HAZARDOUS WRITING PROCEDURES (WANDERING HEROES OF OGRE GATE)

Some books with my campaign and setting notes in a binder

I once again apologize for the long silence on the blog. We've been working hard to finish Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate and that has taken first priority. I am happy to say we are on track, and expect this to go to the editor by June (after which is goes to layout). We may still be working on some art at that stage, so it is difficult to say exactly when it will go to the printers (but it won't be that long). 

In the meantime I thought I would give folks a window into the writing and research process here at Bedrock. 

As I finalize the material in the manuscript I find myself going over my notes and sources. When I start a project my plate is clean and I keep everything well organized. Invariably by the end my desk looks like something out of an episode of Hoarders, with books strewn on the table and notes crammed in between (see images). 

Other books and my spiral notes 

I must have the worst organizational skills of any writer or designer I know. I look at other peoples' clean work spaces with envy when they post shots on twitter or Facebook. At some point I am going to invest in a current project shelf (a shelf behind my computer that is devoted only to books I am currently using as sources for a project). Still I have a sinking feeling it will just become like my other shelves and never serve its intended function. 

One issue I have is I just can't stand to put books away when they may be of use to me during a project. These pictures are just of my immediate workspace, I also have stacks of books in the other room that are related to Ogre Gate but not immediately useful to me (not to mention I pulled all my martial arts movies out and piled them on the coffee table just in case I needed to check something while writing--my wife is infinitely patient with my writing habits). 

Some projects I use spiral notepads for my notes, others I use index cards (generally index cards make writing easier in my opinion but they can take up a huge amount of space on a big project like this). 

I should emphasize, since I am posting images of history books here, this is not for a historical Chinese setting, but rather a fantasy analog, so while we are using lots of sources for inspiration, people shouldn't anticipate Ogre Gate being a historical resource book (a game like Qin might be more handy for that). We do go into things like the Imperial Exams, key customs, and religion but these are all specific to our setting, so for this reason it would serve as a bad source set in Imperial China (because you might import a god we made up, or a custom that is unique to the setting itself). 

These final months are always very harrowing as we go over everything one final time and set it all in stone. While I know all our design and setting choices were right for our own table and for the people who assisted us, how others will receive the game is always more murky (exciting but murky). 

The good news is, I have about two days to second guess our choices, then it is on to the Profound Masters of Ogre Gate supplement (something I am looking forward to working on). Once Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate is out we can put more focus on support for it an other existing lines (Sertorius for example). 

PROFOUND MASTERS OF OGRE GATE

Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate has six levels of Qi characters can achieve. Once you reach Qi rank 6, you are pretty much at the apex of human potential for Kung Fu. At this point you are almost a force of nature. 

It takes some time to reach Qi rank 6 and it is no small achievement. To rise that high in the martial world you have to defeat many foes more powerful than yourself. But once characters do attain this level of mastery there are still places for them to go. 

When we send Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate to layout, we start work on the next book: Profound Masters of Ogre Gate. This will not only be expanded rules for Immortal characters it will also enhance the mythical and fantasy elements of the game, taking things to a whole new level. Right now we are thinking of Profound Masters as supplying play inspired by sources like Journey to the West, Madame White Snake and Chinese Paladin 1&3.

It is still in the early phases of planning, but likely it will contain the following: 

• A chapter dedicated to Profound Kung Fu Techniques
• A chapter dedicated to Immortal Powers
• An expanded monster section
• An overview of the different realms
• GM advice
• New Objects of Power
• Sample Adventures

More will certainly come as we work on it. This is just what we've discussed at this stage. 

TOMB OF THE TIMELESS MASTER PLAYTEST II

I have been play testing Tomb of the Timeless Master (a dungeon for Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate) with two separate groups. Here is the last report for group 1 and here is the last report for group 2. On Sunday group had its second session in the Tomb. This was their second session in the tomb and this is the second report for that session. 

Characters Present:

Shimei
Shen

The party did something similar, yet different from the other one. They had both gone into the lair of Jia, a snake demon who was married to Doctor Shun 100 years ago and is now awaiting his rebirth. Shimei found the robes of the physician Shun and put them on. When Jia arrived, Shen (who had seen the wall scroll and knew about Shun's history) tried to convince her that Shimei was the reincarnation of her former husband. This worked and Jia was pleased to be reunited. 

However, Shimei was evasive, and did not secure her trust enough for Jia to let him out of her sights. This led to an argument and Jia grew increasingly hostile toward Shen (who she saw as a potential rival). Shimei was unable to stop Jia's rage and she unleashed a hair-whipping strike, trying to entangle the party. 

