Elven Academy

I’ve written and self-published four epic novels (120k+ words). I’ve participated in writer’s groups for many years. If you have a look at my novels (link in the sidebar), you will probably agree that I don’t suck. I’m struggling a fair bit more to write compelling game narrative.

During my decade or so as an ardent writer, I perused many tomes of writerly wisdom. Here I’ll share the distilled wisdom of all of those books. Characters are the heart of fiction, of course. Setting requires special attention in sci-fi and fantasy fiction.

After those basics, the structure of a scene is a key art form. A scene could be a chapter of a novel or game, but is most seen in television shows and movies, which have to be pared down to the most essential components. I’m looking for improvement to my scene handling by returning to these old notes. So I thought I’d just post them here, in case they might help anyone.

The golden scene rule is to “get in late and leave early”. The golden scene formula is: situation, complication (and increasing stakes for failure), and resolution. So don’t neglect to study the scene section at the end, and I’ll include a list of recommended reading after that. Happy writing.

Focused Writer’s Check List

Last Revision: 4/9/2024

Characters:

a. Appearance. Strong first impression?
b. Description. Sensuous, with metaphors, similes, hyperboles, mannerisms? Sufficient exaggeration? Use of a reinforcing echo to hit the key characteristics?
c. Distinguishing Characteristics/Core Self. What are they? What are the character’s deepest, most stubborn convictions?
d. Worst Fault/Greatest Strength. Do they come through?
e. Goal. Does the character have a goal, and is she passionate about it?
f. Reaction. Are situational reactions consistent within the various layers of the character (Core beliefs, values, attitudes, opinions)? Do situations have impacts and ripples on those layers?
g. Contrast. Enough strengthening contrast with other characters?
h. Outer Conflict. Is the character paired off with an opposite?
i. Action. Can the character be more vivid by being more active and risk-taking?
j. Resolution/Change. Does the character have a satisfying ending? Does the character change somehow through the crucible of all that has happened?
k. Voice. Word usage, contractions, emotional level are consistent?
l. Contradiction. Does the character seem real and not a cardboard cutout?
m. Reactions/Growth/Character Arc. Are the character’s reactions to situations consistent?
Does the character learn things, deepening the plot? An arc must have a build or it will not be
convincing: a beginning, a doorway, impacting incidents, deepening disturbances, moment of
change/epiphany, aftermath.
n. Sympathy and Neutrality. Anti-heroes are not pure evil, and heroes have flaws? Is the reader allowed to judge, without being told how to react to a character?
o. Establishing a Bond.
i. Identification. The lead appears to be a real human being with human issues.
ii. Sympathy. In contrast to empathy, intensifies emotional investment in the lead. Overuse can make the reader feel manipulated. Four simple ways: jeopardy, hardship, underdog, vulnerability.
iii. Likeability. The character does likeable things, is witty, engaging.
iv. Inner Conflict. Characters who are absolutely sure of their actions are not that
interesting.

Dialog and Monologue:

a. Four types to deploy. Direct/dramatic, indirect/reported, stylized, and asynchronous. Direct is
critical to seem real.
b. Interior monologue. Is there enough of it?
c. Consistent Speech. Do the characters have consistent and distinct speech patterns?
d. Momentum. Have you considered using a conversational goal- information to obtain or an
opinion to be sold- to keep dialog moving forward? Setting an otherwise static conversation in the
context of other action, or time pressure?
e. Avoid dialog killers: stating what the reader already knows, sounding scripted, stating scene
issues explicitly.

Setting:

a. Description: are all settings adequately conveyed, and do they convey feelings? Try writing at
least three descriptive sentences about setting before the character is referred to, then several more
sentences without the character, then back again. Start wide and focus to a POV.
b. Mechanics: are these adequately explained? Is magic in particular clearly explained? What
about birth and creation, death and the void?
c. Social, political, religious structures (in fantasy/sci-fi). Are these adequately explained?
d. Races (in fantasy/sci-fi). Are they adequately explained?
e. Killer Details. At least five high-focus details in each chapter, including a simile and a
metaphor?
f. Do details adequately ground the larger events and images?
g. Do readers emerge from a scene with an adequate sense of where it took place?
h. Is there enough trivial information, which is extra-important in fantasy?
i. Variety. Is there enough setting diversity to keep things interesting?
j. Fictive Dream. Readers seek a dream experience, a conveyance to a world that is other than
their own. Is there enough peculiarity?

Word Choice:

a. Quality of Prose. Is it credible, and thereby in control, and thereby trustworthy?
 i. Credible diction. On par with audience? Words are not misused? Clichés are avoided?
 ii. Economy. Does the prose sprawl? Is it too repetitive? Are info dumps avoided?
 iii. Sentences. Smooth and well-constructed? Variety of lengths?
   iv. Parts of Speech. Too many amateurish adjectives and adverbs, and too weak?
v. Tone. Is the author invisible? Humble with punctuation?
d. “Was” and “felt”. Use of “was” and “felt” to tell rather than show?
e. POV. The character’s view, and not the writer’s? Is emotion just being described, or is the
character really experiencing it from her point of view?
f. Five senses. Are there consistently appeals to all five senses?
g. Motifs. Are there any dominant or particularly remarkable visuals or motifs?
h. Vagueness. Are some things left vague, to allow the reader to think?

Plot:

a. Promise. Is a promise made to the reader about what to expect? Can the novel be clearly
categorized into a genre in order to make that promise? Is the promise made in the opening?
 i. Emotional promise. The reader will be thrilled, chilled, entertained, uplifted, nostalgic,
saddened, turned on, etc.
 ii. Intellectual promise. The reader will see the world from a different perspective, or have
her view of the world confirmed, or will experience a different, more interesting world than this
one.
b. Overall Pattern.
i. Genre schematic. Is it literary (inner journey->hopeful ending or downbeat/ambiguous
ending), or commercial (goal + ever rising actions -> seesaws of successes and setbacks->climax)
or a mix?
ii. Pattern types.
 1. The Quest. The lead is incomplete. Searches for something of vital importance. Huge obstacles. Results in character change for better or worse.
 2. Revenge. Lead should be sympathetic. Revenge is violent business. Wrong done to lead is not his fault, or out of proportion to his fault. Story-starting disturbance is the wrong that was done, followed by a period of suffering.
   3. Love. Goal is obtaining love from the object of affection. Opposition can be the other lover, classically, or a rival. Lovers are separated. They get back together, or not. One or both grow as a result.
4. Adventure. Lead sets out on a general adventure. Meets interesting characters and sees interesting things. Usually derives some insight.
 5. Chase. Threat, chase, and ultimately relief. Lead can be chaser or chased.
 6. One Against. Lead embodies a code of the community. Threat to the community from the opposition, who is stronger than the lead. Lead inspires community. Victory may come through self-sacrifice.
 7. One Apart. The Lead is apart from the community, according to a personal code. The Lead is drawn into the larger conflict. The Lead must decide whether to take a
stand.
     8. Allegory. Many forms, but the pattern is that the characters represent ideas, and the events of the story are meant to show the consequences of those ideas.

c. Structure.

