Chuck Dee

Overcoming Writer's Block

Why is this particular Pep Talk at this point? We haven't really written yet; we're still getting the pieces into play. I guess as a precaution that the next week will be moving deeper into the writing. And it is always a problem that can rear its ugly head, so it is better to caution before rather than after.

The most important thing for me is the fact that this was meant to be completed on July 18th, and I'm a bit behind that pace for August, so I'm not sure that I will be completed by the time the course is taken down. I have all of the coursework, but it's not the same. 6 days left at this point to complete 12 days worth of curriculum.

Yikes!

Compiling your Narrative

This lesson is all about making sure that your narrative accounts smoothly links the disparate elements that you create and that the path through the adventure is flexible enough to account for that unknown that will be introduced to your well-planned narrative- the PCs.

Dropping the Plot Hook

I know how the PCs will be linked into the narrative- the whole thing is an 'adventure' crafted by the fixer that was employed by their respective bosses.

Player Paths

The space between the locations of the important parts of the adventure is made to be open, as is the order in which they traverse them. It is a campaign in which the parts are up to the players- other than the final piece of the puzzle. Because of that, each individual location should be stand-alone, and the area around them fully populated.

NPC Navigation

The largest impact of the NPC team is its absence. Until the players know about the other team, their existence can only be inferred, which might put the players behind the eight ball. As they move from scene to scene, their performance in the challenge determines how fast they move. They might also learn about the PCs before the PCs learn about them.

Evil NPCs and Antagonists

This lesson deals with formulating your Villanous NPCs for your quest. The lesson started off by referring to an excellent article by The Magic Violinist, to go over the types of conflict again... but most importantly, it also goes into why you would use them.

It then went into specifics, courtesy of a technique that the curriculum referred to as RATS. That is Relatable, Antagonistic, Threatening, Special. The general idea is to create a two-sentence precis, then detail why he fits the RATS mold.

Of course, the assignment in the lesson was to create a villain using RATS.

Name: Lord Carroll Britland Two Sentences: A wealthy and intelligent man, Carroll's father is the chamberlain to the Emperor. He is being groomed to succeed his father in the position, and for any less driven that would be enough in life. Relatable: He is expected to follow in his father's footsteps, and serve an Emperor that he has judged to be driving his country to excess and the people to ruin. Antagonistic: He is behind the race for the artifacts, which are meant to allow him to use the altar to commune with the lost gods, and gain their favor in sponsoring his Coup D'etat. Finding out that the PCs have already done so and he is being manipulated into testing them will make an enemy of them. Threatening: He is well connected, subtle, and has a long memory.
Special: The PCs' test is also his; he is being groomed by the powers that sealed the gods away.

I'm still way behind of course, though it seems that I'm on pace to finish before the workshop closes, and this pep talk marks two weeks. It is the threshold before the writing begins! One thing in the pep talk resonated with me: This is the phase in the process where writers either push through or decide to give up. I urge you to work through the difficulty.

Though late, and not sure that this is a one-shot that would be fitting for the title, I'm determined to finish.

Creating Believable NPCs

I usually just detail the NPCs as I go, so sometimes they can seem a bit one-dimensional- just there for the goal, whatever that might be. This lesson goes into a few steps for making them.

I found a pretty good site for detailing NPCs while on this lesson: https://www.character-generator.org.uk. I use that to create my first NPC – the fixer that will serve as their entry into the quest.

Fiona Wood

Description: Fiona has been working as a fixer of schemes for only a few years but has made a name for herself as a capable, if morally challenged, woman. One has to be in order to survive in this business, as she finds people that need for others that want- no matter what that need/want might be. She keeps her private life private and known to be very professional and very discreet.

Appearance: She is 29 years old, almost 5' 9”, and attractive, but not overly so, with short black hair, piercing green eyes, and a thicker frame. She always dresses impeccably and professionally, but always makes sure that she stands out as a woman among her competition.

Secrets: She has a girlfriend, Josephine, who is a student at the conservatory. She sends money to her mother, but otherwise, has no contact with her.

Characteristics: She worries her nails when impatient. She writes details down in a book that she carries with her, and goes over them later, burning the page after she is done.

Tone: Professional and Detached

What does she need?: Someone to recover the artifacts for her employer.

Why did she choose the PCs?: They were recommended by a trusted ally.

Developing Settings and Environments for One-Shots

A lot of this doesn't apply to my adventure and makes me think that my initial inkling that I need to make this more generic is right on the money. What I'm developing isn't really a one-shot, but a quick start for a campaign. Perhaps I should rethink it- develop a one-shot that would fit within the campaign that I'm working on, and then pick up the intro adventure later.

