What is Places by the Way? What is Found by the Way? I'm intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
For those of you who missed our previous campaigns, Places by the Way is a series of short modules that I’m creating for use with Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, and Found by the Way is a parallel series of modules that we launched last year for use with Pathfinder. They work as short stand-alone adventures, but each module is a kit for creating a memorable interlude in a larger campaign. In turn, Places by the Way consists of two versions sold separately but similar in content. One version is set in the Forgotten Realms, so Ramen Sandwich Press sells it exclusively through Dungeon Masters Guild. The other version assumes a generic setting and complies with WotC’s Open Game License. Both it and its Found by the Way cousin are available through DriveThru RPG, and print versions are available through Amazon and other online outlets.
For purchase links and product information, check out the Ramen Sandwich website. We also post news, announcements and random musings to our Facebook page and our Twitter feed, and I have posted some designer’s notes to my personal blog, “I Think We’ve Been Playing It Wrong.”
These modules have two inspirations. One is the line of mini-adventures that AEG published as part of the D&D 3rd Edition open license boom. I recall that the word count for those modules was only 5,000 words. I wrote a few of them, and they suggested to me that the short form could be made to work in adventure modules as it does in fiction. That is to say, if the typical folio-sized module is the novel, there should be also be a place for the module equivalent of short stories.
The other inspiration is the strangely important role that side quests play in what we now recognize as standard CRPG structure. Side quests are those little tasks that you can find throughout the game world, and while they have no direct bearing on the main story, they allow you to accumulate XP, money and items, and meet memorable NPCs. If they’re done well they can add real flavor to the game experience. Fallout remains one of my very favorite CRPGs. One of the first things that jumps back into my mind is Tandi, the Shady Sands girl voiced so perfectly by Cree Summer. Her wistful musing about what lies beyond her little village convey the fallen melancholy of that world so beautifully that it made me forget all about finding that water filter. My goal for Places by the Way and Found by the Way is that somewhere in the series, I will create an NPC encounter that has an effect like that. I want to create a moment in a campaign that you will find memorable out of proportion to its role as a diversion.
Places by the Way and Found by the Way modules average about 15 numbered locations, each of which offers an encounter, noteworthy items, noteworthy NPCs or an opening into which you can hook your existing campaign.
Last updated: August 26, 2019 10:32
You know that there is a new edition of Pathfinder, right?
Yes. We became painfully aware of this when Paizo announced 2E two weeks into our first Kickstarter campaign to support Found by the Way! Now that 2E has been launched, I’m studying it and I’ll get up to speed ASAP. Found by the Way #8: Path to the Mizar Oasis will be our first module native to 2E, but it will also have conversion notes so that those of you who are sticking with 1E can run it. We’ll keep doing this for the foreseeable future, as long as people appreciate having the 1E conversion notes. We’ll also publish and distribute for free — sometime this fall, but ASAP — conversion notes that will allow you to run Found by the Way #1-7 with 2E.
How’s that?
Last updated: August 26, 2019 10:32
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