✍️ Writing
A community for writers, like poems, fiction, non-fiction, short stories, long books, all those sorts of things, to discuss writing approaches and what's new in the writing world, and to help each other with writing.
Rules for now:
1. Try to be constructive and nice. When discussing approaches or giving feedback to excerpts, please try to be constructive and to maintain a positive vibe. For example, don't just vaguely say something is bad but try to list and explain downsides, and if you can, also find some upsides. However, this is not to say that you need to pretend you liked something or that you need to hide or embellish what you disliked.
2. Mention own work for purpose and not mainly for promo: Feel free to post asking for feedback on excerpts or worldbuilding advice, but please don't make posts purely for self promo like a released book. If you offer professional services like editing, this is not the community to openly advertise them either. (Mentioning your occupation on the side is okay.) Don't link your excerpts via your website when asking for advice, but e.g. Google Docs or similar is okay. Don't post entire manuscripts, focus on more manageable excerpts for people to give feedback on.
3. What happens in feedback or critique requests posts stays in these posts: Basically, if you encounter someone you gave feedback to on their work in their post, try not to quote and argue against them based on their concrete writing elsewhere in other discussions unless invited. (As an example, if they discuss why they generally enjoy outlining novels, don't quote their excerpts to them to try to prove why their outlining is bad for them as a singled out person.) This is so that people aren't afraid to post things for critique.
4. All writing approaches are valid. If someone prefers outlining over pantsing for example, it's okay to discuss up- and downsides but don't tell someone that their approach is somehow objectively worse. All approaches are on some level subjective anyway.
5. Solarpunk rules still apply. The general rules of solarpunk of course still apply.
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I feel like I've made pretty good progress on the solarpunk TTRPG adventure module so far. I mostly focused on the soon-to-be disincorporated fictional town of Comity NH this time, building out landmarks, local characters, and a map of the site:
Red dots are potential dump sites. (The guy who agreed to 'store' the industrial waste owned a lot of properties). Narrowing down potential sites will be a big part of the investigation.
I now have a description prepped for every spot with a name, a list of characters at each with a description and writeup of what they know along with suggestions for dialogue. The map shows the old state routes because they're relevant to the mystery, but I'm kind of hand-waiving that the place is actually riddled with tons of small trails and paths which the locals have built in lieu of trying to maintain a full network of paved roads barely anyone uses. I was inspired by the downsizing to achieve a maintainable transportation network described in this article. Some roads obviously still exist because they're useful, but others have been washed out and never repaired because none of the current residents need them for anything, while new trails cut through properties nobody has lived in for decades.
I've split the current population and the named sites between locals (the people who've lived here for the whole time and plan to continue no matter what) and the work crews (the population of younger folks who are here to assist in the deconstruction of abandoned buildings, the rewilding of damaged habitats, in various research and environmental safety test type activities, etc. Generally the locals will be able to give the players clues about the past which can help with that mystery, and the work crews will be able to answer questions about the present thanks to their equipment.
Fairer Way, down in the bottom right corner, is the players' starting point, at the end of the incomplete public transit system. They'll be able to talk to people there, do some research, and find transportation to Comity.
The Fully Automated Dev team has actually provided a template for making modules that I quite like - it's very organized and useful, almost academic in its layout. It's helped me a lot. The only thing I've run into is that the original format seems to expect a somewhat more linear game - perhaps because I'm fairly new to actually playing/running TTRPGs, the only thing I'm counting on is for the players to surprise me, so I'm doing my best to build the locations and clues with no set order, so they can explore as they please. So I've been building an outline, but it only has the broad sweeps of events, and goes by location rather than chronology after that, which I hope helps. I'm very interested to see how the players handle the investigation, and if they'll manage to think of avenues of inquiry that surprise me.
My goals now are to finish getting it organized and to keep filling in any gaps (there's fewer than there used to be, but it still needs some detail work). The plan is to get what Andrew (lead dev) calls a minimum viable product so we can try running it, and then see what it needs from there. I did start on some art assets (a few character portraits and one scene of the bike co-op) but that's mostly just keeping my attention span engaged.
This is exactly the types of campaigns I remember most fondly - the open-ended ones that really make the player (and to an extent, even the GM) feel like anything is possible.
Maybe I missed it in your descriptions, but what is the black outline that rings most of the named locations?
Am I interpreting this correctly - that it sounds like you're working the Fully Automated dev team on a campaign (for a wider audience)? I've been imagining this was for a specific tabletop group, but this sounds like it might be for a wider audience.
Either way very cool. Thank you for sharing your progress in such detail!
Yes! I started out proofreading a series of four premade adventures/modules they were preparing for release as a playable campaign, and that got me thinking about trying to build one of my own out of some story and worldbuilding ideas that had been rattling around in my head. I really like the idea of making it available as a polished, finished product, through their channels - there's already a pretty wide range of modules but I don't think any really dig into the kinds of rural areas I'm from and some of the possibilities there. I've been having a lot of fun exploring themes around what makes a community sustainable (as in, practical, long-lasting, viable, and at what scale), deconstruction, rewilding, and other aspects of wildland conservation, the health of watersheds, and sort of the different way people interact with the habitats and species around them. There's also a lot of reuse and salvage happening because I think it's cool.
I'm honestly not sure if I'd have had trouble pouring this much work into something for a one-off game with friends, I think that's part of why I haven't GMed in the past? I am looking forward to running some games of this, but my main goal is to produce a module booklet, (hopefully a bookmarked PDF), and a zip file of all the maps, place art, and character portraits a GM might need.
The black outline is the old town border (since they know the 'treasure' was dumped somewhere inside). A lot of borders have sort of faded in importance, being replaced with watershed boundaries when it comes to managing shared resources, but the town is still incorporated and operational on paper at the moment (not unlike Centralia PA 50 years after the fire began). Towns have a way of lingering even when there are fewer residents than your average homeowner's association.
Thanks again for running this discussion, it's nice to get to chat about this stuff!