The 6,000 Words I Wrote About Writing a 10,000-Word D&D Adventure

Introduction

For reasons that baffle even me - and for fun - I decided to document my adventure-creation process. This journal details my progress from receiving my brief from the publisher through to turning in my first draft. The adventure I was hired to write is a 10,000 word, 4-hour one-shot for my favourite gaming convention - Gamehole Con.

I wanted to see if documenting this would help not only myself learn about how I work, but potentially give insight to anyone considering or doing freelance work.  

The focus here is on how I approached the work. It is very much a personal journal that I kept as I went, it’s not a how-to guide.

The journal is organized by undated entries, as I sometimes got to the work multiple times a day, so it’s the sequence rather than dates that mattered to me. There are some specifics that are purposely left out, as the adventure is still forthcoming.

This is shared with the gracious permission of the awesome folks I work with at Gamehole Con.

Entry 1 

Today, I received my brief from the publisher via a video call, alongside other writers. I read through it, and asked questions about general project structure.  I’m writing a Tier 3 adventure. It’s part of a 7 adventure arc. There are 3 tier 2 adventures that form a loose trilogy, three tier 3 adventures that form another loose trilogy, and a Tier 4 finale. I am assigned the final adventure in the Tier 3 Trilogy. Cool!  

I briefly connect with some of the other writers in the discord and chat about connecting the adventures. We chat enough to establish they’re game to do it. It's too early to work out the specifics, but it gives me the permission I want to write something into the mod. 

Entry 2

I’ve gone through the briefs for all the adventures in the storyline, and in more detail through my own. At this point in the process, there is tons of excitement and it’s some of the most “purely creative” work I do. I love it. I think about the project thematically, I try to line up the “cool things I get to do” in my head.  

One of the things I very specifically look for at this point is anything that I would need to change dramatically from the brief I’ve been given.  Now, in some assignments the briefs are highly detailed, and in some they're not. Some companies want you to stick very close, some invite creativity. I’ve worked with everyone involved in the oversight of this project before, so I know they welcome creativity and are open to collaboration.  So at this point, I look specifically for anything drastic I want to change, because those are the sorts of things I like to get to the editors/story leads early on, to make sure the changes are ok.

In terms of general flow, things are ok. I dig the overall storyline, and am happy with what the brief’s asking.  But then I run into my first stumble - this project is using 2024 D&D rules (my first project fully using them). I’m not super familiar with the 2024 Monster manual yet (it's only been out a couple of weeks at this point), so I spend a night rummaging through MM, trying to find appropriate monsters for some of my encounters. This process is a complete disaster. My brief calls for a giant monstrosity of some sort for the final encounter, and there is nothing remotely close in the MM. in the CR15-19 range I’m looking at, there are no monstrosities, and barely anything else that’s thematically close. There are tons of dragons, but there’s already a dragon-like thing in the storyline, so that’s out of the question. I’m frustrated, but as is often the case, restrictions lead to creativity. I start looking at ALL creatures in the CR range – considering what I can reskin, or if I could take the adventure in another direction. The latter is what I end up going with. “Well, this adventure involves [this theme] and while it’s not a giant monstrosity, what if I change the giant monstrosity to a corrupted version of this [thematic monster] instead. This then leads me down a whole other creative rabbit hole and I completely reframe the final encounter into something I think is super epic. It’s very different from the brief, but I think it fits very well with the overall storyline, and would lead really well into the next adventure. I pitch it to the story leads and they dig it.

Entry 3 

With a frustrating initial monster experience, I go through the rest of the encounters in the adventure to make sure the 2024 MM can actually support them. Two of the encounters are not an issue, but one more is a problem. There is an encounter with a river monster, but the 2024 MM has only 4 non-dragon creatures with a swim speed in the CR11-16 range. Not only that, but they are Marid, Aboleth, and similar creatures which are very specific, and would be thematically distracting from my adventure's theme. However, this encounter is somewhat “filler”, so I’m not particularly concerned with reinventing the wheel. I come up with some reskin options of other monster that I can add a swim speed to. This isn’t something I need to bother my story leads with.

