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roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
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Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#41They might need some polish, but there are a couple real CRAP ones in the ones that Johnn sent too. -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#42Yeah, but these stay on our site as well. :p -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#43Brought Batch 1 up to the newest standard, and added names. (Why couldn't they just name it "Another Crappy Dungeon Wyth A Necromancer"? Duh.)
Will look at Batch 2 later, after that we can close down the quest completely, and C&P all the Citadel posts to create the final batch.
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Now I have a puzzle for a brave soul among you. Can you add the following titles into the plot below them, in such a way that it actually makes sense?
Room Two: Puzzle or Roleplaying Challenge
Room Three: Trick or Setback
Room Four: Climax, Big Battle, or Conflict
Room Five: Reward, Revelation, Plot Twist
The Plague Devil
By Nik Palmer
Divination and dream visions have revealed than an entombed devil is gaining power and trying to break free of its ancient tomb. A range of mountains is known as the ancient kingdom of the plague demon, exploration points towards a valley, home of the cursed howling wolf as the likely site of the tomb. The Valley has shriveled and twisted trees, barely clinging to life.
Room One: Entrance and Guardian
Entry Chamber, Wolf Fiend Den
CONFLICT: guardian and secret door.
Centuries of living in this hollow have chancered and twisted the Cerberus type beast.
The guardian is an ancient magical wolf with three heads. It can speak a growly howly voice, but has a limited capacity of conversation... Eat, Sleep, and keep others off its territory. (It does not care about birds in the trees). For weaker players, make the guardian old, diseased and weak enough to beat. For powerful players, make the guardian ancient and powerful with a breath weapon of disease and flame.
Secret door: The back of the cave den a 10x10 entryway has obviously been sealed with giant stones a long long time past. Not so secret, but definitely blocked. A warm foetid smell seeps out of a few of the holes. (place traps in/on the stones for additional challenge).
Main Chamber, Altar in center of room on dais, metallic runes and script set into the ceiling radiate obvious magic and seem to glisten with a fresh wetness.
There are three side rooms.
Common Elements: All the rooms are very basic square cut, stone floors and pillars to support the ceiling. Simple, basic, but well crafted. There are runes made of some metal that form a script around the ceiling of each of the rooms. Successful deciphering reveals the quote for each room.
RUNE QUOTE: Here the three essence shall not be reformed.
Witness....
As the player(s) finally enter the chamber, they witness the plague demon forming from the aether into a physical body, immediately the rune script along the ceiling detaches from the wall and beings to spin in a vortex, forming a cylinder of razor metal, that shreds the form of the demon. The metalic runes then return to their original position.
Anyone who witnesses this must save versus disease or suffer a debilitating penalty.
Priests and paranormally sensitive characters will feel the wave of pestilence emerge from the tomb....
The process repeats nearly every hour. Sometimes the plague demon gets farther than other times, but it does not escape the main chamber of the tomb. Sometimes it is able to get to the left room and move it's skull a few inches (Below)
Three Side Rooms - Each to one side of the main room. Left Room, Opposite Entrance Room, and Right Room.
Each side room has a portion of the demon (mind, body, essence) all three must be united to ultimately free or banish the pestilence devil from the area.
Twist: When the demon is re-summoned, inlaid precious metal runes and script come to life, become a razor wall to shred the demon and dissect it's parts. But each time the demon dies, pestilence escapes. The players must stop the cycle.
The demon is getting more powerful and able to manifest and reform just a bit further each time. The waves of pestilence are manifesting more commonly. Each time the demon manifests and is stopped, the players must save against disease or contract some debilitating illness.
Left Room
RUNE QUOTE: Demons mind sealed in gold sitting upon stone.
The head of the Demon rests in this room, but it is no longer on its pedestal, over the millenia, the pedestal cracked and crumbled, ultimately, the golden demon skull tumbled to the floor. Free of it's protected pedestal, the devil has been able to re-form its ethereal body in the main chamber, The runes are able to affect ghosts, spirits, and the astral plane, so they continue to shred the demon. It can not physically reform until all of its 3 parts are laid together on the altar. Sometimes the demon is able to drag its skull a few inches closer to the main room and altar.
