Elven Academy

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.

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.

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.

I’m currently done with WoW Classic for a while, and I’m back to work on Elven Academy. I’m working on B1: Down The Rabbit Hole. This is the first module in chapter B, which I believe will take the adventurer on a sea voyage to the Unseelie Court.

While writing scenarios for B1, I realized that I’m not using the Persuasion stat much at all. Instead I’m using the other diplomacy stats (Empathy, Intimidation, Presence, etc.) as finer-grained, better flavored methods of persuading in the game. This is bit of an issue.

So I researched my inspiration for using Persuasion as a stat, which was Vampire The Masquerade. Unfortunately I don’t find any in-depth Reddit posts on this topic addressing pen and paper gameplay. I do find a forum post for the VtM:Bloodlines CRPG titled “Persuasion is overpowered, seduction and intimidation are weak.”

According to this post, VtM:Bloodlines took the opposite approach as I am. They over-used Persuasion as a catch-all means of persuading someone, unless there was a clear-cut situation that demanded a specific way of Persuading. I feel like that is non-optimal. I’ve already discussed Diplomacy at length in a previous post: Diplomacy Roleplay In Video Games: Part One, but lets look again.

Alternatives To Persuasion

I could replace Persuasion, but I need yet another fine-grained way to persuade. I already have Presence (Leadership), Empathy (Sense Motive, Emotional Connection), Mercantile (Haggling), Intimidation, and Deception (Lying, Cheating).

Possible other ideas:

Manners – knowledge and use of social decorum and refined speech. A lot of this is in Presence.
Seduction – using flattery, attractiveness, sexual desire to persuade.
Logic – trying to reason with someone, appeal to intellect.

Manners sounds boring, but I’ve wanted manners to be important to the elves. The main problem with Seduction is that it overlaps with the Romance stat, which I’ve implemented currently in the skills/professions category.

A discussion on RPG StackExchange came up with some other ideas like Logic and Acting. Logic is interesting, but Acting is hard to implement in a scripted CRPG. Pen and paper would work better for both this and Manners, I think.

A reddit user spoke of breaking Diplomacy into sub-skills, which I’ve already done. They suggest skills related to socio-economic backgrounds, i.e. Aristocracy, Street, etc. This is something that has been tried, i.e. in Cyberpunk 2020.

So this would be a vote for a Manners-type stat, but how do you use this to persuade people, or make real action and decisions happen in the game? It’s sketchy in terms of gameplay without a GM.

Persuasion Based On Socioeconomic Kinship

So this idea is to break your Diplomacy ability as a whole into your character background: aristocrat, warrior class, street urchin, and priest class, for example. You’re better at negotiating with your own people. This makes a lot of sense.

This idea doesn’t translate to any gameplay, however. Gameplay would be the idea of Cyberpunk 2077, which is to create stories based on your background. Obviously we can give bonuses based on background. We could tie this into a reputation system. Suppose you weren’t born a warrior, but you’ve done a million quests for the warrior’s guild.

The effect would be equal. Background and Reputation both equate to roll bonuses, maybe non-overlapping. Whichever is higher, to prevent overpowered effects like the one cited in the post linked above.

Persuasion Based On Leverage

In the comment to the discussion on Diplomacy, a GM mentioned the importance of leverage in the game “Dungeon World”: “There’s a Move (action, basically) called Parlay, which sort of covers what Persuasion and Intimidate skills would cover in a different game. The trick is that you can’t make a roll unless you have some form of ‘leverage’.”

It seems to me that leverage is a continuum, and each end renders it useless as a mechanic to implement. This leverage can often be boiled down to a quest item. “Here is the XYZ, now give me the thing/fight me/etc.” Or the leverage is moot. “Will five gold coins suffice?” (Just use haggle or another diplomacy skill that in this case just costs money.)

In the middle of that continuum between 100% leverage, and leverage you always have (gold), you have bonuses to the roll based on the strength of the leverage.

Conclusion

Origins (Street, Aristocrat, etc.) and Reputation could be employed as simple roll bonuses towards diplomacy skills. This means each NPC needs to be coded with a faction, which I’ve already done. Another way to code the NPC’s is with a disposition. The original Fallout games by Interplay used disposition heavily when negotiating with NPC’s, and the change in NPC facial expression was graphically rewarding at the time.

Disposition is overly complicated for the goals of my simple RPG. I’m going with KISS (Keep it simple, stupid), which is consistent with the inspirations for my game. And I’m leaning towards not replacing Persuasion with Seduction, but rather re-defining Persuasion per se to be like a seduction. It is derived from the same stats that Seduction would come from, and used when Seduction would be used.

