Congrats! Well deserved.
Okay, guys and gals. Thanks again to everyone who’s chimed in since I lasted posted to this thread. Also, I was putting together a series of responses to the judges’ comments while the voting was still going on…and holding off on posting it until after the results were announced. But I figured I’d go ahead and share this whether I won or not, in the hopes that maybe future contestants of RPG Superstar 2010 might glean something from it about how and why I designed things the way I did. The choices I made, etc.
So, in no particular order, I’ve kind of grouped some of the judges’ comments together according to certain topics or themes they focused on with their feedback. Here goes…
Re: The Title
Great title. Let’s start there. Very evocative and well done....I think you are clearly the best. And your title shows that. You know how important that is and you nailed it. You found the beating heart of your adventure—the realm of the fellnight queen. Perfect. It’s seeping into our world and the PCs need to do something about it. Well done.
Thank you. I put a LOT of effort into coming up with the title. I compared titles from other Paizo adventure modules, as well as titles from some of the old-school classics in an attempt to find something that would both fit and grab the attention of folks wandering by the bookshelf. In the end, I went through about 20 different possible titles before settling on Realm of the Fellnight Queen. I started to call it Queen of the Fellnight Realm initially as sort of a throwback to Queen of the Demonweb Pits, but I kept wrestling with the notion that the adventure really isn't about the Queen as much as the Realm. It's really the Fellnight Realm that's the centerpiece of the adventure. So I changed it to that instead.
Re: The Choice of Using Fey in an Adventure
...this is a faerie adventure....But these are hard to do. And they don’t have universal appeal. So there is some risk here. Some people want to play D&D with a harder edge and the fey don’t always deliver....from a publisher standpoint you are possibly limiting the appeal of this adventure just by your content choice....That said, a well-done evil fey adventure is needed and could be a hit.
A lot of those points crossed my mind as different ideas for the adventure proposal came to me. I knew a fey adventure would be a niche product and possibly turn off some folks. But, much like some of my earlier rounds, I decided to take that risk because the payoff could be quite large, and especially considering what I’ve perceived as a renewed interest in fey adventures (and particularly, Golarion’s brand of fey) that’s picked up a bit more lately. I also considered Paizo’s previous adventures which already include evil fey...i.e., Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale and Carnival of Tears. But neither of those adventures had done evil fey quite like I imagine them. Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale didn't showcase them as the primary antagonist. And Carnival of Tears connected a particular type of evil fey back to the Witch Queen of Irrisen and made them into cold-themed creatures. But my vision of the fey is to take them to a more primal level.
The campaign setting's references to the First World, the Bleaching, and the backstory of the entire gnome race just call for something different in my mind. I remember the early conversations Mike McArtor had on Paizo’s boards about gnomes and the fey, and doing them differently than they'd been portrayed in past incarnations of the game. And so, I wanted to channel some of that interpretation into this adventure. I feel like such a fey adventure is long overdue. And it's very much a conscious choice on my part to challenge everyone’s preconceptions of the fey. I want to get back to their roots. And not the "airy fairy" characterization that people naturally assume. Paizo has already started down that path with the reimagining of the gnome race and how they’ve characterized fey a little differently in Golarion. So, all of that combined in my head to cause me to pitch a proposal involving them.
Re: Literary Influences
James Jacobs: I really like this adventure's use of the First World...and the sinister mist that fills the world and transforms the surrounding woodlands into another realm. Of course, I'm a huge fan of the Stephen King story "The Mist" (both short story and movie)... but this is different in some interesting ways....a cool Grimm's Fairy Tales type vibe.
Clark Peterson: Very Shakespearean....Has a very “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” feel to the backstory....This adventure feels like good classic literature. I first mentioned Shakespeare in my initial comments. Then Lewis’ Narnia. You use some strong literary elements and devices to good effect....More literary references, with the “mirror, mirror on the wall”-style scrying mirror for the evil fey queen.
All of those literary influences factored very heavily into how I wanted to craft the underlying premise for this adventure proposal. I wanted to borrow some of the best elements from all those sources and weave them into an interpretation of the First World fey that would hopefully add something unique and powerful to the overall setting for Pathfinder.
