20 Tips for Writing & Publishing a RPG Adventure

[@varenoftatooine2393]

A good step that might save money and embarrassment before sending it off to an editor is to either read it out loud first, or have it read out loud to you, either through text to speech or a trusted friend. Sometimes you can be blind to your mistakes, but maybe not deaf to them

[@goadfang]

I'll just reference a recent campaign I ran, Out of The Abyss in D&D, and it tells you the reason for the events of the adventure in Chapter 11. No where prior to this did the book ever even mention the root cause of all the trouble the module had placed the characters in. And the whole set up could have been described in two paragraphs at the front. Instead they expected you to just read it like a novel, I guess in some silly desire to have this knowledge be a big reveal to the DM, like I care about a Big Reveal. I just need to know WTF is actually going on so I can bake this cake, dammit.

[@SSkorkowsky]

Wow. I think you found the winner of couch-read campaigns. Also, I am completely unable to picture you baking a cake from a recipe. Baking a cake by combining 2 different recipes and some half-remembered 3rd recipe you saw on KZbin once, I can picture that.

[@TheodoreMinick]

Heh. Another point from OoTA: It assumes the PC's actions in several places, including the main plot. My group went in an entirely different direction, requiring me to basically rip the back half of the adventure into chunks and shuffle them.

[@goadfang]

@@SSkorkowsky Hey, I'm a pretty good cook. You've had my Brain on Drugs sandwiches, right? Can't beat fried spam and egg on garlic toast!

[@goadfang]

@@TheodoreMinick oh man, it makes such assumptions. Goal for the first half: Escape the underdark! Goal accomplished? Great, your characters go... do stuff for awhile... then Bruenor Battlehammer calls them back to go back to the Underdark... wait, what? Why did they leave? Why didn't they just get sent back down immediately instead of having all this downtime before someone finally decided to do something about this damn demon incursion? What if they decide the can't leave and must do something about this demon incursion? WHY IS THIS MODULE THE WAY THAT IT IS???

[@TheodoreMinick]

@@goadfang yup. At no point did my group see the open sky, much less Bruenor. They got their military force from House Baenre. I snagged a Drow fortress from the DM's Guild, let them clear it of the "heretics" inside and take it over, and then they proceeded to conquer the underdark, and clear out those pesky demons. At least I got to do the big kaiju battle at the end.

[@johnathansanford8206]

Traveler missed the opportunity to name their dm "The Navigator"

[@johnkfriday]

Star Wars RPG should have called theirs Nerf-Herders.

[@--enyo--]

Conan missed the opportunity to call the GM the Doom Master.

[@thel33tpenguinftw40]

When we play traveller my friends always refer to me as if i'm the ship's computer because I read off world descriptions for them

[@FMD-FullMetalDragon]

Comparing an adventure to a recipe in a cookbook is genius. That really helped me a lot. Thank you.

[@ScottDorward]

Great video, Seth! You've covered pretty well all the stuff I wish I'd known when I started out. The main bit of advice I'd add, building on some of Seth's points, is to remember that you're writing a scenario and not a story. A scenario provides the building blocks of a story -- characters, locations, plot hooks, etc. -- but the story itself is what happens at the table. Think of what you're doing as technical writing rather than storytelling. You just need to present these elements as simply and directly as possible.

[@Bluecho4]

Exactly. If all you want is to tell a story, consider writing a novel instead. It'll give you what you actually want. If you want to write an adventure module, it needs to be a flexible toolset that GMs and Players can work together with to produce _their own_ story.

[@PaulGaither]

Me, who will never write, let alone publish my own adventure: Interesting, go on...

[@poorme1art]

I don't even play RPG's. I should run a game soon, but I've been watching these videos for ages and only now I'll finally get friends together to play.

[@--enyo--]

Yep 💯

[@delongjohnsilver7235]

A major tip I have is don’t forget that your reader may have a reading disability, so use a font that is easy to read for a normal person, but also has distinguished letters. For example, I l, which is a capital i and which is a lowercase l? Who knows, and it makes it that much harder for someone who can’t as easily use the rest of the word to figure it out.

[@James4488]

I totally agree with this. Word has a million fonts and I'll spend an hour trying to pick out a cool new one to use in a D&D handout and end up circling back to like the four that you can actually read It's very annoying.