As an aside, I’m also planning to replace the icons for the Diplomacy skills into something more representative. How do you arrive at icons for Diplomacy skills? The only theme of icons that seems to work, at the moment, is close-ups of eyes and eyebrows. Mouths can’t express enough.

I thought about icons showing hands (i.e. a fist for Intimidation, a handshake for Mercantile.) Or stick figures (i.e. a ninja for deception). I also considered animals, because this is an elven themed game. A bear for intimidation. An eagle for presence. A snake for deception. What animal persuades? What animal is empathic?

That’s all for now. Thanks for visiting, happy gaming, and feel free to leave a comment below.

In my last post, I reviewed the Tunnels and Trolls Solo Design Guidelines: How to Write A Solo Adventure, which was written mostly by Michael Stackpole many years ago. The most useful takeaway from that PDF was to make a flowchart.

Over the Christmas holiday, I completely played through a couple of the best adventures for T&T—Elven Lords (Deluxe) and City of Terrors (Deluxe), both authored originally by Michael Stackpole. I flowcharted them as I went, per his adventure writing advice. (See example image.)

So this blog post is a writing analysis of Elven Lords and City of Terrors. Both of these were the most recent deluxe versions purchased from DriveThruRPG.com, and they are chock full of beautiful artwork from my favorite pen and ink fantasy illustrators, Liz Danforth and Rob Carver.

I’ll go over Elven Lords pros and cons, then City of Terrors pros and cons, then finally sum up with some takeaways to use in my own adventure writing. Hopefully!

Elven Lords (1987)

First the negatives.

1. Author/reader contract failed. Don’t buy this module looking for elves. It’s like they had to pick a title, so they chose the one elf scenario. So there was a failure to live up to the author/reader unspoken contract. This is a thing in fiction. Readers expect to be paid off for taking the time to read, and a book title and cover make promises.
2. Characters. I mentioned the lack of advice from Stackpole on this topic in my previous blog post. He doesn’t mention characters at all in his guide. Elven Lords is consistent with this weakness. Some important characters have no names in this module (or weak ones like Mr. Big), including the titular elves.
3. Paths are too short. Stackpole tried to live up to his stated goal of 30+ endings. Turns out many of those are far too short. City of Terrors is designed better, because short episodes loop you back to the hub, where you can hunt for the longer stories.
4. Moral decisions with no clues. A frequent shortfall of T&T modules seems to be giving you decisions that are just plain random. Pick one door. Good luck! I really feel like something to go on is worth the effort and words, even if it amounts to nothing.
5. Unbalanced rewards. Final boss fight ended with no conversation or ceremony, same XP as any other storyline.
6. Stackpole is revisiting Gull, but it isn’t as good. Elven Lords is set in the same city as the City of Terrors module published years earlier. As an artist/writer, I have to assume Stackpole wanted to improve on his original effort. (I would.) The question is why? Or was he just writing a sequel for the money, and, well, it’s a sequel. Maybe it’s as simple as that.

A list of positives next.

1. Some saving rolls are blind, some not. Sometimes you know how hard something is before you try, other times you are surprised. This a realistic way of handling SR’s.
2. Choice of attributes to roll against. Solving a puzzle with your luck vs. your agility, for example.
3. Saving rolls are consistent with adventure themes. If you choose a roguish path, you get more agility and luck situations. If you choose a scholarly path, you get some INT rolls. Solid design.
4. Start a scene with a mini-mystery hook. Once or twice, the text mentions something very strange in a scene right away, which makes you wonder what it’s about, but you have to read on for some paragraphs to find out. This was very effective. This is also a contract! You’d better pay off the reader.
5. Superlative art as a reward. In a few cases, an important scene has gorgeous art. This could be seen as a payoff. Big budget video games do this today with spectacular cut scenes for example. It’s just not something you normally think of as a reward.
6. Meta paths. Elven Lords has outstanding design in terms of short paths unlocking longer, more important storylines. Unfortunately the dead end paths really needed to loop around like in CoT.
7. Final boss. In a few T&T modules, there seems to be a concept of a final boss (even way back 40 years ago.) This seems effective.

City of Terrors (1978)

Negatives first.

1. Cover Art. I don’t like the colored cover. It sucks compared to the original line art back in the day. Sorry, I just needed to get that off my breast plate!
2. Number/letter system. I like the numbers better than the number/letter combos for various reasons.
3. Incorrect use of the verbs Lie and Lay. Come on, guys. Laying in bed is not a thing (also one instance of this in Elven Lords— ‘You lay low and…’)
4. A missing page. Page 12. I was unable to go to 12B from 56B.
5. Moral options don’t have clues. See above with Elven Lords. There are some situations where your pick turned out to be moral, but it was totally random. You had no chance to choose correctly. I don’t like that.

