Two Lost Crates- Week 3

I completed the first draft (5,500 words) of the adventure "Two Lost Crates".  The rewrites and editing smoothly move along. Clunky parts of the scenario, bits I assumed I would write later but forgot, and little inconsistencies keep me busy. Because of the scenario's more farcical subject matter, I’m also trying to put a more Wodehouseian tone into the text. Its lighthearted, low stakes subject should stand out as much as possible for the GM.

The biggest surprise of this week was my realization cutting my favorite scene obliterated most of my biggest problems. With all the research and groundbreaking done, I think after one more week I’ll finish my part and hand it over to proofreaders. So next Friday I’ll wrap up the adventure, then we’ll go back to regular posts. I should post Two Lost Crates sometime in late February-early March. I hope you enjoy.

As always, if you have questions, suggestions, feel free to comment below.

Two Lost Crates- Week 2

After another week of scenario writing, I have 5,100 words written.  I hope to have about 6,000 words total. That’s 1,000 more than “A Man of His Word”. Much of that increase in length is due to the amount of detail I believe needed for PC’s performing a heist in high society.

The scenario is designed to be run over two sessions, and has a pretty obvious two act structure. Besides continuing to write, I also did quite a bit of fact checking and rewriting on the first part as problems arose in the second half. Now that so many problems dissolved, I feel better about the adventure’s tone and structure than I did last week. The farcical, low stakes nature of the adventure worried me, but building the big set piece satisfied my desire for action and excitement. I’ve now written most of the scenario, with just the climax and resolution left to do. After that, the next step is editing and readability, then my proofreaders can tear into it.

I should be able to finish my first draft this week, which means we can get back to our usual blogging soon.

Two Lost Crates- Week 1

I’ve wanted to write up another scenario for the blog since I posted “A Man of His Word”, but I’m having trouble spreading my creativity between blogging, my current Victoriana campaign, and writing a new scenario.  To free up a little time and energy, I’m taking a hiatus from producing weekly content in favor of scenario writing. You will still get progress reports on Fridays, but until the majority of the writing is done that will be the extent of my blogging.

I spent some time over Christmas thinking over past Victoriana adventures. I’ve a run few of which I’m proud, but the adventure couldn’t be specific to the player characters of my group, and needed to stand alone. I decided on a scenario called “Two Lost Crates”. As the title suggests, in the adventure the party try to recover two crates stolen from a dockside warehouse in London, leading them to pull two heists: one in a low class environment, and one in a high class environment.

It’s coming along well enough. There are tons of ideas, habits, and techniques in my head when I run a game. I’m trying to figure out how much of that needs to be in the scenario. I’ll keep posting my progress each Friday. I have about 3,600 words of 6,000 written for my first draft. We should be able to continue with the weekly content in February.

If you have run or played in my other scenario “A Man of His Word”, I would love to hear from you in the comments section.

Expanding the Portrait Gallery

Happy New Year everyone, and welcome to the third year of Skullduggery in the Smoke. As I ease into life after vacation, I’m adding some new faces and a new section to the Portrait Gallery. The Gallery now has humans. It’s pretty lonely for now, but it will grow.

Don’t worry, I haven’t jumped the shark. Human portraits are easy, but I still clean and adjust the illustrations for character portraits. All that extra time saved helped me tackle more challenging subjects: Two Beastfolk and an African Orc. The Orc was the most difficulty to make in the batch. While I’m making illustrations based on racial characteristics, I don’t want to make Racist illustrations based on racial characteristics (a fine line indeed).

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