As I have to develop the world in any case, I'm putting off that decision until after this lesson, which combines a bit on biomes, world rules, and how those interact to form the environment. Then it moves on to defining the locales for the adventure.

The biomes are already defined because of my focus on this world beforehand. On the world of Eglaren, there are 4 major powers- Ae Unarith (ancient Elven), Federated States (human-dominated, though a relatively peaceful city-state compact), Zenlan (human-dominated independent state), and the Vestinian Empire (human-dominated Empire, mostly stable, though it is on lands conquered from the Orcs and Dwarves). I know that I want to change the names of the races to not be Tolkien specific but have not decided on them yet. The artifacts are spread over Ae Unarith, Zenlan, and the badlands in the Vestinian Empire. The badlands are extremely dry and hilly, Ae Unarith is undeveloped rainforest, and the portion of Zenlan where the artifact is found is in the northern taiga. But transitioning that into Starting Environment/Peak Environment/Ending Environment is sort of tricky because of the nature of the adventure. A thought occurs- I'm looking at this too literally. Starting Environment and Ending Environment would be the Vestinian Empire. The Peak Environment would be the three different areas- though of course, one would peak it more- the place where they discover their final choice. That could be none of the above. This does make me look at the adventure a bit differently.

I can move the third artifact to the Federated States, and the last artifact to the blasted plains in Zenlan. Then back to the Empire for the denouement. This is going to require a bit of a re-think, but I think that this is a good thing!

On Being Flexible With Your Ideas

Very good reminders in this pep talk- I've become a bit bogged down with the ideas, which along with work and real life have conspired to make me very behind in my adventure. I need to look at it with a new perspective and remember the very last bit of the pep talk:

Nothing in your adventure is written in stone until you publish it – and even then, people will change it when they play it themselves. Be flexible when you're writing it. The things you love about it will resonate with readers and players, but be honest with yourself about what doesn't work and be ready to change them.

Once I got behind, I never really got back into the groove of the course. I'm not sure if I will be able to finish by the time that the course is taken down (September 1st), but they did give all of the writing materials, so I'll continue after that point. I'm thinking about signing up for the Fall course in any case; I think that having an adventure published alongside the others in the course might help my visibility. I also don't think that I made as generic an adventure as I could have, so working on a different adventure with that end goal in mind will be helpful.

Now, on to the lesson.

Crafting Tough Decisions

This is an area that I've not really paid attention to- I've just let them happen as the story dictated, and I think for that reason it's a skill that I've been hit or miss on.

To summarize- Meaningful choices are those that cause the players to think about the decision, but that all of the information is available for them to make an uncertain choice that will affect them later.

The examples given are:

• Mutually exclusive actions
• Risk versus reward
• Now versus later
• Resource trade
• Offense versus defense
• Dilemma

Having that list will help me in this adventure and in the future. As I've already decided that the adventure will be based around a group given a task to retrieve artifacts for a benefactor that goes the wrong way, it gives some initial thoughts on choices. As there is also a competing team that the group knows nothing about (and that don't know about them), it causes choices to be influenced by factors outside of their knowledge. Is this acceptable? It sounds good vocalized, but I also see problems, in that the other group is run by the GM.

I'll need to script their choices in order to make it programmed, and allow the GM to run the adventure rather than stressing over the choices that the other group makes.

The choices that I'm definitely looking to include are Now vs. Later, Risk vs. Reward, and Mutually exclusive actions. Others might come up as time goes on, which makes the next list given especially useful to keep in mind: Types of decisions to avoid.

There is also a list of decisions to avoid in your adventure:

• Meaningless decisions
• Obvious decisions
• Blind decisions

That seems to line up with what I'd thought about including the other group- would those decisions be considered blind decisions? Or would they be considered an obstacle to overcome?

Activity One

Flip through one of your favorite short RPG adventures and try to identify the tough decisions that adventure's author presents to the players.

Lately, I haven't been drawn towards adventures, but frameworks. Because of this, I don't really have any short adventures on hand. But, I do subscribe to several Patreons that I use to garner ideas- one of them being Dennis Detwiller, who creates Delta Green material. I'm going to utilize the short adventure (as shown by the 2-minute horror label that he applies to them), The Child.

Each 2 Minute Horror is a brief, one-off encounter, mystery, or complication to add depth and strangeness to your Delta Green game. They should be seamlessly integrated into existing operations as an aside, and — by themselves — constitute a short amount of gameplay. Still, clever Handlers might use them to point the Agents towards an entirely new investigation, to reinforce the themes of self-sacrifice and inevitable defeat in Delta Green or to simply show the Agents that they are not the only ones wrestling with the unnatural.

