13 October 2025 The Runes: Design Journal (1)

     I am working on a module--I don't know what else to call it--for Castles and Crusades. It is set in the After Winter Dark campaign setting, but it is more specifically an area detailed in Marbeline Coast expansion. To summarize: there is a citadel on a small island controlled by a faction called the White Wizards. An enemy wizard--a part of a dark order called the Paths of Umbra--is trying to infiltrate the citadel from below in order to steal magical knowledge and search for a powerful, forgotten McGuffin. Part two of this adventure will be more of a sandbox set on a nearby, larger island that continues the story. As I am writing the content, I am also creating a bit of a Dungeon Master/Castle Keeper/Game Master primer for a new player that explains certain terms and ideas for someone who may be unfamiliar with them. 

    I keep telling myself two things: first, this is just a rough draft, and will probably undergo significant revisions when there are other sets of eyes on it, and second, I have never really done this before, so struggle is to be expected. I am finding it hard to do! Having a story in my head and translating it to playable content is freaking difficult. There is so much to do, and I am constantly concerned that I am overwriting it (i.e. putting in too much detail), or that it makes no sense, or that it is organized incorrectly. I think it's the organization that's proven to be the hardest part. For example, do I put NPC/monster stats in text, or do I put them in an appendix at the end? And how much do I try to keep this story generic vs. Aihrde-specific? Pros and cons to both things. The endless details are relentless. Where exactly is the hidden passage, and how will the PCs find it? What if they don't pick up any of the breadcrumb trails...then what? How should the tone be? It's quite a learning experience for me, and very humbling.

    So far I've probably written 20+ pages of material, and all of it without maps to help guide me, which is a whole other complication. Calgon, take me away!

October 2nd, 2025: Notes on the Passing Scene

 Not too much going on, game-wise, so a few observations on what's what:

-I am slowly working on a module for Castles&Crusades, tentatively titled The Runes (so imaginative). It is set in the After Winter Dark campaign, and it takes place on the Isle of Arwonal. An evil wizard (the Paths of Umbra) is attempting to reconnect two mirror runes in hopes of bringing a raiding force through the forgotten paths below the isle's magical library in order to kill, steal, and cause chaos. I'm pecking away at it a little each day. It's slow going, but I am making progress. 

-Last winter, in the depths of boredom and despair, I bought all of the core rules for Old School Essentials. Beautiful game; based on the old B/X ruleset from the late 70s, early 80s. It sat on my shelf, untouched, so I said to myself, "I'll never use these" then sold them to Noble Knight Game for store credit (significantly less than I bought them for). Been thinking about those books, and that system lately. Started poking around online. Looking at stuff. Wanted them back. Needed them back. My precious. Re-bought them. I am dumb, but I think I'm going to mess around with them and learn to play solo, which a way of playing that's more technical than running a normal game with other people. Stay tuned! My takeaway here is that I am spending a lot of money on things that I don't really want, or selling things that I do really want to get more money to buy things that I don't really want. So either keep the things I buy, or stop selling the things I buy. Or, learn to sell on Ebay so I can break off of Noble Knight's teat. Something. (Addendum: Great video explainer about this game and its origins).

--Thinking I might try to go solo on this game and see how it runs. Last may I did some table generation using the old AD&D DM's guide and had a lot of fun, so we'll see how this feels. 

-It's been hard to keep the Sunday game going. Just...stuff gets in the way. We've played maybe 50% of the time since the beginning of summer. I am very much enjoying the game, as are my players, but we've had difficulty making it work due to schedules. Tuesday night game (now Mondays) is solid. Ed is running DCC right now, then LotR up next with Dan.

-I just finished reading a book, West Marches Campaign Playstyle Guide Book (which is part of what got me all OSE-adjacent), and I am still trying to figure out what that would look like with my group. Here is what's confuzzling me: you begin and end in a 'town' (the safe space). Each individual session is like a one-shot: you start, your travel, your adventure, you return. We play for two hours at a time, so what if they aren't done with what they are doing in that time period? And: how do I, in the game, make them leave where they are to return to their safe place? That feels super arbitrary. Or, so I just set the expectation at the beginning of the game that what they are doing in game time is being run by what we are doing in real-time? I think it would feel technical, which is a very different style of play. I'm not sure how it would go.