A new project, and an explanation! · 4:43am Jul 21st, 2023
Hey folks,
Alternate title for this blog post: I'm Doing a Thing (and I'm looking for help)
I don't think anyone is surprised that my pony writing has been on a bit of a hiatus for a while, and my presence on this site is mostly to lurk-and-read rather than finish my long-delayed stories. What you might not know, though, is what I've been doing instead of pony writing.
Remember a while back, when GaPJaxie posted about a character he was playing in a Ponyfinder game? And then I posted a bit about my character in that same game, Somewhere, and then later a short story with actual humans?
So, whatever became of that? Well, as the last link up there suggests, it stopped being a Ponyfinder game. Now we're all D&D, baby, and it's a whole campaign setting, with an enormous adventure, all sorts of monsters, about a million maps of the battle and region and city variety, and tables of treasure and new mechanics and so much world-building and oh my god this thing was a lot of work. So much work that I'm only about 60-70 percent done, if I had to guess.
What’s all of this for? An honest-to-god D&D setting book, if I can keep up the work:
The first page.
A combat encounter in one of the early modules.
One of the early battle maps, showing the draft I scribbled on a long airplane ride, and the final product it turned into.
I have many hobbies -- some of which I think I’m pretty good at. Writing is one, obviously, but I also love maps, and art, and graphic design… and when you think about it, those are all the things that go into putting together a D&D campaign book. It’s actually fun to do all these. Which is good, because damn, it takes a while.
But I’ve also learned an important lesson -- you can’t write a D&D campaign setting by yourself. It’s impossible. D&D and other TTRPGs are meant to be played, which means they need to be balanced, which means… I need some help.
What kind of help? Specifically, I’m looking for some folks with experience as D&D (or other TTRPG games, i.e. Pathfinder, Call of Cthulu, etc) who are willing to be test readers and tell me if what I’m putting down makes any sense. A campaign book isn’t any good if the intended audience doesn’t understand what the author meant.
So, if you’re interested in helping, drop me a PM here. I’ll send out draft copies of the various chapters and modules as they’re finished, and I’ll take any feedback you can offer.
If you’ve read my stories here, you might notice a few easter eggs in this campaign setting. I’m not too proud to not steal from myself!
Looking forward to the finished product! I used the time-room you devised in The Wind Thief in a one-shot and my players loved it! They are definitely confused when I tell them where I read about it.
How very interesting! I'm going to throw a link to this blog out to my little TTRPG community Discord. They're a bunch of cool pony folks who also love D&D and other TTRPGS.
I can attest to the complexity of rolling an entire campaign in your head, along with the maps, timetables, and persons of interest. If you recall the narrator from Myth: The Fallen Lords, I've been working on a story presented in a similar fashion.
Ie. this, but with ponies
media.mythjournals.com/media/overhead/tfl-battle-12.jpg
I may be able to lend a hand in the lore and rp department
Wow! Your art is great! And, congrat's!
Oh wow! That looks very interesting. I wish you best of luck with this project; please keep us posted!
Well, I am going to have a lot more free time soon, and I have experience with 5e and Pathfinder. I'd be happy to help look over the book.
How much does that project cost?
Like in money and person-hours involved?
I am writing a campaignbook myself, and I can do text (barely), but I have no idea how to actually turn it into a printable product.
Any, even order-of-magnitude estimates from someone who has actually gone through the process would be really helpful.
Ye gads, Cold. That's awesome.
oho!
oh ho ho ho! :D now that's quite a direction to take your skills!
Glad to hear you're not dead! Sounds like a fun project too, best of luck n_n
I'll see if anyone in my gaming group can be tossed your way.
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The cost isn't very high -- I've spent about two hundred dollars on quality publication software (Affinity Publisher, Design and Photo), and I already own a quality graphics tablet. The rest of the cost, of course, is just in hours of work, and it takes a lot of hours for a book like this. I've easily put hundreds of hours into it so far, more than any of the actual novel-length stories I've written for this site.
Colour me interested. I'm making my own D&D world, and I play both D&D and Pathfinder (and some other things). It can take a lot of time to fill in a whole world of detail and make it all vaguely consistent.
I approve.
Sounds like a lot of fun! A few friends and I are also playing a pony DnD campaign and it's been an absolute blast so far.
That sounds amazing! Honestly not the biggest fan of AI art but I very much am interested in helping.
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I'm not either, and I plan to make it a push goal to replace as much as I can with commissioned art. But doing my own art would take 8+ hours per piece, while AI art is pretty much an instant space-filler. As an artist I have conflicting feelings about it, but I also have to accept the limitations of a one-person production.
I'm looking forward to it! I'm not an expert but my DM friend who is asked to make sure you're following the Wizards style guide or whatever that maintains consistency so it can actually get published
Sadly I have zero experience with, well, playing tabletop games of any sort, but I greatly look forward to taking an eventual gander at the finished work!
The Affinity suite is what I use at work, and it’s definitely delivering bangs for your bucks. It’s affordable and quite able. Good quality software, the one I don’t hesitate to spend quid at. I’m just missing a core functionality, though (namely, table flow between pages) that prevents me to use it more.
I don’t use Affinity Photo, I prefer Pixelmator, which is about the same, but fair enough.
You want maps? Use QGis. Nicest digital mapping software. Produces great output.
Srsly, I’ve been playing AD&D for years in the 90s, but I doubt this would be very helpful more than three decades later. Also, you know, crippled English.
But if you have occasional questions you think I could help you with, please be my guest.
Last but not least, good luck and all my wishes of success with this amazing project.
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I've been meaning to get into GIS for D&D world maps. Any suggestions where I should start?
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You should definitely try QGis. This is the only open source GIS which has enough graphical capability to edit good-looking charts. Now, you’ll have to enter all the objects you need for your map, and that can take a little time – so to speak, especially if you want to add extra detail such as terrain or fine grained vegetation.
A database can be helpful to store all those data. I'd recommend PostGresql + PostGIS, but that’s somewhat advanced.
Let me talk with a buddy about this. I might be able to hook you up with him to hook you up with a guy that can hook you up.
good luck.
It's hardly surprising that you're applying your considerable artistic talents to the living, breathing, theatre of the imagination that is DND. ~
I struggle at DnD partially because my penchant to over-think everything, but if I could find the right group of ponies to hang with, I have a feeling that it's just a matter of inexperience and not vibing than anything else. Keep up the good work CiG!
Good luck!
I am multi-disciplinary and at least somewhat curious, if you are still looking for reviewer sorts.