Potential future collaborations with a seasoned DM/encounter designer?

[RecklessEnthusiasm]

Not sure if there is a better forum than the "general" one for this, but I have been playing around with the idea of building some adventures. The only catch is that I've never actually played any pen and paper RPGs. I am a writer and learning about cartography, but I know absolutely nothing about designing encounters. I'd love to hear from any seasoned DMs and encounter designers who might be interested in future collaboration on building some adventures--I would most likely write and do the cartography, but the actual encounters and monster building is what I'd be looking to "outsource." If anyone is interested, let me know or shoot me an e-mail at JoshuaABennett at Gmail!

[Jaxilon]

I've been doing this for my gaming group for years but have only been kicking the idea of building my own adventures for resale during the last couple years. The tricky part for me is setting the encounters up to be challenging but not overwhelming.

Hehe, reminds me of a story - We don't play often but I have 2 adventures going in the same world for the same group because whenever anyone can't make it we run a little Mercenary company for whoever is there. The last time I set up an encounter for this I may have overpowered it just a little as the full party wipe bears witness. MUAHAHAHA - FEAR YOUR DM!

I wish you success with this and I am interested to hear how you find the process to be. I would be willing to help out but I think my lack of D&D stock monster knowledge might be a weakness.

There are some nice references out on the web for 3.5 stuff. I found a pretty slick site with ratings to show difficulty as well as descriptions and illustrations - pretty much a Monster Manual.

Personally, I kind of like the more generic adventures where they have a story line and allow the Game Master to load up the encounters with appropriate stuff. I think that's better than saying, "There will be 5 bugbears here ready for action". I think the GM should be able to know if 5 or 10 is a better challenge for his group. But then, maybe that's just me, it could be lots of folks want it all spelled out for them.

[RecklessEnthusiasm]

Thanks, Jax! I really don't even know how much work it is to just design the actual encounters. Hopefully I'll find someone who is interested. In the mean time, maybe I'll study the different source materials to try and get a feel for it myself.

I've been doing this for my gaming group for years but have only been kicking the idea of building my own adventures for resale during the last couple years. The tricky part for me is setting the encounters up to be challenging but not overwhelming.

Hehe, reminds me of a story - We don't play often but I have 2 adventures going in the same world for the same group because whenever anyone can't make it we run a little Mercenary company for whoever is there. The last time I set up an encounter for this I may have overpowered it just a little as the full party wipe bears witness. MUAHAHAHA - FEAR YOUR DM!

I wish you success with this and I am interested to hear how you find the process to be. I would be willing to help out but I think my lack of D&D stock monster knowledge might be a weakness.

There are some nice references out on the web for 3.5 stuff. I found a pretty slick site with ratings to show difficulty as well as descriptions and illustrations - pretty much a Monster Manual.

Personally, I kind of like the more generic adventures where they have a story line and allow the Game Master to load up the encounters with appropriate stuff. I think that's better than saying, "There will be 5 bugbears here ready for action". I think the GM should be able to know if 5 or 10 is a better challenge for his group. But then, maybe that's just me, it could be lots of folks want it all spelled out for them.

[Feadel]

Encounters can vary widely depending on what type of game you run. Simple hack-n-slash encounters are easy; role-playing story encounters are much harder. I've been gaming for more than 30 years and it took awhile to learn how to adjust things on the fly for my groups. And different groups needed different styles. Now-a-days I'm into online MMO's which are a different creature entirely.
I'm not up on current D&D things but I can set up generic encounters for most games given some background. I'd be happy to offer some ideas.

[anstett]

Shoot me a line, be glad to knock some ideas around at a minimum.

BOB

[Lukc]

Hey, I'd be interested to help you bounce ideas around - I've been DMing long enough =) - but I've also always had trouble preparing an adventure for publication - I can never quite tell which bits of the adventure are important for potential players and which are not.

[tilt]

always ready to help RE - just buzz me and we can talk further

[RecklessEnthusiasm]

Awesome! It is good to have a list of names to get in touch with. I'll definitely know who to follow up with if this project ever gets off the ground!