[Open Design] Logan Bonner to Lead Lost City 4E D&D Design Project


4th Edition


Former Wizards of the Coast Designer Will Guide New Game Designers in Adventure Anthology

Kirkland, WA – Following on Courts of the Shadow Fey, its second adventure compatible with the 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game, Open Design announced a new project launching immediately: the Lost City project.
Leading the project is former Wizards of the Coast designer Logan Bonner, lead designer on Arcane Power and author of the fan-favorite adventures The Slaying Stone and P1: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens.

The project will follow the award-winning game company‘s long-standing patronage model, in which customers participate in a product’s creation from the earliest planning stages through publication. With Bonner’s guidance, patrons of the Lost City project will be invited to write three major sections of the anthology. Project supporters will decide details about the city such as its locale, history, and the adversaries players will face.

From Outline to Print Publication

Patrons of the Lost City adventure will collaborate to create a Paragon-level sandbox adventure with a broad range of player options. The Lost City will feature ancient threats and secrets, and multiple factions for players to ally themselves with – or against.
The Lost City project will begin with a choice of three settings for the ruins:


  • Kadralhu, City Beneath the Sands, a place of shifting dunes and layers of lost civilizations.
  • Beldestan, the Pillars of the Sky, offers a single step from a dusty shrine to the highest vault of the sky, the resting place of an ancient godling imprisoned long ago.
  • Jotunheim, the Flying City, a flying city of the cloud giants now fallen into neglect, but capable of appearing anywhere in a campaign world with a cargo of adventure – and colossal dangers.

Patrons will choose one of these as their foundation, and will build on it through a process of pitching, critique, playtest, and refinement toward publication. Patrons will also create new monsters, treasures, and hazards under Logan Bonner’s direction.

The resulting adventure will be set in Wolfgang Baur’s campaign world of Midgard, but optimized for easy adaptation to any setting.

-Ben.
--
Small but Fierce.
Kobold Quarterly's News Minion.

The Exchange

Interesting. The Lost City beneath the Sands sounds a lot like the D&D Classic adventure LOST CITY. It should be very popular with the old gamers especially if you can hash out the old city (the lower levels) which was nevery really addressed in the old adventure - to its detriment.


Like muchly.


And I'd like to make sure you know, you can sign up for The Lost City right here.

Never post while tired, kids. :)

-Ben.
--
Small but Fierce.
Kobold Quarterly's News Minion.


Is there an estimate on how long on open design projects takes once approved. I must admit you get your money's worth, since I purchased the last one. It was much longer than what appears via page count, with all the story hooks, etc. And a Lost City is perfect for Dark Sun, and other worlds like Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk, because they all have similar regions.

The only comment I have, is more work needs to be done to bring story line elements together, or perhaps have a common table of events, because there are alot of characters to track. In addition, it was not always clear in regards to how to tie the different geographical areas, and/or dungeons together. These are just minor items, but would vastly improve the presentation.


Uchawi wrote:
And a Lost City is perfect for Dark Sun,

This alone is making me want to take the plunge on my first Open Design project. I'd love to have a paragon sandbox of a lost city ready to go when my players hit that level.


Uchawi wrote:
Is there an estimate on how long on open design projects takes once approved. I must admit you get your money's worth, since I purchased the last one.

Generally, you can look at about a 6 to 9ish month turnaround from greenlight to errata copy in your hands, but it all depends. Tales of the Old Margreve went greenlight in 2 weeks and was posted in mid-February. I think we're going to see the final copy very soon, and we've definitely had access to playtest material for some time. If that project goes much past early September, I'd be surprised.

This is the first 4E project being spearheaded by an outside designer, and one who used to produce material for Wizards of the Coast. I think it will be interesting to see the schedule he sets and the paradigms he brings.

EDIT: Your other comments are noted and passed up to the Head Kobold...

-Ben.
--
Small but Fierce.
Kobold Quarterly's News Minion.


Uchawi wrote:


The only comment I have, is more work needs to be done to bring story line elements together, or perhaps have a common table of events, because there are alot of characters to track. In addition, it was not always clear in regards to how to tie the different geographical areas, and/or dungeons together. These are just minor items, but would vastly improve the presentation.

