Sweet!! I look forward to seeing the end result of that. 😀
Speaking of which, I wish to ask if you have any advice for a newbie adventure writer for a d20-based campaign setting that’s currently not published yet. I’ll provide details when I have a chance.
— Samuel K Kauffman (@SamuelKKauffman) August 27, 2020
1)
When I sit down at conventions with game designers wanting to ready a new setting for publication (will that ever happen again? Yeesh!), I always tell them to answer two questions for themselves (not for me or the public): what do you want to DO with this setting? 3)
…have?) and big ones (tech level and magic level across various races, cultures, and lands, magic systems, overall literacy and knowledge of how the world works/how magic works, clashing views of life within races and cultures and between one race or culture and another, … 2)
What are its big tales waiting to unfold, or be resolved? HOW (format) do you want to tell them/have others tell them or play them? Leading to…where, in ten years? Twenty years?
The answers you give yourself should shape tiny design decisions (how many kids does this ruler..— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 27, 2020
4)
…and so on). Easy to get overwhelmed/bogged down in the abstract and trying to “do it all,” but much easier if you have a direction you’re heading for in the future, if not a specific end goal/destination, and build towards it, little piece by little piece. Avoid absolute…— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 27, 2020
5)
…statements (there’s only one buried titan, that’s the last dragon) wherever possible, unless made by unreliable narrators, as it keeps story options open.
And so on, through tons of abstract ‘experience advice’ I can dump on you, until you, as you say, provide details. :}— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 27, 2020
What did you want to do with the Forgotten Realms when you first set out? What do you want to do with it now? I created the Realms when I was a young boy, as a fantasy world to tell stories in (there were no fantasy roleplaying games back then). I want those tales to be about "real" people (not necessarily human) and to explore the Realms in them.
Fifty-five years later, I still do.— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 3, 2020