By this point in time, I have written out the adventure’s summary in “my version” (as opposed to “brief version”).  What I now realize is that the adventure is basically 4 combat encounters, one of which involves a minor negotiation. The combat encounters are diverse enough, but I think it would be a slog if it’s all fights. I start thinking about how I can redo one of the encounters.  Two of the encoutners are pretty set as combat, two others could be something else. However, one of these is a semi-negotiation with some frenemies, and I realize that my Gamehole T3 adventure last year had this exact same encounter scenario, and the ideas I have to tweaking it would result in too much repetition from that mod. So I decide to focus on the encounter instead - it is the opening encounter of the adventure.  

The theme of the adventure is Death, and as I think about how I can change “death cult assassins attack characters” to a social or exploration event. My mind does to the Seventh Seal, and the chess match against Death. The moment the idea hits my head, I’m committed to it. “Yes, I will make the characters play chess with Death. It’ll be awesome.”  Of course it’ll have to be Dragonchess, since Forgotten Realms. Also, I don’t know how to play Dragonchess. So I spend some hours learning. I also rewatch the Seventh Seal. I jot down some quotes and ideas for obscure easter eggs.

I start a spreadsheet and note all the dragonchess pieces and how they work. There are entirely too many, and it’s entirely too complicated. I don’t want to teach the DMs dragonchess, or the players. I spend the next day or so mulling it over in my head. I’m keeping dragonchess, but I’m only going to use 5 unique pieces, and 2 custom pieces. 

The puzzle will not be winning at dragonchess, it will be figuring out what is going on. I make a short list of things that players will be able to learn through various skill checks and observation. I don’t finish the puzzle/encounter, but I reach a point where I’m satisfied that it'll work at the table. I do discover another problem. Dragonchess has 3 boards, and they’re 8x12 squares. 3 boards at 12 squares wide is going to be entirely unwieldy at the table. I really want to use canon-size boards, but it's untenable. In the hardest decision I’ve made so far, I decide to cut the boards to half, making them 8x6.  (It’s going to be one of those “you become the chess piece” things, so a map will be needed).

Entry 4

This adventure series has some general effects that are present through all adventures. As I review them again, I end up with questions and suggestions. I throw together a proposal of how we can use common effects and throw it out into the project discord. Some nice collaboration happens, and we largely sort it out.

By this point I’ve had a chance to actually start my writing document. For stuff that has a good template (which this does), I write straight to template, formatting properly as I go. I start by setting up the document, naming the individual parts of the adventure, adding headings and basically turning it into a “fill in the blanks” document where I can go to write any section anytime I want. This is important because one of my ways of dealing “writer’s block” or “different inspiration” is to write a different part of the project. So being set up for that is good.

Now that I have a good idea of where it’s going and my specific themes, I write out the adventure blurb or “elevator pitch”, I also decide to rename the adventure. This isn’t always an option on a project, but we were specifically told that we do have that available to us for this project, so I take advantage.  Titles are weird for me. With some adventures I have the title first, in some it emerges throughout. In some, the perfect title never comes, so I just end up going with the working title, or coming up with something clever later. This time I have a solid title that’s evocative and appropriate. It’s not particularly creative, but it does what I need it to do. It’s going to be called “Death’s Door." If the story leads approve, anyhow. I’m not 100% committed to it. Maybe someone will have a better idea.  But I have a feeling it’ll stick.

At this point, I’m ready to write and get things started by writing out the intro section.

Entry 5

Doing extra research now that I’m getting to the nitty gritty. Typically, I would have researched a lot of the lore and regional info prior to even planning out the adventure. However, with this project, I have a couple of advantages. I have worked multiple times in the setting (Forgotten Realms) and region (Border Kingdoms). But perhaps most importantly – I have worked with my story leads before, and I have great trust that any important lore-related cues were in the brief.  So this is just supplementary research.

