Forum > Echoes of Heaven
Developer's Journal
Defendi:
I thought I'd start this thread so that you all could see where we're at and maybe get some insight into the trials and tribulations of a start-up publisher. I thought I'd start by giving you an update on where we are so far. These are meant to be my thoughts on paper, just a glimpse into things. So, be warned. I'm going to ramble. These aren?t copyedited. :) Plus, anything I say in here is subject to change. I might touch on stuff that hasn?t gone through the license approval process yet.
We've been playtesting the setting for about two years now in multiple systems. Its been going strong and we've been having a lot of fun.
I?m going to start with a note on adventure structure. We wanted the adventures to be usable by anyone. They all follow a straightforward plot, but we foresaw two problems, at least with most adventures we've seen. One, they don't have enough help for a beginning GM (I don't know how many times I've groaned through a new GM beating us to death with a published module). Second, the structured plot of a module tends to bind people in and makes them frown upon going off-script.
So we've organized the modules according into the three act structure and we've included boxes along the way that describe the dramatic purpose of each section or encounter. The purpose is two-fold. One is to help people who don't have a firm grasp of plotting to see under the hood of our game design. The other is to free up the GM for going off-book. It doesn't matter what the players do, if they skip something, the GM can glance at its dramatic purpose and find some other way to fill a hole in the plot. Let me give you an example:
You've seen it in most every piece of adventure fiction you watched or read. First the good guy runs into a group of bad guys that he can beat easily. He does so, trouncing them fully. Only after this romp encounter does he meet a real challenge. The reason in fiction is that a audience member attaches their wish-fulfillment fantasies to the hero in this first scene. Only after they?ve done that and fully invested in the hero?s success (they?ve identified with the hero, become his surrogate and vice versa) can you challenge the hero. If the hero hits a dangerous scene after that and looks about to die, the audience is really on the edge of their seats. They?ve become him, you see.
The same is true for RPGs, but more so. The early romp that makes us feel good about ourselves and our characters only heightens the threats that are forthcoming after that. If you cut the romps and go straight for the big threats, the players are more likely to feel beset-upon and resentful.
So you have your dramatic purpose of the encounter. If you skip an encounter you don?t have to try to second-guess what purpose it served in storytelling (even plotting experts can screw this up on the fly). Its? right there for you and you can invent something else that accomplishes the same thing.
As for the overall construction, you have a Teaser, Act One, Act Two and Act Three. The teasers all take place in an alternate point in the character?s history and tell a parallel plot. They won?t be for everyone, but they?ve tested well so far. We can usually complete an adventure in about twenty hours of game play spread over four weeks.
So, where are we at in the overall writing? I'm developing multiple documents at once. First of all there is the official playtest of the adventure campaign. We've already playtested the first adventure, The Throne of God. It looks to weigh in at somewhere around 48 pages. Its actually completely written in the RM form (The HARP and d20 versions haven't been done yet, but they should go fast when its time. Just a matter of plugging in the data from those versions into the master doc.) We haven't commissioned the art yet. I'm pretty happy with this one. I think it?s a nice introduction to the setting and the Church and all its infighting. It introduces ulcers and I think gives a GM a good feeling for how they act in application, even if a GM decides not to run the adventure series, they can get good use of the adventure. They'll get it with purchase of the main setting book, so there's no extra charge.
Plus, the teaser has done very well at all the playtests. I?m thinking about making the first teaser the demo adventure for down load or use at Cons and the like.
The second adventure, The Festering Earth, is very different from the first. It?s a murder mystery dealing with a serial killer. This is the piece in the worst current shape because the playtests needed to write it. A murder mystery is too in-the-moment for a comprehensive pre-write to do much good. Right now it?s a big pile of stats, character write-ups, crime scenes and timelines with little or no structure. When it comes time to finish it, it will be like writing it from scratch.
We are in Act Two of the third adventure right now, On Corrupted Ground. It takes the party into a permanent ulcer that formed over a fallen dwarven kingdom. It?s going well. (Personally, I decided that there was no logical way NOT to have a fallen dwarven kingdom in the setting. So many other kingdoms have fallen, the dwarves would have fallen at least once as well. Of course, that invites Moria comparisons so I decided that instead of avoiding the issue I?d attack it head on by sending the characters there and just trying to make the place unique enough that everyone forgives the fact that Tolkein did it first).