Opposite Room
RUNE QUOTE: Buried body seals pestilence within
This room has a large stone sarcophagus covered in runes. To open the body sarcophagus, a puzzle must be solved (a riddle, brain teaser, or more active (tic tac toe, etc) challenge).
Right Room
RUNE QUOTE: Soul closed in crystal, heart locked away.
The essence of the demon is in this room. It's heart, still beating, rests in a crystal urn, covered in dust.
Actually the entire room is full of dust.... the still beating heart is pumping out dust of decay, which has eaten a crack in the crystal urn and allowed the dust of pestilence to begin to pile and fill the room. Which each slow heartbeat, another puff of deadly dust poofs out of the urn.
Some Possible Remedies
Allowing the demon to escape (it will vow to never return in exchange for a some of a character's most vital statistic).
Stop the Razor Golem and allow the devil to pull out its three parts and reform..... only to return much later as an enemy.
Restore the protections of all three essences.
Destroy the three parts of the Demon.
Connect the three parts of the Demon.... When the second piece of the body is brought into the room, the Razor Rune Vortex will form and slay anything moving, if it is stopped, it will magically reform and attack again the when the third part is brought into the room. If defeated again, it will reform to challenge the corporeal devil if it is reformed.
Ultimately, it can only reform after being destroyed a total of two times. (reduce it's effectiveness by half each "new life" for weaker players). -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#44OK, Batch 2 processed. Titles added where missing, otherwise is everything fine.
(Reminder: two of them were re-posted here (Stomphoof).) -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#45One last thing from me. First a few numbers:
First batch brought 18 submissions, second 27. In our Quest were 26 submissions total, skipping two duplicates, that leaves 24. One of them was JohhnFour's example dungeon, that should be removed. Whether Strolen's needs to be removed as well is an open question. :)
Attached is a list of titles of all contest entries so far. It seems that there are no further entries from our side - so I guess we can send this to JohnnFour, while the rest of formatting is done.
manfred out. -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#46You rock!!
I should have a 4 day weekend coming up so will spend a day on the site and on this and get some things accomplished.
Good call on the titles and yes, I should be removed. -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#47Last thing I've forgotten. The separations between posts have to be checked. In some places are two lines, in some there is one, and there are various numbers of newlines in-between.
Once we have that (and someone manages that frickin' puzzle with the Plague Devil :) ), they are ready to be processed... well, right after the Citadel harvest.
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18 + 27 + 22 = 67 -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#48So, uh, anybody's going to help out? -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#49I'll give this a shot, seems like I've gotten closest. However, everything is just "sort of" and based on my interpretation. The dungeon still doesn't make much sense, though.
Now I have a puzzle for a brave soul among you. Can you add the following titles into the plot below them, in such a way that it actually makes sense?
Room Two: Puzzle or Roleplaying Challenge
Room Three: Trick or Setback
Room Four: Climax, Big Battle, or Conflict
Room Five: Reward, Revelation, Plot Twist
The Plague Devil
By Nik Palmer
Divination and dream visions have revealed than an entombed devil is gaining power and trying to break free of its ancient tomb. A range of mountains is known as the ancient kingdom of the plague demon, exploration points towards a valley, home of the cursed howling wolf as the likely site of the tomb. The Valley has shriveled and twisted trees, barely clinging to life.
Room One: Entrance and Guardian
Entry Chamber, Wolf Fiend Den
CONFLICT: guardian and secret door.
Centuries of living in this hollow have chancered and twisted the Cerberus type beast.
The guardian is an ancient magical wolf with three heads. It can speak a growly howly voice, but has a limited capacity of conversation... Eat, Sleep, and keep others off its territory. (It does not care about birds in the trees). For weaker players, make the guardian old, diseased and weak enough to beat. For powerful players, make the guardian ancient and powerful with a breath weapon of disease and flame.
Secret door: The back of the cave den a 10x10 entryway has obviously been sealed with giant stones a long long time past. Not so secret, but definitely blocked. A warm foetid smell seeps out of a few of the holes. (place traps in/on the stones for additional challenge).