Still, I have discovered a few things. I've realized that what was named a “city” in the brief is actually a tiny village. I’ve also realized one other complication that I’ll do my best to explain. My adventure requires the party to seek travel to a hidden location, and to take a very specific route (they must go by river). Because the overall storyline takes place in a rather small region of the Border Kingdoms, I need to make sure that the adventurers (a) don’t end a previous adventure in a place that would make it irrational for them to go by river and (b) that they haven’t spent past adventures “right beside” the hidden area (I’ve decided that it’s fairly epic-looking, so there’s no way they’d have missed it) because I don’t want one of those moments where the players feel stupid “oh, if we had just looked to the left, would have seen it”.  Anyhow, I flag all this in our storyline discord, and I don’t think it’s going to be an issue.

Aside from this, I read up on the village specifics, and identify the pieces of existing lore that I’d like to quote as sidebars into my adventure. There is a published Border Kingdoms guide available to us, and I’d much rather point people to the info in it than re-invent the wheel or waste my own precious wordcount.

Note: In this case, I know from previous experience that quoting source book outside of my wordcount is OK. It’s not always. If you’re reading this for tips, note that throwing in book chunks is a great way to get around wordcount and avoid re-writing – provided that the project doesn’t also have space restrictions – which they often do. Talk to your project lead if in doubt.

Entry 6

Wrote out the intro and started first encounter. I have now realized that I have two large boxed text chunks. This may be too much back to back.

A sidebar (here, not in the adventure) about boxed text. I like boxed text. I’ve re-evaluated my opinion on it over the years. When I started out, I had a lot of large boxed text, then the Adventurers League changed their format and I had to write a dozen adventures with zero boxed text, so I learned to work without it. Then the rules laxed, and I started reintroducing it – more sparingly. I still think boxed text is very effective when used properly. Although, watching some GMs struggle with reading 2-3 paragraphs makes me wonder “Do kids not learn how to read outloud properly these days?” It’s not a hard skill, especially when you can practice beforehand.  

Anyhow… my personal rule for boxed text is “Does this need to be said in an unmistakable way?” and “Does the GM need my help saying it that way?” I run all my BT through this filter, and very rarely make exceptions if it doesn’t pass.

In this case, the opening text doesn’t pass the test. However, I have been lately experimenting with purposely using a bigger opening boxed text, in order to make things easier on the GM. Instead of spending five paragraphs explaining the situation to the GM, so that they can then download it to players, I have been putting in a big opening boxed text that just lays out the entire situation for all parties.

In the current case, I very much want to keep my boxed text from the first encounter, so I make a note to come back to the adventure-opening boxed text and deboxify some of it. Maybe.

Entry 7

Today I don’t have a lot of time to work on stuff. The next part I have to write is the mechanics of the big puzzle/dragonchess encounter, and this is a complex endeavour that I don’t want to go halfway on. Instead I think about what I can accomplish in the short time. The adventure has two relatively straight-forward combat encounters in the middle section, so I decide to tackle one of those, and if that goes well, I can jump into the second.

The encounter I’m starting work on is inspired by the 2024 monster manual encounter math. Specifically, the removal of the multiplier. This makes large quantities of low CR creatures a valid option against the party – to deadly effect. For example, for my level 13 APL (average party level), an encounter of 30 owlbears is mathematically appropriate. That’s not what I am doing (and I also don’t think it would be either fun or easy to run). But I’m taking some inspiration from it.

Random note: going into the document, I realize that while I roughly planned it out in my head, I did not actually write out the timings for each adventure part. I quickly do that before continuing on.  

Random note 2:  As I start on the introduction on the encounter and I am referencing some of the things that happened in the previous – as yet unwritten – encounter, I immediately make some notes on things I definitely need to mention in that previous encounter. So even if I am not working on it, I’m kinda working on it.

Entry 8

I didn’t finish the previous encounter, and am I picking it up again. Today I’ve started but immediately ran into a research-related snag. In describing the type of boat of the characters are taking, I had envisioned a barge-type vessel. This was primarily to provide a nice flat area for the eventual combat encounter, as well as to make it possible to have one map for both boat options (the other boat is magical). The issue I’ve run into, is that I don’t know how this boat is powered. According to the brief, the characters are to sail a boat upriver. However, in medieval times, boats rarely if ever sailed up stream. I know enough about sailing that a nimble sailboat can probably tack its way up, but that’s not the sort of boat I had planned. I don’t think magic or power is an option for this part of the world and a tiny poor village. Having the hag who lives in the village reverse the flow could be fun, but I’ve already written the in-village stuff, and frankly, I don’t have the room in the adventure to make that as interesting as it would deserve (note to self: generally having adventurers find a way to reverse the flow of a river to sail upstream sounds super fun! Just beyond the current adventure's scope.)

