Wanting to create my own adventure locations for campaign play.

I am thinking of writing my own adventure locations instead of using or tweaking published one's.

Making somebody else work your own can be fun, interesting and formative, but still I think it bring some complications.

I like reading and playing published modules, but I am discovering that I prefer to use my own creations for campaign play.

Mainly simply because it fun to create adventure locations.

Also I think I have reach a point were I have discovered what I like and don't like in modules, and now I want to try to create adventure locations that support what I enjoy in location design and gameplay.

I also want to feel more at home with my campaign settup, with a net of adventure location of my own creation, I think I will feel more confident to improvise while playing.

Traps & Challenges

I want to expand a little on my comment about traps & challenges.

It seem important to give the players information or ways to distinct between traps & challenges.

• Trap = danger with no reward at the end.
• Challenge = danger with a reward at the end.

(reward = treasure, clues, new area to explore, etc)

Also:

• Trap = something to identify and to avoid.
• Challenge = choosing to take risks to get a reward or to unlock content.

So, in a sense:

• Avoiding to interact with a trap = good move or tactic.
• Avoiding to interact with a challenge = avoiding to play the game.

(well naturally challenges are also about choice, so choosing not to face a challenge for a good reason is playing the game. This is different from avoiding interacting with something just because you are too prudent or careful and don't want to face risk & challenge.)

When players can't distinct traps from challenges, they will probably deal with challenges as if they were traps: they will avoid interacting with them. (because avoiding interacting with a trap that is just a trap is a good move).

So I guess it important to make it clear that traps are traps and challenges are challenges. Or to give means and ways to distinct each one.

It important that players know that a part of the gameplay is to distinct traps from challenges. So they will try to identify what is just a trap and what is a challenge.

Naturally the distinction between traps and challenges is not always clear. Sometime they overlap. For example tricks like drinking pools and magical mirror that randomly give boon or curses.

I agree that sometime it is interesting that the distinction is not clear cut. But I think that for a introducing adventure, it is good to make the distinction clear to avoid ending up with players confusing trap & challenges who mix them up together and end up fearing & avoiding them all.

Now I want to read all your blog posts about trap crafting. ;-)

The Prince of Crows

The prince who reign over one of the old watchtowers (for my Labyrinth Lord campaign).

Post-apocalyptic car-god

Busy today, a repost from my old blog. Somekind of car-god apparition that I had drawn for Apocalypse World (but I never actually used it since our AW campaign was very short-lived):