i. Act one. Entry into the hero’s world. Call to adventure. Call can be ignored. Hero crosses
the threshold into a dark world.
ii. Act two. A mentor may appear to teach the hero. Battles happen with the forces of
darkness. Hero must confront a dark moment within herself. A talisman aids in the battle.
iii. Act three. The final battle is fought. The hero returns to his own world.
iv. Plot points/Doorways one and two. Transitions between acts that incorporate a
thrusting forward, an inevitability, and most importantly no going back. First transition at about
1/5 mark, second at 3/4 mark.
 i. Starts with present action, conflict, and/or a dramatic situation that presents a significant
threat, a change. Routine-disruption of all kinds is a primary strategy. The protagonist must act to
get back to equilibrium.
ii. Immediately interests the reader and raises questions in her mind, even at the expense
of setting and elimination of exposition?
 iii. Is there a dramatic situation presenting the character with change?
 iv. Does the lead decide on a course of action, creating a story question, something the
character wants, and an obstacle?
 v. Are strong specific details used? Effective details are critical. They anchor the story in
reality, distinguish your opening from thousands of bland ones, and lend credibility.
e. Types of Hooks.
 i. Action. in medias res. Dialogue with conflict counts as action.
 ii. Raw Emotion. Can create a bond to the main character.
 iii. Look-Back Hook. Employed by Stephen King. Suggest a not-to-miss story about to unfold.
 iv. Attitude. When using first person, particularly in lit fic.
 v. Prologue. The most effective entice readers to move to Chapter One. It must connect to
the main plot, but does not have to introduce the main character.
1. Action prologue. A staple of suspense fiction, typically involving death.
 2. Flashback prologue. May involve a past event featuring the main character.
 3. Story frame. A character is about to look back to tell a story. Suggests consequences and events that have reverberating effects through future and past.
4. Teaser. Rarely used. A preview of the coming attraction.
vi. Exposition. Avoid information dumps. Strategies:
1. Act first, explain later.
2. Iceberg. Explain only 10%, give the rest later.
3. Information in confrontation. Crucial information from the character’s POV
thrown out in a scene of intense conflict.
f. Flow of Events.
 i. Too linear and predictable? Or do twists and turns, side-paths and indirectly related
points, red herrings and reversals satisfy?
ii. Are passive and active scenes well-mixed, or are they too bunched together?
 iii. Are too many of the scene settings too similar?
 iv. Is the law of stimulus and response followed? Do sequences of events chain logically
together?
 v. Does the struggle build to a climax?
g. Momentum In The Middle. Keep stretching the tension and raising the stakes.
i. Stretching the tension. Milk your high points. Don’t let them whimper.
 ii. Setting up the tension. Make sure the stakes are high enough.
 iii. Stretching the physical. Extending beats can stretch tension even when a character is
alone. Orchestrating beats to match tone and tension of story is very important.
 iv. Stretching the Emotional. Play up the throes of emotional turmoil.
v. Raising the stakes. Train yourself to torture your character. Create a list of possible bad
things that could happen. Order them by severity in order to create a roadmap of woe.
1. Plot stakes. Commercial fiction is plot driven. Almost always involves someone
trying to do the lead harm, physically, emotionally, professionally. Constantly increase the
opposition and penalty of failure until it is death, or worse.
 2. Character stakes. Stress in lit fic is usually on this inner aspect, but problem is
the same. Why should the readers care? Catcher in the Rye-psychological stakes increase.
3. Societal stakes. When social and political stakes are high enough, they can
greatly complicate a lead’s woes. War.
vi. Energize a lethargic middle. Re-analyze the stakes. Strengthen bond between
protagonist and antagonist. Add another level of complication. Add a new complicating character,
even a love interest. Add another subplot, like a romance.
h. Story Question.
i. Is there enough at stake for the main characters?
ii. Are the plot complications complicated enough?
iii. Ending.
iv. Does the resolution answer the story question posed at the beginning?
v. Does the resolution come at the climax of the story?
vi. Does the climax involve the protagonist taking action?
vii. Is the resolution satisfying?

Scene:

a. Timing. Did you get in late and leave early? (The Golden Maxim)
b. Formula. Situation, complication, resolution.
c. Scene Goal. Is the scope of the scene goal too large, or too small? Is there immediate impact that can provide an outcome that is significant to the overall story? Does the scene goal relate to the story question, or at least to character arc development?
d. Conflict.
i. Is the scene conflict related to the goal?
ii. Is the conflict with another person?
iii. Are physical, emotional, and psychological angles all considered?
d. Climax
i. Is there one?
ii. Is there adequate conflict and buildup?
iii. Is the climax played out blow by blow, with no summary?
e. Scene Resolution. Consider the goal, angles of conflict, and nature of end disasters which can
change the plot.
f. Scene Devices: Half-scene and scene snippets can flavor and break narrative summary, injecting
scenic devices to make summary alive, and can also characterize. He’d grown closer to her with
every passing day. She’d make him brush her hair every morning. “Well done, Anin,” she’d say.
Also called “routine action” as opposed to present action. Off-screen elements: create tension by
having events happening elsewhere affect the character.
g. Subtext. Is there subtext to create richness, depth, and interest?
h. Sequel- emotion, thought, decision, action -> another scene.
i. Mini-hooks: are mini-hooks employed as lifelines for the reader to keep reading, especially
where there are absences of scene goals?

Recommended Reading:

Scene And Structure by Jack Bickham (and other books by Jack Bickham).

Plot And Structure by James Scott Bell.

The New Well-Tempered Sentence by Karen Elizabeth Gordon.

The Craft of Fiction by William C. Knott.

Story by Robert McKee.

The Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell.

Today I uploaded module B3: The Seelie Court. This module took several months to create. It features about 140 location root nodes and 150 dialogue root nodes.

The solo adventure module introduces some new characters, such as Puck and spymaster Peasblossom, as well as several High Moths from the Seelie Court.  It also introduces the Wild Court. This module is intended to be my best effort at a diplomacy module. So there are consequence for your behavior, your decisions, and the quality of clothes and perfume you are wearing.

I wish this module could have been longer, but it’s already quite large by my current standards: at least 50% larger than the previous modules in chapter B, with good music and animations.

I really pushed to get this done before the end of the year. The Spanish translation alone took me about 3 weeks of spare time. Why did I push? I really want to get into the next outdoor adventure, which is unlocked by finishing module B3.  I have a lot of spicy ideas for the Unseelie and Wild Courts as well.

So now I’m off to actually visit relatives and relax and have a good time. Here are the rest of the patch notes for other fixes and things I accomplished this year.  B3 surely has some bugs and glitches left in it.  I’ll be back to further playtest as time permits.  As always I’d love to hear any feedback here or on Twitter.

General Patch Notes:

Released module B3: The Seelie Court.
Fixed a bug related to module save flags giving false positives.
Added a dice rolling animation for challenge rolls. I’ve tried to do this twice before, and failed. Third time is a charm. Understanding sine waves and PI is a must for these curving animation paths. Turns out high school math was good for something.
Updated the game rules for the personal attribute correspondences to four elements plus light and dark enchantments.
Fixed a major bug with dice roll results that were using the recently added shorthand function.
Changed Pi Society reputation, which wasn’t used, to Wild Court reputation, which … might be used.
Added code so NPC’s can parse and react to the player’s gear.
Added code to game that can react to player’s class, worked on improving use of “tags”.
Removed challenge roll bonuses for weapon quality and type. After the patch that added spell schools for each of the main attributes, this bonus was no longer working properly, and no longer made sense.
Changed Spanish word for goblin from duende to ‘trasgo’ throughout.

Module specific fixes:

A0: Fixed typos in Spanish.