Anyhow, I end up doing a bunch of additional research, and settle on changing the boat type, and addressing it in a “mundane” way. Having extra fishermen aboard to provide rowing power can add some interesting options for the later combat encounter (protect the innocent!) The NPC captain that’s been given to me also has the crew of their bigger ship at their disposal, so i can use some of them instead of the fishermen. Ultimately I keep coming back to the fact that this adventure is not about sailing or travel. Those things happen, and need to be thought through, but I don’t want them to become the focus or take away from the overall themes. 

Speaking of overall themes, I should have probably mentioned this earlier, but one thing I’ve started doing is physically writing out the main themes / goals of the adventure. I think it was Teos Abadia in one of his streams or podcasts who mentioned actually putting your goals at the top of the document. I’ve always kept my core themes in mind, but I didn’t think to actually write them out. So i’ve been doing it for the past couple of years. For this adventure, the 3 goals written at the top are:

• Death is everpresent

• Divine manipulation and corruption

• Reaching the goal through great peril

Having these written out becomes useful whenever faced with some sort of dilemma or not knowing where to go in an adventure. Deciding between two monsters? Put them against those goals and a solution may emerge. It can also help flavour various interactions. It's one of the better tips.

Entry 9

Finally got around to finishing up that encounter. Like many of my encounters, it really came into its own during the writing. Due to my previous issue with the lack of water-based creatures, I decided to go with some flying creatures instead. I like the creatures I chose, but they also come with a life drain, and because I’m not giving my PCs a long rest in this adventure, I need to be careful about them getting too beat up here, as I don’t want to have to water down the final encounter. Also, I am looking for a way to make this encounter “more interesting”.  

My two needs actually work together well. I have some NPCs escorting the party - they’re sailing the boat - so I’m going to center the encounter on preventing their deaths. This accomplishes that most damage will not be done to the PCs, and also gives some additional objectives to an otherwise simple combat. Now, as a player, I hate when I am helpless to save others. Since D&D has very little in terms of “taunts” that focus attention, I’ve decided to add some mechanics for brave characters who WANT to make themselves targets. 

As a simple consequence for letting the sailors, I can leverage either the ability to take a short rest later, or giving levels of exhaustion. I’m going to hold off deciding until after I have more of the adventure written. Making a note. Onto the next encounter!

Scratch that. It’s going to be exhaustion. As I went to make the temporary note, I realized that taking away short options just wouldn't work well due to how much travel time remains. It’s amazing how often decisions just get made by the logic of things. :) 

Entry 10

I get about halfway through writing the next encounter. This is the other version of the boat encounter, which the characters get if they make other choices earlier. This is that “clever” encounter that makes use of many of the same “cheap xp/cr cost” creatures. I had come up it conceptually a while back, and now it’s time to add details. I’m going to have one bigger creature managing the small ones, so i pick a creature for that - which is actually easy given the new MM (it's not bad for everything!), and I already had this scoped.

To make this encounter a bit more interesting, I am going to add a bit of a social pre-amble that’ll determine the combat's starting conditions. There’s going to be a contest between the PCs and the boss monster. It’s going to be a bit silly, but very thematic, and the sort of thing that players usually laugh about and enjoy. One issue here is that I need one character to represent the group, and it’ll involve a repeated skillcheck. Now, lots of characters have ways to aid skill checks, but i’ve decided to make it more interesting by adding an elemental element - there’ll be a d6 or d8 which will deal damage to the character and subtract that amount from the check. This potentially opens up the contest to someone not only good at the skill, but also resistant to the damage type. Should be fun.

Entry 10.