The influences I consciously drew upon include: Stephen King’s Mist (both the short story and movie), Raymond E. Feist's Faerie Tale, Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi's The Spiderwick Chronicles, C.S. Lewis' Narnia, Maleficent from Disney's rendition of Sleeping Beauty, and even the tale of "Rumpelstiltskin" as told by the Brothers Grimm. But, I also think one of the greatest influences that led me to choose this for my adventure proposal is actually my own children.
For those who don't know, I have two girls, a 3-year old and 4-year old (Hannah and Kailey, respectively). My wife is also expecting another girl in July. And, in a lot of ways, I kind of feel like L. Frank Baum sometimes, who wrote all those books set in the Land of Oz as bedtime stories for his children...and he had all girls, as well. So, the Realm of the Fellnight Queen is kind of like my Wonderful Wizard of Oz...only I'm doing it as a harder-edged RPG adventure instead of a bedtime-story.
In addition, Disney's Sleeping Beauty is my girls' all-time favorite movie so far. For the past several months, it's been requested on an almost daily basis. My oldest daughter also demands that I read her the Sleeping Beauty storybook every night before going to bed. And she views Maleficent as the scariest of all the villains she's experienced so far via books or movies. I pretty much patterned Rhoswen after Maleficent in a lot of ways. So, all of those things, combined with the influences I listed above, kind of came together in crafting this adventure proposal. I hope to do it in a way that’s not just a child’s fairy tale, of course…but those literary influences are there nonetheless.
Re: The Use of Gnomes and the First World
Clark Peterson: Gnomes. Uh oh. Not a huge fan.
Wolfgang Baur: ...the First World and the bleachling elements are due for some time in the spotlight....
James Jacobs: We haven't done much with bleaching and bleached gnomes yet, and this is a great way to explore that topic.
Sean K Reynolds: I like the First World aspect and the use of gnomes as villains.
I had a feeling folks might be mixed on their love/distaste for gnomes. That race has clearly had a lot of issues with how much support they've received...or not received...in the RPG community over the years. I wanted to turn things on their ear a bit by approaching gnomes from a different direction in this adventure. And I think Pathfinder's interpretation and backstory for the gnomes as "once immortal fey" provides a unique opportunity to do so.
When I look at the other races in the game, we have evil elves in the Drow. We have evil dwarves available in two flavors -- Duergar or, to a lesser extent, Derro. But we don't really have an evil version of the Gnomes. We get Svirfneblin (deep gnomes) of course. But they're more neutral than evil. And they're more tied to the deep underworld than I wanted my group of evil gnomes to be. For me, the Fellnight gnomes are intended to fill that gap -- to create a version of evil gnome in line with what the Drow and Duergar provided for Elves and Dwarves…and rather than tuck them away in the Darklands, set them in a pocket dimension of shadow within the First World.
Also, I guess I'm kind of channeling Mike McArtor a bit with this interpretation of evil gnomes and fey. A part of me is curious to know if he would have supported this proposal. But, basically, I wanted to do something new and interesting for some of the gnomes and fey still tied to the First World...or at least, somewhat associated with them because of the connections between the pocket dimension of the Fellnight Realm and the greater First World as a whole.
In addition, I set this adventure in the Verduran Forest for a very specific reason. The nearby Darkmoon Vale and the other forests of Andoran have already experienced a lot of violation by the Lumber Consortium. And, with Bellis already being situated in the Verduran Forest itself...it just seemed like a good place to define the appearance of this new group of fey. Basically, these Fellnight creatures are so primal and so evil that their own kind locked them away in a pocket dimension of the First World, long before the gnome exodus to Golarion. But now, due to Tenzekil's journey as the Bleaching brought him back into finer attunment with the First World, he literally stumbles into their realm, and that serves as the catalyst for how these evil gnomes and fey can use Golarion as an escape valve from their prison.
I like how all of that sets up an opportunity to discuss the Bleaching, gnome bleachlings, the First World, and so on. I culled all of that information from the campaign setting and saw an opportunity to build on Golarion's lore. Of course, I also knew that would pose a risk. If Paizo has already imagined something completely different for the First World or the effects of the Bleaching, this thing could have gone down like a wardstone tossed into a deep pool. But I feel passionate enough about these elements that I thought I'd run that risk anyway and see if it interested people.
