The Endless Winter and Upcoming Projects
So I have completed and released The Endless Winter through T. W. Wombat's Winter is Coming Blog Festival, apparently to some rave reviews.
Many have commented on the professional look of what I put together... I joked about "overdoing" my submission, but quite frankly I wouldn't have it any other way. One the one hand, yes, I'm a game designer who likes the process of creating stuff others can use. But I'm also a publisher who tries to reflect his interest in making quality merchandise in everything he does, so I'm not one to just slap content together just to get it published. So it might have taken me ten times longer to format and layout the adventure than it took me to actually design the mechanics of it, but I'm OK with that. If I manage to create a product that people like and can say "wow!" when they look at it, mission accomplished!
Besides, it looks good on my résumé... Don't ya think?
I am giving it away for free for now, and it's currently also available for free on Drive Thru RPG (where it includes the tactical maps and 50 DPI images for use in third party applications!). If you downloaded it before the tactical maps became available, email me at dflor@brainclouds.net and I'll send you direct links so you can get them; I tried emailing everyone who had already downloaded it, but Drive Thru RPG has some... "issues"... with its email system. I have yet to send an email through their site out correctly, so my blast got sent without the link in it.
So here are my planned future projects:
- The Coming Dark is still sitting there as an enormous, virtually complete PDF. There's a long story behind this, but that's for another day.
- I've been kicking around a concept that will either be a Fourthcore adventure or a Lair Assault encounter. Or both. I haven't decided yet... But it's a concept I just can't get out of my head, and it involves some elements I had planned to use in my canceled Gammacore adventure Where Worlds Collide.
- I have several more map packs planned - a dragon's lair, a goblin's lair, a roadside keep, a ziggurat in an evil place, etc... - but that's just a matter of getting around to doing them. Those are actually a considerable amount of work because of how badly Adobe Fireworks CS5 screams in agony every time I throw a big file at it.
- In the very near future I'm going to write a short series of posts called "Mapmaking for the Non-Artist" which describes how I - a person with almost zero artistic skill that can't draw a decent looking square at gunpoint - manage to create the maps that I do. This will everything from what tools I use to how to add certain special effects to the maps. I will not assume extensive experience in Photoshop (primarily because I don't have that experience myself), so it will center around Fireworks and other low end drawing tools. Stay tuned for that!
- Because The Endless Winter got such a good response (150+ downloads through Drive Thru RPG alone, and I have no idea how many downloads through Wombat's blog), I'll probably make some more of those, either by making separate adventures or an actual series. Making The Endless Winter was actually really fun to do to be honest, and I enjoyed the experience so much I can't wait to do it again.
- I am currently experimenting with converting The Endless Winter to Pathfinder. I've never actually played Pathfinder itself, but have played D&D 3.5e so I'm familiar with the mechanic as a player. But it's an interesting challenge to convert an existing 4e product to Pathfinder, and its an exercise I am also considering documenting for the sake of this blog.
- Tomorrow starts the window for submitting things to Wizards of the Coast for Dragon and Dungeon magazine, and I'm considering submitting a few things. Among all of my ideas, I'm probably going to get myself in trouble again for suggesting they let me make Gamma World (*writes check!*) content (including the concept of a certain doctor and his fortress of evil), but you can't blame me for trying.
Anyway, more to come in the near future!
Winter is Coming
I have decided to participate in T. W. Wombat's Winter is Coming RPG Blog Festival, in which we all create winter-themed content for D&D and other rulesets.
Since I live in Miami, Florida I admit I don't have the level of experience with whatever this "winter" thing everyone keeps talking about is, but I figured I'd give this one a shot since I've had an idea bouncing around in my head since the festival was first mentioned.
And it's gotten a pretty good list of participants, some other folks from the D&D blogsphere that are much more familiar than little ol' me. But I'm surprised to see that, although there are several that are creating an "encounter", I appear to be the only one crazy enough to create a "delve". I could be misreading their plans of course, or it could simply have to do with only having five days to do it (submission deadline is September 26th).
