Amateur Gridless Mapping Tip #1: On Rulers and Stencils

As I continue in my journeys in "gridless" mapping (i.e., without graph paper), I have found that using a ruler and stencils is invaluable for buildings and dungeon floorplans.  Simply put, straight lines and even curves are generally more pleasing to the eye than the alternative, unless you are drawing a cave complex.  So, for those of you who want to learn from a fellow amateur's mistakes, I offer the following.

A good ruler or stencil is:

• in the correct shape (!)
• has a smooth edge with no flashing or nicks (plastic edges occasionally have a bit of flashing from the molding process -- they can be carefully cut off with a knife)
• easy to align with preexisting drawings
• easy to keep flush with the writing surface, to prevent slippage

Of these, the latter is surprisingly important, particularly if you are drawing lines longer than an inch or so.  If you do not have a heavy ruler or stencil, it is vital that you are able to hold the stencil securely against the paper, or your pen may slip under the edge and ruin your line.  I have had several otherwise very good drawings marred by such slips while inking.  If your edge is lightweight (as many plastic stencils are), take the time to reposition your non-drawing hand to hold the edge down securely while in mid-line.

In my experience, the size of the ruler or stencil is not a major factor, though because I often draw in a spiral-bound drawing pad, smaller edges tend to work better.  Larger edges are heavier and therefore better for prevention of slippage.

Of course, if you use a drafting table and t-bar, many of these issues (at least those pertaining to straight lines) go by the wayside.

Adventure Formats and the OSR

Some of the obvious accouterments of the old school renaissance have included intentional graphical and layout throwbacks to the previous era, particularly the Gygaxian format of adventure presentation.

OSR Format (roughly 1977 through 1983)

Using the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief as a template, the following format emerges as the traditional standard:

• Cardstock front and back cover with artwork/description
• Maps, typically on inside front and back covers (though sometimes at the end of the booklet)
• Booklet, staple-bound
• Short Introduction/DM Notes
• Fairly Short Background (Setting the scene, placement within game world, getting the PCs involved, etc.)
• Map Key, including wandering monsters, room descriptions, and descriptive artwork.  Text within the map key was kept brief except where further explanation was needed.
• Appendices (New spells, monsters, treasures, player handouts and artwork, etc.)

This is fairly typical of pre-Hickman TSR fare, all of which can be fairly said to be within the OSR wheelhouse.  Judges Guild materials of that era follow an analogous format, although virtually none had a cover and maps were usually printed inside the booklet or were separate fold-out affairs.

Later Tweaks & Content Bloat

As the game matured, the format of adventures was tweaked.  The biggest changes were in two areas: backround/story-related material (for Hickmanesque storyline-driven games) and in the quantity and bulk of text included in the product.

Once adventures became less site-based/sandboxy and more story-based, larger amounts of background and story material were required to guide DMs through various story flowcharts and matrices.  NPCs, in particular, became much more fleshed out and given a life of their own.  While the point of this was to enhance the "story" and dramatic aspects of the game, it undoubtedly contributed to content bloat within published adventures.  It further made the products less adaptable for individual DMs -- more story details require more work to customize to one's own game-world.

The other content infusion of note was the addition of descriptive "boxed text."  While the goal was laudable -- to provide greater immersion and verisimilitude -- the inclusion of subjective descriptors left some DMs (and many more players!) feeling that they were reading from a script and trapped by the content.  If the author was not both brief and evocative, boxed text became a millstone around DMs' necks.

Other tweaks to the format included improved quality maps and experiments with different types of maps, such as the famous quasi-3D iso maps of Ravenloft.

Encounter Format

One of the more irritating-to-grognards developments in late 3rd and most 4th edition adventures was the advent of what can be called "encounter format," in which everything needed to run a particular encounter was generally (though not always) on one page or two facing pages.  Thus, a detailed dungeon room, its monsters (and their game stats) and all tactics and "developments" were listed in one place.

While generally hated by the OSR due to the "encounter" nomenclature and the size of stat blocks necessitated by later editions of the game, the encounter format has one big advantage -- utility.  All of the traditional formats require a DM to juggle no less than three documents -- the map, the key, and at least one rulebook (usually the DMG or Monster Manual).  The encounter format eliminated that juggling and allows a DM to focus on the players, the flow, and the game rather than shuffling papers about.  This philosophy has developed its own subculture of sorts via the "One Page Dungeon" contest.