Re: The Wedding Opening
James Jacobs:[b/] This is a really cool way, I think, to get the PCs into the region where the adventure begins. If this proposal wins, I'd suggest expanding this scene into its own encounter, and present numerous types of events, contests, and what not to give the PCs a chance to get to know the town and its citizens, so that when peril does befall them, the PCs are more inclined to help.
[b]Clark Peterson: Starts with a wedding? Hmmm. Not sure my normal gaming group would go for that.
Sean K Reynolds: I don't have a problem with the wedding scene. If the GM can't find a reason for the PCs to be at this town (which happens to have a wedding going on), he should hang up his GM hat.
Clark Peterson: I’ve chewed on this wedding intro for some time. Something bugged me about it and I couldn’t put my finger on it....I think I just hated the dying dryad gag. I am certain you can pull off the roleplaying riffs necessary to make this wedding work as an encounter. In fact, it is pretty bold to start with a roleplaying encounter up front instead of the customary “roll initiative” way to get things going. Now, I am a fan of the “roll initiative” approach, but this one may just work well for you. The good part is that you actually do both. You can do the wedding as much or as little as the DM wants. It can be a great way to impart info and start some story ideas. But if the group doesn’t want to do much of that, you throw the bees and fellnight warriors right at the PCs. Just dump that dryad and the intro would be much better, in my view.
With the opening scene, I wanted to go with something that could be run in two different ways..."roleplay-heavy" or "roll initiative"...so as to support both types of playstyle. I agree with James that expanding the wedding into its own encounter to give PCs time to bond with the townsfolk would work better. I favor that myself because my preferred playstyle is definitely "roleplay-heavy"...but the bees and Tenzekil's Fellnight warriors can still present the quick "rollplay" element right behind it.
Also, I struggled with serving up the dying dryad as part of the initial encounter and still keeping Tenzekil's bees in there as the first combat situation. I like James' idea about removing the dryad to a later scene once the PCs enter the misty forest. I'd probably spin that as their first overnight encounter, having the dryad tree stride into their encampment and thereby encouraging them to seek out the dryad grove on their way to finding Devarre. It works even better from a story perspective. So I like it very much. That should also remove the concern about the dryad's appearance at the wedding feeling disjointed from Tenzekil's attack.
Re: Structure and Organic Growth of the Story
Then comes the mist and the adventure really begins in earnest. Great structure, by the way. In fact, I have to admit all the submissions this year really used excellent act and scene structure. Very well done all around....The dryad, the first bloom, the gossamer wraith all are really great and could be excellent encounters. Fun, organic. In the end, an adventure is a pre-constructed and pre-determined chain of events. What you want is to have an organic growth of story and actions that make the adventure feel just the opposite—that they were not pre-constructed or pre-determined. And these encounters do that. They feel like they grow naturally from the story.
I would say that's really my signature approach to adventure design. I look for compelling characters first. And then I try to weave the best possible story around them, but in a way that doesn't seem too pre-constructed or so pre-determined as to turn off the players by making them think they have no choice in where the story goes. If you chop up my proposal piece-by-piece, you might notice the methodology I use.
Basically, in Act One, I've consciously chosen a short ramp-up with the wedding interaction...followed by a "big bang" bee attack to get the blood pumping...and then a paranoia play with the mist, the shadowfein effects, and the frightened townsfolk to set the scene for the rest of the adventure.
In Act Two, I intentionally left things a bit more freeform for the players to choose their own path while searching for Devarre. It would include an overland forest map with multiple encounter sites (some individually mapped and others without a local map) to give them some interesting scenes to experience...including the burning dryad trees, the will-o'-wisp, shamblers, shadow mastiff pack, and the drunk treant. Ultimately, the weirdness gets kicked into a higher gear with the druid encounter where Devarre is possessed by the gossamere wraith. And if they got there without encountering all that other stuff, there's a chance the gossamere could mislead the PCs into going back and experiencing them anyway.
Eventually though, Act Two culminates with the big battle against Arvormeigh and the water elementals guarding the wardstones in the gorge. And the PCs are faced with insurmountable odds of escaping before Tenzekil's forces surround them. The unicorns serve as a plot device (granted, a bit deus ex machina) to transition to the Interlude with the good fey conclave. That gives the story its “breath-catching” opportunity. A chance to restock, reconsider, and gear up for the grand finale.
