I do mean this in the sense of making an RPG adventure, though its other meanings also apply.
Having a reasonably prosperous blog and an outstanding ego, it's easy to forget I'm still quite new to RPGs compared to the average reader. I first got an idea of what an RPG was about two years ago, and ran my first game shortly after. I first posted on this blog well before I had any clue about what I was doing. No wonder most of my early posts are fluff, rather than anything gameable; I wasn't in a state to be playtesting anything. I've written many more blog entries than I have run games.
I've rarely homebrewed a decent adventure from scratch; I've mostly relied on modules, or pulled from preexisting properties, such as with my Elder Scrolls GLOG game. Until the Castle Xyntillan campaign I'm running now, I've never had anything resembling a consistent campaign. A few months ago I had to whip up a one-one-one one-shot for a totally new player in four hours because I had the time management skills of a lame duck, and ended up rereading a Conan short story and just winging it. Not my finest moment, but that player ended up being a regular in someone else's 5e campaign.
I'm not salty.
Oh, and I've only been a player at a table once. I've been in an online and text game or two, that's it. I once joined a West Marches 5e server in a desperate bid to play something, but because of backlog wound up volunteering to DM instead, just to do something, and very quickly found:
1. When you're an eager young thing with abundant free time DMing on an online server, you're going to be vetting character sheets. The people who join online RPG servers don't read instructions. Not all of them, but enough to totally clog up your time. Also, the people who are polite and read instructions are the ones you will have no administrative contact with. Trolls and people who can't READ BASIC INSTRUCTIONS will monopolize your time.
2. Making a nice-looking roll20 map from scratch takes a lot of time; doing it for an entire dungeon, which you are adapting from a module, which you are doing simultaneously, is an exercise in frustration and lost effort.
3. 5e isn't my system of choice on a good day, and online randoms aren't my audience of choice; the two do not mix.
I stopped being a DM on that server after a couple weeks. Not worth the headache.
On the other hand, David Perry and the other players in the CX campaign have been naught but perfect angels whom I don't deserve. S&W was also a good choice of system, much more suited to my GMing skill level than the GLOG. Enamored though I am with that absurd constellation of hacks, an apprentice GM needs something a little more tangible.
Right, adventures and the starting thereof.
Last year, my big RPG project was a ruleset for underwater play. I was only really familiar with GLOG at the time (maybe I'll one day talk about the first system I ever GMed, but that's another story) so I used GLOG. I figured I'd actually need to playtest the damn thing, and that would require making an adventure, or at least a bare-bones adventuring environment. Believe it or not, I actually did that, but playtesting never got off the ground. Trying to run a playtest for a revolutionary new ruleset online in the early stages of a global pandemic is not a good idea. That project has been shelved.
Before that, I was doing Elder Scrolls GLOG, which I actually did playtesting for. That discord text game lasted for a few months. Trust me, text games, even relatively fast-paced ones on Discord, are not good for playtesting.
After the underwater rules sputtered out, I went for a while without a 'big project'. Just ran my game and focused on schoolwork. Then I got back into blogging and decided to write an adventure. Something simple and classic. A tomb adventure. A small dungeon. Well, maybe not that small. With totally hombrewed monsters. And thematic areas, and a Sumerian flavor. And a CX-style wanderers table. And lots of thematic areas. And lots of levels. And blackjack, and hookers!
Yeah, that got out of control fast, though I put the kibosh on it and shelved it before I put in too much effort for something out of my reach. I started from a fresh document, planning to create a simple, short adventure. Two or three sessions long. A mystery. A dragon at the end. And for flavor, I should set it in Roman Cyrenaica circa 50BCE. And, of course, I should effort into making the setting historically accurate before I put dragons and magic in. So of course it's worthwhile to read extensive site reports and pore over maps of ancient city layouts for the Libyan Pentapolis.
The intended adventure length shot up to about 8 sessions. Hell, I can't get a party together for 8 sessions of online playtesting, let alone for both a 5e and OSR version, And one set of playtests surely wouldn't be enough.
So I dropped that one too. All that work is still in documents, waiting to be used. There's good, evocative stuff there, but no good structure. Lots of ideas, none of it in playable form.
Hi, my name is Nicolas Roman, and I have a problem. I get addicted to the rush of new projects and then drop them once their scope balloons out of control.
Just afterwards, I forced myself to write something short and quick. A one-shot adventure, a few pages, simple to the point of being yawn-worthy, but still evocative. I spent an evening doing that, got some good ideas an a basic map out of it, then dropped off the map and took a break from blogging for a couple weeks.
I didn't intend to do that, mind you. I decided to read a book for inspiration, and digested the entire audiobook for Ursula K. LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea in an evening. I then digested both books of Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicles in a little over a week, and just finished A Wise Man's Fear a few hours ago.
I now have lots of great ideas about gameable true names and the fae. But none of that is a published, gameable material. None of that's even a blog post yet.
The odd thing is that, even after writing a post, I feel hesitant to advertise it overmuch. The amount of effort to put it on Reddit or Twitter is small, but I feel some aversion to it, a sense that I'm spamming. I didn't think I'd get tired of promoting myself, let alone with it taking so little effort.
Part of it is a dissatisfaction with chasing views. Throughout the months of May and June I put my nose to the grindstone and put out lots of blogposts. They were both my biggest months on the blog by a great margin. A big part of that success was a mention in Ben Milton's monthly roundups. I've also gotten more followers and lots of new comments in a short time, and I've been blessedly bot-free for weeks.
Yet it doesn't quite satisfy. Seeing those numbers count up is addicting, but it's not what I desire. So what do I desire?
To paraphrase Bredon, I want to run a beautiful game. At the end of the day, I love running games. That's why I keep staying up until four in the morning running CX for players on the other side of the pond. I love creating. I love the process of designing an adventure. It just seems I love the process more than creating a finished product.
I currently have another adventure fermenting in my head. Something a little gonzo, with dinosaurs and evil archaeologists. Maybe the fifth time's the charm. Or maybe I'll just learn better habits. At this stage, getting a reliable group for playtesting content is a requirement before I can really produce anything, and at the moment that means online play, which isn't quite ideal for anyone.
Still, I'm young, in real terms and as a GM/creator. It's not like I'm way behind the curve for not having published my own material yet. If I get a decent product out in the next year I should still be able to hold on to my identity as a wunderkind.
And for those of you who took the time to read this stumbling rant, you have my thanks. Have an excellent week, and stay safe.
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