[@James4488]

Sorry to double comment, your post but I thought you might be a good person to ask this to. In terms of text readers I'm having trouble figuring out how to do box text or asides. Like playtest examples to relate to Seth's excellent video. I think most stuff I can probably do in paragraph form to make it text reader friendly. But there are a few things that don't really fit that format. I honestly never thought about things like that very much but we live in the 21st century so it seems like I should be able to make it work but still a bit confused how best to do it. Thanks for any advice you have.

[@delongjohnsilver7235]

@@James4488 For that, I'd need a bit more detail. What are the things that don't quite fit in a paragraph format? In terms of a general sidebar tip, just use it for anything that you think is important to note, but doesn't directly relate to the what's being discussed currently. Think of it like your reading an essay for class and you ask yourself, "ok, but how does this relate to the main point?", place anything that is akin to a side-tangent in a side bar. For a more concrete example, I wrote an adventure that had a sidebar in the section that first introduced the main monster. While the section was about the monster, how it looks and what its current goal in the scene was, I had a side bar telling GMs that it is ay-ok if the monster is defeated in the scene where its first encountered and they have not failed. This helped inform the reader that, as above, that they're on the write track and reinforced the main idea of the adventure. In this case, it reinforced that the adventure wasn't about the monster being spooky or physically insurmountable, but the implication of the monster was more important.

[@scottplumer3668]

Back in the bad old days, typewriters didn't have a number "1." You used the lower-case "L" for it. Thankfully, computers have changed all that. It seemed crazy to me back then that someone thought it was a good idea that there could be identical-looking characters, and that the reader would be able to figure it out via the context.

[@alexanderchippel]

That's on the editors/publishers.

[@HeantradXD]

Small tip if you wanna do a quick map yourself, always include a map legend, a scale, the name of the location and where the north is (it's normally aligned with the border of the map), a map is supossed to convey information quickly, and with that you've conveyed size, what everything is, what the location of the map is and directions.

[@groadoswaggins]

I've lost count of the amount of maps I have seen without a scale. As a scientist it is, well let us just say, more than irritating.

[@Candyapplebone]

Thanks for the tip dude! I am thinking about writing a module and I for sure would have maps.

[@daveshif2514]

“Hate gets a lot of clicks but i think i can do better than that” and this is why i love this channel. Too many yt dms make videos about “the ten worst players ever, worst habits, evil gm stories, etc” like no thanks i actually play these games and not only do i not like negative attention, i already know too well how shitty ppl can be irl i dont need to see it in a video im watching for entertainment. A lot of ppl could learn from seth

[@Fionor01]

The best adventure modules I've ever encountered were from Kelsey Dionne (The Arcane Library) - each scene had defined goal (dramatic question) and was contained on just one page, so it was easy to read and as GM I had pretty good idea when the scene ended and it's time to move on with the story. That's rare quality and I highly recommend her work.

[@pauldimitrievich9726]

Kelsey Dionne is fantastic. I totally second this post.

[@henriksebring7633]

Totally agree. Her D&D adventures are easy to absorb and the layout works with the DM!

[@sonic_gloom]

100% truth right here! Her work is fantastic, and the One Encounter Per Page was a lifesaver when I dropped my printouts and got it all shuffled up!

[@Fionor01]

Unfortunately, her style of work is somehow trademarked. However, there's still plenty good habits people, who write their own adventures for publishing, can use in their work.

[@anon_laughing_man]

@Fionor01 Unfortunately, her style of work is somehow trademarked. This literally is not possible. Style or art ot wriying cannot be trademarked or copywrited. Period. End of.

[@terrainaholic]

I once did a mystery adventure.My players know me well enough that they could figure out who the bad guy was so I wrote the module that it could be one of 3 people and until they found a critical clue I didn't even know. It was a lot of fun seeing the players argue over who it was. No matter the mind games they tried to play on me it didn't elicit any response they could bank on. The henchmen for the leader were generic and the monsters stayed the same regardless of the leader so it took up almost no space in my game notes. After that I learned a good poker face was priceless and then MY mind games started to be played on THEM :D!

[@CommadoreGothnogDragonheart]

There are two things that are important to me: one is great cover art (which can really sell me on the contents of the book) and having a clean, professional layout.

[@oz_jones]

People literally judge modules by the cover, even moreso if they are browsing drivethrurpg, or any online store where you can't leaf through the books.

[@predtime]

It amazes me how often modules don't include a quick synopsis of the adventure for the DM. It makes it really difficult to wrap your head around how the information will be used or whether you should even read the module at all. That's great advice I wish more people followed. I write a cast list in my own adventures because I find it most helpful to have an immediate list of who is important and why they are important handy. I've always been surprised that wasn't more prevalent too. I'm glad you mentioned it. And, providing two versions of the map is a huge one I'm surprised is still so common in the modern era. This was all fantastic advice. I don't expect to ever try to get published, but, like many have said, this was great advice for writing adventures in general too.

