Monday, March 21, 2011

How old?

So I have been going through some boxes that are cluttering up the office. The idea was to image all of my hand written notes so I can throw out the paper, but still have the stuff on them. I’m up to scanning over 600 pages, so it is a fair amount of “stuff”. So I’m trying to figure out if any of this stuff is already in a file somewhere, and I’ve been opening up files on my computer that haven’t been touched in a while. How long? 20+ years. Yeah, creepy! Forsbury was created over 20 years ago, and the campaign we started there at that time is still running. Fletnern has been around for about 30 years, and Rhum and Brinston were the first cities. That doesn’t bother me as much; I guess because it hasn’t been one set of characters running the entire time.
Have I learned anything? Sure - type everything into the computer when you start, so you don’t have to scan or re-type it later! Thank goodness that Adobe makes cutting and pasting images simple!
Last week I posted about permanent enemies. One guy who we normally classify as a permanent enemy (even though he is now more of an ally) is still active in the campaign. When did he show up? the third mission! Not too many of my NPCs have survived and stayed interesting for two decades. (OK, there is a handful, but probably not too many more.)
Why am I doing this, the whole scanning thing? Because there are a couple of things I want from these old adventures. Some include towns and places that I put a little time into, but then didn’t use again. I’d like to get those on the maps and have them available for future use. Same with a couple of new monsters and spells. Every game/campaign can always use more of those. Some of the stuff isn’t old adventures, but instead notes and ideas I was generating. Some of them are even good.
I’m a better writer and game master than I was 20 years ago, but that doesn’t mean I should take that old source material and allow it to come back to life. Maybe a little polishing is needed, there are still a lot of diamonds in that rough! That reminds me of the review Legend Quest got in Dragon Magazine all those years ago: A real gem of a game. One of the best systems I’ve ever seen.

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