Shimei and Shun used Great Stride to flee the area and made it to a Grotto with a latrine in the southeastern section of the canyon, before they were cornered by Jia. Though Jia managed to ensnare Shimei in her hair strands, they were able to pin her with attacks like Blast of the Dragon, Fluttering Kicks and Storming Daggers. 

In the battle Shimei was struck by Jia's Naga Palm and they had to leave for Zun City to find a cure. On the way their they got lost but managed to make it before Shimei died (he estimated that he had 1-10 days to live). At a Sun Mai temple they were able to find treatment and they set off again for the canyon. On their way they got lost again, then had a run in with two Zun tribesmen who put up a good fight and seemed to want revenge for the Snake Demon. 

Believing they needed help navigating the wilderness they returned to Zun City and hired a guide named Wuji, a young man who was knowledgeable of the area. 

Returning to the canyon they went to the southern tombs and explored. There they fought with the Golden Sword Maiden (a solid gold warrior who materialized when they tried to take a passage toward the treasury). They found the treasury and secured the Talisman of the Golden Maiden as well as several other objects (including a handful of taels). 

They succeeded in evading a spear-trapped hall before reaching the western section of the tomb. This is where the session ended. 

When this group completes the dungeon I will write a comparison post. 

THE SECRET OF JE VALLEY VI

This campaign is set ten years after a previous set of adventures (HERE). This is the sixth full session of the current campaign (Session V can be found HERE). 


Characters:
Xue Lingsu (Purple Cavern Sect)
Kang Xi (Affiliated with Mr. Red Claw)
Zhi Zhu (No Sect)
Long Shu (Purple Cavern Sect)
Min (Purple Cavern Sect)
Rong (Tree-Dwelling Nun Sect)

The party continued their exploration of the the Zun Canyon Valley in search of the Tomb of the Timeless Master. They found a number of grottoes and stair paths along the inner rim of the canyon and decided to go into the ones on the southern wall first because they looked like burial chambers and were flanked by giant statues of the Eight Magistrates. Inside they came upon a mass grave with a tablet bearing forty names. From there they moved south but as soon as they entered the southern passageways a swirl of golden dust appeared before them and took the shape of a golden sword maiden. 

The Golden Sword Maiden attacked but was largely controlled by Zhi Zhu's arms of silk (something that has become a regular tactic against single foes). Because she was restrained by Zhi Zhu's sleeves, the maiden was only able to kick at the party. It was a team effort and when they killed her she melded into the stone floor. 

Continuing on their way they found a treasury with a locked iron door. Kang Xi used his mechanical skills to force it open. This took time but they didn't attract any enemies while he worked. Inside the chamber they found a box filled with thousands of taels, a tripod cauldron, a clay pixie, a jade phoenix medallion and Golden Sword Maiden talisman. Min took the talisman, and the Golden Sword Maiden materialized once again before the party, this time kowtowing three times before she vanished.

From here the party continued eventually coming to the burial chamber of Qian Chengsi. Upon his stone coffin was a plaque that informed them he was "commandant of the upper fortress" and a great hero who fought the demon emperor. They opened the limestone lid and the body of Chengsi rose up stiff as a hopping ghost (it seemed the spirit keeping ritual had been improperly performed when he was buried). Time in the coffin had clearly driven him mad, and he immediately attacked the party. They were able to quickly dispatch him as he was vulnerable to their Kung Fu Techniques. 

Moving on, the party made their way through a deadly spear trap, with Zhi Zhu triggering it until it could no longer reload, and finally found the tomb of the Timeless Master. On his coffin was written: "I am the Timeless Master. Kowtow three times and take me as your Sifu. I will teach you powerful Kung Fu to destroy your enemies and protect your allies.”

Long Shu decided to kowtow three times and the lid of the coffin opened, revealing a golden scroll case. He took the scroll and made sure it was the Three Finger Manual (which it was) and they headed back toward the entrance. 

On their way Long Shu started having visions of blood on the walls that read "Find my body. It’s in the upper fortress. Return it here where it belongs as your first act of obedience.”

So the party explored further until they found the upper fortress (a series of hewn chambers about 100 feet high on the northern rim of the canyon). It took some time and a narrowly avoided encounter with ape-like creatures before they came to a portion of the fortress that was clearly inhabited. There they met Leaping Leopard, a Zun Tribesman who claimed to be a guardian for the goddess Jia and forbid them to pass. 

They defeated Leaping Leopard, with the decisive tactic once again being Arms of Silk by Zhi Zhu (not in terms of damage output but in terms of controlling the fight). From there they continued on and found more signs of habitation. They found a room with a Shrine dedicated to Doctor Shun, a great physician who had died nearly 100 years ago. There were still offerings to to his spirit and in an alcove they found a box with robes matching those he was wearing in a wall scroll above the shrine. 

