| wrb |
The word from Jason...
Round 6 comments:
First of all, thanks to everyone who supported me throughout the contest, at every round, and to everyone else for reading through even if you didn’t find my creations to your liking. This being the final round, I figured I would still go ahead and make my responses and comments to everyone. I asked a friend to post this for me because as we speak I am off with my son at Disneyland… the Magic Kingdom is sort of a poetic place to be when the RPG Superstar contest comes to a close.
GENERAL/STRUCTURAL ISSUES
The title was actually a bit of personal vanity, as it was the title of the first thing I ever submitted to Dungeon magazine (or any official D&D event) back around 1991. It was for an entirely different adventure, though it was set in a desert area and it did involve devils. I heard the phrase once used in a sermon I think and it just stuck with me. So I figured it would be fun to trot it out for this entry.
The basic concept was really a James Bond kind of experience for high-level PCs. Sashay off to an exotic locale filled with the rich and beautiful and get embroiled in a fantastic plot for world domination. It even included a doomed ‘Bond Girl’ (Syrinsa) who befriends PCs and is taken in by the enemy, but can be rescued later and… ‘reward’ her rescuer. The bad guy’s hidden lair (in the Ethereal) was designed to dramatically explode. The reward for the adventure was also designed as something fun for players, membership in an exclusive club: When you’re 16th level, are you going to remember that extra 20 thousand gold you got from the last dungeon to upgrade your weapon by one ‘plus’ or the fact that you are now in the Alcazar Diamond Club for life with full VIP privileges? Come on, who doesn’t like Evil Vegas/Monte Carlo?
The ‘executive summary’ idea (sorry the phrase turned off some) was a tease, in which I originally had more plot points, but a friend suggested it should be more tease, less preview, and that must have made sense to me at the time… what it really should have been was “back cover text.” What Christine did there was perfect and was what I had in mind for that section, but I cut more than I should there.
As for the writing being uneven… I could attribute some of that to writing the proposal in different parts – writing the background at one time and the adventure outline/summary another time. Writing for different reasons in each, I wrote it differently, and when I put things together my brain had already decided what it was going to see. I did send it to some friends for comments and made some edits, but more would have helped.
I think the heart of the matter, though, was that when I’ve submitted specs to Dungeon before, the background/premise I’ve written up in ‘full text’ (more or less as it would appear in the adventure), but the rest of it I’ve done more in a robust outline style, not pure prose/narrative, as I’ve done here. Since the three adventures I had pitched in that style had all been greenlit (the last one never saw print because, due to a lot of upheavals in my personal life, I never got around to finishing the manuscript until this past spring, shortly before the repo man came to get Dragon and Dungeon magazine), I figured that was the way to go. Ironically, my ‘experience,’ such as it is, probably hurt more than it helped here. That style may have worked for me in the past, but not so much here.
Looking back, I can also see that I was way too specific in some parts, including a lot of game mechanics that really didn’t need explication at this point. Even the monsters and magic items – the assignment asked for concepts, but I actually roughed them out the monsters enough that anybody on the messageboards could pretty much take them and run them now. And the magic stuff is fully detailed. That’s nice, but really wasn’t necessary, and the couple hundred words spent there could have been better spent elsewhere.
I do like the basic format that I used. I thought it was readable and clear. I also liked the cast of characters and list of monsters to be used. I thought that was a helpful reference tool for someone looking at the adventure to see who the major players are. Some liked that, some didn’t, but I stand by that as a good idea in a submission as a reference to use up front so that when a reviewer is ready they have a ready guide to which to refer.
Finally, would it all fit in 32 pages? Yeah, I think it would. I looked at about a half-dozen GameMastery modules and broke down the number of combat and interaction-based encounters in each, and I pegged the average at around 11-12 combats and about 4-5 interaction ‘events’ for each. I also looked back at some Dungeon magazine adventures (which were shorter than 32 pages), I think I could pretty confidently say this could fit well into 32 pages, around 20,000 words or so. There’s lots of room for expansion later (I don’t know if Paizo wants to bother with ‘web enhancements’ for products), like detailing the Cliffs area gazetteer/sourcebook style, but I think it’s very fittable.
10 CONTENT QUESTIONS
1. The bulette encounter is like the coolest thing in the adventure. Why Why WHY is it irrelevant to the plot?
Overthinking the problem. That’s pretty much it. At first, Battu had been created by Zaid and sent to destroy the oasis. In fact, part of the design of Zaid was so that he would have been able to magically craft the talisman of the spirit claw that would let him be a super-melee-killer while being intangible. In fact, Zaid was going to have other ghost minions using those talismans – including several ghost hydras.