Although I haven't fleshed out all the details, I'm predicting a short adventure/delve of between three and five encounters for characters of low to mid paragon tier (12th-14th level) using the Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition guidelines (I will probably create it using GSL guidelines). This is not set in stone just yet as I haven't written detailed specifics yet, but it's looking to be the case.
Then again, for all I know this might be another one of my 150 page behemoths... I do tend to overdo things sometimes.
I'm also considering creating a winter-themed map, but that is dependent on available time. I'm predicting that, if I do make a full map, it'll probably be a big one and I'll run in to the issues I have before with Fireworks unable to handle big honkin' images. So no guarantees on a usable map, but you never know.
If you're out there and are one of those creative types, I invite you to sign up (sign up deadline is September 23rd) and create something... er... wintery! Doesn't have to be a full blown delve - many are doing themes, feats, items, etc... - but don't let me stop you from creating something awesome!
Stay tuned!
Welcome To the Wayside Inn
I have been working on getting my Wayside Inn map ready for publication as a map pack. For most people, this is kind of an easy thing, but I'm a bloody perfectionist sometimes... So I completely re-did the map for the third time, this time in 200 DPI so it doesn't look bad in full scale.
The first floor of the Wayside Inn clocks in at 26" x 28", which makes for a huge map (5200 x 5600, 197Mb) that Fireworks has a really hard time handling. On more than one occasion I've had Fireworks balk and say "screw you, I can't do this."
I've asked around what it would cost to put this on a glossy poster that allows for dry erase and I've gotten prices between $10 and $100 a copy, so I'm not sure about the possibility of printing this full scale on a single sheet. So for now, thanks to Newbie DM's suggestion, I'm using PosteRazor, which is a wonderful little tool that takes any image and cuts it up so you can print it and composite it yourself. That was something I was doing before, but this little app makes it so much easier!
The first floor includes:
- The lobby, a massive room complete with nine tables, a fireplace, a 50' long bar and even a place for the Ethereal Bard!
- Full kitchen with storage room.
- Six double rooms.
- The owner's sleeping quarters.
- Staircase to second floor.
- Numerous windows through which you can make a dramatic entrance or a quick exit.
The second floor includes:
- Eleven double rooms.
- One "deluxe" room with three beds.
- A storage room.
- A few windows through which you can jump out and fall to your death.
It's my favorite map from The Coming Dark, Chapter One: Into the Light, and also contains one of my favorite scenes.
But I do not want to publish just the map... I want to publish something that can be useful above and beyond that, something that DMs could drop in to a campaign with nominal effort. So I want to include detailed descriptions of everything, and possibly include several encounters, skill challenges, etc... that are not linked to a specific campaign and can be used by anyone.
Although my intention is to create a lot of generic descriptions, the content that is edition specific will not be limited to D&D 4e. I want Pathfinder, D&D 3.5e... even some older or alternate systems that I haven't thought of. I want it to be useful to anyone that needs an inn.
And let's face it... everyone needs an inn in their campaign at some point!
I'm curious to hear what some of you would make of such a place. I was tempted to ask for submissions or create a contest, but since this is going to be a retail product the financials of that could get somewhat complicated. But I'll tell you what... If you are eager enough to create a scene - be it an encounter, skill challenge, roleplaying situation, etc... - I would be more than happy to see it, and if it's cool enough I might ask you to include it in the final product.
Until I can work more on the internal content, I'll spend my time trying to come up with a cover page that doesn't look like crap.
Stay tuned!
The Future of Gamma World
In addition to seeing what it's all about and enjoying the activities, I went to GenCon Indianapolis with one objective: to find out what the deal is with Wizards of the Coast and Gamma World.
After four days, I wish I had a answer. I mean, I wasn't expecting a resolution of this whole thing, but it would have been nice to have any information.
You would think that a gaming convention would be the sort of place to get business-like, mingling with the representatives of all the companies there in the hopes of making your own business successful. I have no doubt that many accomplished that, but if they did I don't imagine it was done easily with Wizards of the Coast.