That’s it. That’s all the negatives for City of Terrors. The positives for City of Terrors mostly mirror the design takeaways for this blog post. So I’ll just go right into them.

Adventure writing insights from T&T modules:

1. Illustrations show action. This was design advice in an Amazon prime documentary I watched recently, featuring the greatest old school fantasy art painters. Make fantasy art with action happening. The concept is working here. The trick is that T&T has the style of showing a random adventurer dying, or whatever. You sort of have to go all-in on that style of presentation, and it might not appeal to most today. I’m just used to seeing it due to T&T.
2. Short paths loop, long paths end the adventure exclusively. I like looping back to a road, instead of the adventure just ending. The optimal adventure design, I think, would be for all short and medium adventure paths to loop back to the beginning. The only true exits are by boat (i.e. voluntarily quitting from the main hub), or an exclusive long story line finale. There are only a few story finales, and you can only complete one. After that, you can’t run the adventure again.
3. Mixed telegraphed and blind roll difficulties. So, in some cases you know how hard something will be (climbing a pillar). In other cases, you don’t know until you go through the door or whatever, in which case the saving roll will be blind.
4. Permanent attribute losses as a penalty for failure. Maybe your foot got caught in a trap and maimed. Permanent loss of DEX. Or you were burned in a fire. Loss of CHR. This is a solid idea. It’s not instant death, but the player will have to decide whether to start over regardless.
5. The gods are not pleased. This was an interesting ‘thing’. If you’re a coward, the gods curse you, basically. I’m a big fan of divine powers in fantasy settings. It expands the universe, the feeling of magic and enchantment, basically everything without much drawback. The Temple of the Beetle in CoT brings in this aspect, which is missing from Elven Lords.
6. Places to rest. There is a healer shop in CoT. I was not rolling dice or doing any combats, but surely adventurers get worn down. Or are you supposed to heal between every combat? In any case, I think more opportunities to rest along the adventure and gain a bonus or healing would be an immersive thing.
7. Options have agency and roleplay. Other T&T modules are boring because options are very, very dull. “Go east?” “Go southeast” “Go down?” Etc. etc. Stackpole warned about this in his designing advice, and implemented choices that allow you to roleplay your character (if you’re a rogue, you can sneak in the back.. etc..) This is kind of obvious.
8. Sex. City of Terrors has as much or more than any other officially published T&T module (I believe. I don’t own literally all of them.) Elven Lords had some hard drug scenarios, where you can run drugs for example, but those were pretty eh.

So. Sex. Stackpole warns against sex in his design guide, citing the importance of writing for all ages, but then he writes sex scenes? Since this is a big question in my own adventure writing, I wrote down examples from these T&T modules.

I feel like I want the classic, Age of Conan experience with handsome, bare-chested studs and wenches. I’m concerned about criticism, since I also want my game to be educational, but I also want to do what I want. The game has mature themes.  That’s the Fey/Underworld setting.

By the way, I’m 100% committed to gender equality in Elven Academy. Literally if there is a ‘scantily clad’ (cringe) woman, there is also a scantily clad male to roughly the same degree.

If you can sleep with a female dwarf, you can also have the chance to sleep with a male ogre, for example, somewhere.

In any case, here are the cringy classic “sexcerpts” I found for future reference. I’m interested in the standards for erotic suggestiveness in fantasy fiction today. The popular stuff on the bookshelves.

I also clipped the associated artworks in these modules showing partial nudity, but I decided not to post those. I don’t want to anger the gods.  You’ll just have to check out the modules for yourself.

Elven Lords

196 Since this is a family publication, we’re going to be a bit delicate here. As much as you would like to deny any desire to be there, you actually are curious (…) At the end of your service, you’re released into the world, maybe a little bit wiser, and definitely a whole lot sorer.

240 The book you pluck off the shelves is a lusty old romance tome entitled “I Was the Death Empress’ Love Slave”.

City of Terrors

40C If you want to make love to her, go to 50E.

46A You feel her reaching for you and moaning softly. She calls for you to make love to her. (If no, you are admonished for leaving a woman in need.)

50E It takes a real degenerate to proposition an old lady … She makes love to you after she casts a modified Bigger is Better spell on you.

1C You find she is an amorous lover. It is one of your greatest experiences. As you lay panting, she advances again.

37C You find the Sheik’s brother in bed with a beautiful woman (with illustration).

Thanks for reading, and happy gaming. Feel free to leave a comment.