[@thebolas000]

I was rewriting Blood on the Tracks for CoC and I found a cast list and a timeline were necessary for keeping track of where each NPC was at any time. I think every whodunit adventure should have one

[@keithparker1346]

I think too many writers think they are writing art or high literature when really it's an instruction manual

[@humphreygobo6576]

Me: I can’t be using the word “will” that often. Computer: Result 1 of 157 Me: Shit.

[@oz_jones]

Well, at least you are using a lot of adverbs, like all the professionals, right?

[@chopinnocturne5858]

Maybe the most important tip a ton of us need is. Where can we publish our adventure, or what avenues must we go down to get our adventures out there

[@SSkorkowsky]

That's dependent on a lot of factors. If you're interested in any of the Community Content programs (DM's Guild, Miskatonic Repository, Travellers' Aid Society, etc.) then start here: www.drivethrurpg.com/community_content.php Rules for each are different. And most (if not all) have online communities. If you're looking to publish through licensing, then you'll have to contact the game's publisher to see about 3rd Party Licensing agreements, which varies publisher to publisher. If you're looking to publish through the RPG publisher as an adventure writer, you'll need to check with the publisher to see about Freelance writing gigs.

[@chrisstewart6658]

Can't agree more about Pookie. He reviewed my adventure recently and his feedback was invaluable.

[@scottknudsen6611]

This is amazing stuff. Even though I'm not especially interested in publishing my stuff this is going to help me write better adventures, period.

[@samchafin4623]

What have done, Seth? The zines, Seth! Think of all the zines!! Man, I really do hope this just increases the number of well made adventure content out there. Totally awesome to see creators helping creators be creative.

[@tinglestingles]

I'm an independent publisher - business books. I agree with your 20 tips - especially NO fluff!

[@EmpireofShadowsRPG]

The best game writing advice out there! And please, trust him about the readable handouts! Especially if you want to sell internationally. Fancy fonts and OCR translations are not good friends. 😊

[@SilverwindWorkshop]

Seth, it's like you read my mind as I'm trying to release my module on Roll20 this month after over a year of development. It's more of a rules modification to revamp how leveling and character building works, but this is great stuff thanks! You're my absolute favorite D&D KZbinr, thanks for all the great content

[@warrendavis9262]

+1 to the favorite D&D KZbinr...

[@oldhatAN]

I think one thing that would solve a lot of these problems is to have a new GM who doesn't know the module at all run it cold. Don't play but observe how it goes. That will bring up a lot of problems that GMs will encounter running it. If the GM has to stop and flip through the book while saying, "uhhh...ummm...uhhh" multiple times, that's a problem that needs to be addressed. Maybe you should number the locations on the map and the corresponding descriptions so that the GM can find them easily.

[@Sumrow]

You rock Seth! Thanks for the shout out. 💙⚔️🎨

[@nickmanzo8459]

Looking at your portfolio, it’s amazing! How can you be commissioned directly?

[@Sumrow]

@@nickmanzo8459 Thank you for the kind words! The about page has my email. That is the best way t get the ball rolling! Thank you for the interest! 💙⚔️🎨

[@ScottDorward]

I'll second Seth's recommendation. John is an absolute pleasure to work with and never creates anything that's less than amazing.

[@Sumrow]

@@ScottDorward AWW!! Thank's for the kind words Scott! Had so much fun in your "The Night Bus" scenario during A Weekend with the Good Friends Con! You run an awesome game Sir!

[@OzrikTentakles]

Thanks man, I'm working on a module for unpublished indie RPG and your work is very helpful. I'm going to cut down on the "read-aloud" and increase the notes on what players might do instead of follow the story. Discovered your channel this year and it's definitely a bright spot during the doldrums.

[@SSkorkowsky]

Happy to be of help, either with the module or life in general.

[@wmf92]

To extend the cookbook/recipe metaphor, some adventure paths and modules feel like the recipes you find online where the author felt the need to tell you about how it was inspired by their vacation in Tuscany and the five page backstory of how they first made it. All while you're just trying to find what size measuring cup is needed for the flour.

