Before the Planting

The Cover ImageBefore the Planting is the most recent thing I have written for Torg Eternity on the Infiniverse Exchange.

This one is a short adventure, set in The Living Land, and involves gospog fields, which are a central part of the background for Torg Eternity. The Storm Knights have to chase kidnapped refugees through the jungle, avoiding natural hazards, and then ensure that they can get to safety. In short, it is supposed to be “classic” Living Land.

I have also experimented with a few structural ideas that I had about RPG adventures. In an adventure, you want the actions of the player characters early in the adventure to have consequences later, because otherwise it is a railroad where their decisions make no difference, and that quickly becomes boring. However, if successes earlier in the adventure make the climax easier, you risk an anti-climax. Either that, or failures earlier in the adventure guarantee failure at the end, which is also no fun. So, what can you do?

What I am trying in this product is having the actions make a difference to the context of the later conflicts, to determine what they mean. Thus, a success earlier means that a success at the climax secures a major success, while an earlier failure means that the Storm Knights are restricted to trying to redeem their failure. Thus, decisions and successes make a difference, without changing the level of challenge of the climax, and thus keeping it as the climax. At least, that’s the plan. I think it works, but players make the final decision.

I did say the Spirited Tools might be my last Infiniverse Exchange product, but Ulisses Spiele have started promoting the IE, and I still had ideas, so I have written some more. I am still, however, not sure that this is something I should be spending time on. I will probably produce at least one more product, because I have definite ideas for something fairly short, but I really do not know whether I will keep writing for this.


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