Completed the contest and associated combat encounter. Ran into a concern with the skilcheck thing. This initial “duel of skills” is intended to alter the difficulty of the combat encounter. At the very least it’ll reduce it by a bit, or if the character does super well, it’ll reduce it a lot. The problem with a one-skill challenge, is that it biased against groups which may not have the best combination of classes. But you can’t write for every possible oddball group either. I added a sidebar - as I often do in such situations - for the DM to alter the difficulty in the event that the groups is particularly ill-suited to the challenge. Ultimately, I don’t want to punish a group for coming to the table with 3 clerics who have no Athletics skill. “Losing by default” is unfun. At the same time, the game has tons of ways for people to influence a single skill check, so it’s not like i designed it for something super obscure. 

Another thing I spent a lot of time thinking about is the difficulty of this encounter. As mentioned, I’m abusing testing the new encounter building rules that now longer have a creature number multiplier. While I’m using the encounter math for easy to medium encounter, I have a sneaky feeling the numbers might make it deadlier. The thing is, a lot of my creatures here deal fire damage and the party is on a boat on the river. If the characters jump in the water, they get resistance to all the damage. This is tier 3 - experienced players. If I assume that they all jump in the water, I can bump the difficulty up. But then if they don’t - which I know many won’t - we get into TPK territory. I could also make the boat sink and remove the variable, but i’d much rather give players the option to play smart than do it for them. But that increases the variability of the encounter. Ultimately, it’s T3, and there’s a short rest after, so I can take some chances.

Anyhow, with that done, I dive straight on into the next encounter. This one has the characters come across a “third party” who’s fighting some monsters. I love this encounter setup so much that I actually started my first ever D&D adventure with it!  But also, because I love it, I feel like I’ve kinda done it to death. So this time I’m keeping it very simple. Giving the characters some clear choices - help, don’t help, help the monsters. Behind the scenes, I’m at the point where I don’t want to drain too many of the characters resources before the finale (which follows this). 

So i’m going to set it up so that the encounter is not particularly taxing. This works well with making the player dilemma of “help or not” more of a moral one and less of a “do we have the resources for another combat”. The brief and monster manual had a recommended monster for this area which works absolutely perfectly, so monster selection for the encounter is super easy. 

I get two thirds of this encounter done before real life calls. I feel good about it. At this point, of the 4 parts of the adventure (not counting wrap-up), I have 100% of the intro, 40% of part 1, 90% of part 2, and haven’t started on part 3. It’s been 14 days since I got the brief.

Entry 11

I’ve had a busy few days without working on this project. I really like this type of “natural break” as it allows me to look at the manuscript with new eyes. Sometimes mentally breaking away from the flow of the thing I’m working on is hard to do, so when the world interposes itself and cuts me off completely from all the things swirling in my head, it’s a great tool. It can be hard to distance yourself overwise.

I am picking up where the last entry left off, finishing off the semi-social encounter. This is a part of the adventure where 2024 mechanics really come in - namely the Search, Study, and Influence actions. I strongly dislike Search & Study because they hardcode the ability type used (Intelligence / Wisdom), while I really enjoy mixing these up – I particularly love Wisdom/Charisma Arcana checks for clerics/sorcs/warlocks, as I think it makes a lot more sense with how they access magic, and it gets away from relying on the group having a very narrow set of characters.  

WIth the Influence action, I don’t love it as a mechanic, but it sure does make things a lot easier as a designer:  “NPC is Neutal” - bam, done. No need for 3 paragraphs on talking to them. Is this better for a DM? For players? I don’t know yet. 

Anyhoo, for this assignment (adventures in general can often be more prescriptive on mechanics) I probably have the leeway to do what I want with the ability checks, or to do more with Influence, but this is a 2024-rules adventure, and one of my personal development goals is to engage with the new mechanics. The old adage about learning the rules before setting out to break them and such. So I’m using the stuff as intended. Or at least giving it my best effort. 

Does this influence what types of challenges I put in using these mechanics? So far it really hasn’t. But I think it’s been more of a situation of “ok, so i have this type of interaction, and if i write it using new mechanics, I think it works ok, so i don’t need to worry about breaking things”. Sometimes stuff you want to design “pushes against” mechanics, forcing altering rules or the challenge, but what i’m doing here is basic enough that that’s not happening. Of course now that I’ve written that, I’m sure I’ll get to my next encounter and immediately find it “pushing against” mechanics. :) 

Back to scaling for a second: for this encounter, I don’t want to make it hard, but I do want it to LOOK like a dire situation. So I’m going to throw in a bunch of lowbie monsters that can easily be taken out by some AoEs, but that make for a bit of an army if not. 