Then, Act Three is like a compressed version of Acts 1-2 and the Interlude. It’s designed to start with another "big bang" moment with the blink dog "chase" encounter...the mission to reset the wardstones and face Tenzekil one last time. There’s another roleplaying opportunity to give Tenzekil a chance to redeem himself by aiding the PCs in accessing Rhoswen’s palace. Lots of hardship once they do get inside. And, then it finally ends in the challenge of Rhoswen. The compression of all those things into Act Three serves to pick up the pace from a reader (and hopefully, players’) perspective to make it more “cinematic”…or at least, that was my intention from a storytelling standpoint. And, the Interlude is also mirrored with all of the denouément that occurs with the adventure’s conclusion…i.e., returning home, the retreat of the mist, the heroes’ celebrated, etc.
So, from a literary standpoint, it's all consciously designed to flow very much like a movie. You go from fast-paced stuff to a little bit of downtime to consolidate everything. And then, right back into the action again. And each succeeding "roleplay" and "rollplay" scene is meant to elevate the tension from those that came before. That's my method of storytelling via adventure design, at least. And it's also how I try to run table-top games, too. Hopefully, I can successfully translate all of that to the written page in a way that makes for a memorable adventure for everyone.
Re: The Unicorns
Clark Peterson: Ugh, I don’t like unicorns. But I will concede that if we are going to have a good-fey versus bad-fey throwdown, then unicorns are going to get into the mix. It makes sense. But it is perhaps your weakest element and I would suggest you consider something different and a bit less cliché.
James Jacobs: The unicorns rushing in to save the PCs from the big fight at the halfway point in the adventure seems way too convenient and reeks of deus ex machina to me.
See, the unicorn bit is another preconception I wanted to challenge. To me, unicorns aren't at all like the "girly" fairy-lite creatures many people imagine them to be. To me, unicorns are a raw force of nature, personified in a horse-like body. They're sound champions of good and guardians against evil, particularly within their forest home. So, if the Fellnight fey are going to threaten the Verduran forest, a unicorn like Palombier is going to be one of the frontline leaders in opposing them…and he’ll lead other unicorns in that effort. So, once he observes the PCs' efforts to stop the Fellnight fey at the wardstone pool, he'll do what he can to aid their efforts. So, I really liked including them…a LOT.
Now having said that, I definitely worried over the deus ex machina involved in their arrival point in the adventure. But I also like including story elements in adventures where the PCs need to run from a battle they can't possibly win. Standing against Tenzekil's forces at that point would be suicide. And so, Palombier offers a way out of that situation by using greater teleport – an ability 7th level PCs won't have. It also serves to get the PCs in contact with the good fey so they can gather enough information to track the evil fey back to their source. The unicorns are the primary plot device by which the PCs arrive at the Interlude. So I think they need to stay. But, I'd be really interested in hearing other options or suggestions from the Paizo editors about how to pull that off without so much of the deus ex machina effect.
Re: The Gossamere Wraith
James Jacobs: I'm not fond of this new monster, mostly because there's not really anything it does that a ghost doesn't already do. My suggestion would be to just use a ghost for this encounter.
Wolfgang Baur:The use of the possessed arch-druid could go either way; handled badly, the party will just be left confused.
Sean K Reynolds: I like the possessed druid. The "undead form of a nixie killed by a chaos beast" is a little weird, you could probably do without the chaos beast part of it and just have it be a unique type of ghost.
I kept debating on how I wanted to present the gossamere wraith. Much like the last leaves of the autumn dryad, I had my mental picture developed for this idea way before I determined the rules elements I’d need to apply. At first, the gossamere wraith was just going to be a “gossamere mist” using the fey type and drawing upon a hellwasp swarm's "inhabit" ability to possess other creatures (both living and dead). Somewhere along the line, I developed the gossamere’s ability to sap a victim's Wisdom with its attacks so they wouldn’t be able to resist its charm person abilities or the dominate monster control once it inhabited them. So that design took me over to the wraith to see how its Constitution-draining attack works. And a mist vs. a wraith-form kind of gelled in my mind and I just decided to make it an undead mist from a slain nixie instead. The inclusion of the chaos beast in that mix is a legitimate throwaway. I wasn't thoroughly convinced about putting that in there anyway...but the tie-in is seen later on in Act Three with regards to the chaos beasts summoned in Rhoswen's palace.
