Savage battlecries echo through the streets The cannibalistic troops of The Hungering Legion have breached the gates, and the defenders have been routed. Your ambassador must be rescued from
The Breaking of Forstor Nagar
City of Grinding Ice
Do you have players who have moved away? Or a group of friends from your favorite Rpg message board you wish you could play with? Well now is your chance to get a user-oriented custom design with hands on support as this adventure is designed to function both as a traditional adventure and for use with the free Maptool virtual tabletop Checkout our website to find out more!
Designer: Ben McFarland (ENnie award winning designer, Tales of Zobeck)
Cartography: Jonathan Roberts (Kobold Quarterly: Maps of Mystery Bandit Lair, The Sand Dragon Inn)
Token Artist: James Hazelett (Devin Knight's Gaming Tokens)
Editor: Mark Moreland (Pathfinder Wiki)
I'm really excited to be working on this. I've been using maptool for a few years now and I'm very keen to use it to create a fully integrated interactive adventure.
For an idea of the quality of maps that you'll get with this adventure you can check out these examples:
The Ironcrag Cantons Map for Dwarves of the Ironcrags
Mill Siege for Open Design's Wrath of the River King
All maps for the project will be at high resolution and full colour. It's free to print full colour pixels to the screen!
It's great to be able to create this kind of integrated adventure for Pathfinder, something that would never be possible without the excellent licensing agreement that's in place.
Just a reminder to folks this will be a full table-top adventure pdf and POD as well.
Jonathan Roberts has completed part 1 of a 5 part interview about The Breaking of Fostor Nagar
We are 8% to our threshold goal.
Steve Russell
Rite Publishing
I am SOOO looking forward to this!
I'm really excited to be onboard this project as well! I'm a veteran of many Open Design projects and one of the authors from _Tales of Zobeck_ and _Halls of the Mountain King_-- you can be sure that I want to get in there and create a real razor's edge story for everyone to enjoy!
-Ben.
Director of Brand Strategy
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I'm really excited to be onboard this project as well! I'm a veteran of many Open Design projects and one of the authors from _Tales of Zobeck_ and _Halls of the Mountain King_-- you can be sure that I want to get in there and create a real razor's edge story for everyone to enjoy!
Glad to have you on board! I won't be a huge presence on the design end, but as editor of the project, I hope we can put together a team of patrons that will make this a truly awesome adventure to play. The better the ideas are from the community, the more fun I'm going to have making it shine. So spread the word; let's make this project as great as it can be.
Absolutely! This should be a lot of fun.
As a taster, here's an in game shot (from within maptool)
This is just the bare tabletop with some tokens (by the awesomely talented DevinKnight - who is the token artist on this project), and a boat. The boat can be moved, rotated and sailed around, and all the tokens are movable (and rotatable) virtual minis. This is the first of a series of tasters to show off a little of what maptool can do, as well as giving you guys a taste of the art you can expect to see on the project.
Absolutely! This should be a lot of fun.
As a taster, here's an in game shot (from within maptool)
This is just the bare tabletop with some tokens (by the awesomely talented DevinKnight - who is the token artist on this project), and a boat. The boat can be moved, rotated and sailed around, and all the tokens are movable (and rotatable) virtual minis. This is the first of a series of tasters to show off a little of what maptool can do, as well as giving you guys a taste of the art you can expect to see on the project.
Great beginning!
Thanks! More to follow soon.
We are 10% to goal.
Rite Publishing has posted part II of its interview with the amazing cartographer Jonathan Roberts (Halls of the Mountain King, Fantastic Maps) about The Breaking of Fostor Nagar patronage project (PFRPG)
Here's a larger version of that screenshot to show off a little more in game eye candy.
The ships, moveable ballistae and icebergs are my own and all the tokens are by Devin Night.
Project is 27% to goal.
Part IV of Rite Publishing's interview with Jonathan Roberts about the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game patronage project ,Breaking of Fostor Nagar, is up. This time around Jonathan talks about what makes a good Pathfinder product, what his favorite products are and why now is the perfect time for this adventure.
... and for those that are just interested in the eye candy, be sure to check this one out:
Fight on an ice bridge! See how maptool handles light and vision.
Note that in the map, the torch has the correct radius of bright and shadowy light, and the low light vision of the elf works perfectly. Never worry about adjudicating cover or concealment again!
Another screenshot, this time showing what happens if a PC is blind.
In this shot you can see that Valeros can only see himself. This is the GM view - so the GM can still see the enemies. However the white line designates the limit of what the player will see.
States are easily tracked in maptool. You can see the clear label showing that Valeros is blind. There are equivalent images that cover all the other states.
Now you'll also see that there's a rather nifty little portrait and stat sheet on the bottom left. This contains all the vital information about Valeros, as well as his portrait. This allows the players or the GM to quickly see important information about a PC, so no more asking the player what his perception skill is before checking if he sees a hidden creature. I'll be showing off a little more of what you can do with this later. The stats here are for Valeros, the iconic fighter from Pathfinder.
Portrait art by Tyler Bartley - our interior artist for this project. Tokens by Devin Night. States by AidyBaby from the RPTools boards. Map and torch by me.