I think I?ve mentioned in the Press Release that each product is a source book/adventure bundle. The source books that go with those are, in order, The Echoes of Heaven Campaign Setting, The Last Free City, and The Lost Kingdom of the Dwarves (I?m thinking of changing that one to tap into the bad guy who lives there a bit more, but I haven?t tackled it yet).
So, for The Echoes of Heaven Campaign Setting, I have two parallel documents. I?m developing the main text of the product at the same time I develop the writers? bible. Hopefully, this will make future products move faster as there?s a good deal of pre-work done.
I?ve taken a break from writing to do symbol sets. Since it?s a PDF product, beautifully rendered maps translated into jpgs are going to present printing and download-size issues. Right now it looks like we?re going to do every map in Campaign Cartographer. Then if we get different maps for the books that?s fine, you can still download the originals, grab Profantasy?s free demo and print product and print them in whatever size you like.
This also gives us the benefit of doing battle maps. For years I?ve done all the adventure maps in Campaign Cartographer and printed them in miniature scale (when we were playing at a table, at least). We would then piece the rooms together as we went and it made for great visual aids.
Anyway, I want to give something back to the CC community on this one, so I?m making different symbol sets for the races in the world. For instance, I just last night finished a Dwarven city set that you place on the symbol of an existing mountain or hill that looks like the entrance keep to a Dwarven city. I?ll do the same for Elves and the underhill races (Halflings and Gnomes.)
So that?s where we are. I?ve got about 100k words in the bag so far, spread out over five products or so. I?ve got concept art coming in (I?ll try to talk about that in a future entry). The first bundle, not counting layout and art, is about half to three quarters of the way done.
I plan on posting preview pieces on the site. Look for the first in the next couple days.
Maelstrom:
--- Quote from: Defendi on January 05, 2006, 12:17:13 AM ---We are in Act Two of the third adventure right now, On Corrupted Ground.? It takes the party into a permanent ulcer that formed over a fallen dwarven kingdom.? It's going well.? (Personally, I decided that there was no logical way NOT to have a fallen dwarven kingdom in the setting.? So many other kingdoms have fallen, the dwarves would have fallen at least once as well.? Of course, that invites Moria comparisons so I decided that instead of avoiding the issue I'd attack it head on by sending the characters there and just trying to make the place unique enough that everyone forgives the fact that Tolkein did it first).
--- End quote ---
If it's not too late to make a change... Here's some unsolicited ideas for you to consider if you decide to avoid the Moria scenario. What if the dwarves isolated themselves to stave off some threat that would bring about their great fall? Perhaps their population declines to a remanant of its former glory or they decide to remain isolated and someone (an individual or some "corporate" entity i.e. the church) determines to find them. Maybe the decline of the dwarven population has left the secondary entrances to the city unguarded :o and someone has discovered that entrance?
Just offering some alternate ideas in case you're interested. If not, no worries. If you do want to use them you have permission to do so (hopefully that covers any legal matters. :P )
Defendi:
So are you saying that they only occupy a small portion of their city and orcs occupy the rest? (Just cruious.)
markc:
Defendi,
For the murder adventure I have seen a timeline work well with a few of the events independent of the time so the characters can experience them. I also seam to remember a murder adventure in the Eberon advetures so if you have them I would take a look at how they did it.
After reading your post "...[Dwarves] occupy small portion of the city and Orcs occupy the rest?". Maybe the Dwarves have been trying to fight off the Orcs for a long time but something has changed and the Orcs have gained the upper hand reciently. Or the Dwarves have had a large military setback. Maybe the Dwarves have decided in the past not to ask for help do to national and racial pride but now they realise they need help. If their is no magical teleport type spells maybe the Dwarves have been cut off from the rest of the civs for a time. How about if the Dwarves prayed to thier diety who moved them forward in time or hid them for years till a time they had more of a chance of military sucess against the Orcs. Or maybe it was a spell that turned them to stone for centries to hide from the Orcs, and then puff the spell's effect wears off and they are ready to attack the supprised orcs.
MDC
Defendi:
This country is currently an ulcer (more on that in the preview material) and the launch pad for attack after attack into the civilized world. I don't think this idea would work here, but if you'd like, I'll hold onto the idea for the future. I'll let you know if I ever decide to use it.
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