Regardless, I'd prefer to recast the gossamere from a wraith to a mist-creature again. I'd still base it on the fey-themed nixie, but incorporate sub-types of water and air to define it rather than an undead foundation. That way, it's different from a ghost using malevolence. And it defines a useful new nigh-incorporeal fey creature for the game. But, having said that, if space becomes an issue in the writeup for Realm of the Fellnight Queen, I could easily fall back to using a ghost instead. This something where I know I’ll need some guidance from the on-staff editor/developer…which I assume is Sean at this point? Or James?
Re: The Drunk Treant
Wolfgang Baur: I'm not entirely clear on how the ghost of a drunken treant *stays* drunken, but I'm willing to play along. It sounds like a thoroughly entertaining encounter.
James Jacobs: This name triggers my pun alarm, since the word "vin" is French for "wine," and vin is close to the word vine. When this name's applied to a drunk treant, I make the sour face and get annoyed. On top of which... I'm not even sure treants CAN get drunk... as amusing as an encounter with a drunk treant sounds. Also... I'm not sure making him a ghost adds anything at all to the adventure, especially since you already have what basically amounts to a ghost with the Gossamere Wraith.
Awww...I liked Vinroot as the name. I didn't think it was too punny, but I can certainly come up with something different, if necessary. As for the ghost component to the drunk treant, I was going to use that as a reflection that Rhoswen's minions had already offed him just like the dryads, but his spirit returned anyway...and he used both his malevolence and his animate trees ability to effect the world. At this point, I do agree, though, that it would better just to make him a drunk treant. No ghost element needs to be involved. And, yeah, this will be a fun encounter to develop... :-)
Re: Evil Blink Dogs and the Chase Scene
Clark Peterson: I like the blink dogs...
Wolfgang Baur: Things like chase scenes are tough to pull off (and I'm not sure it will happen at all; most parties will confront the gnomes/blink dogs chasing them rather than fleeing).
James Jacobs: Why? There's PLENTY of evil dog monsters to choose from. I'm not a fan of playing monsters against their alignment, especially when the difference is so huge. Evil blink dogs, lawful lillends, chaotic devils, or good aboleths... off-alignment monsters, when they appear, should be the FOCUS of an adventure, I think, because they're so unusual. They shouldn't be minor elements in a minor encounter.
Sean K Reynolds: Ha! Evil blink dogs....I don't mind the evil blink dogs; I'd much rather see "this monster is like a blink dog, but evil" as a shorthand way of introducing a new monster than to spend a page or two or a writeup for a new monster that's basically an evil blink dog... especially when we know that blink dogs usually being LG is just silly.
I looked at all of the other possible dogs to use for this encounter...shadow mastiffs, yeth hounds, riding dog variants, you-name-it...but something kept bringing me back to the blink dogs. I kind of liked the mental image of blink dog riders vs. the PCs mounted on unicorns. The Fellnight Realm is also meant to represent a shadow-tainting of various creatures, and not just the fey themselves. So, having blink dogs be evil felt okay here, even though they're not the focus of the entire adventure. Given the reaction most folks have had about their inclusion, it seems like a lot of the voters agreed that it's a creature worth keeping. But, if necessary, I could go yeth hound or a riding dog variant, I suppose. That’s mostly up to space and word-count…as well as what the Editor-in-Chief says he wants.
As for the chase scene, I'm willing to cut it for the sake of keeping the adventure to 32 pages. I wanted to include it in the proposal, however, for the scenic element it provides to the adventure's storyline. And, I was hoping maybe I could draw upon the chase rules laid out in Curse of the Crimson Throne to make it easier to run.
Re: Shadow vs. Fey and the Fellnight Template
James Jacobs: There's a lot of shadow stuff going on this proposal, with shadow mastiffs and Rhoswen's shadow magic. The plane of Shadow is where this magic comes from, not from the First World. In fact, in some ways, you can think of the First World almost as the opposite of the Plane of Shadow; its a version of the Material Plane that's SUPER vibrant and bigger and more grandiose, rather than muted and dull and smaller, like the Shadow Plane. The shadow elements should be replaced in this adventure....There are too many templates in the game, I think....we've had similar "evil fey templates" show up in Paizo products a fair amount. I don't think we need another one. Furthermore, the traditions of the fey have a LOT of real-world mythology to them, and those traditions have more resonance to me than a brand-new fey creature template. And at the very least, there's already a lot of nifty evil fey out there to choose from—perhaps not in the SRD, but certainly in other open source books or Pathifnder itself.
