On Saturday I posted an overview of The Keys of Heraka-at, breaking out the various areas of the adventure. Now it’s time to start working toward more detailed development. I’m not ready yet, but considering that each of the areas of the adventure site could be small maps and are …
The Keys of Heraka-at is an adventure that allows the PCs to learn the truth of the fall of the Donnerkonig, and to potentially become the new Donnerkonig. This adventure takes place in and around a large stone outcrop near Heraka-at, the capital of Sturmhame. The adventure site as a …
Player agency is a critical element of role playing games to me. One of the things that greatly dissatisfies me about most series of modules is how much they tend to need the story to progress in a certain direction. The label ‘Adventure Path’ itself rings player agency warning bells …
I’ve been asked on Google+ if it is really necessary to do all of this work making graphs and thinking about things far away from the adventure I’m actually working on. My answer is, I suppose, a mix of “not really” and “it can help”. Not Really If I want …
Yesterday I started moving from macro scale to micro scale, outlining a set of possibly-related campaigns. Now I’m digging for some more detail in Donnerkonig Heirs. I’ll start by working on the graph for the campaign. I know I’ve got Keys of Heraka-at and four adventures to acquire the treasures …
In Layers Upon Layers in the Sandbox I described how things can be linked together. Now it’s time to put it into practice. First, I’ll map out some potential campaigns. I know of two already, The Donnerkonig Heirs and Return of the Donnerkonig, and can imagine several others. Some are …
The campaign and scenario design methods I use encourage nonlinear design and play. They are fractal in nature, applying to many levels and degrees of scope. This can lead to a rich and complex campaign setting. At the adventure level, it is pretty easy to devise encounters that hold nonlinear …
Just as well I slept on it. The Keys of Heraka-at looks like it went from “single adventure” to “opening of a two-campaign bundle”. I don’t have all the details yet, I’m feeling for the shape of it, but here’s what I’ve got so far. It will be building on …
It’s been a long week of short nights, and frankly I’m exhausted right now. I’m going to finish this raspberry tea and crash for the night. I’ll come back in the morning to write about the Keys of Heraka-at. For now, enjoy one from the archives, Kobold Kommandos: Princessesssss. This …
I have talked in the past of how I dislike linear scenarios and adventure paths. A friend has described strongly-linear games as “walking in a painted tube” because you can see what you are presented, and your only real choices are to go forward or maybe to go back. As …