Adventure and Supplement Design
Here at Crimson River Games, we don’t just write adventures or supplements; we carefully craft them into unique experiences and one-of-a-kind memories through a detailed and complex design process. Each step addresses an element of the design that, if found wanting, results in the project’s rejection to the previous stage or its total abandonment. As you can imagine, this takes time; in fact, it takes over one year for the standard adventure.
Our Goal – In each product, we seek to create an immersive world full of unique experiences, with one-of-a-kind opponents who are real agents of the game. We do this using horror elements that create real tension for the player in an old school, no promises that you will see the light of day style.
Product Design Process
To create a quality and unique adventure in keeping with our goal above, 19 steps are required in the design process. This process consists of the following steps:
- Adventure Seed
- Outline
- Flow Map
- Physical Map
- Scratch Draft
- Drafting Narrative
- Auditing for Cohesion
- Auditing for Missing Info
- Drafting Support Sections
- Editing
- Art Development
- Map Design
- Formatting
- Output Creation
- Final Review
- Statistical Analysis
- Statistical Rebalancing
- ISBN/Copyright
- Sales and Fulfillment
Each step is covered in more detail below.
Adventure Seed
Adventure seeds are ideas, thoughts, feelings, inclinations, art, smells, sounds, feelings; anything that can elicit a visceral response. These are recorded and collected throughout the day, as inclination strikes, and sorted each month for viability. Once deemed viable, this sensation or idea is elaborated into a story concept, or Adventure Seed. We have thousands of these seeds, but only a few will ever make it into production.
Outline
Adventure seeds that appear to be viable as a storyline are elaborated into an outline. Outlines are free-form (usually two to 4 pages) of written material that includes the environment, opponents, horror mechanics, opponents, challenges, chapters, sub-chapters, special circumstances, and methods of introduction. Outlines have two goals: to determine if the seed is viable for an adventure, and if not, can it be added to another seed, making them viable together. One in five of these outlines is found to be good enough to move forward.
Flow Map
The Flow Map is generated to show the flow of time, events, and locations within an adventure. Flow maps are required for adventures that have complex interactions between events, antagonists, time, or any other mutually altering components. Flow maps are usually not required for adventures that are of the “sandbox” type or for those that fall into the category of “supernatural railroading” as the first is an exploration adventure, and the second subjects the players to the adventure rather than their being given free will in certain aspects of the game. Most of our adventures have Flow Maps.
Physical Map
Anyone with extensive adventure design experience will tell you that distances and locations matter. You can have a great concept that is totally ruined by the impossibility of the topography you created or made impotent by the almost instant availability of resources that mitigate some element of conflict you have in mind. Maps, even ones that have only named dots with distances and elevations, are key to making a great adventure function. We begin the map-making process in the initial outline phase, and the working copy maps are always drafted at the same time as the Flow Map. In many cases, these have little resemblance to the final adventure maps included in the adventures.
Scratch Draft
Like the outline, the scratch draft seeks to further outline the adventure process. The scratch draft for all adventures is completed by hand in a A4 sized notebook. All elements of the Flow Map, Physical Map, Outline, and Adventure Seed are elaborated and built into a bare-bones adventure worthy of the home game table. This process can take up to two months, and only one in three of these will make it into production.
Drafting Narrative
This is the longest stage of development for any adventure. It combines all elements of the previously completed work and formats it for the customer’s use. Most narratives take up to six months to write and configure. At this time, a standard adventure format is introduced to keep things consistent and ensure that certain elements (like weather and even noise levels) that affect the game but most people don’t really think about are easily accessible to the user.
Auditing for Cohesion
Once the bulk of the work is done, an audit for cohesion is completed. This important step ensures that names are consistent throughout the document, locations remain in the same place, added info is integrated into earlier sections, and that pesky cat you added in the last section has stats or a purpose.
Auditing for Missing Info
This is likely the hardest step of the process, as you are looking for what does not yet exist. These are the holes in the adventure, the undescribed treasure, the background for Joe the Barber, the explanation of the use for the magic sword, or everything you wanted to know about the disease you added when the party got the option to enter that sewer. In short, anything that you, as a Game Master, will look at and say, “That’s nice, but how does it work?”
Drafting Support Sections
The Audit for Missing Info will turn up a lot of really interesting things that require elaboration. In many cases, these will require entire sections or chapters. This is especially true when part of the adventure is a Horror Mechanic that is meant to cause angst while playing. In all cases, the Support Sections themselves will have to be audited for missing info and for issues with cohesion that they accidentally create.
Editing
Editing is the mind-numbing process of transforming your writing style into one that follows the rules of the English (and hopefully later Spanish) language. Special care is taken not to alter the tone of the adventure while still trying to keep it accessible to everyone.
Art Development
Art development is a careful process for Crimson River Games. We try to create memorable but elusive pictures that give the player a taste, but try to allow their imaginations to fill in more banks than the art.
Map Design
All maps included in Crimson River Games products are created using Campaign Cartographer 3+ software. They are derived from the original map and smaller ones included in the Scratch Draft step.
Formatting
All products are formatted into a single document and then transferred into a series of PDF documents, separated and combined in various ways to make them user friendly.
Output Creation
Formatted products are tested on several platforms for compatibility and adjusted for maximum functionality across devices. These are then placed into a final configuration for use in product sales and distribution.
Final Review
For the Final Review, we take a final draft copy of the product and sit by the fire with an adult beverage and read every last word in order several times to make sure our minds have not filled in blanks that our pens did not.
Statistical Analysis
Our brand is named Crimson River for a reason. We seek to make the bloodiest and nastiest games possible. We Nerf nothing, and we make no apologies for it. That said, we do try to make the adventure balanced in a way that stupid decisions result in misery and good ones result in living ten more minutes. Statistical analysis of the final product is necessary to ensure that it is not just 150 pages that no one will read because they all died on page 2.
Statistical Rebalancing
The second half of the analysis involves rebalancing the elements of the adventure that were either too easy or impossible. We tend to aim for the 45-55% success possibility in our products, which is a task for anything that is also system neutral.
ISBN/Copyright
As our products are sold through third-party book sellers, we register them for an International Standard Book Number (ISBN) for easy location and identification. These documents are also copyrighted to ensure that our hard work is protected.
Sales and Fulfillment
Our products are sold via several websites, including Drive Through RPG and Amazon. If we crowdfund, we will fulfill this obligation before any copies are sold commercially. Finally, physical products may become available from Crimson River Games in the future, but as we seek to deliver the greatest value for the lowest price, this may take some time.