Building a Composite OSR Format: Goals

My mission statement, therefore: 

OSR content should be adaptable, easy to use, evocative, creative, and customizable. 

I would further add that we, as consumers of said content, should value such publications on these merits alone and not, say, by its sheer size or bulk.  Furthermore, OSR publications must by necessity adhere to the OGL -- requiring either close adherence to OGL rules or a more generic approach so as not to violate the license.  I advocate the generic approach simply because everyone is seemingly playing a different game.  Within the OSR itself there are at least three major subsets -- white box, Basic, and AD&D systems -- and substantial variation in basic game mechanics.

I therefore propose the following format for OSR site-based adventures:

• Notes/Introduction
• Background (brief)
• Small-scale overland map (optional)
• Unified large-scale map showing the entire site and labelling its sections
• Sectional small-scale maps done in "one page dungeon" style (i.e., "show me don't tell me") with clear links to other sections
• Appendices

By eliminating the Gygaxian map-and-key format and later hyper-wordy formats, the DM is given what he needs -- introductory materials to read and digest for application into his own game-world, and in-game materials to use while sitting at the table playing.  The "one page" sectional map format, by necessity, will provide brief information in order to avoid OGL problems and to keep it adaptable, it should be as generic as possible in terms of game mechanics and statistics.  The downside to this, of course, is that it will require that the DM either adapt the content to his rules system beforehand or have the rulebooks handy during play.

For those wanting to inject a "plotline" into OSR adventures, a slightly expanded background section and a one-page story flowchart is recommended for in-game reference.

So what do you think?  Would you consider buying and using a scenario in my format as described?  How strong is the pull of sentimentality of the Gygaxian format?  Is the size/bulk of a publication relevant to your perception of its value?

Wilderness Terrain Generation Project

One of my current projects involves rules for generation of wilderness terrain on both a continental and regional level for all game systems.  My idea is in the testing stages, but I've noticed some interesting phenomena in some of my mechanics and assumptions.

Starting Assumptions

• Some people will want to generate Big Picture aspects of the game world (world size, axial tilt, number of moons, etc.) and others will either pick or assume these aspects, or not care in the first place.
• The aspects of a terrain we need to know, on a continental basis, are the presence of: salt water, fresh water, elevation, predominant vegetation, and intelligent-life settlement.
• Terrain comes in bunches -- it's not "choppy," though there are pockets of varying terrain.  I have come up with a simple mechanic to determine "sameness" from hex to hex.
• Hills are near mountains -- whether due to tectonics, glaciation, or volcanic activity
• Forests are more likely near fresh water sources -- I'm frankly not sure if this is actually true, but it feels right

What's interesting here, beyond the assumptions themselves, is the effects of combination of these assumptions and the inclusion or removal of the "sameness" mechanic.

Order and Method of Generation

The assumptions dictate a certain order of terrain generation; you have to know whether mountains and/or fresh water are present before you can generate elevation and vegetation.

The question then becomes how to generate these baseline elements (coastline/mountains/fresh water) with a simple mechanic and optional user choice.

Weather and Rainfall

One of the harder elements to simulate is that of weather.  There are deserts, for instance, in every latitude of the Earth (some of which are fairly close to fresh water features), and areas of forest without a lot of water on the ground.  Put another way, the mere presence or absence of lakes and rivers is insufficient to determine the prevailing vegetation.  Simulating this in a simple way is tricky.

Mapscale

On the continental level, a larger scale is necessary so that you can create a map of a sufficiently large area within a manageable mapspace.  The scale also has to be small enough to depict fresh water sources (which determine vegetation) in a meaningful way.  I presently believe about 50 miles to the inch is an appropriate continental/campaign map scale, and 2 miles to the inch on a regional/local level.

Fun

Generating a world or campaign map should be a fun experience.  I'm experimenting with many different ideas to inject ease of use, creativity, and fantasy into the process.  I want to make sure this isn't completely antiseptic and scientific for those who want funkiness and ways to generate campaign ideas.