A1: Reduced starting points slightly. Fixed a game breaking bug when pressing space bar during a splash transition. Removed “bonuses due to divine origins” from character creation A1. All modules need to be viewed to ensure stats are still calibrated acceptably.
A2: added new skip option
A3: Fixed a few bugs and issues, expanded dialogues for Leonie as a companion. Leonie now greets you more properly. Fixed some missing translations.

B1: minor edits and text corrections
B2: a new music track from David Fesliyan, a few edits

D1, D2: Fixed a few minor typos and errors. I still want to re-do the combats, add a second level, an improve the art.

Gift Shop: Tested, tried to fix an error.

Tarot Training: Fixed HTML errors.
Added animations to Leonie, i.e. eye blinking.
Added a new facial expression for Leonie and a few new dialogue options.
Increased Psychic skill gain from a high quiz score.
There may still be a bug with affection gain with Leonie, but I was unable to reproduce it by cheating, and was not willing to train Tarot for another half hour to do it the long way.

Here is a list of 100 quest ideas. I spent about six hours googling existing lists of side quests and ideas, then I edited, revised, and added some of my own. I didn’t copy and paste a single idea without some improvements (except the 20 ChatGPT templates at the end.)

There aren’t many silly quests involving mysterious pink cows, angry chickens, etc. because that isn’t my style. (In fact, some quest lists I found online were kind of bad, which is why I’m posting this.) There also aren’t any quests intentionally copy-pasted from existing video games.

As a fantasy fiction writer, I was advised that ‘side quests’ should connect into the ‘main quest’ (aka storyline) in some way, at least to develop important characters and setting. In an interactive game, the main character is most important. So it’s good to choose side quests that allow the main character to develop and roleplay, i.e. as a druid, as a ranger, as a wizard, etc.

The best ideas here are ‘subversion of tropes,’ so just doing that is a way to find good ideas.

The quests are loosely divided into three tiers. That doesn’t mean Tier Three is bad, maybe less useful to my current project. I consulted ChatGPT for 20 generic quest archetypes at the end, and also to pad out Tier Three to reach 100 total quests in this list.

I will be using this list, editing, and adding to it. I hope you also find it useful, better than the existing lists I could find, and certainly better than AI. Good luck, have fun, and happy Game Mastering!

Tier One:

1. A wealthy person, faction, or competing adventuring group wants to hire one group member on a permanent basis, and offers a better deal than the current adventuring party.
2. A wealthy and/or powerful person with a grudge from the past has posted a bounty for the capture or death of one group member.
3. A royal has been assassinated. Find clues and find the mystery for a reward.
4. The group needs to beseech the help of an evil faction in order to achieve greater aims.
5. A gang of female thieves (or equivalent) is extorting money from a male merchant or royal.
6. A very rare reagent or monster organ is needed by a wizard for a particular powerful spell.
7. A bard needs a fabled magical instrument, which was stolen by an evil witch, along with his tongue, or maybe something else.
8. A cowardly fighter wants you to retrieve a powerful sword/item to make him more powerful, makes excuses why he can’t go.
9. A magic mirror or secret portal reveals the dark secrets of the person who uses it, or maybe the person it’s pointed at.
10. A public execution or unjust imprisonment is occurring due to prejudice and hate by otherwise good people.
11. A wizard is possessed by a demon or devil they summoned. They must be captured alive and exorcised.
12. The party, or a member of the party, is framed for something they didn’t do. But why?
13. A son/daughter of a nobleman is in love with a scoundrel or member of a lesser/unliked race.
14. A string of noblemen have turned up missing. A few of them reputedly visited the same brothel. Or this an intentional red herring by the real culprit?
15. A lord/lady of the realm is seeking a new wife/husband, has heard of the exploits and/or lineage of one or more of the group, and sends formal invitation(s) to attend his/her party of candidates.
16. A young girl is accused of an assassination, but it was actually her possessed/demonic doll.
17. Two lovers have become separated due to one being arrested or lost at sea, use divination to help them find each other, with a possibly unforeseen twist when they are found.
18. A sacred shrine or other building is on fire. Use water magic to douse the flames and be a hero, while attracting the ire of a fire elemental, evil entity, or other arsonist.
19. A gnome inventor needs rare components and/or schematics from the goblins, but they are terrified to try to obtain them on their own.
20. An evil lord chooses someone’s beautiful young daughter to be his new wife. The parents want to hire the group to kidnap the daughter, in hopes it will either lure the evil lord out of the castle to be killed, or at least persuade the lord to choose someone else.

Tier Two:

1. A powerful chaotic wizard is building a deadly dungeon. They need help procuring deadly monsters or traps, which you realize will brutally murder innocent low-level adventurers.
2. A highly conservative anti-drinking/drugs/sex/race/anything religious group wants you to sabotage and ruin a local business or person, which isn’t doing anything technically law-breaking.
3. A librarian wants a priceless tome returned from the wizard who won’t give it back.
4. Someone wants to hire the group to kidnap a princess, instead of rescuing one.
5. A vigilante group is killing a repressed minority.
6. A creature or group of creatures has moved into a place, using it as a base to maraud countryside.
7. Whole party is captured somehow, must find a way to escape.
8. A bar room brawl, which includes another group of adventurers. To the victors go the spoils, and maybe a map to a nearby hidden lair, dungeon, gold mine, or lost dwarven stronghold.
9. A member of the party somehow earns ownership of a slave. This causes conflict.
10. Mysterious earthquakes in a nearby region, investigate the cause.
11. An ‘evil’ faction turns out to be just misunderstood.
12. A ship or something wrecked, depositing a huge treasure. Race to get it.
13. A dragon is rumored to no longer be guarding its hoard. Race to get it.
14. A group of bandits is making travellers pay a toll.
15. The group is afflicted with a curse of discord, which turns them chaotic or evil.
16. The group is afflicted with a curse that turns them into monsters that are killed on sight.
17. The group defeats thieves who have stolen something that blackmails a local corrupt noble.
18. A noble hires the group to find blackmail material on another noble.
19. Fire destroyed a special village inn or landmark. Lift the spirits of the people by helping them gather the resources to rebuild.
20. An artist is cursed when his paintings keep coming to life, or predicting death. Solve the mystery.

Tier Three:

1. A princess has been kidnapped and held for ransom … one too many times.
2. The group finds a wounded angel that needs help getting home, before being captured by devils.
3. An evil character is in love with someone good, and wants to be better.
4. One of the group turns out to be a doppelganger. Where is your companion?
5. A circus has come to town, with strange creatures, exotic people, and…?
6. A new party member has a secret past that catches up with him/her, and hopes the group will lay their lives on the line to take care of this problem.
7. Group rescues a damsel, but she’s actually an assassin/thief pretending to be innocent.
8. Salesperson-like promises of gold and glory in a nearby kingdom leads to an ambush and/or a trap.
9. Bounty hunting a goodhearted pirate, vegan troll, evil princess, or other character that defies tropes.
10. Two of the group members have somehow changed bodies.
11. A local lord is trying to build a new road. A powerful landowner, a retired adventurer, or a group of elves or druids is strongly opposed, with escalating stakes and violence.
12. A group member has inherited a long-abandoned estate with an odd groundskeeper or housekeeper, secrets.
13. A cult is trying to revive its lost god.
14. Retrieve an old artifact from a shipwreck at the bottom of the sea.
15. A nobleman hires the group to let his son/daughter tag along to see the world.
16. Deliver a ransom to kidnappers.
17. A mysterious egg is found. Is it hatchable?
18. A curse, or cursed object, is found, group must find a way to get rid of it ASAP.
19. Everyone in a town has gone missing, no one knows why.
20. Someone was kidnapped by something. Rescue them.
21. The group finds a gladiator arena, can participate.
22. An evil faction or aggressive warlord is corrupting small towns before expanding to an assault on the capital. He wants something, maybe marriage to the local lord’s daughter.
23. Chanting or singing is heard in nearby ruins or glade.
24. Someone in the group is afflicted with lycanthropy.
25. Undead are attacking a nearby village, controlled by an evil mastermind.
26. A new cult has arrived in the area, and is recruiting members. Are they up to no good? An established faction wants you to ‘find’ evidence they are no good, and either convince them to leave, or kill them.
27. A mad wizard or cleric is selling potions that have terrible side effects, refuses to stop, and is trying to silence those who call him out.
28. Someone wants the group to find a stolen or missing precious, with payment on receipt of the item. Maybe they are counting on the item’s power to help them avoid paying.
29. You are racing another adventuring group to the treasure, but the other group falls into a disaster. Will you let them die? Or will you help them?
30. The plague scenario. Find the cure, or burn the whole place to the ground, risk getting sick to help the sick, or whatever. (If a group member is out, maybe they got sick.)
31. The pop-culture reference quest. Recreate a popular story with abundant references.
32. A farmer is clearing land to plant crops to feed the growing human village. Local nature spirits or elves aren’t pleased. Take a side and/or mediate.
33. The adventuring group has an opportunity to build their own stronghold. The effort requires various side quests.
34. A group member wants to join a religion, holy order, or assassin’s guild, but needs to complete a difficult quest for entry, and could use some help.
35. A group member is in a guild, church, or other organization who needs them to complete a very important quest, and to bring friends.
36. A legendary but eccentric chef went missing. Find out where they went and what happened, and they might reward you with a secret recipe.
37. A group member is a member of a vulnerable minority. As a relatively wealthy and capable member, they are in a unique position to help defend their people against persecution, and find diplomatic solutions.
38. Hostage crisis. Rescue the princess by negotiation and tact, rather than covert assault.
39. Mediator. Prevent a war by negotiating with both sides. Evade an assassination attempt by those who want a war to occur.
40. A highly publicized wedding of peace is arranged between two usually opposed factions. Escort the bride along a treacherous road, along with a precious dowry.

ChatGPT-Generated Generic Quest Templates

Here’s a list of good generic quests for an adventure game:

1. Retrieve the Lost Artifact: The player must venture into dangerous dungeons and overcome obstacles to find and recover a powerful artifact.
2. Rescue the Captive: The player must locate and rescue a kidnapped character, navigating through enemy territory and facing off against formidable foes.
3. Solve the Mystery: The player becomes a detective and must investigate a puzzling crime or a series of mysterious events, collecting clues, interviewing suspects, and piecing together the truth.
4. Protect the Village: The player is tasked with defending a vulnerable village from imminent danger, such as an invading army, monsters, or a natural disaster.
5. Explore the Forbidden Land: The player embarks on a perilous journey to explore a forbidden and uncharted territory, facing unknown creatures, solving puzzles, and uncovering ancient secrets.
6. Retrieve the Stolen Treasure: The player must track down and recover a valuable treasure stolen by cunning thieves, leading to a pursuit across various locations and encounters with clever adversaries.
7. Defeat the Evil Overlord: The player’s ultimate goal is to defeat an evil overlord who threatens to plunge the world into darkness, assembling a team, gathering powerful artifacts, and engaging in epic battles.
8. Master the Elements: The player must undergo training and trials to master the powers of the four elements (earth, air, fire, and water) and bring balance to a troubled world.
9. Seek the Legendary Weapon: The player embarks on a quest to locate a legendary weapon with immense power, journeying through treacherous terrains, deciphering ancient riddles, and facing formidable guardians.
10. Uncover the Ancient Civilization: The player explores ancient ruins and forgotten cities, deciphering ancient texts, solving puzzles, and discovering the history and secrets of a long-lost civilization.
11. Aid the Wise Sage: The player is tasked with finding and assisting a wise sage who holds crucial knowledge or a solution to a pressing problem, overcoming obstacles and proving their worth.
12. Lift the Curse: The player must break a curse that plagues a person, a village, or even an entire kingdom, embarking on a quest to find the source of the curse and finding a way to undo its effects.
13. Restore the Sacred Relics: The player sets out on a quest to recover stolen or scattered sacred relics, each with unique powers, and return them to their rightful place, unlocking their potential along the way.
14. Help the Lost Spirit: The player encounters a wandering spirit trapped between worlds and must aid them in finding peace, venturing into ethereal realms and solving ethereal puzzles.
15. Expose the Conspiracy: The player becomes entangled in a web of political intrigue and must uncover a conspiracy threatening the stability of a kingdom, gathering evidence, interrogating suspects, and navigating dangerous political waters.
16. Ascend to Godhood: The player embarks on a journey to ascend to godhood, undertaking divine trials, amassing followers, and making choices that shape their path to divinity.
17. Collect the Elemental Crystals: The player must search for and collect a set of elemental crystals scattered across the world, each imbued with unique powers, to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands.
18. Protect the Last of a Species: The player is entrusted with the protection and preservation of the last surviving member of a rare and endangered species, shielding them from hunters or poachers.
19. Save the Dying World: The player must find a way to heal a dying world, whether through restoring natural resources, bringing harmony to warring factions, or finding a mythical artifact with the power to rejuvenate the land.
20. Reclaim the Lost Kingdom: The player’s mission is to reclaim a lost kingdom that has fallen into the hands of an oppressive regime or monstrous creatures, rallying allies, and engaging in epic battles to restore peace and justice.

Feel free to customize these quests to fit your specific game’s setting and mechanics.

(I’ve returned to work on Elven Academy, and released new patch notes and a short state of the game, including a bit of new content. The patch notes are in the post below this one. And TLDR – The Magicians sucks, and I couldn’t really get much use from this murky clown fiesta.)

When I initially started working on Elven Academy, (then called ‘Owl River’, whence to return if anyone steals the name Elven Academy from me), I imagined a more adult, darker version of Harry Potter.

It turns out my writing skills are not as good as J.K. Rowling. Nonetheless, this general idea has been tried, of course, many times by other writers. So naturally I want to check out those writers to see what they are up to.

One such attempt is ‘The Magicians’, a SyFy series based on a novel trilogy by the American author Lev Grossman, first published in 2009. In recent weeks I’ve forced myself to watch the first season of The Magicians on Netflix. I find the show to be rather bad. ‘Forced myself to watch’ is not an exaggeration.

In fact, I’m on episode 2 or 3 of season 2, and can’t seem to force myself any further. This is frankly terrible, even though season 2 was supposed to be better. It’s a writing mess imho.

So I wanted to write out the relevance of this show to my own project, a relevant review let’s say, in case my adventure with this show is at an end, but while it is still fresh.

Could I read the novel? Yes. Do I have time for that? Maybe. Am I going to pay $12.99 for a fucking Kindle novel? Hell no. Game over Mr. Grossman.

Adult Content And Sex

An explosive consternation of mine has been any insertion of adult content in a game that is largely educational in intent (on equal footing to pure amusement, depending on the user), yet also set in a very dark fantasy setting, darker than The Magicians certainly.

I’m worried this can be taken the wrong way, even though I’ve made it clear that the academy is a college setting with people of all ages traveling from Earth to study there.

