RPGaDay2020 - Day 1: Beginning
#RPGaDay2020 has swung around quickly! I've taken part in this event previously, although I think I missed the last year due to life, the universe and everything else. Given I've got back into scenario writing recently, it seems a perfect time to re-engage with this yearly celebration of roleplaying.
The theme of the opening day is BEGINNING. I could interpret this in a number of ways, but I'm going to focus on two—how I got into RPGs and how I started writing adventures and scenarios.
Gateways to adventure...
My entry into roleplaying was something of a chance encounter, though might be considered fate when all is said and done. I remember that our local church in the tiny village in which I grew up had a used book stall. In it, there was pretty much a complete run of Fighting Fantasy books and the majority of the Lone Wolf choose your own adventure books. At the age of about 8 or 9 I'd discovered Fighting Fantasy with Forest of Doom and I was exciting to find more of them. And at 20p each I began voraciously acquiring them with my pocket money. The vicar's wife must have taken notice, because one day she gifted me the complete run of Basic through Immortal D&D sets. You see, the Fighting Fantasy books had belonged to one of their sons and, upon seeing my obsession with them, decided that I'd probably enjoy D&D too.
I'll always be grateful for that gift, because it opened my eyes to a whole world of adventure. My brother and I would spend countless hours running my party of adventurers (led by none other than Beowulf, Dragon Slayer, fighter extraordinaire) through endless quests. Over time they amassed incalculable wealth, forged domains and kingdoms and eventually ascended into the immortal sphere. We kind of gave up there—the I mortals ruleset being hard to parse at the age of 11—and eventually I moved on to AD&D, then 3rd Edition, Vampire and so on. But I have a soft spot for the old BECMI sets that probably explains my currently obsession with the OSR and the adventure I recently designed for it...Ominous Crypt of the Blood Moss.
Crafting worlds...
Ominous Crypt is my latest adventure to be published and the first one that I have self-published under my own company, Oneiromantic Press. It specifically has meaning to me because it is designed for Basic D&D, specifically the new Old-School Essentials ruleset, and nostalgically harks back to the days of my youth (though I don't think young me would have written about cosmic moss that sucks out and feeds onyour thoughts and experiences...). However, it isn't the first scenario I've ever written for publication.
That honour goes to The Keepers of the Woods, a one-sheet Trail of Cthulhu scenario I wrote for a Gumshoe competition over on RPGGeek that was sponsored Pelgrane Press. I knocked it out in an afternoon, although the premise for it had been swirling around at the back of my mind for a while. Surprisingly, it won and I decided to develop it into a full length scenario. It being for Trail of Cthulhu meant that I couldn't self publish it, but I contacted Pelgrane and asked if they'd be interested in hosting it as a free download. They said yes, and you can still pick it up over on the Trail of Cthulhu resources page. It has since been converted to The Cthulhu Hack by Paul Baldowski and I believe is available to patrons of Just Crunch Games' Patreon should you want a copy for this system.
The feedback I received from Keepers of the Woods was encouraging enough to make me throw my hat in the ring for the 2018 Chaosium scenario competition with Those Within, a Gaslight era Call of Cthulhu scenario, which also won and is available via the Cult of Chaos forums. This repeated success has inspired me, despite a two year gap, to try and put out more rpg content. Ominous Crypt promises to be the first of several books to come from Oneiromantic Press. I've a few more ideas fermenting away and hope to begin sharing them soon!