Five things I learned writing a competition-winning Adventure

[Thondor]

2) Would you have advice for rules design and crunch material writing? Say, if you were designing source material work rather than just adventures.

3) How would this advice differ if you were self-publishing? Are there style guides for writing that just work?

I guess one of the main things is playtesting. Adventures should have some playtesting to (this is the reason 'The Sanctum of the Fiery Ladder' was released as an open playtest) but this is less critical then for rules design.
I've actually begun designing a simple freeform superheroes RPG and I've playtested it with a my own group(s) and at two different conventions. This has given me some great feeback.
Other than that, hang out in the houserules forums here. This is especially useful if you thinking about D&D crunch.

Well if I was self-publishing the major difference is I would probably use Canadian spelling instead of American. Though you should usually follow your source material.

I should really try to get a copy of that guide I mentioned above so I can direct folks to it. I'll try to get to that in the next few days. Also, its an older book but I found Orson Scott Card's "[ame="http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Science-Fiction-Fantasy/dp/158297103X#noop"]How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy"[/ame] is quite good, though the material isn't directly applicable. it does focus a little more on science fiction side.

4) How well did the material you wrote port over to the published material? In its final format, I mean.

Overall at this point I am quite happpy with it. It is however not in its 'final' form. Right now you can download it for free as part of an open playtest. We are still looking for feedback. I believe that the download is being deactivated in the next day or so.

We're going to go through the adventure, make some corrections, apply some of the feedback (we've had very little to date) and then the adventure will be combined with the latest winner 'Gold Strike' and released in print and pdf.

The main thing I'd like is some art . . . but please let me know what you folks think.

 

[Thondor]

Hey!

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Perhaps one of you great adventure writers could propose a course for my work that is all about adventure design. Man, I'd love that.

I would have loved a course in adventure writing. . . Or any course on RPG's would have been awesome at University.

 

[Thondor]

If any other writers have thoughts on their RPG writing experience I'm sure we would all be gald to hear it.

 

[awesomeocalypse]

I'm an editor of commercial fiction and nonfiction, which is admittedly a little different from editing gaming materials, but the two worlds are close enough that I feel I can fairly comfortably clear up a common misconception here:

Editors really don't care that much about grammar.

Seriously, we don't. That's what we pay copyeditors for. No editor is ever going to decide whether or not to take on a project based on whether it was grammatically perfect. I mean, it needs to be a readable, obviously. But beyond that, most editors care far more that the prose be compelling and effective, that the characters be strong, the setting memorable, the conflicts dramatic and the plot engaging. If the content is good, the grammar can be sorted out after the fact. If it isn't, then frankly we don't care about the grammar. That is simply not how we're going to evaluate a project.

Now, obviously when writing an adventure you have an issue fiction and nonfiction do not--namely a strict set of rules that absolutely do matter to whether the material succeeds or not, i.e. the rules of the system. When it comes to rules and mechanics, precision in language is obviously critical. But even there, the rules that must be adhered to won't be found in an ordinary grammar guide, and I'd wager any editor would rather see creative, fun encounter design and well-thought out monsters and npcs, with a few holes or mistakes in the mechanics that need to be fixed, than a mediocre, by the numbers adventure tht has all the mechanical details down perfectly.

 

[Chainsaw]

i write financial research for a living. it's published by a major investment bank (yeah, i'm a wall street bad guy). there are a variety of guys on our research team that can't write worth a crap and make all kinds of errors. that's why we have editors - to read through and offer suggestions and make corrections. it's a team effort. the research guy does the analysis, writes up the investment argument, then sends it to the editors, who make sure the piece actually reads well.

having said that, if you were interviewing for a job as a research analyst and you submitted an example piece that had errrors in it, you'd be toast - not because we'd assume you couldn't differentiate who/whom (though most in my group probably can't and, honestly, don't need to), but because of what it would imply about the quality of your best work, which is presumably what you'd be submitting.

i'd think there would be similarities in the gaming business. you have to understand the system, generate compelling adventure ideas, then present them in an attractive manner. i would think the excitement factor would be ratcheted up a bit though. what i write is fairly technical - it doesn't need to be and, frankly, can't be particularly "exciting" or else it gets flagged as inflammatory (violates SEC standards, etc).

anyway, i've started to wander here and lost my point. let me try to sum up. i agree that grammar's not that important on a daily basis, but if you're competing for a job in a highly competitive industry, you don't want to screw up your application because of grammatical errors.

 

[awesomeocalypse]

My understanding was not that this was about getting a job in the gaming industry, but about getting a single work published, either by contest or some other means of submission.

I agree, when looking for a job in a competitive field, small errors can have a big impact.

But when publishing a single work, that is far less true. The principal concern is not that it be grammatically perfect, but that the work has the potential to be effective and salable. I've bought plenty of books from proposal (and manuscripts) loaded with sloppy grammar or minor errors, but which had a spark that made them undeniably compelling. My advice to any would-be author, of any kind of work, is to first focus on making it as successful as possible at delivering the experience you intend it to, and to worry about the minor details after the fact.

 

[Chainsaw]

i hear you - content is more important the grammar. that's why editors on our staff make less money than the actual analysts. having said that, there's no reason not to make sure the t's are crossed and the i's are dotted, whether you're submitting a piece for a job or just doing a one-shot for a competition. surely you would agree?

 

[awesomeocalypse]

i hear you - content is more important the grammar. that's why editors on our staff make less money than the actual analysts. having said that, there's no reason not to make sure the t's are crossed and the i's are dotted, whether you're submitting a piece for a job or just doing a one-shot for a competition. surely you would agree?

Sure to an extent. It can't hurt, and certainly you don't want it to be glaring enough to detract noticeably from the work, but I also don't see much value in unduly obsessing over split infinitives or the occasional missed comma. No editor is going to decide whether or not to take on a project based on petty grammatical nitpicks.

 

[Chainsaw]

Sure to an extent. It can't hurt, and certainly you don't want it to be glaring enough to detract noticeably from the work, but I also don't see much value in unduly obsessing over split infinitives or the occasional missed comma. No editor is going to decide whether or not to take on a project based on petty grammatical nitpicks.

honestly, i wouldn't know what tolerances a real editor has. the editors where i work are basically just proofreaders. they don't have any authority at all - they don't decide who gets hired, what gets published or anything at all. they're really just glorified proofreaders.

anyway, i think we're on the same page. i agree that obsessing over split infinitives and the sequence of tenses during the content creation stage is probably not terribly constructive. i also agree that one missplaced comma in a body of otherwise interesting work won't sink the ship. once submission time comes though, i can't understand why anyone who believes in their work wouldn't do their absolute best to make sure everything was perfect. i think you agree here, so like i said, i think we're ultimately on the same page.

 

[Thondor]

Sure to an extent. It can't hurt, and certainly you don't want it to be glaring enough to detract noticeably from the work, but I also don't see much value in unduly obsessing over split infinitives or the occasional missed comma. No editor is going to decide whether or not to take on a project based on petty grammatical nitpicks.

Thanks for the input. Its nice to here some thoughts from the other side of the fence as well.

I tend to agree that the ideas, and the ability to properly evoke those ideas is primary. Grammar and sentence structure is not even really a secondary concern, maybe tertiary.

Adventure writing is a very strange because its both very creative and quite technical. Its a hard bridge to straddle as the one urges a certain floweryness (to invent a word) of language and closer to 'stream of counsiousness' flow, while the other urges simple clarity and a 'regulated-structured' kind of flow.

I tend towards a "simple sentences are better" approach, with descriptive words of course