The Magicians has a 16+ audience Rating in the U.S. (TV-14 official in the U.S. and Mexico), and is described as a “Darker, more adult magical quest for the Harry Potter set.” There is an uncensored version showing on Syfy.com apparently, which shows nipples.

So what does the 14 – 16+ mean in reality in this case? Well, it means no nipples. Netflix has the censored version. I found the ratings 14 and 16 stated on other websites. Here are my notes from show season one.

Examples of “TV-14 or 16+” from The Magicians

Bad guy rips the eyeballs out of the headmaster and tosses the bloody eyeballs on a desk.

Someone overloads a spell and burns to death, becomes a hungry ghost that tries to strangle his own sister. (Goofy, pointless scene that led nowhere.)

Graphic scene of woman’s head exploding with blood from a curse. (No character rationale for committing wanton bloody murder with insanely powerful magic btw, or any ill effects from casting such curses.)

Scene of bad guy possessing a young man, using the guy to choke to death a beloved female character, then squeeze her head until it explodes with blood all over his face.

Beloved children’s author turns out to be a pedo. Graphic scene of coaxing, grooming, and photographing a young boy.

Meanwhile author’s sister cruelly punishes, and eventually drugs and murders the children to prevent them from escaping or revealing the pedo secrets, buries their bodies in the cellar. Heroes dig up one of the kids’ bodies to get a magic button.

Curse that causes a plant to grow under your skin and strangle your heart.

Light lesbian scene, groping breasts with female character dressed as a slave (Leia.)

Drinking. Drug usage (pills). Cocaine and crack use by main characters, with discussion of overdoses.

Various drugs, psychadelics, the air around Fillory is .02% opium (for no apparent reason.)

Mild Roman orgy with togas, upskirt. Side boob and bare back with towel. (Badly shot scene, gratuitous, followed by same in a bathtub scene.)

Bestiality with a talking horse mentioned. Eating goat penis for virility mentioned.

Cup of satyr semen is drunk.

Torturing someone to death mentioned.

Sex magic with simultaneous orgasm required, leading to a bedroom scene with bare girl’s back, riding cowgirl, bad moaning.

Graphic suicide by shotgun in mouth with blood spraying out the back of the head. (Getting rid of the other really good, likeable side character and actor btw.)

Scenes of mass murder with bloody bodies.

Graphic forced rape (with clothes on), with blood all over and gooey overabundance of semen.

Language Examples

Dick buckets. Shitty. Fuck. Cameltoe. Mind slut. All kinds of drug references.

Conclusion On Adult Content

The Magicians first season seems to load every episode with as much sex and drugs as possible, even involving the main characters, filling the show with cheap thrills and juvenile decadence that gloss over the weaknesses in writing.

The Magicians has random occasional use of Latin and complicated hand gestures (mudras) to make magic look like serious business. Harry Potter style wands are not a thing here. I like the wands. The hand gestures are used sometimes, but not others. Overall I’m not a fan.

After watching this show, 16+ is clearly a lot nastier ‘these days’ than I’ve always imagined. I am old.

So apparently I can push things a lot further without too much worry, including fountains and lakes of dead bodies and blood, and horrible graphic curse effects, as long as I don’t show any nipples or butts.

This is ridiculous?

It really just makes me want to do an 18+ game. Another option is to sell an 18+ ‘Romance Pack’. This allows me to offer the free download to all audiences, and better control who gets the 18+ somehow. But that has really sleazy optics. It would probably look worse than just making the game 18+, yes?

But maybe that’s the way. It doesn’t need to be sleazy, I mean look at all the adult games on Steam. I’ve never felt more like a boomer, but that’s where I’m at.

Game Design Take-aways From The Magicians

I feel I could do a bit more drugs, sex, and partial nudity.

In season one, the best parts were the humor and comedy, but that idea just falls on its face in season 2. I can’t stand any scene with Julia really.

More semen drinking? Lots more blood? Blood doesn’t have any effect on me for horror, so I never use it, and I should probably use it more.

The Wikipedia entry discusses character development and arcs, but those were lost on me in the show. I thought Quentin Coldwater was supposed to represent Everyman, and help the audience identify with him. The point is raised about the hero not really being ‘the hero’, which is a twist that approaches higher literary levels, but Quentin is no Bilbo or Frodo?

I definitely need to improve those personal story arcs in my characters, but let’s be honest, the character motivations in the Magicians are very frustrating to get a handle on, honestly. The main character’s primary motivation throughout seems to be that he loves Fillory. That’s it.

Why? Well it turns out his books don’t depict an accurate Fillory. Does the show really get into this character inner conflict, his dashed expectations? His revised goals in life? No, not nearly enough. What are his goals? What happened to Julia’s goals? Think dumpster and fire.

What does any character even want? Eliot doesn’t even care about being king. Julia wants revenge, but every scene with Julia I want to skip. The show would be better if she didn’t exist. (Hands raised in confusion, at a loss.)

I could use more curses. They aren’t used as well as they could be in the Magicians because they never seem personal. In Harry Potter, curses are very personal. You get up in someone’s face and wave a wand and say ‘Cruciatis,’ and they know what’s up.

Now that I think of it, the conflicts in the Magicians are also a dumpster fire. In season one and the early innings of season 2, who is conflicting with the main hero, Quentin Coldwater, like the Dark Lord conflicted with Harry throughout the HP books? No one. The ‘dark lord’ just keeps sparing Quentin for no particular reason.

The magical traveling modes, the magical libraries, the quirky librarians, the different dimensions of existence are all well done.

The time travel is interesting, but the show establishes at first that time passes much faster on earth (when Penny first visits Fillory, he is gone 2 weeks instead of 2 hours), but the show then seems to throw that time problem right out when it becomes inconvenient to the plot. The characters would be gone for months from school. Do they even take classes? What are the professors even doing? Etc..

That’s it, please leave any comments below, and thanks for reading.

I’m returning to work on the game after some months hiatus, after several completed oil paintings, and during a deep sense of ennui with everything that has engaged my free time lately.

Generally my oil paintings look worse after I let them sit and come back to them with objective eyes.  The Elven Academy game is the same, but what else can we do but trudge on with our mediocrity, and with the belief that people out there will appreciate and enjoy our work someday.

It appears this game was a bit of a mess when I left. So I’ve fixed some glaring issues right away. Patch notes are below.

The new content is just a completed Spanish translation of module B2, and a new library book on the origins of Impressionism.  But now that these bugs are fixed and things are mostly up to date, I can work on the real new content, the module in progress, which is B3.

B3 is a diplomacy-focused module set in the Seelie Court. The module will use the reputation gains you’ve made in factions along the way, as well as your diplomacy skills. I am very happy with the meaningful choices you make in B2, involving who you side with, the deals you make, etc. and I hope to expand on this theme in B3.

After B3 will come, at long last, a sea voyage adventure. This adventure is inspired by the Tunnels and Trolls module Sea of Mystery, which I enjoyed when I was a kid. But Tunnels and Trolls modules were never big enough, and Sea of Mystery was no exception. So a big motivation in my game is to push further and farther.

I expect B3: The Seelie Court to take months to complete, but a new big, grand adventure format (as opposed to more linear storytelling of B3), is the carrot on the stick. I hope to see you in the Seelie Court soonish, and then on to the life of a seafarer. Here are the patch notes:

General:

Fixed a major bug preventing most item purchases in the game. This bug was caused by a scope issue, which was caused by revising core code to use the relatively recent javascript ‘let’ keyword for variable definition. (‘If’ statements count as a block for purpose of block scope…)

I believe I fixed a bug causing most adventure modules to falsely declare that you’ve already completed them.