Even though they were a major sponsor of the whole event, besides the Atari folks showing off the video games there weren't any "branding" people at the WotC booth in the dealer hall. I imagine they were all, for the most part, at the Indiana Ballroom instead, which is somewhat inconvenient in that it's distant from the convention itself; if I were to hang around the Indiana room all the time and try to speak to someone there I would pretty much miss the entire convention.
And I didn't want to be "that guy" that stalked WotC employees, insisting on talking about Gamma World at extremely inappropriate times. I wasn't going to bring up the topic when I saw staff at Steak & Shake, or jump in to a group of a dozen WotC employees standing around in the Westin lobby, 'cause that would be kind of rude.
The only thing I was able to accomplish on this front is speaking out at the R&D session on Thursday, where I brought up the issue of the recent Rule of Three article stating that there was no planned Gamma World content for digital release. Their response, put simply, was that saying "we don't have any Gamma World content planned" isn't the same thing as "Gamma World is dead." They suggested that Gamma World is not dead.
In the product preview seminar on Saturday, the topic of Gamma World never came up at all.
Beyond those venues, Wizards of the Coast seems to pretend that Gamma World didn't exist, but there were signs of life. First off, one of the tables at the "Drunken D&D" event on Wednesday night was Gamma World themed and manned by WotC staff (such as Michael Robles). Secondly, they seem to be giving out Gamma World boxes like candy: there was a pile of boxes shoulder high for the judges to take in the Sagamore room, and each winner of the D&D Open took a Gamma World box as a prize. In afterthought, there is the possibility that they are giving these boxes away so eagerly just to get rid of their inventory, but I'd rather not think of it that way.
I understand that, as a company, Wizards of the Coast has to follow the path that makes the most sense from a business standpoint, so all the products that will make them more money get top billing. And I understand that since Gamma World isn't one of their moneymakers it gets pushed aside. What does bother me is that there are those of us out here that want to pick up the reins and do with it what Wizards of the Coast doesn't have the time or inclination to do, but we are restricted from doing that by their legal department. They're not actively trying to kill Gamma World; it will wither away and die on its own due to lack of attention.
So I'm not giving up. As soon as I was back home and able to clear most of the cobwebs from my mind, I fired off another volley of messages to Wizards of the Coast legal. Also, in response to a Twitter post by Steve Winter commenting on PDFs from the "small press market", I got his contact information and sent him links to Fire From the Sky and The Coming Dark, Chapter One: Into the Light. Hopefully, sooner or later, I'll have a clearer picture of what I can and cannot do.
Until then, I will continue to develop my three modules - The Fortress of Dr. Neb will get done, even if I'm the only person who will ever see it - and otherwise be known as "the guy that got hit with the C&D". I can live with that, I guess.
Soon I'll write up a separate post regarding the GenCon experience, but there are still a few lingering cobwebs in my skull so I'm not quite ready to do that.
Game Preparation With Limited Resources
About three days ago I decided that I was going to run Fire From the Sky at GenCon, but during these three days I have a boatload of work and other preparations I have to go through before I travel. And, quite frankly, I'm broke. I needed to get ready quickly and at little personal expense. So for those of you that are looking for quick game setups, here's everything I have done so far.
I admit I do have one benefit: access to an industrial grade color printer at work. I don't know how many of you have access to that, so doing the high level of printing I've done may not end up being economical at all if you have to resort to a printing company. So your mileage may vary, I guess.
The Documentation
I printed several copies of the module and used Fedex Office's velo binding to make them look professional, but when I'm running the campaign myself I couldn't care less if it's "professional" or not... I want it to be easy to work with physically. So I printed the PDF with all the pages one sided, holding it together with no more than a single staple in the top left corner. So as I progress through the module, I can tear away and toss pages at my discretion.
As for the Gamma World manual, I didn't really feel like dragging the whole box to the convention. So, using the printer's scanning capabilities, I made a PDF of only the character creation pages in the Gamma World Core Rulebook, and then re-printed it so that the players can use it for character creation.
