Episode 7: New Companions & Quests, Same Old Story!

As the need to patch the first module lessens, I have been able to concentrate on building the second module. This week I have gone back to the main plot (continuing from the first module) and looked at some of the main story conversations I need to write to move the plot forward. As it happens, the NPC whose conversation I found myself writing for this week is known to my PnP players of old, and (if they have a good memory), they may recall some of their earlier adventures related to them. This same conversation also offers one of the new companions I hope to bring with the next module.

YET ANOTHER AREA

This week also saw me having to build another unexpected new area. The problem was due to an encounter that the PCs were going to have (in an area I was working on), which, in my opinion, spoiled the ambiance of the area it was going to take place in. So, rather than compromise the atmosphere of the area in question, the encounter was moved to its own new "prelude" area. Thankfully, I was able to rehash an existing area in such a way that it looks fresh and serves the purpose. The screenshot today comes from this new area.

The new area in place, I was finally able to start the conversation. Thankfully, existing code made the encounter conversation start quite easily, and all I have to do is simply flesh out the story. Nearby, I also started another conversation that employed my new dual conversation path system: This basically allows me to start a conversation for a MP audience when required, but fall back to a SP response when the MP aspect is over, with an ability to switch back to MP conversing if need be. I believe it works well, and means gaming atmosphere can be preserved during cutscene conversations, irrespective of SP/MP play.

ITEM SETS

From the very start, the campaign has included some items (including "sets") that I had downloaded with the intention of using at some point in time. I believe the original author was called Apep, but I have been unable to find any existing link to his original work. However, the code appeared to have been written for NWN1, and so I had to completely rewrite the scripts required for the item set system. That is now complete and tested as working, which means I can now make use of these item sets. I already have a quest in mind for at least one set. Other sets may or may not make it into the final release of the campaign, but my hope is that I will include all if possible.

THE MAIN STORY

As The Scroll was written for people of various backgrounds, whether they had played in my campaign before or not, the main story may not have always been obvious from the start when first playing The Scroll. Because of this, I think some players may be left with the impression that the campaign may not even have a main story. That, however, is NOT the case: There is a main story! The first main cutscene when transitioning to the village for the first time is the obvious allusion to this. (My PnP players already knew and have encountered "Morcoss" from my first ever PnP scenario back in 1989. If you want their full background story, then check out my website: The World of Althéa. Click on the Adventure Background book at the top, and then scroll or use the side menu bar to read the content.)

Many years ago now, my original intention was to wait until I had completed the campaign in its entirety before releasing it, so that I could help focus the player on this story as the rest of the game played. However, as the years passed by, and my health deteriorated, it soon became clear that I needed to break the campaign down into a number of smaller parts/modules to be able to deliver anything at all. At that point in time, I had to change the focus of the story to the PC's immediate environment, and true to D&D tradition, I made their immediate problem the main thrust of the current story ... but that was for module one only.

This next module I am writing takes the PC (and by nature the player) outside of their "bubble" they have been acquainted with, and now thrusts them into the bigger world. (Even though the first module also took the player many hundreds of miles from the village in its own way.) When the player plays module two, they will now take a greater part in the main story that my original PnP players already knew about. This plot line would also be more noticeable to players if they ever tried the first choice of background, as that opens up some events that relate to PnP days and earlier events that a new player would be unfamiliar with.

If the thrust of the first module was to introduce the player to the world, lore and mechanics of Althéa, the thrust of the second module is to bring the player up to speed with what my PnP players already know ... The Main Story! Designing the campaign and making this happen in such a way that does not go over old ground for my PnP players, and yet brings every new player up to speed is the difficulty at the moment, and was even more so probably in the first module. The plan is, that by the end of certain events of this second module, every player should be in the same place with respect to what they know about world events and what they are going to do about them. Background one and two should, hopefully, come together, so that by the third (and final) module, all players will be starting from the same place of understanding.

In conclusion, the "story focus" of second module returns to the true main story for the campaign. I hope this will help players to reflect on events of module one, in much the same way as my players from PnP days already witness familiar peoples and events in the first module that new players obviously cannot. Basically, events in module two transform the events of module one into something more momentous. Compared to a simple "barrier" problem, one may even say, epic.

Encounter Along The Forest Path!