Intermediate woo-hoo!
over 4 years ago
– Wed, Sep 25, 2019 at 06:48:02 PM
And so the books close on another successful campaign. Thank you to everyone who pledged and helped make this this our best campaign in quite a while! Even if you missed out, keep an eye on the project page, as I will post a link to the Backerkit store as soon as it is open (reckon on two weeks, earlier if possible). We'll keep taking orders for all of October and probably into early November.
I sent Oasis of the Elementals off to layout yesterday, and then took the rest of the day off, engaging in such Dionysian revelries as trying to unclog the bathroom sink and washing dirty dishes that had been piling up. As I predicted, the module ran long — over 15,000 words. As I mentioned earlier, this is the most narrative-heavy module since the Darkharrow modules, so there's a lot of, "If X happens, then A happens next; but if Y happens, then B happens next, and then maybe A will happen anyway." It adds up.
There will also be more maps than usual — three small tactical maps as well as a village map. I started sketching them out this morning, and once they're done and off to the cartographer I'll start in on the manuscript of Path to the Mizar Oasis. Either way, the work continues and I still like our chances of sticking to schedule, or at least making it close.
I'll be in touch soon — at the latest, I'll let you know when the Backerkit pledge manager is available. Thanks again!
Into the home stretch
over 4 years ago
– Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 06:42:56 PM
We're down to the last handful of days in this campaign. Backers have been trickling in steadily since the last update, and thank you to everyone! From looking at the metrics that Kickstarter shares with us creators, I'm hopeful that the room will get much more crowded before the doors close.
I admit to being a little behind where I wanted to be at this point in finishing Oasis of the Elementals, but I plan to have it ready for layout by the end of the weekend. The narrative-driven aspect of this module has been very complicated to work out — more intricate than any one since the Darkharrow modules (which are the first in their respective series). It's the A Fistful of Dollars/Zatoichi stuff: With both gangs trying to get the party on their side, this creates chains of events that branch off depending on what the party decides to do. And then I added the showdown between the djinn and the efreet as an optional epilogue, which just makes things even more complicated. But I'll get it done, and I think it will be a lot of fun.
That being said, I think I can fit everything in under 15,000 words. The NPC stat blocks will be quite light this time — just the inevitable village cleric, and everyone else fits the NPC archetypes from the Monster Manual. Our layout artist was pleased to hear this when we talked this morning. :D
I'm hopeful that the business of jumping into Pathfinder 2E won't be as tough as I'd thought. It looks like the final form of 2E is not so different from the public playlets rules — which has positive implications for how long it will take me to finish Path to the Mizar Oasis and Tome of Utility Drawer, and even more positive implications for how long it will take me to finish the 1E-2E conversion notes for Places by the Way #7. Let's call it a conditional sigh of relief, but relief nonetheless.
A big bite of... something
over 4 years ago
– Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 09:28:12 AM
There's a bit less than two weeks left to go in the campaign — which reminds me that I should set up the Backerkit pledge manager soon (and get it right this time). As of this moment, we're at/slightly above where the last campaign ended — good stuff, and thank you, everyone!
I hope to have Oasis of the Elementals ready for layout in a week or so. I've been working up some good creative momentum, but there's a lot of stuff to pack in and right now it feels like this module is going to run long. This might seem like a good thing from the reader's point of view — more content! But in fact, it means that I'm probably overwriting.
OTOH, Oasis of the Elementals will have more New Items than I'd originally thought. The enchanted water sold at the Spring of Wonders needs its own entry — as do the dates harvested from palm trees fed by the Spring of Wonders and water sold at a non-enchanted spring that, nonetheless, has a tasty and healthful blend of minerals in it. You Kickstarter backers get an artifact called Lamp of Holding as exclusive content (remember, there's a djinn in this village). And I just realized the other day that if I'm going to allude to the cave of the Forty Thieves, I need to account for its famous password-encrypted security device. In a fantasy RPG setting, this means magic.
So that's five entries for new stuff, whereas I originally thought I would add two or three. Of course, this has implications for Tome of the Utility Drawer; instead of 20-25 entries, it looks like it will have 26-30. All for just a buck! I need to start advertising this.
