As some might know, June is Worldwide Adventure Writing Month (http://woadwrimo.blogspot.com/). So, how many therpgsiters (we need a better name for that) will participate and what will you brew up most likely?
Personally, I'm sticking to my roots and will either write a traditional save-the-princess solo adventure or a slightly lower-powered dungeon crawl (think D20 NPC classes or Level 0 characters). _If_ I manage to actually finish anything...
If I'd have seen this at the start of the month, I might have submitted my died-in-infancy Cyberpunk 2020 PbP game, which (IMHO) had a decently twisty plotline, some decent NPCs & settings and a sting in the tail that wasnt the traditional "Employer screws you over once the mission is complete." that is expected in Cyberpunk.
Maybe next year.
I honestly wonder about this contest, because why write a 32-page adventure game module and then just give it away when you could possibly sell it to a game company for publication or just publish it yourself and make a little money?
I decided to submit something I work on in my spare time.
I'm submitting one of my side projects-- a multi-level dungeon. It has 71 keyed areas and 4 pages of maps. So far it has 27 encounters. (When it's finished, it will hopefully have 15 more.)
I have about 21 rooms to finish up.
The dungeon itself is the fortress of a heretic dwarf sorcerer. The Mad Dwarf sought to command the earth elementals, but he somehow found a lost path into the Far Realms instead. Now the place is overrun with pseudonatural beasties, elementals, warring dwarf factions, and the worst kinds of dungeon vermin. Watch out for the Meenlocks on level 2!
Quote from: O'BorgMaybe next year.
If I'm not mistaken, the deadline is the _end_ of June.
Personally, I'm using a literal interpretation of the concept. I won't even start before June ;)
Quote from: SosthenesIf I'm not mistaken, the deadline is the _end_ of June.
Personally, I'm using a literal interpretation of the concept. I won't even start before June ;)
I've decided to run my game as a PbEM / Backup game for my tabletop group when we don't get enough players to run our regular game.
I should be able to fine tune & playtest it at least. It's been some time since I played Cyberpunk 2020 (and even longer since I enjoyed it)
Quote from: jeff37923I honestly wonder about this contest, because why write a 32-page adventure game module and then just give it away when you could possibly sell it to a game company for publication or just publish it yourself and make a little money?
Nobody is making anybody give anything away. WoAdWriMo exists to encourage people to get to writing. If authors want to sell the fruits of their labor, more power to 'em.
Personally, my own WoAdWriMo project is being written for a primary audience of exactly four people (Dr. Rotwang, S. John Ross, Christian Conkle, and me) and I don't plan on charging any of those guys.
As it turns out, I am preparing 3 adventures for GenCon. 3!
Here's the thing though. Most of my prep is characters. For one shot adventures, to me, the characters take more effort and are more important to get right that particulars of the adventure. Because the PCs are always involved in the game; anything else about your adventure is transient.
Given the fact that the adventure itself will be a little skimpy considering all this, I'm not so sure I'd have anything worthy of submission.
Mine's done. (Snap!)
PM me or post here and I will send you a link to my project. It's posted online with comments attached so you even can comment on it if you like. I am only sending the link via PM though! ;)
Oh yeah, and postscript: I've been running it for the last 5 sessions via FantasyGrounds. (Just finished session #5!)
It's going very well. They've basicaly completely cleared the 1st level. During the last session, one character stumbled into a slide that dropped her right down to the 3rd level, and directly into a pit full of swarming vipers where she was bitten and poisoned to unconsciousness. They had to repel down the slide and grab her out of the snakepit.
On the plus side, they have now discovered an alternate way to get to the third level of the dungeon...
Hah. Fun stuff.
(EDIT)
And finally- I'm still tidying it up. I have some stuff on there that probably only I think is funny. Like at the end, there's an unstable planar portal that you aren't supposed to go in, but I provided a table of results of what happens if you go in anyway.
Some of the results say things like "7) Character finds himself on the banks of filthy river located in Hell, where he is immediately enslaved by a cadre of bone devils."
I thought this would be waaay funnier if I also added on "...Please make a copy of the character sheet and email it to me at (email address) with the circumstances of the character noted".
As if I'm going to use that for something. But mainly that's just my sense of humor.
Quote from: jrientsNobody is making anybody give anything away. WoAdWriMo exists to encourage people to get to writing. If authors want to sell the fruits of their labor, more power to 'em.
Personally, my own WoAdWriMo project is being written for a primary audience of exactly four people (Dr. Rotwang, S. John Ross, Christian Conkle, and me) and I don't plan on charging any of those guys.
I understand that nobody is making anyone give away their work, I'm just curious as to why the writer would want to give away their work if they could make a bit of profit from it. I'm assuming its a subjective decision on the part of the writer.
Quote from: jeff37923I understand that nobody is making anyone give away their work, I'm just curious as to why the writer would want to give away their work if they could make a bit of profit from it. I'm assuming its a subjective decision on the part of the writer.
I can only answer for me:
Once you start selling things you take on a new role in the hobby. You go from "a guy putting free stuff on the web" to "salesman". Suddenly you have a responsibility to customers, and there's a right and wrong way to act. Although many people end up making this jump unconsciously, they soon find out they have a whole new set of ethical and moral standards to adhere to. Your entire purpose in this community becomes one of "offering value in exchange for money".
There are a lot of great merchants out there who understand this role and responsibility very well.
...And there are a lot of people that
don't adhere to those standards, or get around them in various ways. Theyre basically a blight on the hobby, and they make it suck.
So I say.. Free stuff for everyone!
Quote from: jeff37923I understand that nobody is making anyone give away their work, I'm just curious as to why the writer would want to give away their work if they could make a bit of profit from it. I'm assuming its a subjective decision on the part of the writer.
Complete creative control has its upsides, and so does being able to design the adventure without needing to satisfy the demands of your customers. Plus the profits aren't going to be big in any case.
Abyssal Maw and Melan, thanks for your answers. Its helping to illuminate this.
EDIT: Sorry, that seems a bit asstardish, but its giving me some material to reflect on regarding my own choices.