On Hubris, Strengths, and Weaknesses in Gaming

One of my favorite non-gaming subjects is that of personal development; who we are, why we are, what we individually do well, and how we can get better at whatever these things may be to achieve Name Level fulfillment in real life.  For those interested, I recommend checking out Strengthfinders, but self-discovery is not for everyone -- and there are certainly many ways to skin this particular cat.

I bring this subject up after checking out what appears to be the current endeavor of Ravenloft author Tracy Hickman, "XDM: X-treme Dungeon Mastery."  While I am certainly in no position to be calling anyone's baby ugly, I confess to a bit of an eyeroll when I read the name of his book and his game system ("XD20"), and began to understand his overall thrust, which appears to be to inject humor, energy, and magic tricks (I'm not kidding) into one's DM bag of tricks.  Indeed, Hickman appears to have transformed himself, rather vampire-like, from an RPG author to what can best be described as (1) a DM motivational writer and speaker and (2) a consultant for budding RPG writers.  I'm not sure whether his seminars involve a firewalk or sawing an assistant in two, but he does his damndest to make them appear "xtreme," as if he were the offspring of the union of Gary Gygax and Anthony Robbins.

Setting aside my distaste for buzzwords and useless jargon ("xtreme" is really unforgivable), I couldn't help but wonder whether Hickman isn't a bit like the surgeon who has made his millions in the operating room then believes, magically, that he is somehow able to invest that money wisely (I'll give you a hint: doctors are the number one target for stockbrokers, commercial realtors, and scam artists).  Here's a guy who, by all accounts, was the darling of the RPG world for many years writing successful adventures and novels.  I would consider buying original content written by Tracy Hickman.  I would not consider buying an "xtreme" motivational product or attend a paid seminar put out by him, for one simple reason: hubris.  Tracy Hickman's arrogance is the glue that holds his website together; it is visceral.

This sort of "I'm good at X, so I must be good at Y, since X and Y are so much like each other" is pervasive among successful people of all industries and nationalities.  Its relative is the thought of "I'm smarter than Bill, and Bill is good at Y, so I can be better at it than him."  Both of these beliefs are born of an inflated ego and pride.

I'm Good at Game Writing, So I Can Run a Game Company

This is common in the gaming world because, frankly, nearly all of the companies we know today started as one- or two-man operations where the head guy wore all the hats in the company.  Bob Bledsaw and Bill Owens ran Judges Guild for its first few years.  Bledsaw was a great content guy (particularly in map and setting design) and philosopher of the game; Owens appears to have been more of an organizer.  After Owens left around 1980, JG's production quality worsened and the company lost its exclusive license to publish under the D&D logos.  Bledsaw was not free to do what he was best at -- writing, designing, and leading -- and got stuck in the back-end of the business (editing and publishing), things for which he was poorly-suited.

I'm Smarter than the Technical Games Guy, So I Can Run a Game Company with No Technical Expertise

The same could be said, to a lesser extent, in the TSR saga of the early 80s, pitting the Blumes (and then Lorraine Williams) against Gary Gygax for control of the company.  We'll never know what would have become of TSR had Gygax retained control, but we certainly know what happened in his absence.  People with a lack of understanding and appreciation for the technical product could not be expected to appease their core demographic, design appealing new content, and keep up with the changes to the game market.

The conclusion?  Do one thing, and do it well.

Dungeon Engineering, Room Density and the Space Between

Ragnardbard inspired this post, via his beautiful maps for the "storeroom" DIY level of the Vault of the Mad Archmage.  One thing leapt out to me immediately: the tightly-packed nature of sections of the dungeon level.  I liked it, but I realized immediately I would never have drawn it that way because of my own preferences and biases.

For you see, to my dungeon engineer's eye, you've got to have Space Between!

Compare, for instance, these two classic D&D maps:

Quasequeton is packed.  The Tower of Zenopus (as the Homes D&D dungeon has been called) is sparse.  I fall somewhere in the middle here, with an acknowledged preference towards having some space between rooms, usually 10' worth.

I find it amusing that I care about such things in a fantasy world that is home to monstrous levitating meatballs with eye stalks, but I imagine somehow that without such a rock buffer my dungeon would structurally fail.  This would seem to be more true the deeper one goes -- more support needed for all that rock-weight above.  Thus, I look at Quasequeton and see a proverbial house of cards, albeit one with some magic pools on the seven of hearts. 