[@michaelcottle6270]

Great tips. Even useful for a GM trying to make an adventure more polished for their table

[@falcon989]

Great tips, Seth. One I would add as a GM who’s run published modules is, if you’re writing a dungeon-crawl-type adventure with lots of rooms in succession, and the enemy in the room will attack immediately upon the PCs entering, please note this at the top of the room’s description (maybe in brackets or parentheses). The GM has a lot of locations to track, and he might forget which ones are “insta-attack” ones vs rooms where he can describe the scene in detail and only when the PCs do something specific is the encounter triggered.

[@thebolas000]

This is one of my least favorite parts of running modules. "The room is this big by this big, there's a mosaic on the wall, there's a podium on the other side of the room, and three doors besides the one the PCs entered through. Oh, and a huge demon and 10 skeletons that are currently chewing on you."

[@bohort]

I feel like this video will get way fewer views than most of your others, but it's value to those who want to view it will be much higher. Don't get discouraged, you make great content. Thank you for doing this.

[@SSkorkowsky]

Thanks. I was pretty sure going in this one was going to be one of my lesser-viewed videos. Kinda normal that the ones that take the most time to write and produce end up being that way. But I figured that it's also a topic that doesn't get talked about much and would certainly be useful for people interested in this particular subject. So in that, I'm opening the door to new viewers who might not have ever heard of me, and maybe they'll stick around for my regular stuff. If nothing else, it gives me one more video to point to whenever I get that random troll that comments how I just regurgitate the same stuff as everyone else and that's why is the best because they post topics that are original and not just rehashing the same old thing that's been covered a thousand times before.

[@kazuhirosamadesu5650]

I have 0 interest in publishing anything I create anytime soon but this was still a very interesting video. Keep up the good work Seth

[@beverleybee1309]

Love the "can you read this?" page! Once I realized it was a puzzle and not my usual dyslexia scramble, I had a blast reading it! I am currently trying my hand at writing an RPG system with campaigns, so I find everything you said spot on. Especially the "it's in my head, not on the page" but you are supposed to know it anyway problem. To help me sort through the tonnage of notes, I have dusted off some helpful tips from high school science class. Note cards! 3x5's, 4x6's, and 5x8's. The 5x8's are for diagrams and pictures. The 4x6's are for the bibliography entries. (For those who wonder why the large card for something that is but one line, in science research papers, your source could be from a magazine with many authors. Your entry starts looking like a paragraph of run-on sentences 🙃.) The 3x5's are for ideas and such. One, and only one subject per card. It's a labor of love 😆🙃. Sooooo many note cards! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@notArtVideo]

Two gripes, I mean, tips, for including maps in your scenario: 1) It's not really necessary to include points of interest on the map that aren't relevant enough to the story to warrant a single mention in the text. 2) If you're going to include keeper and player maps, make the numbers match. Add the extra stuff for keepers to the end. Horror on the Orient Express is always renumbering the points of interest and now I need to have two maps open to tell the players about what's going on at item 7.

[@AubriGryphon]

Regarding backstory: My brother got kind of upset at an adventure he ran us through from Secrets of Saltmarsh. Without going into spoilers, it involves a group of cultists on an island. The book explains the backstory of the whole situation, but the adventure seems designed specifically not to let you find any of it out! Like, there's a way to make friendly contact with the cult, but you practically need a walkthrough in order to hit on all the right steps. My brother toned down the aggression levels to make it significantly easier to start talking, and it was a blast.

[@alexanderchippel]

That happens in a lot of modules. I get why they do it, because it's not the point but you want to give the GM something that makes sense and that they can run with if the player to actually starting aggressively investigating.

[@joncarroll2040]

The West End Star Wars game had a great fix to the read-aloud problem: it framed those passages as scripts with the PCs reading parts of it in character.

[@richmcgee434]

I've seen that trick used somewhere else as well, but it's eluding me. Maybe an old Warhammer Fantasy RP module from the 80s? Regardless, that's a pretty good way to insert something like that into a module as long as you don't straight-jacket the PC dialog too much.

[@joncarroll2040]

@@richmcgee434 That could have been Castle Drachenfels which featured a play as a major element of the story...and one of the few old school WFRP modules I don't own so I can't check.

[@shizzelrock]

I loved the West End Games Star Wars game and the d6 system

[@Runegrace]

As someone who's been putting a wiki together for the homebrew they made for friends 20 years ago before they knew what TTRPGs even were, there was some useful things in here! By far getting the correct amount of explanation without clouding the message feels the most challenging.

[@MedievalFantasyTV]

What wiki platform you use?