Sean K Reynolds: I don't mind the new fey type--the rules say he's supposed to introduce a new monster. I also don't mind it taking place in the First World; we haven't said much about it, so that lets us push the edges of things in an adventure that touches on it. Perhaps the queen's realm is a demiplane (or a prison plane). Perhaps she turned to shadow magic and as a result her realm broke off and is now part of the Shadow Plane. Lots of cool stuff we could do, if only to get people to beg for more info on the First World.
I researched everything I could about what you guys have said so far about the First World. The shadowy lurkers from Gallery of Evil described it as an almost colorless world, which kind of surprised me...because I expected the First World to be SUPER vibrant just like James described. But I didn't want to go against canon, if you guys had intended to portray it as more shadowy and colorless. Plus, there was the whole notion of gnomes "Bleaching" as they drew closer to their First World roots. So I assumed some things about the First World that probably aren't in line with your vision. All that means is that I get to adapt! Yaaay! That's one of my favorite parts about designing for shared worlds anyway.
I still do want to tie Rhoswen's Fellnight Realm to shadow magic...or, more specifically, fey shadow magic. As Sean suggests, I very much see shadow magic (and the Plane of Shadow) as something Rhoswen's Fellnight fey turned to long ago…hence, the “Fellnight” name itself. The rest of the good fey of the First World then walled off her realm to limit her influence on the their world and imprisoned her in a pocket dimension of shadow which simultaneously has ties to the First World and Golarion. Thus, Rhoswen can't get back into the First World, but she can seek to escape into Golarion due to Tenzekil's actions. That's how I'd prefer to spin it, at least. And, as Sean also points out that leaves room for defining as much or as little about the true First World as the adventure requires...while leaving a more complete examination to some future sourcebook or Paizo product.
I'm not sure that fey and magical beasts SHOULD be the only ones who can find a route into the First World... especially since this adventure proves that wrong by having a gnome (a humanoid) find a way into the First World. This is a great example of the type of pitfall that setting an adventure in a largely undefined realm like the First World can get an author into.
I decided to go with the notion that typical gnomes wouldn't be able to find their way back to the First World...but that a gnome suffering the effects of the Bleaching long enough to strengthen his ties to the First World, would make him close enough to his race's prior existence as "once immortal fey" to find their way back into that realm. Of course, I played very loosely here because the First World is still mostly undefined. I completely assumed that if the Realm of the Fellnight Queen should be chosen as the winning proposal, that I'd work with the editors to reshape any (mis)-interpretation I might have made about it. If multiple types of creatures can find their way there, that’s fine. I’m looking forward to whatever world-building insights the Paizo folks can give me about the First World.
Re: Rhoswen and the Final Encounter
James Jacobs: Wow. Assuming that the fellnight template is at minimum a +1 CR bump, that means Rhoswen's a CR 14 menace... at the very least. She's also got a powerful magic item, and if she's encountered with lots of minions... I don't see this encounter coming off at anything less than EL 15, which, at the end of an adventure when we can assume the PCs have used some resources up already... is a TPK waiting to happen for 8th level characters.
Clark Peterson:The palace seems like a great fight, maybe even too hard for the level if all the things described show up.
Sean K Reynolds: I think the 13th-level queen would be a very hard challenge at 9th level, might have to tone that down based on playtesting.
This is the second time that CR values have come up in something I've done (i.e., Monte referenced it for the Understudies in Sharina's lair). But, the new Pathfinder rules reflect that NPCs without racial hit dice (such as Rhoswen as an elf) have their CR value adjusted downward by 2. So, if she's a 13th level sorcerer with a CR +1 bump due to the Fellnight template, her final CR would be 14 – 2 = 12? The PCs would face her as 8th level characters, which makes for a very tough fight, except that it's a standalone battle in her throneroom without any further minions (because the PCs have either eliminated them all inside the palace or Rhoswen has sent the rest to fight the good fey). Any further creatures that get into the fight will be summoned via shadow conjuration, which makes them only partially real. So, although I felt like this final encounter would be very hard, I didn't imagine it as an outright TPK event. As Sean says, playtesting would be paramount no matter what. And I can easily slide her class levels back a bit and adjust as necessary. Still, it would be nice to get some clarification on that -2 CR adjustment for NPCs without racial hit dice.
