Fnordcon AARs?

[larsdangly]

Hi everyone; I was in on Fnordcon for part of the day but couldn't fit the TFT panel into my Saturday schedule. I could see through the feed that lots of upcoming projects were discussed, perhaps including some that are not yet in the official lineup. Anyone want to offer a brief synopsis?

[hcobb]

Harvest of the Dark Forest AAR:

1. Discovered a hidden wizard in the village.
2. Noticed that strange things were happening in the woods.
3. Avoided being carved up by a pumpkin.
4. Avoided the killer crabgrass that SJ suggested.
5. Were playing with some sick puppies when time was called.

[Terquem]

Talked about the upcoming Old School Monster book

There will be cards to go with the book

There is a need for adventure submissions - 2,000 to 2,500 word submissions will be part of a new format, a three fold, heavy stock item that will be sold in adventure sets I think, and there is a need for larger word count adventures. Mr. Jackson mentioned 9,000 words was a good target

There may be miniatures in the future but that is not in development at this time

There was some talk about sizes of the play mats and there is a promise that there are more play mats to come

[Terquem]

There was a sort of confused discussion about the contrast between "long adventure/campaign adventure" books and setting books. The folks at Steve Jackson Games seem to be of a mind that adventure books of the kind suggested (similar to such things as the Gloomhaven campaign, or Pathfinder Adventure Paths) are not the sort of things they think are in the future of The Fantasy Trip, and there were some expressed opinions that those types of products were "too rail-roady." The designers seem to favor setting books which give, in their opinion, several adventure hook options and possible quest tie ins. It seems that a setting book could be a starting point for a free lance short adventure submission and you would be knocking on the right doors.

[phiwum]

The direction Terquem mentions sounds great. I guess I'm not alone in wanting to broadly direct the campaign and use adventures only for ready-made bits and pieces rather than long story arcs.

To be honest, I haven't used any drop in adventures yet and read them more for the ideas than anything else.

[larsdangly]

Sounds like the discussion of adventures had what I would say is a close call but a good outcome! Personally, I can't think of any single thing that could tank the quality of the excellent TFT product line ... with the possible exception of turning to 'adventure path' style adventures. Solo's have to be fairly linear and pre-programmed; that is just what you sign up for with that format. But everything else should stick with the current model of supporting sandbox style play with whatever kind of approach best suits your group.

I guess a sufficiently small adventure is in its own way a 'railroad' because it presents just a few events or scenes. But my hope is anything longer than this stays as a few hooks, some creative NPCs, places and things, and the rest is up to you.

Finally, I would say they've proven they can really deliver the goods with small adventures and setting books, and they should just continue to do what works in those departments, focusing on keeping the details of the content creative and fresh. But the third sort of thing they might do - longer-format labyrinths (or similarly grand adventure locations) has yet to be tried. I have a lot of things like this in my own campaign notes, but I don't have the time and bandwidth to organize that stuff into publication ready materials.

[larsdangly]

Originally Posted by phiwum

The direction Terquem mentions sounds great. I guess I'm not alone in wanting to broadly direct the campaign and use adventures only for ready-made bits and pieces rather than long story arcs.

To be honest, I haven't used any drop in adventures yet and read them more for the ideas than anything else.

I have used about half of the 'drop in' official adventures published to-date, and I find them to be both very good in quality and really easy to integrate with my ongoing campaign. It is important to me that they continue to be fun, as a self contained evening of play, and that they continue to be easily molded to whatever corner of Cidri each GM wants to cultivate.

The things I use way more than I expected I would are the cards! I use 3-4 different card types nearly every time I play, and I've dipped deeply into pretty much everything that came with DoD.

[GlennDoren]

Since I brought it up during the TFT panel, I'll mention here... I asked whether there were plans for larger pre-programmed adventures/campaigns (such as some of the well-known big kickstarter fantasy dungeon crawls from the last few years, to remain nameless due to forum rules)--something that could be played solo, but offers a larger campaign that provides enough content to see characters progress over multiple scenarios in the campaign.

And related to it--I also asked if any thought/work has gone into a "Monster AI" system (again, used in some of the hugely successful KS fantasy games the last few years) that could be leveraged for co-op/solo programmed campaigns.

Steve said "mayyyybe..." to the giant programmed/solo campaign question during the "Whats New" panel, and then added a bit more detail during the TFT panel... but effectively said not much is in-progress, just some notes/ideas. He commented that he doesn't want to do anything (especially w.r.t. to monster AI/bot) unless it's innovative and isn't just a "me too" implementation.

FWIW--having a system tailored to TFT, even if it merely imitates the best AI/bot systems out there, is better than nothing :-|

I would recommend the SJG team do a bit more research into <removed specific game names, due to forum rules> and others to spark some creative juices--while they may not be the "ultimate" solutions, they've certainly pushed the industry standards for monster AI systems, and I think TFT is a perfect fit for a similar AI/bot system. I also think it would help spark a ton more interest in TFT if there were a kickstarter offering a large programmed campaign with an AI/bot system. This is something I'm thinking of tackling myself... it would really increase the fun factor for the many TFT fans who don't have gaming groups (plus, it would be fun to play co-op against the 'bot).

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by GlennDoren

Since I brought it up during the TFT panel, I'll mention here... I asked whether there were plans for larger pre-programmed adventures/campaigns ala Gloomhaven--something that could be played solo, but offers a larger campaign that provides enough content to see characters progress over multiple scenarios in the campaign.

Okay, that would be great. When it comes to GM'ed adventures, I like them to be short and self-contained, but it would be nice to have something like an ongoing sequence of adventures for solo play.

[Shadekeep]

When I write adventures it's with the idea of making them "scenarios" rather than "scripts". I want the players to have latitude in progressing and resolving the situation, and often there is no single "right" outcome. Whenever possible I include little events and hooks that the GM and players could take in a wholly new direction unexplored by the adventure. Allowing for organic roleplay is the key to a rewarding and enjoyable session.