Long Shu put the robes on (which were about 100 years old) and they headed into the western section of the complex. They found a tea room, that also showed signs of recent use. Zhi Zhu made tea for herself and was interrupted by a woman in black and red robes who was hostile to their intrusion. The woman was Jia, a snake demon (they were able to infer this because they knew the story of Doctor Shun and his snake demon wife). Because Long Shu was wearing Shun's robes, Jia mistook him for the reincarnation of her husband and was overjoyed. He played along and said they could be reunited once he found the Timeless Master's body and returned it to its rightful place. She told him where in the complex the body could be found and promised to ready his room while she waited. 

Jia had warned them that they would pass a kitchen with a magical arrow trap and when they passed through, they found the room was swarmed by thousands of arrows. To get around this they used a table as a shield and made their way to a sealed chamber door (which Kang Xi had to open). Beyond the door was the body of an Ogre Demon with a missing hand. As soon as Long Shu entered it arose and attacked him. 

The creature was tough, hard to hurt and it managed to strike Lingsu and deplete his Qi energy. The party used a clever tactic to deal with the creature, having Zhi Zhu wrap it in Arms of Silk while Long Shu used his Blast of the Dragon technique to hurl it into the trapped kitchen area. This didn't go as planned initially and they ended up fending it back with melee attacks in a narrow hall before they were able guide him into the kitchen and let the arrows do their work. 

After they killed the Ogre Demon, they found a chamber with the Timeless Master's body. He was riddled with arrows and laying on the ground, mostly skeletal at this point. They brought him to his tomb and placed him there. Then they went back to speak with Jia. 

This is where the session ended. 
 

DRIFT IN DESIGN

I touched on the idea of Drift in an earlier Blog post (HERE) but I think it is worth discussing on its own. This is something I've observed in my own play tests (I'm sure others have noticed this as well and I'm sure the term, or variations of it, is floating around the net). It occurs when the rules of the game state X but over time you start to do Y instead without realizing the error. This simply happens over time and feels natural so you don't notice until you re-read the rule in the manuscript or book. In particular I'm talking about Drift that arises when you are developing a game, but it definitely is something you see with existing systems. 

Drift is something we are always looking for. Most recently it occurred with our Restrain rules in Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate. We always wanted to keep this simple, not get into more involved mechanics. Somehow it shifted at the table away from what the text said and toward something else. 

I see this all the time and it is usually a sign of one of two things: the rule cuts against natural expectations or the rule doesn't adequately handle what it is meant to represent (it can also just mean people are being forgetful, thinking of another system or weren't paying attention to the rules document). When it cuts against expectations, that can be okay. Sometimes you are just used to mechanics working a certain way and need to get used to change. However if it continues to be a problem, I think it is a sign that the mechanic doesn't fit well with how people want to run the game and changing it becomes a strong option. 

If the mechanic simply doesn't do the job it is supposed to do, then you have to rework it or get rid of it. Drift can be a product of fixing rules live during play without deliberate effort.  You are just unconsciously smoothing it over, and that becomes an unofficial rule that replaces what the text says. 

Sometimes Drift happens because people didn't review the rules document enough. I generally make a point of referencing rules we are working on every time they come up initially, so this is rare, but it still crops up if I let myself get lazy. 

The problem with Drift is it is one of the more insidious things that can creep into a game without you realizing it before it hits the shelves. If you don't catch drift then you are effectively playing a different game then you are releasing to the public and that is a huge issue. That is a significant disconnect and it makes it difficult to address ongoing issues with the system. 

Preventing Drift and catching it when it does arise, is something I've learned to make a priority. The last thing you want to be doing is fixing Drift right before edits or (even worse) right before layout. 

Here is what I do to prevent Drift:

1) Read my own rules: This sounds simple, it sounds easy, but when you've read your own writing 100 times, it can be easy to miss content and project content onto it. So rather than re-reading the manuscript in one sitting each week, I break it into chunks, slowly going over each section individually and reviewing key sections before and after playtest. 

2) Print my own rules: I always print one new copy of the manuscript before each game session (I print several in the early stages, but it eventually gets too expensive to print multiple copies every game). I also have two players who have the most current version of the rules on their laptops. 

3) Look-up rules during play: I usually assign one player to be the official rules reviewer/lawyer for the session. I also keep my copy of the rules handy and look them up with they arise. As an example when playing Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate, we review the text of each technique when it comes up so we know we are applying it correctly. 

4) I playtest RAW: Outside of Playtest, I don't worry about RAW as much. But in a playtest for a system I'm developing I play the rules as written and am pretty rigid about it. I just want to make sure the text on the page reflects what is actually going on at the table. 