Funded!
over 4 years ago
– Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 09:17:14 PM
Thank you, everyone! This is the strongest start to a campaign that we've had in a long time — funded as of this morning, and almost three weeks left. There's still plenty of room on the bandwagon, but it's always a good feeling to know that you can stop worrying about that aspect of it and focus on the work.
And the work continues, after an enjoyable holiday weekend, during which I terraformed Mars (though not as successfully as my opponents) and recorded a podcast with my friend and your fellow backer Harold Buchanan. It will probably be a while before it's ready for download, as I expect it will take Harold a while to edit down the parts where I ramble and talk in circles, but I'll let you all know when it's available. As I expected, Harold is a thoughtful interviewer who understands the value of asking the right questions instead of asking a lot of them, and he got me thinking about how and why I started playing RPGs and how that got me to Places by the Way and Found by the Way.
I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but it probably bears repeating for you folks who are new to this series: WotC seems to rely a lot these days on fully pre-packaged campaign experiences that get you from A-Z in a single hardcover book, but when I started playing RPGs (back during AD&D), homebrewing was still pretty much how you did things. Our DM was (and still is) an inveterate tinkerer who loved mixing and matching. He brought in stuff from Arduin Grimoire, and for the longest time he swapped in a third-party D100 combat system, the name of which I forget and the publisher of which ceased to exist long ago. We used it so intensively that at one point I forgot entirely how combat in AD&D worked. So my first experience with Dungeons & Dragons was actually quite syncretic, and my understanding of RPGs has always reflected this.
Anyway, my point is that where I am now with Places by the Way and Found by the Way reflects where I was then, 40 years ago. While I have heard that the modules can work well as stand-alones (and I'm entirely good with that), I assume that you will try to integrate the material into your own campaign, and that you will tinker with it as seems best. You should feel free to rearrange locations and narrative flow as you see fit. These are not carefully surveyed maps that you have to follow exactly, lest you get lost. Nor should you feel that you have to use everything in the module — pull from it what you need and use it so that it works well with what you're doing in your campaign. I'm not here to boss you around, I'm here to help.
Elementals to the right of us, elementals to the left of us
over 4 years ago
– Sun, Sep 01, 2019 at 07:07:26 AM
As we head into the holiday weekend, I'm excited about how this campaign is doing so far: over 70% funded, and we've just started! This is the strongest start to a campaign that we've had in a long time.
Thank you again to everyone who has helped us to this strong start. In particular, welcome to everyone who has discovered Places by the Way through the Al-Qadim discussion group on Facebook! Knowing that you were on your way from Zakhara, I've been focusing this week on fleshing out the djinn and the efreet, and I think their parts will be even more interesting than I'd planned. They were supposed to be local flavor, but now they have a story line that you can use as a bang-up afterword to the main story — or perhaps you might want to make it the actual climax of the module.
Mizar has not only a portal to the Plane of Water, but a connection to the Plane of Fire as well — the cooking pit in the local inn. However, the connection is fitful, it comes and goes. The efreet entered looking to grab some slaves to bring back to the City of Brass, but when the connection to the Plane of Fire closed behind him, he found that could no longer use his more powerful abilities in the Material Plane. So be bides his time, hangs out with the djinn — they play chess, arm wrestle, etc. The djinn is a protective, if mischievous presence in Mizar, but he tolerates the efreet as long as he's not an immediate menace to the village. Hence: frenemies.
However, when the portal to the Plane of Fire opens again, the efreet feels he is strong enough to challenge the djinn and impose his will on the villagers. Your PCs then have the option of throwing down with either the djinn or the efreet (or doing nothing). If they have recovered the ring of elemental command that once belonged to Phares family, they can have a substantial influence on the outcome.
For some of you, I'm sure convention weekend has already started. But no matter what you're up to over Labor Day, I hope it's a good time. Myself, I'm scheduled to record an episode of the "Harold on Games" podcast with my friend (and your fellow backer) Harold Buchanan. Harold is an accomplished game designer (Liberty or Death, currently in its third printing from GMT Games) and we met through our mutual interest in historical wargames, but his podcast covers the breadth of the hobby. Check it out on Soundcloud, and I'll post and update when my episode is ready for download!
