Tooleys Underwhelming Projects

[tooley1chris]

You say you plan for a settlement to be built close to the entrance

I'm looking at Tindale as a resupply station, which is 10-15 miles away and across a river. This is close enough to resupply occassionally but hopefully far enough away that PCs will eventually hire NPCs to help supply a base camp closer to mountain. As loot comes from mountain, the base camp grows. More and more NPCs see there's money to be made, and start moving in. Depending on how PCs handle the situation, this could lead to rivalries, other adventurers looking to make their riches, bandits, even other kingdoms becoming jealous of the upstart village.

Some creatures woke from stasis years ago. Some may never. The mentalists collected many of each species (not necessarily 2 each) including small mammals. The idea is to have a full fledged eco-system because of this. Also, there are a few areas planned that had critters that were never in stasis but allowed to breed in a self contained environment. As example There's a massive cavern in the bottom of extinct volcano that has a small forest and large plains area where cattle, herd animals, horses, deer, ect have thrived. Sun light and rain reach this area.

An earlier suggestion got me thinking about this as well. I originally planned on having no contact whatsoever between PCs and mentalists. Save for their Long dead corpses. I'm still toying around with it...

Originally, as the time of the foretold cataclysm came and passed, I was going to have some argument between the mentalist brotherhood which lead to many of them killing each other over all the wasted efforts in building and stocking the Ark. Which is why the critters were never set free. I could easily see that a handful of like minded mentalists won this argument and were placed in stasis by a leader, who completed the ritual of lichedom on herself to keep watch...

Sorry if some of this is vague. It's mostly thrown together in a notebook and in my mind. Nothing is set in stone yet. Thats why I started this thread. Ideas from you who are smarter than I. Please feel free to comment and make suggestions!

[tooley1chris]

By the way, I've got Tindale almost completely mapped out. Been hard at work on the Ark Dungeon as well...

 

 

 

[Trifletraxor]

Wow! Impressive tooley1chris!   

[mrfish]

Really like your maps, and thanks for the reply.

 

Think I might steal some of the ideas here, but I´m thinking that I might place the entrance in the bottom of a sinkhole or something like that, would like to have it a bit more sealed off. Something like the devils sinkhole in Texas. Perhaps also making it a holy place for the local indigenous people, the woods surrounded with blair witch/true detective wooden trinkets to ward off the "evil spirits" below and perhaps the sinkhole being filled with items and cadavers, tossed down as sacrifice to soothe the spirits. 

 

Looking forward to seeing further updates from this and other projects!

[tooley1chris]

Thanks Trifletraxor!

The sink hole is a neat idea. Like in Aztec history There's a lake where the people would sacrifice gold to the gods.

That would definitely be good incentive to investigate the hole..."And look! There's a tunnel down here. Wonder where it goes."

[Guest Vile Traveller]

Nope, the Reaches were created whole hog for MW. There's nothing written about them anywhere else. I can say that both Horsechester and Shillingshead are getting developed at the moment, but Tindale should be wide open as far as I know.

 

I've been meaning to ask this, do you have any plans for something like the Blank Lands for MW (only without the actually publishing stuff for them part that Chaosium and Avalon Hill were fond of)?

[BMonroe]

Wow! Awesome work!

[tooley1chris]

I've decided not to fully stock Tindale (at least for now) as it is NOT the focal point of this project. I'm marking and planning out hot spots and frequently visited places within the town but will most likely leave the bulk of it up to individual chroniclers to fill as they see fit. Trying to focus on the mega-dungeon itself.

Sadly, my face to face group may be making their way to Dwarfhold soon as a side quest, so I may have to map this out as well...(actually sounds like a lot of fun )

This is how it goes with my group. I plan this big complex dungeon for their killing pleasure and they wander off. A.D.D runs rampant.

Some players you just CAN'T railroad.

[Jae]

Hehe, your group sounds like my old gaming group.

 

I used to use really unsubtle methods to try and get the players to stop wandering too far off point. There was a lot of fog and bridges that had been washed away by the recent storm, as I recall. We would joke about it, but if they really wanted to go off into unprepared territory, I had them agree to lower their expectations and accept some delay as I created stuff for them on the fly (aka bullshitting it).

 

When I get back into GMing, I'm going to be using all the lazy GMing tools that have evolved over the years for generating quick encounters, npc names and descriptions etc. I also plan to involve the players more in the creative aspect and have OOC conversations with them to discuss their intentions so that I don't have to wing things so much.

[Chaot]

One of the few pieces of prep work that I do as a GM is to write down a bunch of names.  Men, women, taverns, scary places and special items.    For me, being able to come up with a name quickly smooths over the rest of the playing experience.  After I have a name for the NPC or the place I can easily make decisions without second guessing. Then I just need to make a note of it next to the name.

 

It helps that you don't really need a lot by way of stats to run an NPC.  They can be fleshed out more if they become important, but new NPCs generally only need about three or four numbers.

[tooley1chris]

NPCs are now a piece of cake for me thanks to my NPC generator and Peoples of the Southern Reaches books.: )

Shameless plug, yes, but they ARE free.

[tooley1chris]

Chugging along on Mega-Dungeon.

I was thinking I might make a full fledged Monograph for next project.

Maybe.