[@JohnAmerisun]

As much as I hate to admit it, check out the video from Veritasium just recently about click bait. His title is kind of call out / click bait in some fashion, but he shows you how your video can reach a much larger audience by having not a negative title, but a more catchy title. I want your videos to do well, your content is amazing! In this video you can probably increase significantly the clicks by following his advice and changing the title slightly to just be a little more engaging without going into click bait territory! Thanks for all the great content man, really appreciate it.

[@TheDuelManiacs]

I found this video really spooky because I'm writing a campaign that includes a fish cannery as a location

[@orikes13]

I feel called out! I just wrote my first 'professional' module and realized how bad I was with the passive language. I had to do a search for every time I used 'will' and edit it. So absolutely, avoid using passive language. :)

[@johnathanrhoades7751]

I am so bad at this. That is generally my first editing pass. Just killing all my terrible passive voice and weak verbs...

[@ConaRikan2]

Very tempted to write down what happened at my first Cthulu game and turn it into a module for others to try out. The biggest challenge is that one of the PC's from the game needs to be turned into an NPC, as his actions really changed the direction of the game, much to everyone's surprise.

[@danielcrafter9349]

As long as you're upfront, players would be up for that Especially with CoC

[@nickmanzo8459]

Wonderful stuff here, Seth. I particularly agree with the bit about changing the names of real world locations ;).

[@keithparker1346]

That reminds me of the old video game Sensible Soccer where you had footballers names altered like David Beckham became Davis Beckham

[@BlackJar72]

This was very useful (and for me very timely) as I have been thinking about turning some of my D&D adventures into published OSR modules -- and have started giving away small adventures to see if others like my style.

[@Arcboltkonrad13]

Another great video! As someone who is about to get an adventure published (thank you to Chris Gonnerman in particular and the whole Basic Fantasy RPG community in general for deciding that my adventure "The Cult of the Green Skull" is worthy to be in the upcoming Adventures Anthology 3) this is a lot of good advice, Seth!

[@robbabcock_]

Great stuff, Seth, and almost unique on KZbin- nobody is really giving out this kind of advice. Thanks! 🙏 ⚔️ 🏹 🧙

[@paullytle359]

Good timing! Finishing up the first draft of my first adventure tonight so glad you posted this!

[@bigteej5821]

I'm in the early stages of writing a miniatures wargame. Alot of this list was still super relevant and helpful, and I expect to reference it at least 3 times when I'm further along in the process. Good stuff

[@Knopey]

This awesome video could hardly have come at a better time! Thanks. Especially the playtest notes IN a published module is exactly that outside-the-box thinking I need right now.

[@TalonBrush]

One note from me about Read-Alouds: Please remember, dear writer, that while many of us will gladly read your English-language adventure, not all of us will actually be running the adventure in the English language. Personally, I much prefer "describe the following to the players" over "read this *exact sentence* to the letter, which absolutely does not translate 1:1 to your language and will contain many awkward transliteration moments". If I'm running a game in my native language, I often have to either translate Read-Alouds or just cut them altogether and paraphrase what they were trying to convey, and this is often just a waste of time. Please spare us.

[@Tysto]

Strong agree on location descriptions. The first paragraph should be safe to read aloud but short. Reveals that the table is actually a mimic in paragraph two.

[@Lion4de]

This was super timely and really helpful! I’m in the process of making the plunge. Lots of great tips here, going to be rewatching this quite a bit in the future I think.

[@dieselshotfinalcut1628]

9:10 - sick vid! Just wanted to mention: not everyone that allows 3rd party adventures to be sold permits direct page # references.

[@spekticat]

Amazing videos as always, and great to see something a bit different! Really fantastic and inspiring advice. Something that would be fantastic if you had the time would maybe be a series of videos building up a module piece by piece, from idea to initial notes all the way to finished product. Worth considering anyway. Keep up the awesome work 💜💜💜

[@sterlingmason3971]

Seconded! Would LOVE to see Seth do this! Dweebles and the others could even help with some "demo-ing" of the scenes under construction...

[@tailnowag8753]

Well, we certainly would get some funny play test notes

[@pingpong4212]

ashes of onyx was a great book, i loved every second of the read

[@papapalpatine8785]

Agreed. I got the audio book. Kept finding myself taking the long way home from work so I could continue listening. Awesome Just about finished listening to Damoren. Can't wait to start the next book in the series. You are an amazing writer Mr Skorkowsky

[@scottplumer3668]

One other thing I thought of: if you're hiring an artist, cartographer, editor, etc., and looking to hire a student, freelance, or some other struggling up-and-comer, please don't expect them to work for free "for the experience." Many of them are willing to cut you a deal anyway, but it is insulting to them to expect them give their labors for free.