Time permitting, I will see if I can create some pre-generated characters in order to speed things up.
The Maps
All my maps were created in Adobe Fireworks CS5, on a grid where each square is exactly 50 x 50 pixels. Luckily all my maps are approximately the same size - each map is about 16 squares wide on each axis - but at 50 DPI (to ensure each square is exactly 1" x 1") that would be larger than the traditional page.
When the module was distributed through Drive Thru RPG it included a supplemental with all the tactical maps cut in to sections that fit on a letter-sized page, but this time I took advantage of the printing resources. I took each page and divided it down the horizontal center, printing each part of the map on a tabloid (11" x 17") page. Cut to fit and taped together, it should do fine.
Maps appear a little pixellated - had I known this was going to be the plan, I probably would have created the maps at a resolution higher than 50 DPI - but I don't expect anyone to be looking at the map with a magnifying glass and complaining that the trees look to pixellated.
The Markers
Shuma Gorath will have to do, I guess.
I had a bit of a problem here. Although I could print anything I want, I cannot print it in heavy stock paper. Without access to anything available at the store, what do I do for creature markers?
Instead of creating markers that lie flat, I decided to create stand-up markers that can be folded in to triangles.
Using the same resolution as the map, I created four part strips that could be cut and folded into free standing triangles like what you see on the right. Each strip is 45 pixels wide (just shy of the 1" square size) and 230 pixels long (45 pixels for each base, 70 pixels for each side). The Large creature strips are 95 x 430, effectively adding 50 pixels (1") to each face's dimensions.
Here is what the image for the first encounter looks like:
After they are cut and folded, since it was the only thing I had lying around I used a penny to give it some weight, and the result is the above image. Afterwards, I realized that nickels are slightly heavier and still fit, while the Large markers will use quarters or something bigger like dice.
The hardest part has been looking for appropriate images. I scanned the image of the zombie and some other creatures from the Gamma World Core Rulebook (which isn't as appropriate as you'd think, but whatever), but there are some creatures that just don't appear anywhere in the core manuals. So, thanks to Google Image Search, I found a picture of Shuma Gorath and some other appropriate images for some unique creatures I have. I still have one more to find, which I hope to get ready by end of day today.
I also forgot markers for the players. Oops... I'll take care of that today as well.
The Details
For actual encounter management, I got myself a stack of 3" x 5" index cards. On each card I wrote:
- Each creature's details: defenses, base hit points, hit modifiers (vs AC and non-AC defense) whether it's an Elite or a Solo and their initiative and Perception modifiers.
- I pre-rolled initiative for every creature. When it comes time to play, I will determine whether I'll keep those values or re-roll them (I like to space out monster actions in and around the players just to keep things more dynamic).
- Each individual creature's current hit points, with lots of horizontal space so I can add conditions and manually rewrite hit points as they take damage.
Five encounters, five cards. And each card has the above monster markers (unfolded) paper clipped to it.
Other Supplies
I will have lots of blank index cards, several pens, and all the dice I have. Need to get tape somewhere.
Right now, I can't think of much else I would need... Am I missing something?
-=O=-
The nice benefit to all of the above is that, because I don't have a DM screen, I do not have to be concerned all that much about hiding everything. Index cards are low profile, and I can keep those on my lap or even in full view of the players (maintaining a certain level of discretion and trusting my players not to peek, mind you). As for the module itself, I've been up and down this module so many times that I like to think I don't have to look at it much, so it's not like I'll have to keep it open all the time and in full view.
Now I admit I'm still not sure if this game will happen; there's a lot going on at GenCon, I don't know when I'll actually do it, and I've never been there myself so I don't quite know how things work as far as pick up games. But the above preparations actually took little effort, so I don't feel that it's all a waste. If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. Life goes on.
Odds are it will be at some point on Saturday. If you are interested and attending, send me a message to @BrainClouds and let's see what we can arrange.
Hope to see some players there!
About the Author
Software developer and game designer in Miami, Florida. Currently working on content for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, Pathfinder, 13th Age and other systems.
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Recent Posts
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