All of this is quite helpful. The biggest things really though are the regular reviews of the text and looking things up during play. The latter definitely slows things down. It can be a pain to lose momentum just to look up a minor rule, but Drift happens if you don't. 

TOMB OF THE TIMELESS MASTER PLAYTEST REPORT (WANDERING HEROES)

I have a somewhat tricky job today because I am writing a playtest report for a session I ran Sunday putting two players through (Ben and Michelle) through the Tomb of the Timeless Master but I have another group also going through it this coming Saturday. For this reason I am going to attempt a spoiler free playtest report, then on the following week I will write a comparison of both groups experiences. 

The Tomb of the Timeless Master is a dungeon that will be part of our gazetteer in Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate. The playtest session went smoothly and the challenges and combats were suitable for characters of Qi Level 3. Characters with Lightness Kung Fu (Qinggong) definitely have an edge in some challenges (something we say in our last session of the campaign when the other party arrived at the Tomb: HERE) because it gives them better access to portions of the complex. However there are plenty of other obstacles and challenges demanding different sets of skills and techniques. 

The players explored about 1/4th of the map and will hopefully get through the remainder in the next session or two. From what portion they've experienced so far there seems to be a good amount of material to interact with. I will be adding in a more details and tweaking a couple of NPC entries based on the playtest. 

I found a few places where text needed further explanation of clarification. I also noticed a small error on the character sheet during the playtest (which I fixed). 

What skill sets are represented in the party make a difference as well (this is generally true of the game because it has a lot of skills). What this has meant in play, and what it means for things like dungeons, is hirelings are going to be important if the party has any gaps (for example characters without Survival Skills will possibly want to hire mountain guides). This is something I've noticed over the last year and half of play testing.

The Network system definitely works for dungeon exploration in its current form, which is something we made a point when we revised it for Sertorius. 

We will see how things go this Saturday and Sunday. 

ENCOUNTERS WITH HEROES AND LEGENDS OF THE MARTIAL WORLD (WANDERING HEROES OF OGRE GATE)

Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate is populated by a number of colorful personalities who roam the land just like the PCs. Some of these are good people but many are reckless villains. On my standard encounter tables, I include a "Roll on Martial World Personality Table" entry. When this comes up, I roll on the Personality table to see if the PCs meet any important martial experts. This table is meant to grow and change over time. Rather than list Sect Leader's individually, they come up on a 1-3 (either the nearest sect leader or one random selected). 

Encounter tables are tools of course. Not every encounter like this needs to be the product of a random roll. I also flow encounters into the game as I play the world and try to make it come alive for the players. 

Originally this was just meant to be a way of capturing the tendency in wuxia series for the heroes to bump into fellow martial heroes and villains in their travels. But I saw a really great post on google+ by Uri Kurlianchik that expanded my thoughts on the subject. In the post he advises GMs to put their NPCs onto a table (I don't think he meant a random table but he may have) and recycle them. His approach included adding relevant information about the NPCs which makes a lot of sense, but his point was that this helps create a world that feels alive and also creates a sense of community. So you are not just introducing new NPCs all the time, you are re-using people they've met before because they'll remember Dancing Hawk who outbid them on the Divine Snake Manual back in Chen. It had not occurred to me that this sense of community could be important, but after reading the post, and reflecting on how players have reacted to the presence of "regulars" in the setting, I think it adds something very important to play. I think that is probably why this table appealed to me in the first place. 

Dancing Hawk is part of the circle of heroes/villains who live in the Banyan region. This creates a sense that Dancing Hawk is real and going about his business in the world so that he occasionally bumps into the players (this may be a good thing for them or a bad thing for them depending on personal history). Obviously I don't need a table for that. I can just decide that he shows up for whatever reason (and when I think there is a good reason for such an encounter, I do just that). Random tables simply help me do that in a way that is more natural and surprising. 

Table: MARTIAL WORLD PERSONALITY

Roll (d100)      Result

1                      Sect Leader of Nearest Sect

2-3                   Random Sect Leader

4-5                   Se Saniang

6-10                 Cai Bai

11-15               Dancing Hawk

16-20               Huo Ju (Little Venom)

21-25               Yang Tuo

26-30               Princess Sarnai

31-35               Master Shan

36-40               Strange Phoenix

41-45               Nergui Mogha

46-50               Li Sou Chao (The Witch of Zhaoze Zhou)

51-55               Zhou Gui and Chef Wu

56-60               Master Ta

61-65               Headmaster Mu

66-70               Mak Ching Yuen and Lau Ching Sin

71-75               Madame Hamaya

76-80               Huo Si (The Venom of Zhaoze)

81-85               Jade Butterfly

86-90               Firelance Brothers

91-95               General Qiang

96-100             Yanshi