victor Volkov.  He is dressed in rusted platemail and helm.  Grasped in skeletal hands is a two-handed sword covered in a calcium crust.  If grasped, the sword will transfer some of Victor’s experiences to the first one who touches the sword.  The sword’s name is scawled on the blade, Inviktum Viktorium.  Under the corpse is a secret compartment that contains four gold bars (valued at 100gp each).

Here is the final version.

The door is locked. Opening the door will trigger the pit trap. Inside the room is a stone coffin and two gargoyle statues. The statues are made of a different, darker stone. The statues are small stone golems that will attack if attacked, or if someone tampers with the coffin.  Once activated, they will remain so for one day. They will continue their attack even if it takes them outside of the crypt. A combine strength of 30 is required to move the coffin lid. Inside is Victor Volkov. He is dressed in rusted platemail. Grasped in his skeletal hands is a two-handed sword. The first to touch the sword will gain some of Victor’s experiences (gain 3d6 x 100xp). The sword’s name is scrawled on the blade, Inviktum Viktorium (see below).

Here's what my thinking was.

1. This is too long for a micro-dungeon.  The whole theory behind it is being concise, be interesting without being generic.  I mention the natural stone...doesn't make a damn bit of difference.  A GM can make the call on that if it comes up.  It has no bearing on the room.  It's out.
2. The copper plate with the inscription, while I like the nuance of it, it takes up a lot of space.  Three and a half lines.  While I did like that detail it needed to go.  Why?  Because it had nothing to do with what's going on in the room.  That darling needed to be killed.
3. For some reason I thought it would be cool if the stone golems caught and broke the weapons swung at them, but it isn't a know skill of a golem (probably too slow for that anyway) and it took up a lot of space to explain how they would use it in game.  Four freaking lines.  This one needed to go again.  The golems are going to be difficult enough.
4. Golem hearts.  I like the sound of them and thought they'd be an interesting find, but there was already a cool magic item to be found in here and I would need to go into a long explanation for a new magic item.  This got slashed due to it being redundant in this room, but stored in the memory locker to be used at another time.
5. And I got rid of the secret treasure beneath Victor.  Again, another redundancy that took up too many lines.

With those five edits  I went from 20 lines to 9.  This room alone would have put me over my allotted space.  This is one room out of the six.  All of them had cuts.  In the end I think the adventure is better for it.

A micro-adventure should be something the GM can read through in a couple of minutes then be prepared to get the game going.  I appreciate a long adventure, but I'm lousy at digesting that much material unless I run it over and over again.  These adventures you can pop into your head with no prep time.  And the reason why I need to keep them short....unlike this post.

That's a glimpse into my brain while I write these adventures.  I've got some good ones on the assembly line.  I hope you stick around to see what's next.

Matt Jackson, Zine Maestro

The other day I mentioned I received a zine, A Collection of Presentations, Cartographical in Nature: Patreon Maps, Vol. 1, created by +matt jackson.  A collection of his maps accompanied by flavor text to bring the maps alive.

The physical nature of the zine is incredible.  Matt pays a lot of attention to the details.  To the paper he selects for the cover and inside pages, to the stitch binding and to the rounded corners.  Matt has made his zine into a piece of art beyond the content.

His layout is simple and effective.  A short write up on one side of the page and the accompanying map.  I couldn't capture the true color of the pages.  It looks like yellowed antique pages from an old tome. 

Matt chose a font to give the appearance his zine was written with an old typewriter.

You can see here that he hand bound each zine.  And each map has a footnote that gives the name of the map and the date it was published.

Matt has created a zine that sets the bar for me.  It seriously is an fantastic zine.  And while I am singing the praises of Matt, the guy is humble and generous.  This month he is leading a funding drive for Wounded Warriors.  You can join in the drive by either joining his Patreon page and donate for every map that's published.  He's got top-notched guys lined up.  You'll get enough maps to run an entire campaign without ever having to pick up a pencil.  Or if you just want to donate direct please click on WWP Project page.  Matt's looking to raise $1000 and he has already raised over $400.  He's running it for the month of July.  Let's see if we can smash the shit out of that $1000 goal!

