Looking for Playtesters

[Aelwyn]

I'm working on a monograph for Basic Roleplaying, and I'm looking for playtesters. I'm particularly interested in finding people in the northern Virginia area willing to suffer through my GMing the scenario, but I would also like people elsewhere to give it a shot.

It's a postapocalyptic adventure that includes some cyberpunk and horror elements, as well as some light moments with talking mutated animals. It's fairly low-powered (Normal- or Heroic-level characters). Anyone interested?

[Trifletraxor]

Tell us more please!

SGL.

[Aelwyn]

What would you like to know?

Characters are mutated humans, bears, otters, or bees. They are primitive hunter-gatherers in a world filled with ancient but broken technology. They will struggle to survive, to protect their tribes, to understand the technology that has been handed down to them, and perhaps to use it to repair their world. Within the four villages, where the characters grow up, more and more children are stillborn because of the Invisible Sick. Can characters find a way to help? One of the characters receives The Book of the Ghost from a parent. The Book of the Ghost is a handheld device that when opened projects an image of a tiny woman. She is saying something in the language of the ancients. She keeps saying the same thing again and again. Maybe this ancient technology can help--but players will have to figure out how to make it work, and maybe find someone to teach them the language of the ancients. Along the way, they will have to deal with neo-Luddite religious fanatics, giant terror birds, and the horrific Silent Ones.

If I GM, I'll try to tailor the scenario to the interests of the players--and I suggest other GMs do as well. I'm trying to build instructions for doing that into the scenario. For instance, there are opportunities for romance, but if players aren't interested, those can be ignored. The game could focus on killing a whole bunch of bad monsters, or on working together to solve problems, or facing horrific enemies, or helping people in trouble, depending on the interests of the GM and the players.

I am fairly inexperienced as a GM and as a monograph writer, but I have published non-RPG articles. I'm looking for people who will help me "break" the scenario--find the weak spots where it's either too dangerous, too easy, or too confusing, where players or GMs get stuck. I started playing RPGs about 32 years ago, with D&D, Traveller, and Metamorphosis Alpha (which is a big influence on this scenario). I fell in love with Runequest but never found a group to play it with. Then, after college, I was trapped in an iceberg for 25 years. A group of indie role-players found me and revived me two years ago. I've been playing these odd new games with them like Spirit of the Century and Mortal Coil. But I'd still like to try out my BRP scenario.

[Trifletraxor]

Approximately how long till you plan to submit it to Chaosium? Do you have a deal with Dustin yet? What's the pagecount? Is it a single scenario or a campaign? Too busy with ongoing campaigns myself to GM, but I'd like to get a blurb up about it. Do you have a picture for the blurb, or should I just try to find something appropriate?

SGL.

...Oh yes, and what the title of the monograph?

[Aelwyn]

Blurb for getting playtesters or Extra! Extra! Chaosium to publish new manuscript by unknown author? It's a little early for the second one... but soon.

I have been in touch with Dustin. I'm pretty sure they're going to publish it, but I don't have anything in writing, so I don't want to make too many assumptions. Also, my brother is working on cover art, so it would be great if you hold off until I get something from him. It's 55 pages and growing by the day. That's with two columns of 10-point type... 36,000+ words. Probably going to be around 65 pages when I'm finally done.

Working title:

Ah Keen: The Book of the Ghost

I'm not crazy about the title, because it makes it sound like a horror campaign. Which it is, a little, but the ghost in question is a nice ghost, not a scary one. It's a fairly hard sci-fi setting, nothing really supernatural, but a few pieces of high technology that seem supernatural to a primitive culture--including the Book of the Ghost.

It's a short campaign, with many sub-scenarios to the main arc. An original setting. A rack of new monsters. Some new skills, too--anyone interested in Technical Skill (Implants) or Craft (Butchery)? They might come in handy if you need to repair a wireless machine with self-diagnosing A.I., or if you want to save the paralysis venom from the quetzalcoatl you just killed.

Working on this gave me a real appreciation for the Big Gold Book. Most of the time when I thought I needed to create a house rule for a special situation (disease, fighting in cramped quarters, judging whether someone is a liar)--a second look at the rules showed there already was one.