Anyway, then I thought “If Zaid is this secret spy guy, why would he create a big commotion and ruckus? He wouldn’t.” So then I had Battu be essentially a runaway… an old experiment of Zaid’s that had wandered off when he got busy with the devil plot. Then he had been inveigled into the service of a rival devourer. I really liked the encounter idea but ultimately none of the connections really satisfied me. The simple solution was to make him unconnected plot-wise but obviously that solution was far from perfect. If I were writing the whole adventure, I would probably combine the ‘runaway’ angle with the ‘disturbed remains’ angle I used. Yes, he was an old experiment of Zaid, but he decided to put him down. Adventurers disturb remains, triggering rampage. Plus, the talisman would have a run or other identifying mark for Zaid. I would probably also put another ghost monster with a talisman in there later on for symmetry and to tie it together.
I remember a similar though with my first Dungeon adventure “Practical Magic,” which boiled down to “why wouldn’t the villain just teleport away at the end, rather than facing the PCs?” The real answer, of course, is that it’s a crappy way to end an adventure, but I was stuck finding an in-game rationale for why the villain would hang around. I eventually did (a betrayal from a supposed ally left him unable to flee), but again – overthinking the problem.
One bit of advice for would-be adventure-writers: Remember that the PCs, not the NPCs, are the stars of your story. It is perfectly okay for them to behave as plot devices rather than being played like PCs. Their primary mission in life is to entertain the PLAYERS of the game, and their actions should flow from that. Live to fight another day? That’s what PCs get to do (and rare recurring villains). Villains and monsters in one-shot adventures? They don’t need to behave COMPLETELY rationally all the time, so don’t tie yourself in knots trying to make sure they do. Make it awesome, and make it fun for the players, and the rest will take care of itself.
2. What’s the deal with the magic spear?
“There is no spoon…” um I mean spear! That was just poetic language for a meteor. Some caught that, some not. I could have been clearer.
3. The adventure hooks seemed strange, 3 very different reasons to go there
That was intentional. The adventure is what happens when the PCs get to the Alcazar. WHY they go to the pools is ultimately irrelevant. Any of the three reasons (or any other) is just a pretext to get them there. Once they arrive, their search for a traitor, or for a magical cure, or their quest for rest and relaxation is interrupted by the very public contest for the emirate and all Hell breaking loose (literally). As PCs do, they just happen to be there at the right (or wrong, depending on your perspective) time.
The adventure is based on a place (Alcazar and the magical pools) and event (emirate contest/gate switch and devil incursion). It happens whenever and for whatever reason the PCs arrive. They THINK that they are going to the pools for their own reasons (the hooks), but the adventure that awaits them is something very different and is intended to blindside them while their guard is down.
I think if I’d have put in a section that “Once the adventure is complete, PCs are able to complete their original business at the Alcazar” that might have been clearer. They’ve won the favor of the jann and would be happily accorded access to the pools, or for relaxation, or in apprehending the traitor (though the treachery is kind of mooted by the destruction of the spy ring).
4. The monsters are mostly too wimpy for the level
Some of that is intentional. I don’t believe that all encounters should be at par for level or you get a Diablo/Doom effect where combats stay at a uniform level of toughness throughout a character’s career. I think that sometimes it’s okay to throw an encounter at a party that is way too tough for them, to teach the value that sometimes it’s best not to fight. I also think it’s useful sometimes to throw out encounters that will be easy for the party, so they get to actually flex their muscles and FEEL like powerful adventurers. They’ve worked hard to get to high-level, so let them BE high level sometimes and kick around monsters that used to scare them.
Secondly, many of the encounters occur within the ‘resort’ or while the party is split are factored into ratcheting down their ability to just lay waste to everything with mega-damage effects.
Thirdly, some of the monsters are support/minion monsters for tougher main baddies. They are just around to run interference for the real bad guys or provide backup (and to allow bosses to use ally support spells like haste, unholy aura, etc.
Fourthly, well, I just put an ice devil in there because that’s always been my favorite of the devils, an extremely underused monster in my book (I could say the same about Mephistopheles as an archdevil), and just for fun because I chose that as my Paizo icon. Still, I originally did a lot more with the “demoted pit fiend” angle in the first draft but eventually cut it down.
5. The level is too high
This concept has been discussed in another thread. I looked at the GameMastery modules and there were no high-level ones. I think the level works well, and I don’t really think there are too many ‘save the world’ plots for standalone high-level adventures – Climax adventures for the adventure paths? Sure. Those all seem to be ‘save the world.’ I think that’s more of a stereotype of high-level adventures than reality. Of course, Clark, Erik, and Wolfgang can answer that question (are most HL adventures world-saving?) far better than I could and I could be totally wrong about it
That said, I think the adventure could be easily rescaled for PCs around 12th or 13th level just by reducing numbers of some of the enemies and class levels on some others.