But then I eye Zenopus' abode and say, "my, that's an awful lot of wasted space.  That seems less functional."  Without a design goal (like, say, to reach the underground river in area M), why tunnel when you don't have to?  Couldn't all of rooms A - J been put closer together and achieved the same functionality?

Here's something more up my alley, though it's certainly more Zenopusian than in my preferred middle ground:

The Moathouse dungeon works for me despite its relative sparseness -- though I think Gygax could have fit several more rooms in here easily without having the Moathouse crater upon itself.  Gygax's own above-ground structures were more packed (needing less support) while his caverns and dungeons had Space Between to one degree or another.

Torn between realism and functionalism, and asking myself WWGD, I have suconsciously decreed that a 10' minimum Space Between has become my default for underground designs.  Armed with this, I can effectively suspend disbelief and maintain functionality and design flow. 

I just have to catch myself to not do this above-ground, though.  10' spaces between everything is not functional in a building, unless we are discussing exterior castle walls.

I think I need to go out and draw a dozen outdoor hedge mazes now to break myself of this. Ah, the little internal boxes we make for ourselves, eh?

One-Page Dungeon 2012

This year's One-Page Dungeon contest is up and running, and I'm in.  I'll be submitting my freehand entry very shortly.  Best of luck to the other contestants!

I had a great time designing my entry, Holy Sword.  It's something I had kicked around for a bit but hadn't really considered for One-Page treatment until I started working on my freehand more and started to see the beauty of the key-on-map -- at least for my own use.  The next step was to make a key-on-map that was usable by other people that were coming to the product cold and with their own points of view.

One-Page, to me, means the following:

• Using as much of the page as possible within concept
• Going stat- and game-mechanics-free as possible -- both to save space as well as to keep it system-neutral
• Simple illustrations substitute for verbiage
• Brevity!  Less is more in descriptions!
• Providing real, usable content that is more than a skeleton or flowchart

Here's hoping my scanner can pick up the details and render them readable; I'd hate to start over!

That Old Feelin'

It started when I put my computer game habit to the side and picked up my pen & paper games again.  I'd never let go of PnP gaming, having maintained a place in Brodie's 3e/4e game as a player and 3e DM for the last 12 years, more or less.  But I noticed, frankly, that I wasn't being the kind of husband, father, and man I wanted to be while fully absorbed in computer games.  I started seeing clients whose marriages were falling apart due to computer and video games.  It was time to let it go.

But D&D is a different animal, to me anyway. It's a hobby, theater of the mind, a creative outlet, and a social occasion.  For me, computer games were a suppressant, a tranquilizer.  D&D expands my real life and engages both sides of my aging brain.

So the box(es) of D&D materials beckoned, and the writing started.  Once the writing (blogging, and campaign-building) began, a need for an audience formed with it.  I suspect this is a partial reason why people blog -- the dual need to "get it all down on paper" and express oneself combined with the very basic need to communicate on a brain-to-brain basis with those of a similar bent.

And then the old feeling came -- the need to DM again.  I suppose I knew it all along, but having written up Dunlyle, I needed to experience it, and not just to playtest it either.  I wasn't ready to just file it away or be content to occasionally pull it out and tweak it.  I needed to feel it and let it live.  Cue the Dr. Frankenstein analogies.

It will also give me a chance to playtest Joe Bloch's excellent Adventures Dark & Deep.

Freehand Mapping and My Unmanly Secret

In the course of writing my sandbox mini-setting of Dunlyle, I sketched several outdoor maps (about 5 miles to the inch) using different media and paper.  I tried pencil, pen, crayon (surprisingly effective, actually) and used plain paper, graph paper, and hexgrid.  I can now, of course, sketch out a Dunlyle map in my sleep.  But something was missing.

Over at the Cartographer's Guild I saw what was missing, other than artistic talent.  My maps just weren't cool.  Lacking in both patience and ability to use the computer drawing programs like Hexographer, I decided to go old school and abandon the grid (for now) ... which is where the Unmanliness crept in.

For you see, today I discovered the joy of scrapbooking materials.

My wife had been a scrapbooker for years and had all of the fancy papers, paper-cutters, stamps, stickers, and all of the paraphrenalia that goes along with this most Girly of hobbies.  What I found out, though, while perusing my local art supply store, was that scrapbooking has everything we gamers need for extremely cool maps -- while at the same time providing a built-in storage and protection system.