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Okay, that’s all I’ve got in terms of feedback or responses to the judges’ commentary. Hopefully, that also helps folks understand more about where I intended to take the adventure. And also the choice I made and why I made them for certain things I included. As always, if anyone has any further questions, feel free to ask. I think an important part of the RPG Superstar contest is to share information about how and why we go about designing things the way we do – because in the end, it helps everyone to learn those things. I know I picked up a lot of insights into certain aspects of game design and flavor text from not only the judges and my fellow competitors, but also from many of the voters who offered up things they would have done differently.
So, thanks again everyone for all the well-wishes…and also for voting me through as the winner. I’m really looking forward to crafting this adventure. The hard part starts now, because I know I need to deliver on what I pitched. My greatest fear is that I somehow oversell and under-deliver in such a way that people regret how they cast their vote. So hopefully, I don’t let you down.
Sincerely,
--Neil
...maybe a fey encounter earlier, whilst 'lost in the mist' could be used to set that up...
That's not a bad idea, Charles. Even if it's just part of the "wandering monster" tables, I could make one of the encounters a glimpse of a unicorn watching them from the distance...and then it teleports away before they can approach it. At least that would set up their presence in the forest, and get the PCs talking about them. That kind of wonder and awe is something I really want to draw up if I'm going to include so many fey and legendary beasts in the adventure.
--Neil
...any adventure with Maleficent is good as gold in my book!
I wholeheartedly agree. And so would my kids. :-)
I'm curious as to what you thought of my objection, to the lack of quirk in your fey.
I'm curious as to what you thought of my objection, to the lack of quirk in your fey.
To me, quirkiness or weirdness isn't what defines the fey. I think interpreting them that way is too easy, and doesn't do them justice. They're not insane. They're not aliens living among us. They feel and experience all the things that we do. Just more intensely. And they're born of the land like every other creature. Just more tightly connected to it. So, I've always seen them more as creatures born of nature and raw emotion in their most formative stages. For example...
The wrath of the sky's most furious thunderstorm.
The poignant artistry of a vibrant field of flowers.
The raw passion of our most base natural instincts.
The breathtaking beauty of the perfect physical form.
The intense sorrow of windswept snow, grey skies, and naked trees.
The joyous rhythm of music and dance lit by fire.
The calming peace and reflection of the deepest pool.
The stalwart courage of the most sound bedrock.
The earthy satisfaction of organic soil between your toes.
The livening scent of a change in the weather and the seasons.
The gnawing jealousy of a thorny rose.
The ugliest deformity of a twisted dream into nightmares made real.
...and the rampant fear of the deepest dark.
These are the places and things that inspire my vision of the fey. It's not so much that they're weird or quirky. It's that they feel and live everything far more intensely than anyone else. Kind of like how the human range of sight is limited to a narrow band of the visible spectrum, but other races have low-light vision or darkvision. Or how dogs can hear and smell on an entirely different level than the human norm.
Fey have that same kind of sensory range when it comes to emotion and the natural world. To me, that's the foundation of their magic. And it goes far beyond...or differs so much more radically...from any other creature type in the game. Different from dragons...necromantic undead...demons and devils...angels and celestials...elves and dwarves...and so on. Only the gnomes with their emotional range and connection to nature start to border on an understanding of what it means to be fey.
And thus, that's why Paizo and Golarion's version of gnomes and fey appeals to me so much more than what we've seen from RPG interpretations of them in the past. They're so much more...potent. Raw. Powerful. Not to be trifled with...and not easily understood. Does that make them weird? Quirky? Alien? I don't think those words adequately describe how I've always seen them. I think to use those words is a simplified misinterpretation of their outward behavior and not an examination of the fuller meaning and intelligence behind their actions.
But to set all that aside and get to the core of your question...I understand you were looking for more evidence of what kind of treatment I would give the "good" and "evil" fey in my adventure proposal. I was a little more focused on trying to make sure I could convey the plot and structure of the adventure itself, rather than spending word-count on describing my vision of the fey. There will be more time for that later.
