Welcome to the second writing club update! (See the previous update here.) I hope you’ve had a pleasant month, and are managing to stay cool (this is me presuming northern hemisphere anyway). One short month ago, a month seemed like such a long time. But now I see it for a just a couple of weekends, and a sprinkling of free evenings.

I’m keeping this update brief, since I’m behind on my own goals. But it’s raining here, and I don’t have to go to work (at my job anyway) today, so I’m excited to get back to it! May you be similarly blessed with dreary weather and lack of responsibilities on this Monday.

Participants

As always, there is no pressure to have completed your goals. But sharing how your month went is super beneficial not just personally, but for the rest of us. Additionally, participants and guests are encouraged to chime in with any comments or questions they may have on project projects, writing club, etc.

  • grrgyle@slrpnk.netOPMEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    So I’ve been building an outline, but it only has the broad sweeps of events, and goes by location rather than chronology after that, which I hope helps. I’m very interested to see how the players handle the investigation, and if they’ll manage to think of avenues of inquiry that surprise me.

    This is exactly the types of campaigns I remember most fondly - the open-ended ones that really make the player (and to an extent, even the GM) feel like anything is possible.

    Maybe I missed it in your descriptions, but what is the black outline that rings most of the named locations?

    The plan is to get what Andrew (lead dev) calls a minimum viable product so we can try running it, …

    Am I interpreting this correctly - that it sounds like you’re working the Fully Automated dev team on a campaign (for a wider audience)? I’ve been imagining this was for a specific tabletop group, but this sounds like it might be for a wider audience.

    Either way very cool. Thank you for sharing your progress in such detail!

    • JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.netEnglish
      3·
      3 months ago

      it sounds like you’re working the Fully Automated dev team on a campaign (for a wider audience)?

      Yes! I started out proofreading a series of four premade adventures/modules they were preparing for release as a playable campaign, and that got me thinking about trying to build one of my own out of some story and worldbuilding ideas that had been rattling around in my head. I really like the idea of making it available as a polished, finished product, through their channels - there’s already a pretty wide range of modules but I don’t think any really dig into the kinds of rural areas I’m from and some of the possibilities there. I’ve been having a lot of fun exploring themes around what makes a community sustainable (as in, practical, long-lasting, viable, and at what scale), deconstruction, rewilding, and other aspects of wildland conservation, the health of watersheds, and sort of the different way people interact with the habitats and species around them. There’s also a lot of reuse and salvage happening because I think it’s cool.

      I’m honestly not sure if I’d have had trouble pouring this much work into something for a one-off game with friends, I think that’s part of why I haven’t GMed in the past? I am looking forward to running some games of this, but my main goal is to produce a module booklet, (hopefully a bookmarked PDF), and a zip file of all the maps, place art, and character portraits a GM might need.

      The black outline is the old town border (since they know the ‘treasure’ was dumped somewhere inside). A lot of borders have sort of faded in importance, being replaced with watershed boundaries when it comes to managing shared resources, but the town is still incorporated and operational on paper at the moment (not unlike Centralia PA 50 years after the fire began). Towns have a way of lingering even when there are fewer residents than your average homeowner’s association.

      Thanks again for running this discussion, it’s nice to get to chat about this stuff!