First, there's the paper.  Scrapbooking paper is wonderful.  I picked up a bunch of parchment-style cardstock paper that happened to be on sale.  So you have this durable, weighty bit of parchment-looking paper just waiting for your fantasy world or dungeon to explode upon it.

The size of scrapbooking paper (12" square) is also handy, providing roughly 50% more surface area upon which to sketch compared to 8 1/2" x 11" or A4 paper.  I find this to be a more naturally pleasing drawing surface; the shape of the paper is no longer an influence on my creative muse.

Here's Dunlyle on scrapbook parchment cardstock, after a few hours of my amateur artistic and calligraphic labors:

But wait, you say!  What about the hexgrid or square grid?

No problem, my budding Marco Polo.  Just run that bad boy through the printer, before or after you've freehanded the map.  Personally, I will be putting the grid on afterwords, if at all -- I don't want the presence of the grid to guide my pencil.

The scrapbooking accessories are also spot-on.  Want to dress up your maps with symbols you will use repeatedly?  Get a stamp and just ink that bad boy.  How about a cool border for your crypt, using skulls or black lace?  You can make it as kitschy or campy as you want.  Throw a Scooby-Doo sticker on there if it floats your boat.  Or, if you're an artiste like Zak, you could throw some web images on there and cut and paste yourself to an impressionistic dungeon masterpiece.

And then there is the scrapbook itself, a perfect place to store, transport, and admire your beautiful map.  It is bound so that the scrapbook paper doesn't have to be holepunched ... the holes are in the sheet protectors.  And those sheet protectors?  You can write on them with a wet-erase pen and never mark up your precious maps!

It gets even better when you realize that you could do entire dungeons on facing-page scrapbook pages ... map on one side, key on the other.

The "Explorer" Wildlands Campaign and the Campaign Hexagon System

I've long been a fan of the D&D campaign based around exploration, both on a micro (dungeon) and macro (wilderness) level.  No publisher highlighted this aspect of D&D better than Judges Guild, whose Wilderlands of High Fantasy setting was built around the idea that there was a lot of unexplored stuff out there.  Sure, there were cities -- big ones, too -- but there was space.  Bob Bledsaw's crowning achievement (other than the City State of the Invincible Overlord) was the Campaign Hexagon System and its specific implementation in the Wilderlands.

Be assured that the system was more than mere wilderness maps on hex paper.  The first benefit of the system was that it was scalar, taking the DM from large-scale campaign hex maps to individual hex maps of a particular campaign hex to two scales of square-grid map for city plans and small scale dungeon floorplans.  Like a nested Russian doll, the map scales all fit within each other.

The second benefit of the system was that Judges Guild published maps and blank sheets (the Fantasy Cartographer's Guide is simply wonderful) for keying said maps in large, easy-to-use booklets, and provided numerous tables and charts to help DMs populate those maps with terrain, features, monsters, and treasures as needed.

Lastly, Bledsaw ensured that all JG "content" publications actually used the Campaign Hexagon system, and took it to the next level with the inclusion of TWO maps for every wilderness area -- a DM's map and a player's map that was blank, other than coastlines and known features.  Talk about an incentive to explore -- there was a whole map to fill out!  And after that, 15 more in the Wilderlands setting.  For my money, the Wilderlands Setting was the ultimate sandbox for OSR-style gaming.  JG products were at their strongest when providing game aids to enable this style of sandbox play.

I am a huge fan of Greyhawk, but the exploration element and sense of the unknown is largely missing (at least in the aboveground of the Eastern Flanaess).  The Greyhawk setting (and Faerun too, for the most part) is one of nations; the Wilderlands is one of wilderness, and is therefore the first setting that comes to mind when the "points of light" concept is bandied about. 

Sadly, exploration as a player and character motivator seemingly became phased out as the game transformed into one of character customization and battlemat-driven tactical combat.  I honestly can't remember the last time someone actually mapped in a 3.x game.  I wonder if a raised-on-4th-edition player would even understand the point of mapping.

On Creativity

While writing my manuscript for Dunlyle (a fantasy mini-setting), about which I will likely blog more later, I stumbled onto a bit of a metawriting dilemma, to wit: how much creativity is enough?

