Steel_Wind
Legend
ENWorld Adventure Path: A Modest Proposal
It may be that something like this has been proposed here before. I don’t pretend to be a veteran ENWorlder as I just found this website last summer, so if I am going over well-tilled soil, I apologize.
I am, however, a veteran gamer like most people here (I started with OD&D in the late 70’s) and more importantly, I have a lot of experience in running mod teams for computer game conversions. In particular, I am the project lead at DLA, which is NWN’s largest mod team. At about 30 members of hobbyists, semi-pros and professionals in the computer games industry, DLA has enjoyed a lot of success and I was ultimately contracted by BioWare to have DLA develop content for NWN on a paying basis for their Premium Module series. Many of our members at DLA have moved on and been hired as game developers over the years, at Blizzard, Codemasters, EA and BioWare, amongst others.
For a number of reasons, PnP gamers tend not to organize themselves to take on bigger projects like computer game and CRPG enthusiasts do. We can endlessly discuss why this is so and find the exceptions to this by discussing the various Net Books which have appeared over the years I suppose…
But I’d rather not. Instead, having read what we are all capable of over the past year or so and having looked at the various recent threads like Mouseferatu’s great design thread and Morrus’ similar thread, I have developed a deep and abiding respect for the creativity of my fellow ENWorlders.
But still, when news like Paizo’s recent announcement over the Adventure Path #1 being published as a book in July 2005 or Adventure Path #2 coming out installments are so warmly received by most people here, it gets me to thinking…
Why not do this ourselves?
The creativity of hundreds if not thousands here at ENWorld is more than equal to the task. Not surprising, given that so many published authors, interested hobbyists and first time contributors to Dragon, Dungeon and various D20 small presses come from the ranks of ENWorld.
So now we get to it and here is my proposal: I am well experienced with organizing a mod team flung over the planet. I know how to manage and co-ordinate such a project. I have access to fellow members of DLA who are both PnP RPG enthusiasts, extremely gifted 3d and 2d artists and graphic designers. While I don’t claim to have a team of Monte Cooks, I *DO* have a team of artists who would be willing to help the cause whose
art is every bit -and in some cases, put bluntly even *better* than - anything you will see in the pages of Paizo’s publications.
Why not get a bunch of ENWorlders together and hammer out a plotline for our own Adventure Path? Assign portions of that path to members of the team. Get the module submissions written in and passed around the team. Edit them, copy-proof, tweak massage and revise ‘em. Add in the art resources and maps my guys at DLA can do – and then release a monster 300-400 page .pdf here at Enworld as a free download? Every participant would have a hand crafted, slickly formatted adventure that he/she contributed to for use in their own campaigns – and it would be of great benefit to other gamers generally.
This can be an adventure path along the lines of anything the participants desire. We might want to go for a generic Greyhawk Style/FR path. We might want to do something that would fill a real need like a Star Wars D20 monster Campaign Module set in any era (official or otherwise) that we decide. Or something for a smaller D20 setting like Midnight or Freeport or the Black Company *whatever*. It’s really not important to hammer those details out now – simply to get the juices flowing and people’s interest up.
Believe me, I know what a team of 30 people can do – and the resources of a whole lot of skilled hands can sometimes be bloody scary. We would not need that large a team for something like this. Half that number would do nicely.
In an era where its hard to sell adventures and harder still to get retailers to stock them and publishers to make them – why not fill that need ourselves?
Any interest in this? And what sort of setting for an ENWorld Adventure Path theme might appeal to you?
It may be that something like this has been proposed here before. I don’t pretend to be a veteran ENWorlder as I just found this website last summer, so if I am going over well-tilled soil, I apologize.
I am, however, a veteran gamer like most people here (I started with OD&D in the late 70’s) and more importantly, I have a lot of experience in running mod teams for computer game conversions. In particular, I am the project lead at DLA, which is NWN’s largest mod team. At about 30 members of hobbyists, semi-pros and professionals in the computer games industry, DLA has enjoyed a lot of success and I was ultimately contracted by BioWare to have DLA develop content for NWN on a paying basis for their Premium Module series. Many of our members at DLA have moved on and been hired as game developers over the years, at Blizzard, Codemasters, EA and BioWare, amongst others.
For a number of reasons, PnP gamers tend not to organize themselves to take on bigger projects like computer game and CRPG enthusiasts do. We can endlessly discuss why this is so and find the exceptions to this by discussing the various Net Books which have appeared over the years I suppose…
But I’d rather not. Instead, having read what we are all capable of over the past year or so and having looked at the various recent threads like Mouseferatu’s great design thread and Morrus’ similar thread, I have developed a deep and abiding respect for the creativity of my fellow ENWorlders.
But still, when news like Paizo’s recent announcement over the Adventure Path #1 being published as a book in July 2005 or Adventure Path #2 coming out installments are so warmly received by most people here, it gets me to thinking…
Why not do this ourselves?
The creativity of hundreds if not thousands here at ENWorld is more than equal to the task. Not surprising, given that so many published authors, interested hobbyists and first time contributors to Dragon, Dungeon and various D20 small presses come from the ranks of ENWorld.
So now we get to it and here is my proposal: I am well experienced with organizing a mod team flung over the planet. I know how to manage and co-ordinate such a project. I have access to fellow members of DLA who are both PnP RPG enthusiasts, extremely gifted 3d and 2d artists and graphic designers. While I don’t claim to have a team of Monte Cooks, I *DO* have a team of artists who would be willing to help the cause whose
art is every bit -and in some cases, put bluntly even *better* than - anything you will see in the pages of Paizo’s publications.
Why not get a bunch of ENWorlders together and hammer out a plotline for our own Adventure Path? Assign portions of that path to members of the team. Get the module submissions written in and passed around the team. Edit them, copy-proof, tweak massage and revise ‘em. Add in the art resources and maps my guys at DLA can do – and then release a monster 300-400 page .pdf here at Enworld as a free download? Every participant would have a hand crafted, slickly formatted adventure that he/she contributed to for use in their own campaigns – and it would be of great benefit to other gamers generally.
This can be an adventure path along the lines of anything the participants desire. We might want to go for a generic Greyhawk Style/FR path. We might want to do something that would fill a real need like a Star Wars D20 monster Campaign Module set in any era (official or otherwise) that we decide. Or something for a smaller D20 setting like Midnight or Freeport or the Black Company *whatever*. It’s really not important to hammer those details out now – simply to get the juices flowing and people’s interest up.
Believe me, I know what a team of 30 people can do – and the resources of a whole lot of skilled hands can sometimes be bloody scary. We would not need that large a team for something like this. Half that number would do nicely.
In an era where its hard to sell adventures and harder still to get retailers to stock them and publishers to make them – why not fill that need ourselves?
Any interest in this? And what sort of setting for an ENWorld Adventure Path theme might appeal to you?
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