After having taken a few days off from writing this adventure module for The Secret World TTRPG, I sat down this morning to pick up where I left off and after making some grammatical and “voice” fixes, I was suddenly struck by a narrative idea, except that it was an idea that would require me to up-end the entire plot and focus of what I have done so far.

Without providing spoilers, because who knows…I might harangue people within the sound of my voice to help me play-test this when it’s in a state to be play-tested…the current iteration is a bit Big Picture for an introductory adventure. Going Big out of the gate for low-level characters is doable, of course, but then what? Once you’ve faced one Earth Shattering Peril, is anything less going to be as exciting? Instead, I’m thinking about making the situation more local, of concern to the people who live in the place where the adventure is set. I have done a lot of prep-work and design on the setting, so I don’t want to throw that out, and this new idea can be dropped in easily. Possibly more easily than what I’d been working on previously.

As stated before I’m always having issues getting outside of the main narrative, and even within that I have issues not giving players the straight-up information when they ask. “Have you experienced any strange or unexplained phenomenon?” the players might inquire of a local NPC. “Now that you mention it…” seems like a logical reply from someone who has experienced these things, who does not want to experience these things, and who is conversing with people who might be able to take care of these things. Maybe I am too pragmatic to be able to create situations where NPCs beat around the bush as a means of giving the players something to do.

While writing out this post has made me decide that I probably will tear down what I have done thus far, I am now realizing that there are other, new issues arising because of it. One of them is how to get the player factions to condone a sortie to the location when the situation is no longer of Earth Shattering Importance. I suppose that’s narrow thinking; the factions are all about doing what they can, where they can; no terror too minor, no eldritch power too small, no inter-faction grievance too petty. In truth, while having the factions as A Mechanic that allows players to have their own agendas provided for them, it’s also a PITA. I can’t really, for example, just have the party stumble across the situation because they were on a vacation together, or without putting them in the area as a result of some other adventure that I haven’t created. Technically the “Stoneward Bound” module that was released with the original TSW Core Source could be an introductory mission that would segue into this custom project, but I’ll have to think on that one.