[@timd4524]

Handouts are a lot of fun to give to players. They just get so excited. Very informative video.

[@quarkbent9165]

Fantastic advice! I've been compiling my own set of guidelines and not only do those line up with what you suggest, I'll have to add some stuff you mention :)

[@danielhale1]

I appreciate this video! I'm working on a campaign that's now 70 pages long in a google doc (and that's separate from the game's rulebook), despite still needing a lot of side characters and other details plus maps and images. It's been an interesting journey turning what I thought would be a quick scenario to run at a convention into a full-blown campaign to potentially run over multiple sessions, plus the extra info about the world in case the group decides to continue playing in this setting. Your guidance has been super-helpful! But dear heavens, it is so much work making something that someone else can read and comprehend well enough to run a game. (Writing board game rules is equally terrifying.)

[@dutch6857]

I' m nowhere near good enough to consider inflicting my ideas on the world, so the sound (sound sounding?) advice was over my head, but Holy Moses I am excited for the reviews this autumn. The Dare especially grabbed my eye. KoB with a proven rule set.

[@jonstarritt848]

"Players don't take damage." Now there's an interesting concept, for every point of damage the character takes the player takes one punch to the face. lmao

[@westcoastgeeks7294]

Talk about perfect timing I started writing a module for my group. It's set in the world of Greyhawk. After I clean it up, I was thinking about publishing it. These are great tips.

[@matthewmccloud4777]

THANKS for the Shoutout!

[@francoisdumont4105]

I am writing my own module right now. I needed to hear this.

[@tailnowag8753]

This has been a wonderful watch, and I definitly need to get back to commenting on your great module reviews what I want to put/need to put in a module I'm planning out. Sadly life has gotten me busy and I have been barely scratching it out, though I plan to join a club so it will be a better schedule for me. Happy writing! P.S. Missed a great oppertunity to put on the section with how the brain is peculiar you could of put: " When the the brian is weird!" P.S.S. Thank you for putting links in the description, really nice format you got for yours

[@haktorson]

Another great video, Seth! I second the use of Matthew Pook; he is not only editing; he is also commenting and improving the adventure in various ways, using his extensive experience from role playing games. Highly recommended!

[@nettlesandsnakes9138]

If your players are taking damage, then probably means that they just stepped on a D4 and you need to drive them to the emergency room immediately.

[@joshuacaulfield]

Thanks for all of your writing. I have some vision issues which make reading your work challenging, which is why I loved seeing your Audible audiobook. I know that’s a hassle but it is appreciated.

[@Soveliss74]

I hadn't considered publishing any of my homebrew stuff, but now, I think I might

[@MrsRoguedemonhunter]

What a sweetie for posting this. Thank you Seth! /emote heartsign

[@Candyapplebone]

Glad your channel’s video popped up when i searched for this. I am thinking about writing my own module.

[@eopatcjo]

Mr Seth is grooming the next generation of module authors that way he has even better content for his module review videos!

[@petemcsorley]

I would be interested in more of this content from you, thank you

[@charliebear2048]

I'd love it if you did a review of Blades in the Dark

[@richmcgee434]

Has Seth even played it? He only reviews stuff he's played. You might take a look at Dave Thaumavore's youtube review of it. Helped convince me to give it a shot, anyway.

[@charliebear2048]

@@richmcgee434 Honestly, I think learning how to play it as you go along is part of the fun, since it ties in well with the themes of being in a fledgeling gang of criminals slowly growing in power.

[@richmcgee434]

@@charliebear2048 What would a review that completely avoids discussion of the mechanics even consist of? "I liked the binding, cover art is nice, the index is okay" seems unhelpful, to put it mildly. The game's cover tells you you're playing a crew of criminals - if a review can't go beyond that and tell you *how* you play that crew it isn't worth jack. Moreover, all the Blades games have pretty unusual gameplay loops that are arguably their standout feature, for good or ill. A review needs to talk about that, because it isn't going to be the kind of things everyone likes. I've had whole groups that won't touch stuff with that engine despite liking heist arcs in other systems, and I've had others where the players weren't interested in staying within the fairly narrow limits of (in Blades' case) being up-and-coming criminals and preferred to explore the broader setting of the world. The system's great for what it does, but it doesn't do everything well and some people just *hate* the flashback mechanics for planning.