In Fantasy RPGs, the Greats of fiction (the usual suspects) and those of the hobby itself (EGG et al) cast long shadows.  Layered on top of these genre expectations are our inherent Western cultural biases, myths, and legends.  Toss on top of that a few rulebooks written by fellow members of that culture, and any red-blooded American aspiring to write an adventure is bound to end up with a finished product that looks somewhat familiar, with castles and wizards and hairy-footed small humanoids.  Stranger still, I confess that I still find this familiarity comforting; Northern European flavored roleplaying appears to be my default setting.

This is insecapeable to some degree; we're all products of our culture.  No doubt a native of Japan, say, would have a prediliction to create settings, characters, and situations that are familiar to him.  Most creative people, however, eventually reach a second stage where, rather like the Beatles going to India, they want to inject new elements into their creative output.  Eventually, a fusion of sorts results between the artist's original formative influences and the stimuli to which he is exposed.  M.A.R. Barker's Tekumel is the classic example of a deliberate attempt to exert both artistic and intellectual creativity to break away from Tolkein-based fantasy fiction and gaming.

The question then becomes whether the artist's audience can maintain its interest in the new creative fusion.  How many citar-focused Beatles songs do their fans want to hear?  How much creativity is enough?  The "same only different" motto has to apply to one degree or another if the creative output is going to have any resonance with its intended audience.  While the artist's medium can certainly mold the audience in ways it was not intending to be affected, it must meet that audience's preexisting needs in some respect.

Quality is a factor, too.  We can tolerate something lacking in creativity (Ravenloft comes to mind) when it is well-done; and what is not new -- or even a cliche -- in the big-picture sense can certainly exhibit substantial creativity in the details.

The conclusion I have reached is this: to inject as much creativity and quality in the details as possible, even if the subject matter has been overdone for decades.

5th Edition Hopes and Fears

Like many gamers in my age demographic, I await news of D&D 5th edition with a mix of hope and trepidation.  On the one hand, Monte is at the helm; it won't suck.  On the other hand, its stated goal of unifying the various editions -- and thereby providing something for everybody -- runs the risk of pleasing no one at all.

As of this writing, my favorite editions remain 3.5 and Pathfinder, for one big reason: character creation.  I find that 3.5/PF deliver the most ability for PCs to create the character they want within a fantasy world framework.  While this is sacrelige in many OSR circles, I like feats and skills as presented in 3rd Edition and its progeny.  Is 3.5/PF perfect?  No -- the oft-stated objections (rules bloat, wargaming feel, challenge rating/build-the-adventures-around-the-PCs, the power curve, high-level play wonkiness) are mostly valid in my experience as a player and DM.  But that sweet spot (say, level 3-10 or so) was awesome.

I have gone back and reviewed many of my Basic Set / 1st Edition materials, and downloaded and reviewed several of the carefully-crafted OSR retro-clone products, including Labyrinth Lord and Joe Bloch's Adventures Dark and Deep.  I value the original and OSR products for their relative simplicity, flavor, nostalgia, and sense of real danger to the PCs.  However, I like a product with a little more meat on the bones, particularly regarding skills and adjudicating non-combat actions.  Adventures Dark and Deep has taken the step of adopting a alternative skill system based on xp expenditure that is partially tied to ability scores -- thus, for many of the skills, it is cheaper to train if your best ability score is that skill's prime requisite.

Mixing and matching these elements then, as Monte in fact says he is doing, my fantasy 5th edition would look something like this:

• Same core design re: six ability scores, hit points, saves, armor class, etc.
• Feats, or some mechanism to customize characters to provide unique abilities
• Skills or ability check modifiers to allow resolution of non-combat actions
• Ability to run 0/1st edition style gameplay (i.e., battlemap/miniatures optional) for quicker play
• Flattening of the power curve
• Deadliness -- the game needs to be dangerous
• Rewards should go back to pre-3e: xp for treasure, to encourage alternate means of "winning" other than monster-slaying, which begets the Challenge Rating/match-the-encounter-to-the-PCs thinking.

Transformation: from Gamer to Game Writer

I'd been following Joe Bloch's blog for awhile when I caught the notice for his self-publishing company, BRW games: "Now Accepting Submissions."