It is a one-on-one encounter, where somehow, the agent finds themselves in custody of a child for a period of time. The encounter specifies that the child appears about 7-years old, is of the same sex as the agent, and is in clothes that were given to them by the authority that brought them to the agent.

The first choice- how to handle the child in the initial hours of custody. The child is not unruly, but is unusual, as they want loud noises present, which can drive the Agent to decide not to be in the same room with them. They also do not want human contact.

The second choice- how to handle the child once they feel safe enough to start to explore the surroundings. They still don't want to be touched, and will not talk, but will listen. If the Agent handles it badly, then it might turn into a scene with the local authorities/hotel staff, as the child will scream loudly until hoarse.

After dealing with that choice, the Agent can then move on to establishing a rapport- how they do this is up to them, but several skills can help, including HUMINT, Persuade, and Psychology. As the Agent builds this rapport, they begin to find out several things that point to the fact that the 'child' is only physically a child. There is something else within it.

At that point, the final choice reveals itself- how to clean this up. Destroy it, demand Delta Green remove it, or the agents can let it go. Each decision has its own particular downsides.

How would I improve the decisions

Many of the decisions are blind decisions in my opinion, though they do seem realistic. There is no way to see that logically, the first decisions will lead to the second. That could be tied up a bit with the inclusion of notes as to the prior interactions with the child.

Activity Two

Using your adventure theme or mood board as a guide, come up with ideas for one tough decision of each type discussed in this lesson that you might include in your module.

Mutually exclusive actions

The players find out which artifact that the other group is going after. Do they attempt to (a) beat them to that artifact, or (b) move on to another, planning to take the other artifact from the other team later?

Risk versus reward

After the players know that there is another group involved, do they sail between locations safely and take longer to reach them, or direct the captain to take more risks to get them there faster?

Now versus later

Which artifacts will they go for now? The nearest ones, or the furthest ones? The players have found a magical item that will take them from one location to another quickly, though, after that point, they will either have to meet up with their crew again or go on without the resources that the ship provides. When will they use it?

Resource trade

The players come across a duo that has braved the tombs that the players are going through has a map that shows the way to the central chamber- their party died trying to get there, and they were the only survivors that they know about. One is sorely injured, and the other offers the map and their knowledge of the traps that they've encountered in exchange for the use of the players' ship to return to the mainland. They don't know for sure that the ship would make it back, and if it does, if the delay will slow them down in some way.

Offense versus defense

The players have an encounter with a group of pirates and defeat them. In return, the pirates can ferry the players through an area that is very dangerous for those not recognized as pirates, or harry the other group.

Dilemma

The other group has convinced a village that the players are a threat, and they are taken into custody when they arrive. The players can immediately try to escape, killing patsies in the process, or spend the time to unravel everything with the locals.

The course has been very good so far- informative without being too basic and has exposed me to techniques and tools that I've never considered in my writing. It has been well worth the money so far, and I'm enjoying it!

I'm a bit behind- between holidays, real life, and a heavy workload, I've not had the free time to keep up. But, looking ahead, it appears that I'm only one lesson behind at this point, so I hope to make up this ground later.

Designing for Accessibility

I've read the excellent Accessible Guide to RPG Layout by Jacob Wood, and it was my first exposure to the idea of accessibility. Well, not my first. On RPG StackExchange, my first exposure was when someone called me out for using the code block for emphasis, stating that the formatting meant a certain thing to screen readers. I'd not realized that. But that was just the realization. Mr. Wood opened my eyes to a lot of things that I'd not thought about, from font choice to background to layouts. There's a wide swath of accessibility concerns, and they're easy to overlook.

In this particular lesson, the course focused on making the least of concessions, i.e making sure that your PDF is formatted so that screen readers can understand the intent, providing a simplified version of the PDF, using content warnings, and tagging your work adequately once you put it online. As I normally write in Markdown, then transition to PDF using Pandoc, it's not something I ever considered. The lesson introduced the class to a few tools that help in testing your document; one of them is in Acrobat Pro (which I don't have) so I'll have to find a way around that.

The exercise was to take a picture and make an evocative description for use in accessibility tags. Descriptions are one of the areas that I think that I need work on, so this is useful for a variety of reasons.

This is a character that I used in a campaign recently, so I figured that it might be a good test.

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Headshot of an African-American male with a darker complexion, short black afro cut and trimmed mustache and goatee with a slight sheen of sweat from exertion stares off into the distance intently. He is dressed as a warrior from what can be seen, as he has on light leather armor, with studded clasps holding the front and back of the leathers together. The background is blurry and the focus is purely on his angry expression.