Micro Adventure #6: Getting a Dungeon Crawl On

All my previous efforts have been outside adventure sites.  The ones I have planned for the immediate future are also outside.  I'm planning on doing a series of islands, and some villages are cued up.  But for this one I decided to go for the classic linear lines of a dungeon crawl.  Or in this case, a crypt crawl.  I'm hoping to finish it by tomorrow.  I'll be free to download on my Patreon page.  I've got five micro adventures up so far.  Please go check them out.  And if you end up using one, let me know how it went.

I'm off to the bookstore.  For an expensive coffee.  I hardly ever drink coffee at home, never at work, but mark it up 700% and squirt in some caramel and I'm there.

GM Games June Sales Report

Here is my monthly sales report.  No new releases this month.  I've been working on getting issue #7 of The Manor completed.  I've had several requests for folks wanting to get into the zine which has been fantastic.  It's also got me to thinking if I continue to get inquires to have some sort of guidelines.  But guidelines in a very loose way.  I want people to bring what gets them excited to the zine even if it doesn't fit within the parameters of the guidelines.  I guess that will be a different post.

Interesting Numbers

• Manor #6 has become my best selling issue in the first two months of sales.  Manor #1 sold 93 copies.  Manor #6 sold 105 copies.  
• A total of 1112 copies of the first six Manors have been sold.  When I added the number I was floored.  I had no idea.  Manor #1 accounts for 355 sales alone.  Can't wait to get the next issue out.

Here is the break down in sales last month.

I had 45 sales.  All the print sales came from 3 bundle orders at the beginning of the month.  PDF sales trickled in throughout the month.  The PDF bundle of the Manors was the major selling point also.  It makes sense, when I bundle stuff together these is usually a cheaper price attached than buying them individually. 

Thanks to everyone for the support.  I'm hoping July will go well.  It'll be tough to get through all the 5th edition D&D noise.  And I know I'll be distracted by checking it out.

Micro-Adventure #5: Ghost Ship

My latest Micro-Adventure #5: Ghost Ship can be downloaded for free at my Patreon page.  It was something I had partly done in my hopper.  Then +Tim Knight, one of my brilliant patrons, asked for some waterborne adventures.  I plan on doing some small island hopping ones in the future. 

You can download the adventure with or without the background or as a picture.  If this kind of thing floats your boat (hell yes that pun was intended) please become a patron of my page and you'll find a little something, something in your mailbox once in a while. 

And another thanks to the guys who've been using these adventures and posting about how they played.  

Major Mail Call

I mentioned back in June that I didn't participate in Free RPG Day.  Out of the blogosphere came +Brutorz Bill, (Green Skeleton Gaming Guild) he said he had a few things he had to share.....

Yeah he did.  Holy crap.

I haven't ready Elric since I was a young man with lots of hair.  Things have changed since then, but I'll bet it reads just as good now. 

The last two years of LotFP.  Something tells me these are going to destroy my campaign.

Some comic books.  Reign in Hell, sounds very interesting.

And finally, The World of Synnibarr and Monsters of the Endless Dark.  I've heard of Synnibarr, but don't know anything about it.  And a monster manual...oh yeah.

Fantastic mail day...I got something from Matt Jackson also, but want to give it its own space.

I huge thanks to +Brutorz Bill for making my weekend with his generosity.

Mini Mail Call

Lookie, lookie what came in the mail.  I got these three for a very good deal.  First off the Pathfinder decks.  I already have the Critical Hit deck and the Plot Twist Cards, Flashbacks so I needed to get these to complete the set.  While we don't play Pathfinder we use the two critical decks and used their chase card deck one.  That was fun.  Unexpected and fun. 