Main Chamber, Altar in center of room on dais, metallic runes and script set into the ceiling radiate obvious magic and seem to glisten with a fresh wetness.
There are three side rooms.
Common Elements: All the rooms are very basic square cut, stone floors and pillars to support the ceiling. Simple, basic, but well crafted. There are runes made of some metal that form a script around the ceiling of each of the rooms. Successful deciphering reveals the quote for each room.
RUNE QUOTE: Here the three essence shall not be reformed.
Witness....
As the player(s) finally enter the chamber, they witness the plague demon forming from the aether into a physical body, immediately the rune script along the ceiling detaches from the wall and beings to spin in a vortex, forming a cylinder of razor metal, that shreds the form of the demon. The metalic runes then return to their original position.
Anyone who witnesses this must save versus disease or suffer a debilitating penalty.
Priests and paranormally sensitive characters will feel the wave of pestilence emerge from the tomb....
The process repeats nearly every hour. Sometimes the plague demon gets farther than other times, but it does not escape the main chamber of the tomb. Sometimes it is able to get to the left room and move it's skull a few inches (Below)
Three Side Rooms - Each to one side of the main room. Left Room, Opposite Entrance Room, and Right Room.
Each side room has a portion of the demon (mind, body, essence) all three must be united to ultimately free or banish the pestilence devil from the area.
((Looks like this is as close as it gets to Room Three: Trick or Setback))
Twist: When the demon is re-summoned, inlaid precious metal runes and script come to life, become a razor wall to shred the demon and dissect it's parts. But each time the demon dies, pestilence escapes. The players must stop the cycle.
The demon is getting more powerful and able to manifest and reform just a bit further each time. The waves of pestilence are manifesting more commonly. Each time the demon manifests and is stopped, the players must save against disease or contract some debilitating illness.
Left Room
RUNE QUOTE: Demons mind sealed in gold sitting upon stone.
The head of the Demon rests in this room, but it is no longer on its pedestal, over the millenia, the pedestal cracked and crumbled, ultimately, the golden demon skull tumbled to the floor. Free of it's protected pedestal, the devil has been able to re-form its ethereal body in the main chamber, The runes are able to affect ghosts, spirits, and the astral plane, so they continue to shred the demon. It can not physically reform until all of its 3 parts are laid together on the altar. Sometimes the demon is able to drag its skull a few inches closer to the main room and altar.
Opposite Room
RUNE QUOTE: Buried body seals pestilence within
This room has a large stone sarcophagus covered in runes. To open the body sarcophagus, a puzzle must be solved (a riddle, brain teaser, or more active (tic tac toe, etc) challenge). ((I think this is meant to be Room Two: Puzzle or Roleplaying Challenge, although the PCs could easily avoid it and will, if they have the brains God gave a lemon. I also suppose you could make the case that the whole damn dungeon is a puzzle, because I don't know how the PCs are supposed to know any of this.))
Right Room
RUNE QUOTE: Soul closed in crystal, heart locked away.
The essence of the demon is in this room. It's heart, still beating, rests in a crystal urn, covered in dust.
Actually the entire room is full of dust.... the still beating heart is pumping out dust of decay, which has eaten a crack in the crystal urn and allowed the dust of pestilence to begin to pile and fill the room. Which each slow heartbeat, another puff of deadly dust poofs out of the urn.
Some Possible Remedies
((I think this is Room Four: Climax, Big Battle, or Conflict, if it's only suggested. I suppose it's also supposed to combine Room Five: Reward, Revelation, Plot Twist, although I fail to understand what reward they get.))
Allowing the demon to escape (it will vow to never return in exchange for a some of a character's most vital statistic).
Stop the Razor Golem and allow the devil to pull out its three parts and reform..... only to return much later as an enemy.
Restore the protections of all three essences.
Destroy the three parts of the Demon.
Connect the three parts of the Demon.... When the second piece of the body is brought into the room, the Razor Rune Vortex will form and slay anything moving, if it is stopped, it will magically reform and attack again the when the third part is brought into the room. If defeated again, it will reform to challenge the corporeal devil if it is reformed.
