Tuesday, May 1, 2007

The Maimed Gods Saga Update

Well, I seem to be a bit ahead of my deadlines with Ossian, so that means time to work on The Maimed God's Saga.

Initial Conversation Completed - Mostly

I got the first hint today that things might go a bit... um, long. A couple posts ago, I estimated I'd need 60,700 words for the module. That was based off classifying all my 51 conversations as either One-Liner, Short, Medium, Long, or Companion. The initial conversation I'd classified as Medium, for which I had estimated 1000 words... Well, it took me 2500. Now, that's bound to fluctuate a bit as I revise the exact wording, but I still need to add in a second part where the companion for the module is introduced... We'll see if the trend continues and if I have to revise the estimated word count upwards.

Riverford Nearing Completion
The map of the initial town of Riverford is coming along nicely. I would say I'm about 75% done with the map itself, not including populating it with actual people. The initial town will not be a major part of the adventure; it's basically a place to initiate the quest, meet your companion, and then purchase supplies for the long journey. Nevertheless, I had a very specific vision for the little hamlet that I had fleshed out for my aborted novel, and it's looking quite... um, familiar.

A Bit of a Quandry
I began writing the conversation for Tancred (male companion) today, and this got me thinking. It occurred to me that I have set the two companions up as rangers who are meant to guide the PC to his or her final destination. That's the hook to get them included in the story. However, what to do if the PC wants to solo the mod? I don't care from the romance standpoint, but if the PC can get where they need to be on their own, then there is no need for the companions after all...

Right now, I'm leaning towards forcing the characters on the PC at least for the initial journey, but I know some people hate that kind of stuff.

That's all. No screenshots today. I'll post a view of Riverford when I've completed it.

1 comment:

Berliad said...

Personally, I think it's fine to require folks to take along a guide--even Rangers and Druids may have trouble passing through unfamiliar terrain. I don't mind all that much when a companion is forced upon me, but when it's done as part of the context of the setting, I think it's absolutely fine. It should probably be an option to drop the companion after you get where you want to go. -B