I had been tooling around with some ideas (having come back to pen and paper gaming after a short hiatus) when it occurred to me that writing for a publisher was the key missing piece for me.  Having precious little time to actually game, the idea of adventure writing during my free time grew into a passion.  After a few emails back and forth with the very gracious Joe, I began writing, using his excellent Adventures Dark and Deep beta ruleset as the gaming framework.

Writing about games is, clearly, very different than gaming, though many of us in the blogosphere seem to enjoy musing on gaming as much as the act itself.  What I was not prepared for, however, was the rather gaping chasm between being a DM and being a writer for DMs.  Now, after over a month of going at it, I can confidently say: it's harder than it looks.  As a fairly competent writer, I had no worries about being able to put proverbial pen to paper; my concern quickly became how to best organize my ideas into a coherent whole, and how to best capture those elusive ideas before they slipped away into the mental ether.  Pages and pages of yellow tablet paper quickly filled up.  Everything has to be explained.  One simply cannot expect implications, transitions, or clues to be obvious.  As part of discovering the need for Clarity, I achieved crystallization of a trinity of masters that I was to serve.  The quest of writing thus became a trial to attain three sometimes-conflicting objectives, Clarity, Creativity, and Productivity.

Creativity is, itself a fascinating topic.  My good friend Brodie is an expert on the topic of creativity and the very notion of the genesis of ideas.  What quickly became apparent to me was that in adventure writing (as in painting, sculpture, movie-making, or any other creative endeavor), it has all been done before.  As I drew and populated a low-level dungeon, I kept kicking myself -- oh, great, another lowbie Kobold encounter.  But I trudged onward, trying to make that Kobold encounter as memorable as possible.  Eventually, I gave myself a break, for at a slightly deeper level lurked the thought, "people expect it to be that way."  There was more than one Hollywood western, after all.  In the end, like Hollywood producers, I determined that the end result, creatively, should be the same only different.  By infusing creative organizational elements, interesting locales, new monsters, memorable NPCs, a variety of situations, and unique treasures, I could hopefully deliver something familiar yet interesting -- something worthy of a ten-to-twenty dollar gamer investment, perhaps.

Productivity is ever-present.  The output must be generated.  This requires real time in front of the keyboard and at the graph paper tablet.  To write something for the gaming public -- something that would be entertaining, useful, and worth spending actual money upon -- it needed sufficient bulk.  If all you do is "ideate" and organize, you will never have an end result.  Someone has to do the heavy lifting of hammering out the necessary prose, and it can be a chore.  There have been days when writing up ten dungeon rooms has felt like a major accomplishment.

I have finally submitted the manuscript and have (mostly) resisted the urge to go back and compulsively edit it more, and have moved on to the next project.  But it's hard to move on when the echoes of the last project are still bouncing around ...

Taking the Plunge

Yes, it's years too late, but I'm finally getting around to blogging.  I suppose a mission statement of sorts is in order for the occasion.

The purpose of the blog is twofold: to boldly muse on gaming-related matters, and to riff off-topic as the mood strikes.  I begin with the latter in the hope that it will lead inexorably to the former.

I have been a closet gamer for years, pretty much since high school in the early-mid 80's when I realized that openly gaming was surely going to destroy any chances I had for getting laid.  Whether that dire fear was true or not mattered little at the time; it was real enough to me.  Still, the need to game remained and prospered through my years of formal education and beyond.

As I matured, I found it necessary during my various relationships to, at some point, open up to my significant other about my "hobbies," which in retrospect were pretty tame (D&D and computer games, for the most part).  I remember each and every one of my "self-outings" and the fear that my newfound sweetie would leave me at the curb, pealing away in laughter, the sound of "LOSER!" ringing in my ears.  But of course it never happened that way.  Some of them thought it was quirky, but that was about it.  Still, the fear persisted.

Fast-forward to the present-day.  My lovely, mostly-accepting, bride informs me that my gaming is common knowledge within her family.  I sink lower into the seat cushions now at family gatherings.  The fear of my work colleagues learning of my hobby is crippling.

I know, I know, I should have some Geek Pride here.  I look forward to the day, not too long from now, where I age to the Point of No Longer Caring.  But I'm not there yet.