snake

Crafting Adventure with Evernote

Posted by snake on Apr 9, 2011 in 4ED | 0 comments

Writing has begun in earnest on my second module in the “Larvik Island” series. I thought I’d send out some kudos to the good people at Evernote, an application that I’ve found essential as I finish post-production on the first module and start outlining the second. Goodbye OneNote, Hello Evernote I started using Evernote at work a couple years ago when I switched from using a Windows PC to a Mac full-time. I had used Microsoft OneNote as a “personal wiki” organizing tool...

Lessons Learned from D&D Playtesting

Posted by snake on Mar 22, 2011 in 4ED, RPG, Writing | 0 comments

Lately, I have been impressed with how some publishers in the Dungeons and Dragons community, like the good folks at Emerald Press, Nevermet Press and others, have been extremely forthcoming in blog posts with sales figures and other internal company workings. In that same spirit, this post is my attempt to be equally candid for the benefit of others thinking about writing their own adventures. While I fully intend to write additional articles that cover more aspects of the...

Larvik Island: 2011-02-21 Update

Posted by snake on Feb 21, 2011 in 4ED | 0 comments

So, there’s been a good amount of progress on the module in the last couple of weeks, here’s the breakdown for the faithful readers as well as formally introduce some of other module collaborators: Writing: The writing has been done for a while, and all that is happening now is minor tweaks for grammar and clarity that I discover as I go through playtesting Playtesting: Of the 15 encounters in the module, we’ve now finished playtesting 8 of them, and the...

Larvik Island: 2011-02-06 Update

Posted by snake on Feb 6, 2011 in 4ED | 0 comments

Just a quick update as to where things are in the production cycle: the writing is, effectively done, and I’m now playtesting the entire module. With each session that I playtest, I go back and tweak some of the writing here and there to make a point clearer in tactics or character background. One of the things that has become interesting is how to deal with the size of the module: as it currently stands it is written as 15 encounters (not including the wandering...

Larvik Island: Beta Draft Completed

Posted by snake on Jan 19, 2011 in 4ED | 0 comments

Over the MLK holiday here in the US, I completed the final 3 maps required for Larvik Island that the team and I have been working on. As of this writing, the module contains 14 encounters (excluding Random Encounter I’ve designed) requiring 15 maps and, with the art previews I’ve currently received, clocks in at almost 21,000 words across 47 pages. So what’s next? I’ve DM’d 4 game sessions so far with the playtesters – the latest just...