6. Gambling? For real?
Like I said, I had sort of a James Bond theme going here (I did work in SPECTREs as monsters, and the Zurin griffons have a “golden eye” but I didn’t want to go overboard with puns or easter eggs). It would have been good to give a few game concepts. I did a little of that with referring to skill checks for certain kinds of gambling but could have done better – not just more info, but (in a proposal) more flavor/concept and less attempted mechanics, which also would help with the shorthand. I figured I would specify them when I wrote the adventure, but a little more here would have reassured the reader.
7. All this talking and intrigue… needs more action
I am a firm believer that adventures should give everyone a chance to shine. Yeah, some characters will do better than others, but talking and intrigue IS action; it is just action where the social characters or the role-playing PLAYERS get more of a chance to have fun, rather than it just being all about the dice and the min-maxing and the combat. It’s not an either/or—lots of powergamers are good RPers too, and combat killers can be good sociably. Still, build adventures so undead turners have stuff to turn, a variety of skills can come into play, some indoor, some outdoor, some ranged combat, some melee… I try to go for enabling variety in play style and offering spotlight opportunities to different characters.
8. Boo, hiss! Nerfing teleportation is lazy DMing!
Fair points. I agree with you. There is actually nothing stopping PCs from teleporting into the Alcazar rule-wise. The jann like their privacy, and so they frown on that sort of thing and have made agreements with other nations not to do it, but you can do it all you like. Just don’t get caught. A golden rule of good DMing is “don’t forbid, but apply consequences.” PCs seen teleporting or plane traveling about may get themselves into trouble. They’re high level, they can probably get away with it, but just put the IDEA in players’ minds that it’s a risky proposition, and you don’t have to create a lot of fancy nerfing rules to make it happen. It also adds a bit of tension to things and gives players more interesting choices to make.
An earlier draft had a sort of curse on the area that would zap you with an arcane mark if you teleported in the area but I eventually dumped it. Some of the monsters will use spells or effects in certain places to block it (like the devils using dimensional lock in the banquet battle, or Zaid using forbiddance in his lair), but in no way is teleportation impossible in this adventure. Obviously my writing to that effect was not clear enough.
9. See #8, but ditto for nerfing divinations.
Again a fair point, and again I agree. That’s why I didn’t go with a blanket ‘screw you’ to diviners. Instead, I used existing spells (screen, private sanctum) and mechanics (planar ‘impeded magic’ for certain types of divs and ‘enhanced magic’ for certain types of anti-div spells). Are certain kinds of magic blocked? Yes. But this is magic that is in the SRD and is fair game to use for people who want to keep secrets, and it is magic that has limits and countermeasures. PCs with good enough Spellcraft checks essentially ignore the ‘impeded magic’ effect. There are also numerous types of divinations that are not affected by any of the above effects.
So can PCs use divinations in this adventure? Absolutely, and it will be greatly to their benefit to do so. They just have to work a little harder and be a little more creative about it, because some of the most obvious choices don’t work as well as they are used to.
10. The Cliffs of Shattered Glass? Okay, but… why no action pieces set around them?
Another oopsie, and I thought I had written one in. The gateway to the ethereal was supposed to be THROUGH a huge mirror-like glass cliff just outside the Alcazar, reflecting the resort—this is vaguely alluded to by the Through a glass darkly section title, but I thought when I had written it that I had made that more explicit, but obviously I hadn’t. Editing problem. The big ethereal explosion I had also thought of having shatter or at least fracture that huge glass cliff, but while I had that idea I just flat-out forgot to write it. I could chalk that up to time pressure, but it was really more of a brain fart than anything else.
Another concept I never really wrote up was that the ethereal area within the cliffs would not be the standard misty whatever but would actually have the appearance being inside of a huge faceted crystal, filled with distorted and wavering reflections and refractions of the outside world.
And that, as Forrest Gump said, is just about all I have to say about that.
Thanks to any and all for reading, both this message and everything from everyone involved in this contest. It’s been great and I’ve had a marvelous time. All the best to my fellow finalists, Mr. Rob McCreary, Ms. Christine Schneider, and Mr. Clinton Boomer, and everybody else who entered the contest, and to Erik, Clark, Wolfgang, and everybody else who helped put it on (Lisa and Gary in particular).
The essential truth throughout this contest is that anybody who loves D&D like has been a winner.
Jason