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Let's talk about your Stories/Lore. :)
runis12
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
Hello, Foundry Friends,
I'm really curious as to how people formulate their Campaign/Quest plots.
1. How much effort do you put in your plots - how long does it take to come up with a plot for a single quest/episode?
2. Do you do any kind of research (on D&D lore and timelines, or how something works - for example, how to sail a ship - to know what kind of items to involve on your Foundry quest that involves a ship)? How long does that research take?
3. Is it possible to insert your story in D&D lore?
Those are the main things I was wondering about. I'm just really interested in what goes on in other people's heads when they're working hard on Foundry plots. Ha!
I'm really curious as to how people formulate their Campaign/Quest plots.
1. How much effort do you put in your plots - how long does it take to come up with a plot for a single quest/episode?
2. Do you do any kind of research (on D&D lore and timelines, or how something works - for example, how to sail a ship - to know what kind of items to involve on your Foundry quest that involves a ship)? How long does that research take?
3. Is it possible to insert your story in D&D lore?
Those are the main things I was wondering about. I'm just really interested in what goes on in other people's heads when they're working hard on Foundry plots. Ha! Post edited by runis12 on
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2.) For the one I'm doing now I had to do a ton of research in both ship terminology and pirate speech. From the mizzen to the bow, and everything in between.
3.) Possibly. I don't purposefully try to insert my storyline and plot into D&D lore, but I do try to keep it from conflicting with it. It's not too hard to keep it in-line with Neverwinter, but much harder to play off of existing lore. So I opt for the former.
A great tool I use: FreeMap (mind-mapping)
Hammerfist Clan. Jump into the Night: NW-DMXWRYTAD
1)I'm currently in the polishing stage for my first ever Foundry quest. I've been working on it for about two to three weeks now. I've had a lot of free time, but I've been sick (which made it hard to focus on making my quest!), so it's kind of hard to zero in on just how much I worked on this single quest.
2)I am guilty of looking up sooo much Dungeons & Dragons lore, especially elven lore - I don't know much about D&D except for what my friends told me about it. I do not play the table top game, but I do play/write adventures for Pathfinder and lots of video game RPGs, so I get a pretty good grasp on monster lore and the whole fantasy setting.
3)I believe I could insert my campaign into D&D lore, though it did not start out that way.
I put quite a bit of effort in to my plots but I'm concentrating on not being too verbose with the dialogue, people generally dont want to read a book when playing your quest. However, as my quests are slightly longer I feel that I can get the full story across with lots of NPCs doing short amounts of dialogue as opposed to a handful of NPCs trying to give a lot all at once (which people generally click through)
How long does it take? Impossible to quantify. I'm constantly thinking about what I want to do with the story, how I'm going to make the encounters work, what twists I can put in, etc. I do this whilst going about my day to day, but sometimes I'll just start working on a map and see where it takes me, then if I make a particular room or landscape then I see how I can put it into my story.
I have http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/ open constantly when working on my quests so that I can reference things correctly. Whilst a lot of people aren't too fussed whether a quest is appropriate to the lore, there are a lot who are, and so I make things relevant to the Forgotten Realms. I don't have the most extensive knowledge of the Realms (I never played BG or NWN), but I have been DMing an FR D&D tabletop game the last 6 months so I have a good working knowledge and somewhere to start.
As for referencing stuff away from the lore, like the example you gave with the ship; this is something I would do as needed or as appropriate to my story, but my quests aren't going to be encyclopedia's so it's generally not top of the list. However, I like to think as and when I have a ship in my quest I will get the basics such as starboard and portside correct
In theory yes, but there's a few issues. Firstly it depends whether you want people to use your adventure in their RP, if so then you can't have a quest where people are all claiming to have done the same thing (killed the king, saved the town, found the treasure) so you'd have to keep it generic. If you just mean it fit in its own right within the FR story, then that all depends on the referencing you do. Every real world Tabletop game that uses FR as a setting is its own world, the things the players at your table do and the way they shape the world (killing gods, demons and destroying countries if needs be) are all appropriate for that campaign. You could look at Neverwinter being a campaign that we're all involved in, but in reality there's already going to be so much crossover and contradiction between Foundry quests that people need to play them in their own right and not worry about how they fit into the bigger picture other people are making.
Ultimately WOTC control the intellectual property for Neverwinter, as much as your quest for killing Lord Neverember might be popular, he only dies if Cryptic and WOTC say so.
Guilty!
Lists of expressions and curses:
http://www.talesofmoonsea.net/forum/index.php?topic=890.0;wap2
http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=13403
Translator for many of the languages of Faerun:
http://www.tilansia.com/langconvert.php
I put both of these to good use in my quest, and I'd appreciate it if you checked it out! If your character speaks Drow or Orcish, he'll be able to in my quest! NWS-DNSXY8Z2F
I started with the puzzle ideas, messing around on a test map to see if they would work. Once I had the basic puzzle flow down I started creating the first rooms. It was at this point that I fleshed out the basic story, although it was very different from the final story. I had to make a reason for being in the location. I then made the clues, they mostly stayed the same until I finished the map and the main story. I then added ways to tie some of the clues into DnD lore and my main story. I do not know much about DnD lore, so the internet was very helpful.
I kept going through my story with a fine-toothed comb, quite a few bits were illogical after I'd made some level design changes. I just brainstormed until I thought of a basic way for something to make sense, then expand on it to make it good/entertaining.
The clues were one of the hardest parts to write, but not because of the lore or the story. The clues were challenging to write because I had to be very careful of my phrasing. I had to make the clues difficult and obscure, without being impossible. I had to estimate average puzzle solving ability.
Pretty cool. Didn't think of translators.
With lore, I'm pretty familiar with Forgotten Realms, but with the 3rd ed. source book. D&D lost me with its 4th ed. rules, so I found another path, if you catch my drift.
Chapter 1 - The Ruins of Webcrag --- Chapter 2 - Don't get your hopes up. Bored of the game.
Honestly, I built my first map before getting a solid story to take-off too! I had a completely different idea in mind, then built a map, and story just completely changed.
I get what you mean. I planned an event and fight at a waterfall, but after adding a bridge that kind of cut through the whole region, it was like... this doesn't make sense to happen here. And it's not as epic feeling or roomy anymore. ;D So that part of my story transformed a bit and happens some place else now.