Can you put this in context? Was this for Halls of the Mountain King (because my hands were all over that one, especially the 4E version)? Some other project? What does this recommendation draw from? I'm especially curious as I'm going to be leading the design on Streets of Zobeck.

thanks!

-Ben.


My reference was for Halls of the Mountain King, and for a lack of a better term, the mini-modules or adventures that lead characters from one act to another. Often I found myself going back over the material (each act) multiple times to tie characters or locations together, in order to make the story line cohesive.


Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber

Halls was the first project that tried a long connected adventure with different authors. Most of the previous works either had one main author or was an anthology of unconnected adventures.

I think Lost City will feel more like an anthology. The areas won't necessarily be as connected to each other and the sand-box nature will mean there isn't a linear story line.

That's not to say we shouldn't try a connected arc again sometime. There was some great stuff in Halls. Part of the strength of Open Design is that we collectively learn and improve each time.


I am fine with collection of short adventures, but for the sake of any long lasting skill challenges, affects, or continuation of story, I would treat each act like a black box (going back to computer programming days), and at the end of each one make note of any characters or themes (outputs) that may carry over into the other. Then the new act may consider those as purely more adventure hooks, or add special provisions to include them (like adventure gems if they did something in a previous act).

But I am sure this and more is already considered, so keep up the good work.

The Exchange Kobold Press

As Deinol says, this is a sandbox adventure rather than the giant campaign arc of Halls. So, less characters to track, more modular.

To respond to your timing question, Uchawi, this one will take about 4 months to write and playtest, and should be available to the public in early Spring 2011. Assuming it garners enough support to commission Logan to design it.

Which reminds me: please do support Logan Bonner as a patron!


Thanks for the follow up, I am on board, so hopefully more will join as I am really interested to see how this process works.


This project is at roughly 60%!

Some current voting has been about various monster tribes that occupy the city...

Sign up here and check it out!

-Ben.
--
Small but Fierce.
Kobold Quarterly's News Minion.

The Exchange Kobold Press

Project is roughly 80% funded, and we're starting to think about cranking up the design.

It's looking likely.


We're at 85% and closing in on a greenlight!

Why not join up and help shape the sandbox?

-Ben.
--
Small but Fierce.
Kobold Quarterly's News Minion.


Terraleon - just a swift heads up to you and Wolfgang. One of my groups is about to embark on a variant of Courts of the Shadow Fey.


I shall enjoy the Courtesan Feat Table...


Arianwyn wrote:
I shall enjoy the Courtesan Feat Table...

Yes - it could almost have been written for Arianwyn :)


Yes, I wonder who wrote it? Some kind of big damn drama teacher hero, methinks.


Rev Rosey wrote:
Terraleon - just a swift heads up to you and Wolfgang. One of my groups is about to embark on a variant of Courts of the Shadow Fey.

Awesome! Shoot me a link when you're ready. I'll have to watch. :)

-Ben.


We're at 90% with just a little under 10 days left to hit the green light-- will you be the patron who makes this project launch?

-Ben.
--
Small but Fierce.
Kobold Quarterly's News Minion.


terraleon wrote:
Rev Rosey wrote:
Terraleon - just a swift heads up to you and Wolfgang. One of my groups is about to embark on a variant of Courts of the Shadow Fey.

Awesome! Shoot me a link when you're ready. I'll have to watch. :)

-Ben.

Here you go. You'll notice that large chunks are either different not there at all (due to not really wanting to run the parts we play-tested :)). Enjoy.


We're much closer! A big push today, and we're floating at about 95%! Quick! Get in before the green light comes and things fire up...

-Ben.
--
Small but Fierce.
Kobold Quarterly's News Minion.


Rev Rosey wrote:


Here you go. You'll notice that large chunks are either different not there at all (due to not really wanting to run the parts we play-tested :)). Enjoy.

Awesome. I'm still quite appreciative of the feedback playtesters gave me on the ritual skill challenge. :) We have great playtesters at Open Design! :D

-Ben.


The patrons keep joining the project! We're at 96.5 this morning, and it looks like we're certainly going greenlight-- get in while the getting's cheaper.

Sign up here.

-Ben.
--
Small but Fierce.
Kobold Quarterly's News Minion.

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