Added a new library book on impressionism, and translated module B2 to Spanish. Greatly increased stat gains for reading library books, whereas they have always been too brutally stingy, especially for the modern day…

Fixed a bug on UI display of affection sometimes showing undefined after affection is gained.

A1:

Fixed dialogue with Roxanne to accurately reflect ‘dark game’ choice made.
Fixed wardrobe gender issue in your room.
Fixed a typo.
Fixed some missing translations.

A3:

Various edits, additional poetry for Connor, a few more dialogue options.
Fixed a bug where the Sea God’s blessing was hurting you, not healing you.

A7:

Three new sound tracks for important scenes.
Fixed various bugs, added some conversation options.

B2:

Fixed many small bugs, incorrect nomenclature, translated remainder of text into Spanish.
Fixed broken ending.
Fixed a missing graphic and a few non-preloaded conversation images (needs more).

Library:

Greatly increased stat gains from reading library books. There will always be some gain for 75% or better on the quiz questions. It is now relatively easy to grind out a few attribute points by memorizing the quiz answers and completing books repeatedly, but the max attribute gains from library books are now capped at 15.

Updated the library hub to includes an arts section, completed and translated a book on 19th century painting. (Fin de Siecle pre-impressionist and early impressionist period.)

Fixed missing and garbled text in the English Poetry book.
Fixed a lot of missing translations in the hub.
Fixed some minor typos in the Dating book, added some image preloads.
Fixed broken Spanish accents (HTML Charset) throughout pirates lore book.
Fixed bug in Fungus book.

Happy New Year! This evening I’ve uploaded module C3: Town of Terror: the Return. This is the third ‘outdoor adventure’ in Elven Academy.

In this module, you return to the seaside port town of Queen’s Bay with Alex and another companion. He has some issues to work out. He also wants to drag you into a secret spying mission. This module features more zombies and more romance than any other project so far, so what’s not to like?

Module B1 has a bit more romance with succubi and other children of the Dark Lord, but added together with companion romance, C3 has the most. The number of combats might also be a bit more than the previous champion, module D2. These combats are a bit more boring, though.

I’m not thrilled at all with my current RNG combat system, featuring rounds and attrition to hit points. It’s a coding clown fiesta. I’m strongly thinking about changing to scripted combat encounters, which are more exciting and unique, although not as replayable or interesting in terms of figuring out what works.

This module took at least the last six months to complete. It was a stupid and insane amount of weekend warrior work – from designing, writing, coding, creating all the art, translating into Spanish, and debugging. Throw in some music. And there are still probably a few bugs hiding in there somewhere.

This module was supposed to be an epic adventure, and filesize-wise it actually is. I believe it’s twice as large as any other module created to date.

The reason for the length wasn’t the size of the adventure though. It turned into a character-based story centered on Alex. That’s great, but it meant the focus wasn’t on sword and sorcery fantasy adventure, and D&D-like scenarios to solve.

So I still have a major itch to create a “mega-dungeon”. I will try again next time, after planning a bit better, and probably after completing B3: The Seelie Court. I feel like the most epic adventure has to be more on rails. C3: Town of Terror is a depressingly modest spiderweb with a few breadcrumb trails to nudge the adventurer towards the more intense story beats.

I enjoy writing dialog, but I tend to do so at the expense of other things. Anyway, off to yet another creative project (an oil painting), which is sitting waiting for me. Here is a direct link to module C3.

Note that if you are a level one/first year student, casting these combat spells will be fairly difficult. Luckily there is another, even more effective way available to handle these zombies. Actually, a lot of rolls in this module will be difficult. So.

Here is a level three (female chaotic heritage) code you can use, if you want: NAN100-OMHLLI-LFIFFK-AAABAC-18-15-12070C0000401-AEAAAA-AAEAAAAAAA-RAACAAAAAA-IAAAAAAAAA-ODMIVC-WWEIUL-YUGKAK-8535332222522343-0AUL4AAY000000000000000000000-000000000

Feel free to leave feedback here or on Twitter (link in sidebar.) Thanks for visiting.

Recently I’ve spent perhaps 50 hours watching game design Youtube videos. Geek and Sundry has some very old videos on game writing and campaign design, but you have to scroll back at least 5 to 6 years in their enormous pile of archives to find them. Have fun with that!

As with the previous installments of this series of blog posts, I saved my own handwritten notes from these videos, extracting only that which can be useful for making a CRPG, and not for running a tabletop game.  I’ve also included a bit at the end from the D&D and Beyond channel, so that’s another one to check out.

The following sections are design notes from Matthew Mercer, Voice Actor and DM for Geek And Sundry’s Critical Role.

Bare Bones Adventure Design

1. Determine what characters the players like to play: good, evil, premade heroes, simple level ones, etc.
2. Determine what style of adventure the players like: i.e. pure dungeon crawling, diplomacy.
3. Now need a plot hook that fits the player’s tastes. Grab players early with a strong inciting incident, plus a mystery.
4. Who or what is the big antagonist. Interesting, dangerous. What is their motivation. Is there time pressure?
5. Fill in the middle with challenges, obstacles. Key NPC’s, lackeys, mentors who might donate helpful items, along with interesting locations where they might be find. Social encounters with good and evil factions.
6. Refine the ideas with specific scenarios that let each party member shine and be a hero. Add some interesting and juicy loot. Prepare some strong descriptive paragraphs for key NPC’s and locations.

Building RPG Encounters

First of all, what terrain or region are you in? Monsters are usually categorized by where they are found.
When creating a map, try for creative terrain, something a little different. Furniture can be used for blockades. Are there features in the terrain that offer movement blocks during a battle? Find some way to make the battlefield more interesting than just a slugfest of HP back and forth.

Intelligent creatures might we willing to resolve with diplomacy. Intelligent creatures will often try to flee at low HP.

Not all battles should be won. Some should be foreshadowing, or getting to know the villain.

NPC Creation

First decision: are they major or minor?
Minor: need name, sex, job, faction or political affiliations, guilds, allies or enemies they might have.
Major: include ideals, desires, fears, their current disposition towards the players, their skills, equipment. If you do character voices, note the voice you used.

A good villain is very important. Acts by their own beliefs, may see others as villains of their own heroic story. See The Book of Vile Darkness, which has excellent treatment of villains.

Social Non-combat Encounters

Lots of ideas to incorporate social combat your games. Balls, council meetings, diplomatic missions, spy games, interrogations, investigations. Infiltration. Contest of skill or a gauntlet to prove oneself.

What is the overall goal of the social encounter? Helps to be clear on this with yourself and the players.
Make sure the NPC enemies are fleshed out with motives, things they want, or want to hide. Are they willing to sell information? What are they weak to? Strong against? Factions? Must players choose a side?

Raise the stakes. Always try to raise the stakes.

Finding a hidden spy is cool. Stolen objects work well. Information used against the party.

Always have a plan in case a fight breaks out in a specific social encounter.

Rule of Cool.

(Final notes by Matthew Mercer.)

Willing suspension of disbelief to allow something cool to happen. Establish how realistic and strict the setting and campaign is going to be. Allow something crazy every now and then for the sake of fun, even if the rules probably wouldn’t allow it. Reward creativity, while keeping hands on the reins. The story is supposed to be heroic. A game is supposed to be fun.

Design Notes From Satine Phoenix.