Fear itself is a GUMSHOE addition to Esoterrorists.  I am really enjoying reading through this and it has been inspiring me to try out a different genre and system.  So I have some reading to do for the holiday weekend. 

I guess tomorrow the Starter Set is out.  Amazon won't send mine out until the 15th.  If I happen upon in a store I'll probably buy it then.  If not, I'll wait.  Either way I am hoping I like it. 

The Manor, Now With Less Corners

Thanks to +matt jackson I found a new toy to play with.  I stood in the scrap-booking isle trying to figure out which one I want.  There was an older lady there and she seemed amused that this 6'+ tall guy with a shaved head was looking through the decorative cutters.  She asked if I scrap-booked.  I didn't know that was a verb.  I told her no, but I needed it for a zine. 

Bet you can't guess what she asked.

I told her a zine was a small magazine that is focused on specialized topic.  And usually its done for fun and not for money.

"Do you use stickers?"

Nope.  Never used stickers.

"You should.  People like stickers."

....good to know.  I nearly forgot what the hell I was looking for because now I was thinking of stickers.  She was right, I like stickers. 

I found my corner cutter (see above), but no stickers.

The Session Where My Head Gets Swallowed

...I know, it sounds bad, but let me explain.

Last night the Monday Night group continued their exploration of Monteport.  We were down one member of the party, Luven the Liquid.  His power, to pee at anytime and on anything.  Without our fourth we descended 21 miles into the ground.  Yes, 21 miles.  We made a joke that wouldn't it suck if it was just the longest dead end ever. 

We found a chasm that seemed to have no bottom.  Or top that we could see.  The gnome, Duncan, levitated and in a Canadian national sport kind of way, we 'curled' him to the other side while he held one end of a rope.  Surprisingly it worked.  And more surprisingly we all made it across the chasm.

The room had a purple icky pool in the middle and three not very secret doors made of flesh and had an eyeball.  We needed to make a sacrifice.  Adzeer took out his mace to smash the fleshy door and was knocked back with a bad shock.  Okay, plan B.  Someone threw a mug in and one of the doors opened.... 

We found an acrylic lair of madness.  The creatures (which we were about to meet one of their ilk) are from the plane of madness.  Although I was assuming someone was experimenting on them because they were in vats, preserved and everything was so neat and tidy.  In general the area was empty until we happened on a room with three creatures store in a vat of green liquid.

SMASH

As the liquid squirted out we were splashed by its greenness, but instead of getting grossed out we got a hit point total raised!  But the creature scrambled out of the vats with inhuman speed. 

COMBAT

We attacked damaging it badly in the first round.  Adzeer unleashed four magic missiles because he was newly dubbed 7th level at the beginning of the session.  It did not last.  The creature attacked me....

HE SWALLOWED MY HEAD

What the hell.  But again, something weird happened.  I gained a point in intelligence and 2 in wisdom.  Adzeer was now sporting a 20 wisdom, but the cost...I was level drained!  While the creature was still attached to my head the other killed the creature.  When I was able to free myself, Adzeer was now sporting a new knob in the middle of his forehead. 

After twenty minutes of giggling and various jokes about giving head, knob polishing (you get the idea) we decided not to smash open another vat.  No one else wanted to earn a knob.  Their loss.

We explored the area more.  Found a room with four strange chests that contained four different types of magical keys.  Then we found a room with larger creatures and larger vats.  One of the magical keys we possessed would have unlocked the vats, but no one felt the need to fight a larger version of the knob givers. 

We ended the night the camping near the chasm.  There are two more secret doors to explore.  We didn't find any 'treasure', but Adzeer is thinking this is the true heart of Monteport.  And why it exists at all. 

Our GM Ken, stellar as ever, did an excellent job.  He was able to take the sterile atmosphere and gave it a very creepy feel.  Monteport continues to surprise even after 18 months.