As always, more information on the Rite Publishing web page: The Breaking of Forstor Nagar.
I am REALLY hoping we get the needed funding for this to go forward!
You do not really realize how incredible having a tool like Maptool is for gaming, especially as you get older and friends move away. It has been a gaming revolution for me and my old DND buddies.
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Director of Brand Strategy
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I am REALLY hoping we get the needed funding for this to go forward!
You do not really realize how incredible having a tool like Maptool is for gaming, especially as you get older and friends move away. It has been a gaming revolution for me and my old DND buddies.
Suggest to your friends that they also come on board. We're looking good on patrons, but we aren't there yet so spread the word!
Yep, the patrons are signing up. If you want to be involved in this then the sooner you put your name down, the more you will get out of patronage.
Continuing the screenshot series, here the adventurers meet a dragon!
This shot shows how maptool handles the display of properties on a token. Each player can see their character's vital stats, as can the GM. The GM can decide whether the players can see each others stats. But importantly, the players can't see the stats of the monsters. Although they do get a close-up of it's ugly mug.
Now who can tell me just how much trouble these adventurers are in?
Tokens by Devin. Kellen's portrait by Tyler Bartley. All other art by myself.
We're happy to announce that this project will now be released for maptool, Fantasy Grounds and TTopRPG.
We have two great guys on board to convert the adventure into these other VTTs. So if you're a TTopRPG fan or a Fantasy Grounds aficionado then we've got you covered.
So without further ado - here's the different programs with their version of the combat on the Ice Bridge
Tokens by Devin Night, maps by me.
Absolutely! Pygon's great and has been showing me all the capabilites of TTopRPG. We should be showing off many of the flashier features as we get into hw all the tools manage combat tracking over the next couple of days.
And that will teach me for uploading before coffee.
Today we look at storing information within objects on the map.
This shows that we can have objects - in this case a runic circle - that contains information for both the players and the GM. If that information is also placed into a macro (as it is here) it can be sent to chat, allowing us to hyperlink the information that the GM needs at their finger tips.
We'll be building that level of reference into the adventure for all areas, allowing for quick reference to rules to minimise time spent flicking through indexes and maximise the fun!
I'd like to know a little more about the scope of your Maptool Framework for Pathfinder. Is this something that users could apply to their own campaigns? I've been hoping for a really polished PRD framework for a long time, and that interests me much more than a specific adventure module (although your adventure looks great!)
We'll be putting together a Pathfinder framework that we feel is solid enough to be at the center of a commercial adventure. By it's very nature the framework will be exportable to other campaigns (all you'd have to do would be to build your new adventure off the Breaking of Forstor Nagar file). We'll be making sure that it's straightforward to do.
Now the scope of the framework is something we'll be sorting out with patrons. We want the framework to speed up all the common tasks - so rolling initiative, and adding the characters to the initiative panel correctly, applying damage and healing (and managing states such as unconscious, prone and so on that go along with those). Those are straightforward and will certainly be in the module. We'll also have all monster attacks coded in, as well as their key skills so that the GM can resolve large complex attacks with the press of a button. Those attacks will also be hyperlinked so that the GM can click a link in chat to go straight to the relevant entry in the rules on the PF SRD.
What we currently do not plan to do is to create a full blown character tracking tool that takes your class, race and so on and spits out your character sheet. That will be something that remains with the GM and players. Not only would that vastly complicate the project, it would also throw up myriad problems with people who want to house rule things, or take feats, abilities or classes from 3rd party sources. I like the spell less range from the last Kobold Quarterly, but I wouldn't expect it to turn up in a character generator. However I'd want anyone who wanted to play one in Breaking of Forstor Nagar to be able to do so. For those reasons we'll be making it easy to input your existing character into our framework, whatever that character happens to be.
As we go through the development process we'll be building the framework and letting patrons have input on all aspects of it as we go.
I hope that gives you a sense of the design philosophy on the behind the scenes mechanics?
Now back to the screenshots:
Maptool tracks initiative in fights, so you always know who's next. When you switch to a player, that characters name is shown in chat so everyone know's the order. You can also drag and drop PCs or monsters to different places in the initiative as people ready or delay actions.
Here the characters face off agains the dragon in Fantasy Grounds, TTopRPG and maptool respectively.
You can see that each tool has a different approach to combat, but each allows the GM to easily track hp, access information, roll attacks and all other tasks that you need to make combat flow smoothly.
To find out more and sign up visit The Breaking of Forstor Nagar.
The second part of the interview with Ben McFarland is up.
Now as we enter the final stretch before development begins in earnest with, here's a new screenshot. This time we're looking at the chat functionality and how this works with dice rolling and macros to make combats slick and fast.
Here the combat has taken a turn for the worse for our players. The rogue breached the magic circle and now the dragon is free to full attack.