Satine Phoenix is another GM from Geek and Sundry, but again you have to dig very deep into their archives to find these old videos.  Here are some notes about writing from a few of them.

(The main takeaway for me here is obstruction. I’m terrible and lazy at creating constant obstructions and frustrations. I have very poor ability to increase tension and see the long game, and need to improve. I actually did purchase and start reading the book recommended by Satine below.)

There are different styles/types of storytelling/GMs.
Obstructing – constantly setting challenges to overcome.
Narrative – focused on going through the storyline and hitting plot points.
Experiental – finding the great moments, making the most of them.
Uplifting – constantly for the players, making them happy and fulfilling their fantasies.

Story Structure.  Read and study Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting, by Robert McKee. Use the “Harmon Circle Theory” by Dan Harmon, which is similar to Campbell’s journey of the hero. You -> Need -> Go -> Search -> Find -> Take -> Return – > Change.

Satine notes the “finding phase” is a good place to subvert expectations with something unexpected. Asking all sorts of ‘why’ is a good technique to get deeper into the game world.

<h3>The Neverending Story – (How to find ideas for new plots, arcs.)</h3>

Bring it back. Go back to early modules and look for loose ends, bring back NPC’s and their unfinished stories.

Develop your world further. Look for gaps in your game world knowledge, not just geographical but also sociopolitical. Building this knowledge will naturally lead to ideas.

Ask your players where they want to go or explore.

D&D And Beyond

(The final notes here are from D&D Beyond – Chris Perkins on Writing Dungeons and Dragons Adventures for a large audience.)

Basic adventure needs a good goal, a setting, and villains with their own goals. You can usually get away with being weak on one of the latter, but not the first one. Simplest and oldest motivation is greed. There is a big treasure. Go to get rich.

In many cases, this isn’t good enough, not appealing enough for either the characters or the players. So you want to make the goal more appealing to more people. So make the gold stolen from the church, for example. Or the gold is intended to fund a dastardly deed that needs to be stopped. Perhaps some characters in the party will have this motivation, others might go along to help.

The only thing that is really bad when over-used is giving players no control or agency. It can be OK once or twice, but not too often. Also, railroading with only one way forward is undesirable.

On Making Villains Unique. Two ways to make a great villain, according to feedback from publishers. Put a unique spin on an old, trite trope (or monster). Or give us a kick-ass map for a location.

Conclusion.

I enjoyed watching these videos by Geek and Sundry, et. al. on game design. It appears they aren’t doing things like this anymore. What else is there to say, at some point. I liked Matt’s style of smooth delivery a little more than Satine’s videos, but on re-reviewing here, I have to admit that Satine really packed good information into her videos.

So I would of course recommend watching both. They are really hard to find, though, which is why there aren’t any specific links here to specific videos. Going into those massive archives was a test of patience.  Good luck and having fun designing!

A few years ago, I did an exhaustive review of all of Alexander Freed’s old blog posts, and I wrote a summary digest of all of the useful points that might be applicable to a CRPG. In the past few months, I’ve watched many if not most of Matthew Colville’s videos on Youtube, and turned this into the same educative exercise.

Matthew Colville is a former writer for Pandemic Studios, and lead writer for Turtle Rock Studios at this time. A lot of his youtube videos are for tabletop group gaming, i.e. D&D.

I hope these notes might be useful to someone without 50 hours of time to spend watching videos, but I would highly recommend watching Matthew on Youtube. He’s a great voice for RPG design, especially when applied to the D&D rules.

So here are my hand-typed notes of things I found useful, for future assistance in my own project. My handwritten notes are specifically selected therefore for solo CRPG design. I’ve helpfully collated these notes from different videos under group headings, as well.

General Tips:

Join game design communities on your favorite social media platforms.

Consider the type of campaign/game you want to make. What is the fantasy you want to capture for your players. Then you can design accordingly. Examples:

Heroic Fantasy – you are a hero from first level. I.e. Boromir, Legolas, etc.. You don’t care about greed, gold, and magic items so much. For example, 4E D&D.

Pulp Fantasy – you can be greedy, just seeking gold, magic items, fame or glory. Back in the day, D&D was much more pulp fantasy. For example, Village of Hommlet.

Bring lore to the players, because they will be too lazy to go to the lore. Maybe lore is needed to progress in the story. So a sage is needed to instruct the players, but he wants a favor first.

Players will usually choose a fun but hard way more than an easy but boring way to solve puzzles.

You develop taste in what’s good long before you develop the ability to actually create good things.

About Rewards:

Is your game really about rewards? Or more about exploration, storytelling, character growth, the social experience, etc.. It depends on your player preferences. For example:

Power gamers want to min max to become as powerful as possible.

Murder Hobos like the kill everything, doesn’t like puzzles.

The Specialists want to have fun playing a very specific character. It’s fantasy fulfillment.

The Actors love roleplaying and attention.

Casual Gamer/Storyteller just want to go along for a cinematic ride, as a passive audience member. Don’t try to force this gamer to be more than they are.

Mad Scientist (Matt’s personal addition to the tropes) wants to fuck around, be crazy, and see how far they can disrupt things. Usually young players.

So all of these types enjoy different rewards from playing.

Note the behaviour a game rewards is the behaviour a game encourages. I.e. if you want the player to go into the forest, put the rewards there.

Try clear goals and explicit rewards, i.e. like the quest text in WoW. For example, the temple is sending you on a quest, and you know your reward will be a Holy Avenger sword.

Making A Good Villain:

Show what evil the villain can do, or is doing. Kill off a beloved character. Have the villain make an early appearance, where he beats and humiliates the party. Find ways for the party to witness the villain doing evil things.

Villains can possess someone and speak through their mouths. They can appear in a mirror, or in the character’s dream. It is fun to have some heated exchanges with the villain before the final showdown, to increase the emotional investment.

How to make an NPC memorable, regardless of whether evil or good? Need to focus on motivation and perspective. For example: fear, pride, self-interest. Self-awareness on the part of NPC’s can be very impactful and lifegiving for the effort.

You can use the NPC not just to reveal the world, but also to reveal a different perspective on the heroes, strengthening their characters, which are a lot more important than the NPC.

About Murder and Monsters:

We need monsters so players can feel good about killing them. A monster per se is self-evident that it needs to be killed. What about intelligent monsters? The solution to complex ethics and morality is in factions. One tribe of goblins, the ‘Blood Skull Tribe’, might be clearly evil and needs to be killed, while the ‘Purple Mushroom Tribe’ might be peaceful and doesn’t deserve murder. So think in terms of factions more than races.

Types of combat encounters. 4 types. Patrols, scouts, guards, boss fights. Patrol is more like a puzzle to solve by finding and/or observing the pattern. A failure to avoid should not result in automatic doom or alert of the whole complex. Instead, increase the tension with increased scrutiny and alertness. Scouts range far and wide, mixed unit, not a regular pattern. Scouts are more likely to spot the PC’s first. Guards are like a stationary patrol. A puzzle to solve. Again, alerting the guards increases the danger and deadliness of an encounter, but is not necessarily fatal.

About Factions and Diplomacy:

Most things start to make sense when you see the world as factions struggling for power over land, resources, or each other. Unfortunately this fact creates a degeneration of ethics and more aggression, due to the power faction usually winning a conflict with a more peaceful faction. (Red Queen Hypothesis).

To form a foundation of campaign politics, start with a central tension. To hone down, consider the motivations and ideologies of all factions. What do they want? What do they believe in? What skills and resources are they using to achieve their goals?

