Back in the Saddle

Well, last time I said I was not doing much... well the slump is over! Huzzah! As of this past weekend, I am very happy to say that I am writing again! My world building is growing by the day. I have written down a series of things and I now have a decent foundation to begin writing to. I started on a short intro adventure to present some of the intricacies of my new creation. An intro, I hope to begin play-testing within the next few months with select groups.

Last week, as I was busy trying to prepare for Microcon (it’s a one-day 2 hour slots games), ideas kept coming in my head for other things. Which proves my theory: when you need to get something done, get really busy. It seems that whenever I have time to relax and really sit and write, I get nothing done. But when I have a super-tight work deadline, plus a million things to do at home, and adventures to write... I get so much of my writing done (and the rest).

When I took over Tusmit and the County of Urnst in LG, both those regions had vibrant history and a baggage of stories and unique NPCs. When starting from scratch, there is no such history and everything has to be built from scratch. The storyline cannot be formed out of things that were already detailed and fleshed out. Now I’m the one doing all the fleshing out! However, in keeping with my personal philosophy, only that which may come up during a game is detailed. The rest is done using broad strokes.

Any storyline has to start from the bottom and work its way up, from the low level to the high level. One of the principles that I kept from my LG days is that the high level of society do not appear to low-level mooks (like starting PCs). They show up when the PCs have gathered some influence among the powerful of a nation. In spite of its many flaws, the Heroic/Paragon/Epic system that 4e has created actually fits my vision of this (except where in 4e its 1-10/11-20/21-30, in PFS/3.5 it is roughly 1-6/7-12/13-20). As long as the PCs do not reach this "paragon" level, they should not be involved in the highest spheres of power. They work for underlings and other minions. Gradually, they get contacted by bigger and more important NPCs.

I will post an update later!

JP