Entry 12

Just looking over the completed part 3, and I purposely avoided creating the NPC leader of the opposing people. The reason for this is that this is a leader/lead henchman of a previously-appearing faction in the series (reminder, my adventure is 6 of 7). At this point I should ask if any of the writers have done anything with that faction yet, but I don’t want it to slow me down, and I know that our process is to get rough first drafts in, then there’ll be some story lead decisions. So right now, I just drop a comment that I’m open to reusing someone else’s NPC here, but will flesh out in draft 2 if needed. This is a nice benefit of working in this multi-draft format - that you can just leave stuff for later - especially where there is collaborative opportunities. Plus, the details of this NPC make no difference to my encounter.

The latter point is important because even with a first draft, I very much want to submit something that’s “runnable” - even if it’s in rough shape. I know from experience that my rough drafts tend to look like some writers' final drafts (this isn’t a brag, I think I just have a tough time submitting really incomplete things, so I tend to put in more work than is expected at the outset, and then instead of spending time finishing, i spend it editing or rewriting). 

With that done, I am now starting on the finale (if you remember, I still haven’t done part 1 - but that one requires the most thinking and complexity, so I’ve pretty much resigned to leave it until last. Look, I just want to write the epic final battle, ok?) 

I expect this to be very easy writing. I already worked out the creatures when I was outlining, and in my mind I already have a good idea of the “ secondary objectives”, so it’s just a matter of putting it all on paper, and writing some sexy boxed text to make it feel big and bad. 

Just for claririty, what i mean by “secondary objectives” is stuff the PCs need to do in order to win the combat - other than directly fighting creatures. 

As is typical for these types of compex encounters, as soon as I start writing the setup, I find that i need to draw the map to better visualize the battlefield. In this case, there is an enormous stone statue lying on the ground, which forms the massive battlefield. The nooks, crannies, and changes in elevation should create some great tactical opportunities. But i do need to know how big everything is before I figure out where things are, so I count squares and such.

I’m up to the difficulty scaling of the final encounter. This is a Tier 3 encounter, which uses an APL of 13. Using 2024 numbers, the weakest possible party for this encounter would have a budget of 12,000 xp. The strongest possible party would have an xp budget of 68,600.  This is MASSIVE difference. HUGE. The encounter will be barely recognizable between very weak or very strong.  

I need to ensure that the very weak functions and still fun. This means that I can’t really have a primary creature that is CR20+ and a 30k xp cost. There is just no leveling it down enough to make it viable. Plus, it would make it difficult to add extra elements. So I need to make sure that among my “building blocks” for this encounter, I have some creatures in 3-4k range, so I can have multiple even for a tiny party.   

That said, I know that the primary audience for this is players at Gamehole Con, and those tables are often full of high-level, and high-skill tables. So while it CAN be played with 3 level-11s, it’ll be played much more by groups of 5 to 7 high-level players. So that version of the encounter will be most common, and should be most true to the experience. 

Entry 13

It feels like I just started this adventure, and yet the first draft deadline is coming up already, and I have another exciting project to start. So the goal is to finish the draft this weekend (it’s Saturday morning when I write this), and get it off my plate until I need to revise it for second draft. 

While I spend a TON of time revising and rewriting things for future drafts - I often end up with 7-10 versions of an adventure - that work comes very easily to me, and I find that I can do it with “partial concentration.” That is to say, when I do my core writing, I can’t have the TV on or even listen to music. The world kinda fades away and I can do nothing else. This is not the case for revisions. Fixing words and sentences and math is a bit more mechanical than creative, and I can easily do it while watching the hockey game. This is important to my personal work planning, because for my writing I need very dedicated time for - ideally in the mornings. Once I have the core writing done, that time frees up, and I can continue working on the project - revisions, editing, etc. - while also dedicating my primary writing time on a different project. 

