Designing an Epic Campaign for TARPG - Part 4: Adventure (part B)!

 

The Thaumaturgical Workshop has decanted the essential and ultimate nature of a Talisman Adventures RPG campaign. Yr welcome.

 

We've found that we need 15 Chapters for the campaign - each one itself a three act, six hour adventure that will take place across the Realm of Talisman.

 

Let's now use locations on the Talisman board to throw out ideas for what those adventures will be.  The locations will be the focus of a given Chapter - within the adventure itself there could be travel to any number of other places, and we don't care that we go from one side of the board to another.

 

Act I: The Legend of the Bramble Curse

 

Chapter 1: The Tavern (A mini quest, goblin or bandit foes. Stranger arrives from the Middle Region with tales of the Castle in Thorns. Epic bar-room brawl finale against Farmers)

Chapter 2: The City (A wizardy quest, shops and factions & intrigue)

Chapter 3: The Woods (A quest involving the Fae, all kind of woodland encounters. Maybe to learn from Titania how to lift the Bramble Curse)

Chapter 4: The Ruins/The Dungeon (Dungeon crawl!)

Chapter 5: Storm River (Defeating/evading the Sentinel?)

 

Act II: The Quest for the Talisman of Flame

 

Chapter 1: The Temple (Quest for Priests, Spirit Foes)

Chapter 2: The Oasis (Retrieving all their loot as stolen by wicked bandits, obvs)

Chapter 3: The Hidden Valley (Adventures & dinosaurs)

Chapter 4: The Warlock's Cave (perilous Quest - defeating a Dragon? Acquiring a Talisman!)

Chapter 5: The Castle (freeing Castle from the Bramble Curse. Returning the Prince/Princess. The Old King begs their aid to retrieve the Crown?)

 

Act III: The Quest for the Crown of Command

 

Chapter 1: The Portal of Power (overcoming some Test to enter the Inner Region - final meeting/face-off with opposing factions seeking the crown)

Chapter 2: The Crypt/The Mines (Dungeon Crawl! Spirit foes in Crypt, yer orc & balrogs in the Mines, natch)

Chapter 3: Death (big face off with Boney. Heroes have had previous encounters, this is the Big Un)

Chapter 4: The Pit Fiends & the Valley of Fire (epic Demon Foes)

Chapter 5: The Crown of Command (The Final Challenges, the PvP? - Return the Crown to the King or take it for themselves?)

 

Here's a bunch of themes to run through the adventures:

 

The Castle is under a Bramble Curse, probably by Queen Mab. King and Queen sleep, the Prince and Princess wander the land. They do not know who they are. Could become Followers of the heroes, or may just be encountered/rescued/kidnapped.

 

Meetings with Death. At least once per act the heroes encounter Boney, and certainly if ever a hero karks it.

 

A wizard or bunch of wizards who seek the power of The Wizard, and who seek the Crown. They can send the heroes on quests, or be enemies or Strangers along the way.

 

Rune Gates and Teleportation - The heroes might stumble across and slowly learn how to make use of a network of Rune Gates. Wizards can be paid to zap from one place to another.

 

Bandits/Goblins keep nicking the heroes' stuff. In Act II, they can get it back from a stash at The Oasis - perhaps a tent & turban Mos Eisley. 

 

Coming soon in the mythical Part 5, The Thaumaturgical Workshop will zoom in to look at one of the proposed Chapters, and Hell's Bells, why not make it Chapter 1: The Tavern. The Thaumaturgerer is not promising a coherent adventure that even approaches making much sense - but it might prove a starting point for your own games. 

 

Next Week however: Something else! Maybe! Possibly AireCon Hype.

***Speaking of AireCon... if there are any tickets left to play Talisman Adventures, you will find them HERE. If there aren't, don't say I didn't warn you!***

Image: zombies dragon orcs skeleton troll dungeons treasure and crown in style of english landscape painting (OpenAI)

Designing an Epic Campaign for TARPG - Part 3: Adventures!

 

Over the last few weeks, the Thaumaturgical Workshop has distilled the mathematical essence of Talisman Adventures to begin building the fundamental structure of a Campaign for the Crown of Command.

 

We have a campaign of Three Acts, each Act taking place across one of the three iconic regions of the Talisman game board. The Acts take players from 1st to 10th level, in a 100 hour campaign.