In terms of what amounts to a sales-pitch for an opportunity to write an adventure for Paizo, I think a designer really needs to focus more on what the story is about and what the heroes get to experience scene-by-cool-scene. So that's where my focus took me in this very specific assignment in the final round. And I hoped that folks would trust I'd dress up the Fellnight fey and other creatures encountered by the heroes appropriately enough based on my demonstrated work from previous rounds.
Hope that helps,
--Neil
That decides it. I'm officially requesting that RPG Superstar 2010 include at least one Designer Notes voting round. I want to vote for the designer that uses at least as much sound reasoning in designing their entry as Neil did here.
Sharing these kinds of Designer Notes are really a double-edged sword, though, Eric. It's true about anything you choose to post during the competition. If you talk about this stuff and leave the impression you don't know what you're talking about...the voters will hold that against you. But, if you talk about this stuff and show that you do have sound reasoning behind your design choices, hopefully, that builds trust and helps people get to know you better.
Now, obviously, you can't share this type of information in your submission or it takes up word-count. And you can't talk about this stuff during the voting round or you're violating the rules. So I adopted a "strategy" of responding to the comments of the judges and voters after each voting round ended, hoping that if I made it through that round, people would still come back to read my comments and reasoning from the previous round and get to know more about my design philosophy. And, as a result, what kind of designer I'd be if I won the entire competition and got a chance to write the final adventure.
Did it help? I don't know.
But, as I said before, I had a dual purpose throughout this competition to not only write well and move forward...but also to make the competition entertaining, educational, and fun for anyone reading along. So, even if the strategy of sharing Designer Notes on a previous round's work didn't necessarily earn me a voter's consideration in later rounds, it still helped me organize my thoughts, center myself in terms of my decision-making, gauge the reactions of the voter's to the choices I made, and maybe help someone else see or learn how I go about designing various things for the game. That's the educational part of RPG Superstar that I appreciated so much from last year. And part of my personally-assigned mission was to try and add to that for as long as I could remain in this year's contest.
--Neil
They're so much more...potent. Raw. Powerful. Not to be trifled with...and not easily understood. Does that make them weird? Quirky? Alien? I don't think those words adequately describe how I've always seen them. I think to use those words is a simplified misinterpretation of their outward behavior and not an examination of the fuller meaning and intelligence behind their actions.
But to set all that aside and get to the core of your question...I understand you were looking for more evidence of what kind of treatment I would give the "good" and "evil" fey in my adventure proposal. I was a little more focused on trying to make sure I could convey the plot and structure of the adventure itself, rather than spending word-count on describing my vision of the fey. There will be more time for that later.
Well, Neil, that's very poetic. For me, it doesn't come across at all in your proposal and this indicates that you clearly intended to sideline that poetry as much as possible.
My major point was that they were extremely easy to understand. You made the choice to go for a linear plot and that's clearly worked for you. But it's also a foundational contradiction to your own description of the fey here. So, you've basically agreed with me. Making the Fey fey was not a focus for you.
Alien, of course, also means strange and foreign to one's experience. We can quibble about the adjectives, if you want, but that's not going to make for a better adventure that I'll buy a year from now. If you want to use your own adjectives, go right ahead. But please put some work into making these fey mysterious, not easily understood.
I think that you're going to have to make some very tough choices in the months ahead, as you've got to provide a hook for the good fey, a hook for the evil fey, design a palace, design a village and its people, design a dimension, and figure out a way for all of that new stuff to fit with your plot in the word count. That's a lot to accomplish and I wish you luck, as I'll be looking forward to it next spring.
...it's also a foundational contradiction to your own description of the fey here. So, you've basically agreed with me. Making the Fey fey was not a focus for you.
Allow me to make it more clear. Making the Fey fey (by your definition) was not a focus for me in my adventure proposal. Making the Fey fey (according to my own vision as edited by Paizo) will be a focus for me in the published adventure. So, hopefully, if I didn't satisfy your vision of fey in the pitch, I can still do so in the execution...assuming it matches closely enough with my own.
I think that you're going to have to make some very tough choices in the months ahead....I wish you luck....
Thanks. And though the choices may be tough, I'm eager to face them with the pressure of the competition removed. Nevertheless, there's the still the pressure of delivering for everyone. But at least I have the time to focus and hopefully do it right between now and my final turnover.
--Neil