Anyhow, today I had to do so some additional lore digging. My adventure involves the god Kelemvor, and I had planned on some things of his that are supposed to be buried and ancient. Except, the problem is that Kelemvor has only been a god just over a century. Something I had somewhat forgotten. I had to double-check lore history to make sure, and to devise a plan. I don’t have the option of going with a different god, but I did come up with what i think is an elegant solution. I’m going to say that the “ancient things” of Kelemvor are part of the death god’s portolio, and are passed on whenever the portfolio is. So they are still ancient things and long-buried, but they are Kelemvor’s by “divine inheritance”. I’m quite sure that 90% of players would not even have blinked an eye at “ancient kelemvorite stuff”, but that’s not excuse for me to not do my part. 

This whole situation did send my mind wandering to places like “would most freelancers know this type of stuff?” When I work on projects where I have less lore expertise, do I fail to identify these types of things? How much research is expected out of a freelancer? Anyhow, back to writing. 

OK - I’ve written the final encounter! Feels good. Feels epic. My goal with it is that a DM reads it and thinks “omg this is fucking metal, I can’t wait to run this!”  My goal is also that despite the MANY MANY complexities, it is not actually hard to run. There are only two creature stat blocks at a time. There are some interactable things on the battlefield. There is a cool “phase two” in some versions of the encounter.

Done this part of the adventure! I do a quick wordcount check in, the overall doc is at 9800. This includes 1300 words of boiler plate and other elements that aren’t mine. This means i’m at 8500 out of my target of 10,000. This is right where I want to be at this point. I have 10,000 to work with (some some leeway if i need it). I do have one somewhat wordy section to write, but I expect that 1,500 should be enough, at worst I’ll come in 500 over, but that’s before my brevity edits. 

Often, by this time at the process, I would have gone through the whole adventure at least once with edits, but this time around I’ve felt good writing, so I focused on that. Getting the words down is always the priority for me. I rarely have issues editing, and like I said above - I can do it during hockey. Happy to be done for today. Last part tomorrow!  

Entry 14

Ok, just like a university multiple choice exam, I left the hardest thing for last. (Who says uni didn’t teach us anything?). The challenge here is to create a sufficiently interesting challenge that looks and feels like a dragonchess game, but also feels like a D&D game, but doesn’t actually require either GMs or players to know how to play Dragonchess, but also doesn’t make them feel stupid about it. Super easy (insert your own: "barely an inconvenience!" reference here).

Anyhow, in situations like this, I like to ADD WAY TOO MANY SIDEBARS! Seriously, sidebars are the best. If you don’t know how to hint something to a DM, just speak directly to the DM with the sidebar. Yes, the whole adventure speaks to a DM, but one of the benefits of a sidebar is that allows you to change the writing voice, without breaking everything. You can literally start a sidebar with “sup my dudes, here’s realtalk”. The breaking of the voice not only allows you to put things more plainly, but the it actually draws attention. Also sidebars break up the monotony of the page. Anyhow, yeah, sidebars - yay!

So one of the first things I wrote in this section is a sidebar telling DMs that they won’t need to learn dragonchess, and won’t need to beat their players at them. Ahead of a somewhat complicated board setup, I hope this gets DMs on my side, rather than having them tune out. Also, I hope they say the same thing to their players. 

After a sidebar being done, and with having had nearly a month to pondr and make note on the complex encounter, it's actually pretty easy to write, and bam - it's done! 

Entry 15

In my non-writing time (yes, the hockey game is on!) I do a detailed readthrough on the text of the whole adventure. I leave a couple of “fyi” type comments for my editor and story lead. These cover anything that I want to clarify or am intentionally leaving for the second draft. (Another note on this: this project has a very tight turnaround on the first draft, and intentionally leaves room for tweaks on the second. I want to stress that I have an established working relationship with these folks and know what I can or can't leave for future drafts. This is not something I'd ever assume, and in a lot of my work with other publishers, there’s only one draft and deadline, so the draft expectations are higher. If in doubt, talk to your lead.)

Once my reread is done, I run spellcheck, i make a note on wordcount, i make a backup copy and rename the document. Then I send it in. I had about 34 days to get this done, and I finished in 29.

Voila.