Ultimately, it can only reform after being destroyed a total of two times. (reduce it's effectiveness by half each "new life" for weaker players).
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Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#50From johnn - the winners came in!
Hi guys,
I listed all the entries in Excel and randomly selected them using an Excel function. Three folks from Strolen's have won prizes!
Here are the winners and instructions:
Wulfhere: MyInfo Personal Reference Software
Please have Wulfhere e-mail Petko at MyInfo for a license (support@milenix.com). They'll send him a full license and download link.
valadaar: Advanced Adventures #3 The Curse of the Witch Head
Please ask valadaar to contact Suzi and Expeditious Retreat Press (xrpsuzi@gmail.com) and they'll e-mail him his module.
Thewizard63: 1 on 1 Adventures #8 Blood Brothers
Please ask Thewizard63 to contact Suzi and Expeditious Retreat Press (xrpsuzi@gmail.com) and they'll e-mail him his module.
I will keep the Excel handy in case, for whatever reason, we need to draw replacement winners. Also, if you want to see the Excel, for reference, I can send it along.
(Strolen should notify them in official capacity, but we can do it as well if he's too busy.) -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#51Update - johnn kindly left us another one to notify (and a template, too):
(just to note - Clayton is Stomphoof)
Peter,
Ironically, I selected Clayton as a winner too, but I kept Clayton in my
list instead of yours. Because the messenger gets all the credit :) I
figure why don't you guys let Clayton know he's won? Here's the template
I've been using for prize notification. Feel free to re-use or make up
your own. Clayton has won 1 on 1 Adventures #7 Eyes of the Dragon PDF
from Expeditious Retreat Press.
===
Hi Clayton,
Great news - your name was drawn to receive a prize for your 5 Room
Dungeon entry. Congrats!
You are now the proud owner of 1 on 1 Adventures #7 Eyes of the Dragon
PDF from Expeditious Retreat Press.
Please e-mail Suzi Yee (xrpsuzi@gmail.com) to collect your module -
she'll send you a download link.
Visit http://www.xrpshop.citymax.com/ for more information about the
module and to find other great gaming products.
Cheers,
xxxxxxxxxxx -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#52My internet has sucked for the past two days and am only on for minutes at a time. I seem to be on right now so will send the PMs.
Thanks for keeping up with Johnn for me manfred!! -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#53Sent Stomphoof after four tries. Need to work on this connection some more. This is insane. -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#54This is hopefully the last post here tonight. :)
After an exchange with Johnn, we have an updated "The Plague Devil" post; it's attached to Batch 1 here. It could still handle some polishing, and probably a preface that this particular entry is formatted a bit differently than
the others to best serve the content - but it's good as it can be (big thanks to Ria, that made an actual a step in forcing it to make sense).
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Now general editing notes:
- there is also a THIRD BATCH of posts, that we didn't process so far, and it's not particularly short. :|
I'm working on it, in the mean time I am looking for another volunteer, that will process the Citadel quest submissions (all except Strolen's, Johnn's, and Dozus' that came too late). 22 pieces, in the spirit of what we have already. Even a little will help.
- Batch 3 has at last some long-sought for stats. In the Plague Debacle post mentioned above is used a large blockquote, I've given it's content a smaller font (10pt). So for truly off-topic things like stats, ;) use a smaller font. Still not sure if we should use blockquotes, but they are an option.
- We'll need to find the exact way to format the various links... other people besides Citadellians have them, too. -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#55OK, I'll help. -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#56A stalwart hero was found! Praise him with great praise!
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Seems that Strolen has sent out all the PMs, so we are covered.
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Temporary results for Batch 3:
- checked and formatted, quite a few are still missing titles
- also separators between the posts need to be added, as pretty picturses
- used the smaller font with abandon; can be included in other batches as well
Worst Name For Organization Award: The Masters Of Evil
Nicest Dungeon Idea So Far Noticed Award: "The Tomb of Three Brothers", where the spirits of three backstabbing princes each want to be crowned by the PCs -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#57Batch 3 update:
- added titles where missing
- added line separators between posts; one is enough; pretty picturses to be yet included
Neat And Still Short Dungeon Award: The Pool of Unmaking
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Calculator update:
18 (1st batch) + (2nd batch) 27 + 22 (Citadel posts) + 20 (3rd batch) = 87 posts total
Now that's a decent result of the Quest! -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#58Man...thanks again for taking the reigns on this. I wish I could be more help and will try to be this week. Be nice to have this as finalized as we can by the time Johnn gets back.
