Monsters & Treasure First

Luke Gearing wrote a blog post about writing a limited bestiary and designing your campaign "monster first." My current Daemonium campaign used that approach for the game's first and most significant region, Cashua. The end result was a relatively cohesive feel: NPCs within could talk about and reference regional threats and monsters in a concrete way because they were solidified by the game's structure. As I wrote up the monsters, I included regional bits of folklore and references to Cashua. 

While that was great, the Treasure Table suffered because of a lack of preparation. I simply used the generic OSE Treasure Table and when something like, say, a magic sword came up I would give it a name, backstory, and on a 2-in-6 some additional special ability (This number was hit with remarkable frequency). While this worked it definitely felt like a bit of a hack job. The magic items lacked the "life" of the bestiary and because I didn't have time to sit on my ideas, the quality/creativity suffered as well. 

With the expanding scope of the campaign, I've had to abandon the bespoke bestiary approach for the South Seas. Some of my player's have travelled to this second region and, due to limited time, I've felt it best for me to use a more generic bestiary and fill specific spots with remarkable, bespoke monsters. Some of my players are currently in Atlantis, and for that I've just kind of been following my head and populating Atlantis with whatever cool nautical monsters I think of during prep. I can already feel the effects of this on the campaign. Almost inevitably, without appropriate time and consideration, the campaign world is quickly slipping into more gonzo territory. Especially in Atlantis!

After Daemonium wraps up, which I suspect will be within the coming months, I will run Wolves Upon The Coast. This is for two reasons: firstly, I am going to be doing an MA in September and would love to be spared much of the prep. Secondly, I have learned my lesson about what matters and what does not in a campaign.

I've been quietly working on NatheQuest for, well, years really in some form or another. It is the classic Heart Breaker and Dream Maker. It is my attempt at creating the Game In My Head and to allow others to mess with it and make it their own through play. While Daemonium was a game that I started running for the sake of playing, NatheQuest will be more sophisticated in its design goals. Actually running games has taught me what is important to prepare and put energy into and what is not. Monsters & Treasure are the most fundamental game elements players interact with in an adventure game. They are more important than classes or characters and do a lot to generate momentum and scenarios in sandbox play. 

Thus, I have been working on filling out NatheQuest's Treasure Table and Monster Manual. Simply put, I write one or two entries a day and, where I have more energy, I do a few more. Working on it slowly but surely rather than forcing creativity within a tight timeline has allowed ideas to manifest which are more incisive and punchy than anything I've done before. Each monster presents a real obstacle or conundrum and the treasures are genuinely fun and exciting. The tone is balanced and consistent: for inspiration I've been reading Orlando Furioso and reviewing Homer's Odyssey to nail the epic tone I desire. 

I've not put the full burden on myself, either. Where appropriate I've grabbed snippets from blogposts and ideas from other designers and inserted them into NatheQuest, simply changing tone where needed. As I've worked on the project it has helped me become much more concrete about the tone of NatheQuest. 

By running Wolves as an interim game, I'll have the time to continue working and creating high quality stuff. The important thing is that the material I make for NatheQuest is concrete: I've already sneakily inserted some of it into the Daemonium game where appropriate. While worldbuilding is basically a giant waste of time, concrete gameable elements have given me a sense of momentum I have, at times, lacked. Sometimes it's easy to slip into an aspirational, rather than actionable, mindset. That's where my past RPG projects have failed.