Thoughts on Writing "Isles of Dread"

I'm now well advanced in writing my upcoming campaign, and so I of course have some thoughts:

• Writing these things is hard! Just the routine of piling up words upon words is tough, and making it all interesting, ensuring it hangs together, and that things that get set up all pay off is a whole new level of tough. I do like to think I've done a good job, and that the outcome is somewhat comparable to "Lost Mine of Phandelver" (though that's comparable in the sense of "not as good as"). But it's definitely hard work.
• I keep finding myself caught between two stools: am I writing this for me to run it, or as a mock-product for some hypothetical group in the future. That's a bit of an issue, since the notes I need for myself are much less extensive than otherwise. I've tended mostly towards the mock-product side of things - if the campaign goes well then I may consider polishing it up and making it available somewhere.
• I really like this adventure format: a first part that starts somewhat in the middle of things, then introduce a home base, then a third part exploring a sandbox (with multiple micro entries, three one-or-two encounter areas, and four mini-adventures), and then a big adventure to bring the thing to its conclusion. That feels almost ideal for a 1-5 level mini-campaign, which is also ideal for my current group.
• I've been somewhat frustrated by some of the gaps in the array of available monsters - in particular as regards things like elves and dragonborn (the latter may feature in Fizban's, which I don't have). This has led to me generating rather more custom stat blocks than I'd really prefer. But that's okay - doing so have been a somewhat interesting experience in its own right.
• I really wish the guidance for building monsters, encounters, and adventures provided by the DMG was better. Frankly, that book has turned out to be a massive disappointment.

(Speaking of disappointments, it looks like we've lost one player and may lose another imminently. In which case the survival of the campaign as a whole is imperilled before we even start. Oh well.)

Lifestyle Brand

Over the past few years, D&D has exploded in popularity, to the extent that it is now considered a "lifestyle brand" by Hasbro. Sadly, this is a hugely mixed blessing.

It is no longer the case that the primary use for these various products is as game accessories. Instead, they exist primarily to look good on the tables of rich executives, to allow them to show off their Geek Chic credentials. They have no intention of actually playing the game; they have all of the gear...

The secondary use for these products, for those who want a little more from them, is as reading material. Like most cookbooks, they're still not really intended for use - for the most part they're selling an aspirational lifestyle. They're there to let kids dream of all the fantastical adventures they could have, if only they'd stop dreaming about them and actually start playing.

It's only then that we get to the question of actually using the products.

Even then, there's a very great disparity between players and DMs, which means that the majority of customers, even in this grouping, are mostly interested in new and exciting toys for their PCs - so new race and background options, new magic items, new spells.

All of which goes a very long way to explaining the art-heavy vacuity that is the new Spelljammer set.

The final thing to note is that the vast majority of players (and, therefore, customers) these days have no experience at all with any prior edition - even 4e.

Which means that the upcoming Dragonlance set is largely being aimed at kids of the 80s who were maybe vaguely aware of the name, probably never read the books and certainly wouldn't have been seen dead playing the game - and who are now buying for their grandkids.

Linking in the Characters

As I started on part three of the campaign, I suddenly found myself hitting a major snag - there's no really good reason for the PCs to go off exploring the other islands in the chain. Parts one and two are fairly straightforward in this manner, in that there are clearly some things that need to be done, and part four is the logical and obvious conclusion to it all. But part three is entirely, and indeed intentionally, skippable.

Which is something of a problem.

I have a partial solution, in that a couple of the elements in part two point to things in part three. But these are entirely skippable and besides, as I said, they're just a partial solution.

But, fortunately, there's a solution waiting for me to grab hold of.

Obviously, when the characters are created they'll generate a load of stuff: the usual ability scores, race, class, and so on; and the role-playing stuff as well, such as ideals, bonds, flaws, etc.

However, there are a couple of other things that can usefully be generated:

The players should, of course, be asked to come up with a name and a picture for their character.

They'll also be asked to come up with a reason why their character was on board the Far Horizon travelling to Equinox, and indeed why they were below decks immediately prior to the start of events.

But, finally, each character will be given a connection to the adventure - a lightweight hook to give them some interest in events beyond just "we happen to be here". This is similar to the personal quests I gave characters in the "Quest for Memory" campaign, albeit somewhat more lightweight. And, as an added bonus, they can all point to things in part three, thus giving the characters at least some reason to explore.

That's another partial solution, of course. But hopefully two such solutions should be enough.

What's In a Name?

I've concluded that some of the skills are poorly named, specifically the ones that are obviously and easily derived from a verb: perception, persuasion, deception, intimidate, investigation, and performance.

The problem is to do with action declaration. Ideally, the player should declare what they are trying to do and how they are trying to do it, whereupon the DM decides what roll (if any) they should make. But with those skills the process gets short-circuited: "I try to perceive my surroundings" is a valid action declaration, but it's nothing other than "I roll Perception" restated.

So I'm inclined to think that perception should be renamed to senses, while investigation should be renamed to something like inference.

Performance, meanwhile, I would remove and replace instead with proficiencies in the various styles of performance - most of these are already covered by tool proficiencies, so all that would needed added were things like oratory, song, and the like.

As for persuasion, intimidation, and deception, I've mentioned before that I would be inclined to remove these and instead use proficiencies in social groups (veterans, criminals, scholars...), thus spreading out the "talking to people" skills. Deception, intimidation, and persuasion then become different approaches one can take to social encounters, some of which will work better than others.

Isles of Dread: Ready to Risk a Beginning

As of now, I have completed my first draft of parts one and two of the "Isles of Dread" mini-campaign. They could both do with an additional pass, especially adding more information about terrain features, and they could also both do with the addition of the missing maps - as things stand, I could do with a main map of the islands, plus a handful of smaller maps for the individual adventure locations.

Part three is somewhat more involved, and part four is probably more involved still, so ideally I would like to be well advanced in writing these before starting the campaign proper. However, I think I'm now at a point where I might consider risking making a start on the campaign. If nothing else, if the pitch falls flat, I'd then know not to waste any more time on it.