In this screenshot I've showed what the chat output looks like for the player and the GM. First you can see the Kellen's attack as he swipes (ineffectually) with his flaming longsword. Now one risk of playing online is that a player might decide to just write in their dice roll, rather than rolling the dice. Maptool offers a way to avoid that (other than just being suspicious of any player that rolls 5 20s in a row...). You can mouse over the number and if the roll is legit, a tooltip will pop up. If it's a dice roll it will show what was rolled. If it's a calculation, such as roll + base attack + strength + weapon focus, then it will show all those bonuses too. So you can be safe in the knowledge that your players are behaving themselves, whether they're on the other side of the GM screen, or on the other side of the world.
The dragon's full attack shows the time saving possibilities in maptool. It would take a decent amount of time to roll all the dragon's attacks at the table, find the relevant modifiers and dice, and then roll the damage. Here one click of one button and the GM (and the GM only) gets a full break down of the attack.
Note that our plan is not to have maptool decide whether an attack has hit or not, or automatically apply damage. Pathfinder is inherently based on exceptions. There will often be odd bonuses or penalties imposed in a fight (+ because you got higher ground, -2 because your character has a phobia of dragons). Equally, the GM may have modifiers for the enemies that they don't want the players to know about. Therefore we let the GM see all the attack and damage rolls. They then decide who has hit, and who has missed, and tells people the damage to apply. If you want to fudge a roll, you can. If you just don't want the player's to know that their sword is actually cursed and gives them -4 to hit dragons then that's fine too. And you can do it without worrying about the code giving you away.
These features make combat easy and quick. I now use maptool for face to face games even if the players can't see it. It makes hp tracking, initiative tracking and running monster attacks so much faster than before. It's nice to have combats that run fast again!
The details of how combat is managed within maptool will be a subject that we'll be debating in detail with our patrons. Sign up now at The Breaking of Forstor Nagar!
Part 3 is up in which Ben McFarland discusses what makes a good Pathfinder product, and why Breaking of Forstor Nagar is like a buffalo in the Wild West.
Part 1 and Part 2 of the interview can be found here and here.
We have reached the finale of the teaser screenshots.
Our heroes have defeated the dragon and stand on an icy precipice looking out at a burning city in maptool and in Fantasy Grounds.
This showcases the ability of both programs to easily include flavour text for the GM and the players, as well as placing images that give a more direct impression of a location than a top down map. The text is by Ben McFarland, our author on the project.
These screenshots are examples of the style we will be using. The art, monsters and storyline will be fresh and new for the adventure itself (though that pirate ship will make it in if I have anything to do with it :) ).
We have 6 days left before the project goes live when we open the forums to patrons and development starts in earnest. Find out more and sign up at The Breaking of Forstor Nagar.
Interview with Ben McFarland Part IV
Rite Publishing continues its interview with the designer of The Breaking of Fostor Nagar Patronage Project (PFRPG) as he discusses his opinion of Ashton Sperry’s Paper Minis, what his home game is like, his opinion on prestige classes, and the kind of player experience he is creating.
Any movement on the patron goal?
Indeed there is. I believe it is 84%, but Steve will be able to give ou the exact number.
I just want to add that the project has been greenlit and formally gets underway on Monday the 30th of November. You can still purchase a patronage and be involved in the development. I have to say that I am very excited and looking forward to getting this project on the road.
w00t!
I'm considering putting a patronage on my xmas wishlist — what would I get at this stage in the process? Sell me on it.
Hey there Lincoln, glad to hear that we have you interested.
The project is now underway. So far the patrons have set the level of the adventure to be 8th level and with that nailed down we are in the process of pinning down all the specific encounters. The overall overview and word count has been finalised.
This week the patrons are providing input on the first encounter and finalising the nature of the person who requires rescuing - the character at the center of the adventure. The senior patrons are proposing monsters for the adventure and discussing the first details of the maptool framework. With this complete the first encounter will be written up by Ben McFarland and I'll draw up the map and implement it in maptool. Whilst we're doing that, the patrons and senior patrons will be asked for input on the next encounter. As soon as an encounter is complete it will be provided for playtesting and any alterations will be made.
So we're just about to move from the broad brush discussion of the themes and structure into the more detailed discussion of encounters and mechanics. There will be plenty of opportunity for detailed input and involvement. I'm certain you'd find a lot to get your teeth into in the project at its current stage and in the coming weeks. We're looking to provide the first playtest encounter in early January. The earlier you are involved, the more input you'll get into the adventure and it's structure, and thus the more value for money. However we aim to involve patrons as fully as possible at all stages.
In addition to the opportunity to contribute and make decisions, we'll be providing perks like first looks at all the graphics and graphical assets and you get the finished product in pdf, maptool, ttoprpg and fantasy grounds form.
If you have any other questions, just let me know.
Many thanks. Steve will get you set up. Make sure to register on the Rite Publishing forums:
http://www.ritepublishing.com/forums/index.php
and Steve will get your access privileges set up shortly.
I am very happy that this project made goal and is moving along nicely
Steve Russell
Rite Publishing
You've been wishlisted, so I have no idea if you're getting my money or not, but I can't wait to see what you all cook up!
Looking forward to having you on board when a generous friend pitches in for you! We're now picking up after the holiday season and will be playtesting the first encounter in the next couple of weeks.