[@charliebear2048]

@@richmcgee434 When did I even say that the review shouldn't get into the mechanics of it? I literally just said that you're learning as you go along, not "fuck learning the rules." I'm obviously not advocating for him to do a half-assed review on it. I'm saying that's part of the experience, and it might be something worth bringing up in the review itself.

[@MaxWriter]

Nicely done. All of this is good advice. I learned the "will" and "that" rules years ago but am still sometimes guilty of using them. I read a complaint to some company about text versions of handouts and it hit home so I'll be making sure to have regular text copies of all my handouts in the future.

[@oops6058]

This is super helpful while I'm halfway through the process of writing a campaign.

[@BLynn]

So about @8:00 minutes in & I am wondering if there should be a page that collects all the bullet-points together organized under paragraph titles &/or chapter/episode titles.?.

[@tangiblecarrrion]

I only just published my first adventure, but I did bullet points at the end of each act to act as a checklist for the main story points. I really did this to keep track of my own progress when writing it, but I left it in the final version since it felt like it just made sense

[@BLynn]

@@tangiblecarrrion excellent job have you gotten any feedback on it being useful? Also, what is the name of your adventure?

[@chrisstewart6658]

@@BLynn was on the wrong profile above. My adventure is called Pop Goes the Weasel and is set in 1978. It was reviewed by Pookie, who described their inclusion as 'helpful' and I've had direct feedback from others saying it was useful in terms of structuring a plan to run it

[@Lionrhod212]

Great video, Seth. On using real world locations: I grew up with Paul Zindel's novel, the Pigman set in my hometown of Staten Island. While not a module, I wrote a novel, Dark Moon Gates, that was highly based on my life in New Paltz, NY. One of the supporting characters lives in an apartment that I lived in as a teenager, and since just a couple buildings away, there was this AMAZING bakery, I gave it to two of my other characters as the location of their business (and praised the living heck out of it - the food is amazing!) I still feel a bit concerned that I didn't check with them first. (I did send them a copy of the book and no complaints thus far.) I also changed the location of the grammar school to be more convenient for the story. I further set some scenes in the Gardens of Nutrition, a location where you can rent plots to grow tiny gardens. Another scene was set in the Widow Jane Mine.While I agree it's important not to disparage local businesses and to be sensitive to where you drop vicious monsters, I feel that for those folk who actually KNOW the area, the locations are a plus. And unique locations like these can add intriguing points that you wouldn't have if not set in real places. I'm pretty sure nobody thinks Cthulhu haunts the local Circle K, so when it appears there, I don't think corporate will be much worried. All is much acknowledged in the end thank yous of the book. On research for the sequel I found that both a local church and a local library were amazingly helpful in offering info on where/how suicides were buried, how and where records were stored and much else. So long as you're respectful, using real-world environments IMO is an excellent way to get by-in from the folks who've actually been or lived there and offer all readers a richer environment.

[@demonknight3986]

The man, the myth, the fookin LEGEND! I miss your videos man

[@Brandoons88]

Thanks for the tips Seth. This is something I have been thinking about for years.

[@O4C209]

Awesome video. I think I'm going to write a One Shot now.

[@shawnfisher9976]

This is pure gold. Thanks so much!

[@geekdomo]

I am a photographer that specializes in RPG fantasy photos like VTM and such. I have struggled for years to get my pics picked up by Modiphius, Onyx Path and the big publishers. Id love to get my pics in some adventures or books just struggle with getting in the biz

[@ethicalcheeze1407]

Good luck to you friendo

[@tailnowag8753]

Best of luck! Maybe you could go to a local writing club and see if they need something like that? I sadly don't know much about it, but I hope you're able to explore all avenues. Cheers!

[@johndavey2340]

Wow this was so good I felt like I should be paying for it

[@paulmclaughlin4106]

Interesting view on avoiding private locations, and one that's not followed by everyone - the prologue for Masks of Nyarlathotep opens in a real bar that's still operating for example. Hopefully RPG players won't end up acting like Breaking Bad fans throwing pizzas onto the roof of a real house in Albuquerque

[@tailnowag8753]

That is so oddly specific and something I strangly haven't heard before. Though I wouldn't put it past people to not care about a house in Albuquerque

[@revjakenash1]

Oh snap, there's a podcast now? Just subbed on Spotify

[@Jay-ql4gp]

Wow. This was excellent! Thank you so much! And I've subscribed.