 

We'll now get down to the adventures themselves - the Chapters of each Act of the Campaign. 

 

I would like each of these chapters to be about 6 hours of play. This allows the Three Acts of the adventure to be neatly broken down to three 2 hour sessions.

 

At approximately 30 hours for each Act of the campaign, we're looking at each Campaign Act consisting of Five Chapters. Hammering my sums to fit neatly to this, requires about 10-12 XP-worthy  encounters for each chapter. This seems a bit high, and probably undermines a whole bunch of my earliest assumptions - but might mean players expecting to earn 3 or 4 XP from a single session of play, which I figure is reasonable. Going back to my "average of 1.5XP per encounter", this now suggests 6 to 8 encounters to make up a Chapter (ie, an Adventure). Keeping things neat to all my previous made-up assumptions and guesses, I'm going with six encounters per chapter. I.e. one encounter per hour of play, which seems about right.

 

Here is what we have so far:

 

The Campaign for the Crown of Command will comprise three Acts. Each Act will comprise Five Chapters. Each Chapter will comprise Six Encounters. 

 

Entirely destroying the Three Act structure, the mind-bending, gods-enraging Chapter 4 will dare to speculate about what those Adventures might be... Be sure to return to the Thaumaturgical Workshop Next Week!

 

Image: a prince a lute player a maiden a glowing orb treasure and a dragon in the style of a Tenniel illustration (OpenAI)

 

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What, you still haven't booked a ticket to play Talisman Adventures at AireCon? Three weeks to go and you're sitting on your hands? Crimminy, you is laid back! I shouldn't be telling you this, but if there are any tickets left, you can get them HERE

 

Designing an Epic Campaign for TARPG - Part 2: Acts

Last week, we used the power of Maths to determine that an epic 1st-10th level campaign for the Crown of Command should include 65 encounters, and about 100 hours of play.

This week, the Thaumaturgical Workshop will drill deeper into those numbers. We're scientific beings, we Thaumaturgerers, let no-one tell you otherwise.

The Talisman Adventures Core Rulebook has some helpful advice for GMs on Writing Adventures (p.147). It recommends a classic Three Act structure for adventures - something largely followed and demonstrated in the printed scenarios for the game.

Let's consider an over-arching Three Act to apply to the whole campaign. We're going to be drawing a lot of quick inspiration from the boardgame throughout this design process - so we'll have each of the Three Acts of the campaign focused on the Three Regions of the Realm. Act One will take place in the Outer, Act Two in the Middle, and Act Three in the Inner Region.

Levelling-up slows down as a hero gets more powerful. From last week's sums, we saw 28 hours of play bringing a character to 6th Level, 55 to 8th, and 94 to 10th.
 

Thus, Act One covers level 1 to 6, Act Two covers 6 to 8, Act Three covers 8 to 10. Players are going to want to actually get a chance to play their 10th level heroes - 6 hours-worth of Finale will bring us to a neat 100 hypothetical hours of play.

The structure of the Campaign for the Crown is beginning to suggest itself:

Act I: The heroes learn of the loss/theft of the Crown, and the possibility that if they can acquire a Talisman and dare face all manner of perils, they might retrieve it (for themselves or for the old King?). They will travel the Outer Realm having a bunch of varied adventures - meeting up with possible patrons (a representative of the old King - perhaps the Prince or Princess; a Mystic visionary; a High Priest; one of the Fae Lords), follow a couple wild goose chases, end up getting a lead on the certain location of a Talisman (in the Middle Region).

Act II: The heroes quest for a Talisman in the Middle Region. They are now directly involved in the conflict between different factions that want to take control of the Crown. They may visit the old King's castle, which is likely under some kind of bramble-entwined enchantment. They may acquire a Talisman by completing a quest at the Warlock's Cave.

Act III: The heroes, now themselves mighty and legendary, venture into the Inner Region itself. They have to face the perils of the Mines or the Crypt; they meet Death, and face other epic Strangers and Foes. Arriving at the Crown itself will lead to an epic finale - (possibly Player vs Player?), which varies depending on the Patrons/Factions/Paths the heroes have taken (or on the entirely random roll of a die).

Next week here at the Thaumaturgical Workshop, we will break down each Act of the Campaign, and look for Adventure in the resulting smoke and shards. Bring a hammer.

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