squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
Maybe this isn't the right thread name but I wanted to call everyone's attention to two very useful resources regarding Adventure Design:
The first is a series of articles by Guy Fullerton on the Chaotic Henchmen's web site on How to Revise, Edit, Layout and Self-Publish. I had read these years ago and was impressed (while also silently & arrogantly patting myself on the back for having learned most of these professionally as part of publishing internal reports and conference papers---sometimes you just want to read something you already know so you can just nod along and say "yup!", "Darn right!", and "Oh yes!").
ANYWAY (I rambled), I couldn't remember where I had seen those articles until I just went there this past week (thanks to Bryce's and Melan's reviews) to purchase The Withered Crag.
AND...
I was reading through my hard-copy of Silent Titans and on page's 8-11 Patrick Stewart has an amazingly insightful section on "Making an Encounter". I hope I don't get in trouble for paraphrasing it---but it boils down to a yin-yang polarity of Game (a.k.a. problem/solving and plot) vs. Threat (something requiring immediate action). He further breaks it down in describing the Space (in a very palpable and character-relevant way using 'positional-locks' etc.), Held Energy (via set design), and Workable Enemies (i.e. parley, NPC motives, and so on).
Again, I don't know if my group will ever play SIlent Titans (they are deep into a more traditional multi-year home-brew world with no end in sight) and I'm only part way into the Titan's text---but I maintain that Stewart is one of the true geniuses of RPG---a wild talent that transcends rules and customs. We may not remember all the zany retro-clones that have popped-up in the last fifteen years, but I expect the world will remember him.
Also a small nod at another raging thread: the term "OSR" is used many times in this product even though it's not your grandpa's D&D (it uses the Into the Odd ruleset).
The first is a series of articles by Guy Fullerton on the Chaotic Henchmen's web site on How to Revise, Edit, Layout and Self-Publish. I had read these years ago and was impressed (while also silently & arrogantly patting myself on the back for having learned most of these professionally as part of publishing internal reports and conference papers---sometimes you just want to read something you already know so you can just nod along and say "yup!", "Darn right!", and "Oh yes!").
ANYWAY (I rambled), I couldn't remember where I had seen those articles until I just went there this past week (thanks to Bryce's and Melan's reviews) to purchase The Withered Crag.
AND...
I was reading through my hard-copy of Silent Titans and on page's 8-11 Patrick Stewart has an amazingly insightful section on "Making an Encounter". I hope I don't get in trouble for paraphrasing it---but it boils down to a yin-yang polarity of Game (a.k.a. problem/solving and plot) vs. Threat (something requiring immediate action). He further breaks it down in describing the Space (in a very palpable and character-relevant way using 'positional-locks' etc.), Held Energy (via set design), and Workable Enemies (i.e. parley, NPC motives, and so on).
Again, I don't know if my group will ever play SIlent Titans (they are deep into a more traditional multi-year home-brew world with no end in sight) and I'm only part way into the Titan's text---but I maintain that Stewart is one of the true geniuses of RPG---a wild talent that transcends rules and customs. We may not remember all the zany retro-clones that have popped-up in the last fifteen years, but I expect the world will remember him.
Also a small nod at another raging thread: the term "OSR" is used many times in this product even though it's not your grandpa's D&D (it uses the Into the Odd ruleset).
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