Part of the idea for my Mega-Dungeon is allowing the PCs to start a base camp that turns into a small village and eventually a town. Depending on how it plays out, they could be running a full sized city, perhaps starting a small kingdom of their own.

This is where the monograph comes into play. I would like to make a set of rules/guidlines dealing with starting and maintaining a fledgling kingdom. A book that spells out in detail population, wages, peasant and nobility moral, taxes, imports/exports, construction of buildings/walls/keeps/castles, area agriculture /hunting, natural resources like mines...and whatever else I come up with.

I don't know...think there's a market here for this? Might just do it out of love, like my other projects.

[smjn]

I would like to make a set of rules/guidlines dealing with starting and maintaining a fledgling kingdom. A book that spells out in detail population, wages, peasant and nobility moral, taxes, imports/exports, construction of buildings/walls/keeps/castles, area agriculture /hunting, natural resources like mines...and whatever else I come up with.

I don't know...think there's a market here for this? Might just do it out of love, like my other projects.

I'm not aware of any existing products like this for BRP, so yes, I think it sounds very interesting and hope it can get published.

[tooley1chris]

Yeah. This idea is really intriguing me. Probably be my next project. Gonna take quite a while to finish mega dungeon though.

I've found some pretty clever ways to bring PCs to various other parts of the mountain that have nothing to do really with the Ark itself.

Side-treks, if you will...different reasons to explore different areas.

My levels for the Ark are being fleshed out nicely, though I'll admit having areas so large as to hold so many creatures is becoming repetitive and somewhat boring. Looking for ways to spice up the action a bit. Try to incorporate mysteries and tactics.

Think I'm doing a pretty good job of calling for LOTS of different skill rolls so as to include the various possible occupations.

The Ark has a great eco-system in place due to so many lesser animals waking from hibernation, so it has at least a feel of plausibility. A problem I'm having is with humanoids like kobolds, goblins, orcs, lizard men, ect...

Having some conflicts over territory and resources is fun, but I can't do the same thing for each species...

That's just too many skirmishes. Too great of numbers against a handful of PCs...

ANY suggestions on this point would be greatly appreciated!

[tooley1chris]

Got lucky tonight! I was removing files from my old phone to give to one of my kiddoes and found a txt file with about 40 ideas for the Mega dungeon I came up with a couple months ago when I was first contemplating the project.

All of the sudden inspiration is flowing again.

[tooley1chris]

One of the Magic World PbP games Im running over at UnseenServant has a player doing the Alchemist occupation from my Alchemy and Artifice book and I think it's going to be great fun. The player is a great Roleplayer and his little gnome alchemist is really digging in.

[tooley1chris]

Meanwhile in my PBP MW game, a clever gnome climbs a tree for a better view...

[tooley1chris]

Working on the last couple levels of Mega-Dungeon. Gotta work on tying it all together, an overall layout of the different levels and how they connect, perhaps some more random encounters, maybe some random small levels, Should be a pretty epic ending if the characters make it that far.

Of course, the end of the dungeon isn't the end of the campaign but that's for the next project. Lords and Leaders.

[tooley1chris]

Going on vacation this week. 16 hour drive there and 16 hour drive back. I should be able to get this monster monkey off my back by then.

Thank goodness because I've A LOT of other material I want to work on.

One good thing about the Mega Dungeon taking so long as is that I've come up with neat ideas.

[tooley1chris]

Projects in "development ":

0.5 Finish Mega Dungeon DONE!  

.75 Fix Mentalist  DONE!

 1. Guide to building/maintaining/ruling a village/ town/city/keep/castle/KINGDOM in Magic World.   DONE!    

2. Dieties and Demigods conversion (after Chroniclers Companion released ) Did religion in the southern reaches instead

3. Fiend Folio conversion   DONE!   

4. Creatures of Myth and Legend conversion 

meh...

Eddie (a forum member) just gave me an idea I might move to the second on the list (because it wouldn't take too long with my NPC Generator)

Fullfledged Town in Southern Reaches In progress

A book of Veteran/Heroic ranged NPCs would come in handy at the game table. seems like a logical next step since I have the Peoples of the Southern Reaches NPC books

Edited January 24, 2019 by tooley1chris

[tooley1chris]

Eek. Got the opportunity to play test my Mentalist and it needs fixing...update forthcoming.

[mcarson]

I'm getting "file not found" type errors when I try to access the character and NPC generator. Are they gone for good, or is it a forum software issue?

[tooley1chris]

I'm getting "file not found"https://www.dropbox.com/s/znacvmnu3g8ybbc/Magic World NPCs.ipt?dl=0 type errors when I try to access the character and NPC generator. Are they gone for good, or is it a forum software issue?

 

I'll take a peak and re-upload if necessary. 

In the mean time, the program itself was never in the Downloads section because that area only allows certain formats. There's a dropbox link and NBOS link here that will work.

And for the NPC Generator:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/znacvmnu3g8ybbc/Magic World NPCs.ipt?dl=0

Both files use NBOS which may take some getting use to if you're not familiar.

Edited July 16, 2015 by tooley1chris

[mcarson]

Thank you, sir. I appreciate all the work you put in to these efforts.

[tooley1chris]

BTW there's a new BRP generator here:

When he gets it going for Magic World, my little generator may become obsolete.