Rolemaster Blog Crowdsource Challenge: 50 RM adventures in 50 weeks.

So, let me start with this–I’m not a believer in decision by committee, so when I say “crowdsource” what I really mean is a tight group of competent people with differing skill sets.

There was an attempt at crowdsourcing an adventure module on the Forums. I have no idea how far it got, but apparently it’s stalled?

I’m thinking something different–a quick and dirty production of easy to adopt adventures, scenarios, layouts or campaign seeds via the RolemasterBlog.com. After Peter’s recent blog post, “An Explosive Situation”, it’s clear to me at least that a small, flexible group of experienced GM’s/players could publish frequent and interesting material–lower in scope than a sanctioned or published product. Peters blog and few comments generated a small conflict drop in adventure. Random encounter tables can generate a whole slew of random adventure hooks…etc.

Yes, there is already many small “one-off” products online. I’m suggesting a Rolemasterblog.com specific product line using the talents already associated with, connected to, or participating in the community. We would need a few content writers, a map/battle map/layout person and a pagemaker/publisher type. This would be a d100 system or agnostic product.

Wow, this seems like a small game company startup. Not really. This is a crazy challenge of 50 adventure vignettes in 50 weeks. Is this possible? I think so just based on the word count of RM Forum participants.. Let’s start in September 17 to September 18.

16 Replies to “Rolemaster Blog Crowdsource Challenge: 50 RM adventures in 50 weeks.”

    1. I was thinking 2-3 pages on average. 1 page of narrative, 1 map and stats.

      Vignettes ranging from a single encounter with NPC actions laid out for a few rounds as discussed in a previous blog to single building encounter or even a small tomb or crypt.

  1. Hi,

    It is kind of scary how Brian and I are often so close with our ideas. After the Explosive Situation post I took the content and that from my two longer comments and turned it into a standalone system agnostic product. I cannot do battlemaps as I have the drawing skills of a slug so I built it under the title of Theatre Of The Mind as an excuse to include very little hard descriptions or maps.

    I then thought I could produce a few of these so I went back and turned my Evil Healers post into a second Theatre Of The Mind product. This coming week I will produce my third one based upon my adventure here the villain is the low level alchemist (the post started as the review of edgltd’s spooky houses product).

    You can see the first one here http://www.rpgnow.com/product/209624/An-Explosive-Situation-Theatre-Of-The-Mind-Encounters and from there you can find the second.

    So far… I have 51 downloads of the two. 31 Explosive including two paid sales. 20 Evil Healers with one paid sale.

    I think Brian has a perfectly viable idea. Over the coming weeks I will continue to produce my own Theatre Of The Mind products and if ever you want an update on how they are going just ask. I am hoping to make each one better than those that went before and then retrospectively update the older ones with any formatting improvements.

  2. This is something I would be interested in being involved with. I do have a fair few templates for book covers, pages and backs – everything from Lord Zsezse Works’ template range bar the latest, and one I think from Fat Goblin, the modern template, plus some stock art from Fat Goblin and Purple Duck.

    I’ve mentioned the AW Games mini-dungeons a few times; these are two pages long and I think quite nice, although less easy for systems not 5E or Pathfinder. The mini-dungeons hyperlink to monster stats for those. I have made a start on one of these myself.

    I have been experimenting with battlemap creation recently. I’m not saying I’m brilliant, but I could possibly make something usable if someone gave me a rough sketch or a detailed description.

    1. I expected you to be up for this. You also bring a lot of experience if the objective was to distribute through OBS.

      I was thinking that it could be worthwhile limiting ourselves to that Euro/Medieval period for the first 50. If they work then we can rinse and repeat wit 50 Arabian adventures then 50 Oriental adventures and 50 Roman adventures.

      We could stick to one nice theme for each genre which makes the design and page layout task easier.

  3. There are quite a few “mini-delves” on RPGNow so I would have assumed it was a fairly saturated market. Peter, I’m pleasantly surprised you got the downloads that you did.

    My thought was “d100”, since I assume you can’t label it as a RM adventure, and give a bump to RM activity as well as this blog.

    1. Well right now the download count is up to 32 and 24 respectively and 3 paid sales.

      There are a lot of mini delves, as you say, but people are always looking for new things, new ideas and so on.

      We may not be able to promote them as RM Adventures but we can promote them as RolemasterBlog Adventures as the blog is ours.

    2. I think there’s always a market for short adventures that can be dropped into a campaign when players do something unexpected or GM’s need something quick for another reason.

      Products can also be converted into other areas as well. AAW started with Pathfinder mini-dungeons, but have since converted those mini-dungeons to 5E, Pathfinder Fantasy Grounds and 5E Fantasy Grounds.

      By going for d100 that would be going for a market area that seems undeveloped at the moment. Check out Michael Brown whose primary publications are 1 page adventures for 2d6 science fiction. He’s possibly the only person publishing in that niche.

      1. I agree that d100 is underdeveloped and probably indicative of the strength of the RM player base… whatever happened to EoH and Defendi?

        1. I believe real life has been getting in the way for him and restricting the amount of time available. Although the RM base may not be huge, it is there and basing it on d100 rather than Rolemaster (which would need a license) will probably increase the available base – there are a fair few systems that work on d100.

  4. well who is in? 3-5 people, 50 adventures, 50 weeks… email Peter to discuss. I’ve already have 3 ready to go and another 4 I can scribble out in a weekend.

  5. I could contribute too. Can you perhaps give us a sample one so that we have a bit better idea of what it should look like?

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