An example of a great central tension with different ideologies is Professor Xavier vs. Magneto. What side benefits from disruption, and which from the status quo? Are there grey areas? How will your players fit into these factions? Consider the American Civil War, or the Roman Empire.

About General Campaign Writing:

You made your world and campaign for yourself, not for your players. If you re-read your stuff and you don’t laugh out loud, then maybe it isn’t good enough.

If they aren’t engaging with the lore, you’ve failed to present it dramatically. Maps are very helpful to engage players, but difficult to produce. The bottom line is to insert lore in the context of dramatic scenes. Example given was the Kessel Run.

Sociology studies are really helpful. What is the culture about? What are its values? Try an exercise to focus your essential lore down to only one page.

Starting in a tavern. It’s traditional, but it’s also a helpful example of how to start a campaign. The tavern a helpful microcosm of your game setting. It allows a player to get to know their character through interacting with standard tavern NPCs and tropes.

The DM can quickly and easily introduce faction tensions in the setting, preferably with a fight. Maybe the locals are hating on a greedy lord. Maybe there are miners with dreams of riches, or competing miners. Focus preferably on the central tension at this point rather than minor side quests.

You could also reveal how these townsfolk feel about adventures. Maybe they assume the adventurers are troublemakers, meddlers, etc.. Maybe there is a turf issue, the local rogues or wizards are threatened by a newcomer.

You could highlight racial tensions if they are relevant, as well as factions. So it’s a slow burn, but there is no starting goal, no immediate motivation, just talking amongst each other.

‘Adventure Hook’ – the receipt of the main quest, the discovery of the thread that the DM expects the party to follow.

About Scenario/Adventure Writing:

Avoid Pass/Fail Scenarios! Instead use heightened stakes. If a player fails a roll, need to improvise to compensate, creating heightened drama. Fail a stealth check, guard comes to investigate, or calls a friend. He doesn’t automatically catch and defeat the rogue, game is over.

Pass or die binary outcomes are not dramatic. It is OK to fail a lot and still make it through, by overcoming setbacks and inventing new ways to win. D&D is a cinematic adventure. Another alternative to a fail or die is progress at a cost, such as losing something valuable. ‘Failing forward.’

An example of increasing tension is getting spotted by a patrol. You don’t want the entire complex to be suddenly alerted. You want to prolong the tension as long as possible without going nuclear.

Railroading, Agency, and Choice. Matt’s general rule working on big games – tell player what to do, but not how. There is a difference between herding players to the prepared content, and railroading them towards an outcome that you really want to happen, which is an attack on player agency.

Skill challenges – introduced in D&D 4th Ed. Great opportunity to simulate a movie-like montage sequence or chase scene. Goal is to stimulate the players to examine their skills to creatively find a way through the sequence.

Conclusion:

That’s it for my notes from Matthew Colville’s videos, but there is a huge amount more on Youtube. (As I said, I watched dozens of hours of his content.) If you like what you see here, then check him out, especially if you are interested in the D&D flavor of game.

Thank you to whomsoever purchased a few of my books.

Please note that the first book is Down Where The Blue Violet Beauties Bloom. The book Inside The Dark Heart Of The Garden is actually book three. I need to fix my link or something, because my Smashwords profile page lists the books in the reverse order, based on when they were uploaded. They should be read in the opposite order, from bottom to top.

I was assuming people were buying “Dark Heart” because it is the most sexy-looking and has incubi, but it could also be the misleading order the books are listed. I don’t know, but it needs to be fixed.

So, about the game project. I’ve completed another full playthrough of current content, and I fixed a lot of typos and bugs. Some of those bugs only showed up when played in Spanish, or with a male character, or in Darkgame mode for example. This is a big challenge of QA for the game.

So I decided to go ahead and upload those fixes.

I was pleased that gear seemed to be working well, without noticeable glitches. A total gear handling overhaul was considered, and it’s something that might happen in the future.

I noticed that Chapter A results in some fairly high character stats. I am considering reducing stat gains after the player reaches the second Chapter B, nudging the somewhat experienced player, with some gear to select from, to start considering their gear loadout for adventures. Or I’ll need to tweak the stat gains a bit from the beginning.

The only actual content added here is a new library book: Elven Dating: Using the Modern Arts of Psychology For Success. That should be found in the in-game library under a new Psychology category.

I am still working on Outdoor Adventure C3: Return to the Town of Terror. I considered pushing for a Halloween release, but I’ve been focused on oil painting instead, while writing down my game dev ideas for when I have time.

General patch notes:

Created a formal story and character arc tracker spreadsheet, because the different stories and timelines are getting a bit complicated.

Added mouseover tooltips to the six gear slots in the character sheets. You can now see the stat breakdowns on individual pieces of gear. Ease of managing items and gearing still could use a lot of improvement.

Added C and M hotkeys for opening character sheet and map. Space bar chooses first dialogue option.

A1: Revised and reduced wordy paragraphs yet again. Added missing translations. Fixed a missing graphic.
A2: Minor typo corrections, bits of added dialog, clarifications.
A3: fixed a wand issue for female Dandelion, fixed a game-breaking conversation bug.
A4: Cut and added more paragraph breaks to wordy paragraphs. Developed character goals and motivations for Connor and Jeanie.
A5: Spanish translation corrections.
A6: Spanish translation corrections.
A7: Minor edits and typo corrections.

C1: Spent hours fixing a dizzying array of Spanish translation failures, including text variables mislabeled and therefore missing, paragraph reductions, and paragraph breaks added, which were never previously done.
C2: Translation editing and proofreading, fixed missing translations. More paragraph breaks, reduced cringiness of over-enthusiastic dialog.

D1: Spanish editing and proofreading. Fixes to egregious game-breaking bugs at the final recap conversation. Fixed broken save progress at end. This could still be polished more, including adding health bars for the monsters.

D2: fixed some typos in generated combat text. Fixed spelling of ‘liege’, and the translation to ‘señor’. Fixed broken save code. Fixed display errors of combat spell icons in Spanish first language modes.

The site went down this morning, and apparently there was a corrupted file. I’ve re-uploaded the core JS/HTML files, and this seems to have fixed the issue. If strange issues continue, then I will have to investigate the possibility that the site is being hacked.

For now I will assume the hosting and server performance is sketchy. I also uploaded the new class portraits that were missing.

I am currently plodding along on outdoor adventure C3: Return to the Town of Terror. In this adventure, you return to Queen’s Bay with Alex, and possibly Jeanie or Nimwee. You can test your spells against sea zombies that rise from the sea during a full moon, and earn bounties for each one you find and kill.

Town of Terror is meant to be a full-size late-night town adventure, with drinking, gambling, whoring, pirates and an evil plot from a well-known nemesis in the game. It’s also your chance to get to know and romance Alex if you so desire, or a succubus if that is your persuasion.

It will once again be my best module. I am also very intent on making it by far the largest adventure module. Since the main companion is Alex, a character who is very conflicted between the dark side and trying to be a whiter wizard, a major theme in the module is ethical choices.

So module C3 is a good exercise on this design topic. It will also offer the most opportunities of any module (so far) to be ethically neutral and hedonistic.

I’m still doing a lot of oil painting, but I’m sort of close to reaching my annual painting goal, so hopefully I will have time to focus more on Elven Academy in the near future. I thought that adding a completion/achievement panel would be inspiring to me (to fill it in with content), but perhaps the development perspective (in terms of overall progress) has actually been demoralizing.