The Caffee Rules

Here are my thoughts on how to write published RPG adventures that do not suck. I will tackle other elements of RPG writing (including home games) in later posts. Publishing an adventure is a whole different animal than creating an adventure for your regular gaming group. The most important difference being that you know your gaming group well enough to tailor the adventure to them almost instinctively. On the other hand, if you publish an adventure, whether as a freebie on your blog or a paid product, you are creating something that will be played by people you've never met. You don't know their tastes, play styles, or personalities. What's more, you are writing for several potential gaming groups at once, meaning that you will have to account for a wide variety of individual preferences. All that aside, here are the rules. #1. Know what makes this adventure special. What's that? Your adventure isn't special? Why are you wasting everyone's time? Any rol

The last post focused on the rules for designing a campaign world or setting. This post is going to look at designing a campaign itself. A roleplaying campaign can be a tricky this to build from scratch, but these rules can help you not be terrible. Will you still get stuck? Yes. Will you paint yourself into a corner? Probably. Will you get frustrated and kick the players out of your house? It happens. However, your campaign will suck slightly less if you follow the rules. 1.  Know what you want. Are you designing a single epic quest? A series of unrelated dungeons? A game of political intrigue? Whatever you are doing, be clear about it before you start. You want to make a campaign where the adventurers find and explore various lost temples just for the lulz? That's way different than planning out an evolving story line with a main villain to beat at the end or a Game of Thrones style political drama. 2. Talk to the players. Better yet, listen to your players. If they are r

This post is meant to provide guidance for those who wish to improve their ability to create and run tabletop games. This particular installment is going to focus on the initial task of designing a fantasy setting or campaign world. Obviously, many Dungeon Masters prefer to set their games in worlds found in published setting books. There is nothing wrong with using published material, but I would think that most DMs at some point or another will try their hand at world building. Unfortunately, many fail. 1. You are building a campaign setting, not writing a novel.  These are two different skill sets with two different goals. Build a world to explore, not a story to entertain. 2. Be vague.  A friend once consulted me on a campaign he was putting together. He informed me that the adventure would take place during the Fourth Age of Man. He asked me how much he should write about the first three ages. I would mention that the characters were living in the Fourth Age of Man and not

This first post is something I have been working on to help those who wish to not suck at writing. No amount of helpful advice is going to make you into a great writer, but not being laughably terrible is a good start. I should not have to learn a fictional language to understand what the hell is going on in the novel / story / comic book / campaign setting. Per above, no more than one made-up word in the title. No calling your book The Glarzax of Noku Land. It just doesn’t cut it. I should not have to take an advanced history course at Geek University in order to know what the hell is going on in your made up little world. Who cares what happened 1,000 years before the story begins? Does it have a direct bearing on what the characters are doing right now? How could it? How often do you really think about what happened in the year 1015? You think the Spanish caliphate has anything to do with your daily life? Per above, you should be able to sum up the plot in a few