Have you seen any way to split up the subs into smaller pdfs for distribution? Johnn mentioned doing that and revealing them over time to maximize their impact. If we release 87 at one time nobody will read them all, but slowly they might get better a better look.
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Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#59Splitting... there are some ultra-short ones, some relatively compact pieces, some long ones, and of course some sleep-inducers. So the main filter would be get some of each type into a little pdf.
The secondary question is how to prevent that too many suck in one package - seems to me one way to improve the chances is to make sure that the Citadel subs are evenly distributed. ;)
Will make some considerations on this, too. Outside help is as always welcome. -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#60Working. Did we not get the citadel posts into a word document?
Is it true we only have 2 batches from Johnn?
We can put Dozus, Johnn's, and mine in there. No reason they can't go in the pdf. It was important for the prizes, but not for the actual pdf.
Added the little icons to the attached. -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#61Going submission by submission and got to Scras' traveling dungeon.
Stomphoof's stuff is in the others right?
Doing dinner and will be back. -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#62Nice!
- on Citadel posts consult Muro, he may have already a few.
- three batches came from Johnn, all are here.
- yeah, the other subs can actually go into the mix, good idea!
- and yes, the stuff of Stomphoof is already inside.
- still wondering on how the links will be presented -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#63I want to get these done so even if I duplicate effort, as long as it gets done tonight.
I put the link next to the word, maybe I should just link the word. I am sure the pdf will remain similiar.
I only caught two batches, the ones I emailed. Which one am I missing? -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#64starting again
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Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#65I am liking a tab indent for all the 10pt font and for italics. Doing that with the strolen's set. Breaks it up and gives the writings some more texture. -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#66Let's see if I remember it correctly...
...first two batches came in right here, then the third you have forwarded to me by mail, but didn't post it here, and I have immediately forgotten about it. However, later when I've sent the file with the Titles to Johnn, he noticed the third batch isn't inside, so he kindly mailed it back to me, and I could do some editing and post it here. So we have three. -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#67So we haven't formatted the one that went temporarily missing then?
(30 more minutes and I will be done with the citadel) -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#68
...
Added the little icons to the attached.
* 5_Room_Dungeons_round03_3.doc (299.5 KB)
We have, and you gave it the finishing touches. :) -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#69you guys get major Kudos. Wow. -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#70Nothing says "Thank you" better than hard currency! :D -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#71phew -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#72OK, here is the missing round 2 (not missing, I just kept overlooking it) All I did was add the graphic icons. -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#73Going to email the full final set and cc you manfred. -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#74changed "Stranger Then Fiction" to "Stranger Than Fiction" woot!
Oh, and the little thingies (graphic icons) rock! -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#75Here is Johnn's demo pdf -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#76Just to let you know, guys and gals, in case you don't already:
Our first PDF is out there.
http://www.roleplayingtips.com/downloads/5RoomDungeons_Vol01.PDF
We could mirror them here with the whole shebang, or merely make a BIG celebratory announcement.
Anyway. We are published. Sort of. :) -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#77I think I need to make a new page for them. Not sure what or how though. -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#78Maybe something like the Netbooks page, as they are another type of files?
Then add some advertising/announcing around. -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#79How about making a subpage to the Quests - that could be a subtle hint for us as well, to make more of the Quest results downloadable.
Btw, the left menu there is pretty useless - so we could employ it for alternative purposes like this.
Sooo... a link from the Quests is a must, the Quest report has to contain it as well (so some exposure on the main index), plus some advertising in the forums and a link in the Netbooks - anything else?
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Update: the third installment just came out. From the next issue there should be also Citadellian posts mixed in. -
Re: roleplayingtips and Johnn Four
#80That makes sense to me!