Adventure A_1

[BigGrump]

Still a work in progress — for the Ashen Company I have been struggling to find “my voice.” I slept on it and realized the best method is in the name — ICRPG.

Index card.

It is what originally attracted me to all of this in the first place. I’m still not sure how to run it at a table or on roll20 and am deciding to start by sticking to just one — the table.

I think I will be using chessix game pieces as “pawns”, a small table friendly map for top down perspective // fights, index cards for imagery, and player selected art for character sheets. I’m getting together a group to test this method.

Consider this a workshop approach at my first attempt at a mini-campaign for ICRPG involving a group of ‘rangers.’

The gear card will be under the tree where the ranger hangs apparently lifeless. Upon entering the clearing, the ranger’s life count-down starts. Players have to attempt to save him (or her if the party decides to make the ranger a woman; I will open with letting them tell me who the missing ranger is).

Feedback and suggestions appreciated. Feel free to be as creative with this idea as you want. I will also be sharing the images as .jiffs for roll20 or to print at your own table.

I will use the tan tracing paper shown in my previous post for the top down battle maps. I haven’t decided yet if I will draw it out right then and there or do it pretty in advance.

I see a big part of this story being driven by keeping or returning loot to the vault of the Company. I was going to keep it fantasy only but the idea of fantasy intruded upon by sentient robotic tech feels cool to me - like Sword of Shannara style. Plus if the players happen to find sci-fi loot, I see all kinds of cool ways to make the Ashen Company extremely eager to get it back under lock and key for investigation.

The next adventure will be either returning the ranger’s lost sword to the Keep, carrying on to the crater on the map, or taking the ranger back to the nearby town to recover while they resupply using the World book rules on towns and coin.

The write-ups for each card will be on my side behind my GM screen.

[Khan]

Duuuude these are awesome! I’d say you are onto something here. Keep working on it.

[BigGrump]

Print and play done. They allow you to apply an effect over the figure flats.

In my story a spider swarm can attach to a player OR they can be sprayed by webbing. Both print and play features fit directly over the standard player figure flat.

Both trees are printable as well. Did it all on card stock.

The lizard folk is for scale from Core.

[BigGrump]

Ran some testing tonight by running a session solo. Got the idea from watching Rigoroga who was in at the beginning of all this. He created an environment and then play-tested both his digital set-up and his understanding of the game mechanics on a Mac. I always thought his environment for on-line play was epic for its simplicity.

For adventure design I think it is genius. I decided to give it a shot tonight with my own concept and quickly found myself talking aloud and jotting down notes on my adventure write-up cards. My fake ‘party’ wiped BUT it was frequently a close back and forth between the players and the table mechanics where even in solo play I was excited (which I didn’t really expect).

I think I’m close to something I can put into the Adventure PDF template; not sure I am ready for the In Design leap just yet. Mainly I want to see if I can do this from beginning to end with the end being a usable adventure start-up.

If there is an interest, I will expand upon the opening adventure with additional content.

[BigGrump]

I sat down to use the PDF lay-out for the adventure template and realized I was trapped on the number of pages and I have 3 pages of ‘print and play’ figure flats but the PDF only has one and I couldn’t figure out how to increase the page count.

I also didn’t want to use in design yet. A month of that plus photoshop starts getting expensive!

So I yoinked the clip art from the PDF and made stock images I can drop into word (cover page with the ICRPG usage logo and a few others). Then I can manipulate it all with text boxes and word art while also retaining spell check and auto correct.

My bigger issue now is my story; I have 1 encounter and while i think it is cool with a lot of moving parts, I want to have at least 3 scenes total and have to flesh it all out a bit more to be more in line with core 2e and the template.

This is becoming a bit of a blog — but once done, it will allow for others to scroll through the process when they sit down to try out their own methods.

[Khan]

You can try Affinity Publisher instead of Indesign. One time payment and it is yours forever.

-I know we talked about this but I’m writing this here so that other people can see it too.-

[KaneDriscol]

I support this. If you get Affinity Publisher, Designer, and Photo, you have the capability to use all three in a single program. This is how I’m making my adventure write up.

[Khan]

That’s exactly what I’m doing.

[Khan]

I support this. If you get Affinity Publisher, Designer, and Photo, you have the capability to use all three in a single program. This is how I’m making my adventure write up.

That’s exactly what I’m doing. Studio Link is awesome.

[BigGrump]

I know and I might go that direction in a month or two.

Part of my current process is actually analyzing it. Like if someone used the pdf version of the adventure doc, could they get it done?

What if they can’t afford the software but still want to make an adventure for others on a bigger scale BUT stop before they even start? We could be loosing the next great adventure!

I prefer photoshop but gimp does exist so I drew my pictures by hand and took photos from my phone and then cropped them in photoshop — totally doable for anyone.

Today I converted the PDF images into .giff files and merged the layers to simplify insertion into a word doc. Then I put them into said word doc and by using ‘word art’ and no shadows, created the necessary word boxes.

You would still need to download the fonts used in the doc to see them properly since they are not native to the software but that is as easy as saying ‘download ‘x’ font.

You would still need word. You can get a free version of an office suite if that’s your jam so I don’t see it as a stumbling block.

With this process laid out, the only excuse anyone has is the most painful one — “I am lazy and want someone else to feed me!”

Which is not a symptom one would associate with a DIY community. I believe the biggest hurdle is getting started which typically comes in the form of saying “I don’t know how to start…”

So I am documenting it from the ground up by taking the ‘Runehammer’ course book and clearing a path through the heavy foliage any other bold adventures could follow.

Plus it gives me a pretty darn handy template to whip out more future work!

[Khan]

I see what you are trying to do. You are essentially trying to create a method that can be used by anyone without any proprietary software to produce content.

Libre Office is a great replacement for Word. Also there are free pdf editors out there, which means you (we) can create pdf templates too.

[BigGrump]

Really looking forward to the weekend. Slowly making some progress. I’ve got a lot of the pieces jotted down.

I made my cover.

And I am rewatching this one because it is a great guide for busting out one of these. Putting it in this thread for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet or saw it and wasn’t ready to receive it (hope that makes sense).

[BigGrump]

Man…

I finished. Packaged it all up as a PDF but I can’t upload it directly to the site. So I thought ‘pay what you want’ on DriveThruRpg – > put my stamp on the ‘I made a thing’ and get my own content going. But when I tried, it is requiring me to provide a ‘Select Program’ drop down and I don’t see an option for ‘generic’ or ‘ICRPG.’ It seems like to put stuff on their site, you have to do it using one of the approved ‘programs’ and I’m stuck.

But I KNOW there is content on Drive Thru people put out for ICRPG. Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on what I should do?

Oh and I didn’t like In Design. I was instantly overwhelmed and had to watch tutorials. I just did it all in word and then saved it as a PDF.

[BigGrump]

Quick update - I finished. I have the green light to put it up on DrvieThruRPG as a “pay what you want” and will be going that route. After trying to upload the PDF direct to the forums, I realized I couldn’t. Then I discovered how easy it is to convert your drivethru account to a contributor account and ran with it.

This will be my “grab and go” sample for any future work I decide to do and will be my gift to the community that helped form it.

I have since figured out how to upload the pdf as a shareable google doc link but I have decided to put it out on DriveThru because… that’s awesome!

I added ‘curses’ and MILESTONE loot progression as part of the adventure write-up for members of the Ashen Company.

Once I finalize it all, I will post a new thread with the details for anyone interested.

Also — about my process —> I believe from now on I will start with the motivation of the “enemy” and work my way back to the players.

I found that way easier.