[@scottplumer3668]

Regarding writing style, I strongly recommend any aspiring writers read Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style." It gives some basic commands for good writing, such as "omit unnecessary words." There's a good reason why it is one of the most influential books in the English language.

[@erc1971erc1971]

After a long day of sweating my rear off in 101 degree weather, this is just what I need to make my day better!

[@TheKhorgor]

Fantastic timing. I literally just typed up the first page of my Forbidden Lands hack

[@mythzerous]

Thanks so much! Another Fantastic Video!

[@Nephanor]

Do the listicle module sins video too! Would love to see them

[@SSkorkowsky]

They're mostly in here. Just under the preface, "Don't do this."

[@cameronjames3499]

Sucks that now that Seth is a big time module making expert all the true stars of the channel got snubbed : D Hopefully we get a future video to find out what they've all be up to instead of being in this video. Though thinking about it, a module written by Todd and Dweebles (and Mike consulting to tone down their tomfoolery) would be pretty awesome to read . Could also have Jack in a Volo style role.

[@larsdahl5528]

I am afraid Jack misunderstood the assignment: A One-Shot. (Went straight to the bar to get it.)

[@nodtothestrange1008]

Awesome Clue reference in this video 😊

[@friendlyG771]

An extremely useful video! Thanks for the amazing advice.

[@timd4524]

Yep. I research all modules and adventures now for indications if it needs another source. Knowing you need the Cthulhu keeper's guide before Pulp Cthulhu is pretty darn important.

[@bobcatfish2796]

This is such amazing timing. Seth, I was thinking of converting the first 2 sessions of my Call of Cthulhu campaign I started with my friends last year into a module that I would like to publish. I understand that I’m just a commenter on a video, but if I could somehow email you the module as a pdf or google document or something, I would love to know what you think of it. If not though, I completely understand. Thank you :)

[@tailnowag8753]

Best of luck! I'm sure you could find a discord server or two full of people that would just love to playtest something like that. Cheers!

[@tailnowag8753]

Best of luck! I'm sure you could find a discord server or two full of people that would just love to playtest something like that. Cheers!

[@James4488]

I've been writing one myself, going super slow, but I would be happy to take a look at yours and maybe you could do the same for me in the future, near future I hope lol

[@1979benmitchell]

I'm thinking about adapting your Valducan series for a Pulp Cthulhu campaign that I'd like to run for my local group. I was wondering if there is a wiki/website or something that gives some history/details of this amazing world you created? I absolutely loved the Valducan world and really would love to give my players a chance to explore this world (though it would be set in 1920's)

[@SSkorkowsky]

Awesome to hear. Hope you all have a blast with it. No wiki. Sorry. I do have a 1930's Valducan story I once wrote for an anthology that I was super-proud of, but then the publisher folded and I haven't found a home for the adventure. There is a WW2 Valducan story in SNAFU: Black Ops, which is the closest I have to a published period story of theirs. Couple other shorts out there in SNAFU: Hunters and in the Not Your Average Monster anthology, but those are modernish.

[@1979benmitchell]

@@SSkorkowsky Where can we get those? Would love to read them!

[@SSkorkowsky]

Hungry Eyes (Story of Malcolm's first venture into the Paris Underground when he was new. Referenced in Ibenus): amzn.to/3sYRDbd Serpent's Army (Clay and Schmidt in 1980s Dallas): amzn.to/3mMSlan Raid on Wewelsburg (WW2 story with no knights you've met, though some names that get referenced in the novels and some very familiar weapons. The gold cauldron it features is also a totally real and weird artifact, though I took some liberties with what it does): amzn.to/3ytNayf

[@cameroncowen5011]

This was really fantastic as always, thankyou!

[@arthurwhyte5087]

Thank you very much for making this video, it was very helpful! It was also a reminder that I must grab one of your books

[@FalkaRiannon]

Get an editor is something I have heard from several RPG designers. More specifically get an editor as early as possible so you won't have to rewrite the whole thing when you think you are already finished.

[@Knightmare_69]

As usual - great advice! Thank you!

[@Chapel85]

YES! This is exactly what I was looking for!

[@OneMoreJames]

Poor Jack. I'm sure he's not amused at being left behind, for these vids.

[@dutch6857]

Yeah, i missed him too. But I can imagine that it is a lot of work to shoe horn him into a vid that he really doesn't fit that well into. Plus Seth would have to cover his bar tab to get him on camera

[@OneMoreJames]

@@dutch6857 Yeah, Jack's probably not very talkative without some whiskey and something to eat... like bar pretzels or peanuts.