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Missions Adventures

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Crash_00

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« on: <09-21-11/2225:37> »
Has it ever been considered to have other missions story arcs going on as well as the official seasons?

One thing I've noticed is that even with three seasons out right now, my group will still be done with everything currently available to me through the Demo project in under a year at its current pace. I know there are CMPs and such that get run at conventions and that there are plans for prime runners eventually (and that both may/are getting released for other play options at some point in time I think).

I was really thinking more along the lines of what Living Greyhawk used to do where you had core adventures (the Season Missions) and then you also had regional missions (which were based on where you lived physically at the time). I don't think SR has the playerbase to make things regional, but maybe we could have our Season 4 missions with the artifact/Ork Underground going on and a few three shot side stories?

I know LG had the regional missions done on a volunteer basis (at least when I played) and tended to have a lower quality, so the cost for them wasn't that high, but it helped them find people to write the future core missions.

KarmaInferno

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« Reply #1 on: <09-23-11/0411:13> »
I'm pretty sure Bull's biggest bottleneck on getting more Missions released is the number of writers available to him.

I you wanna volunteer to write, I suspect he'll be quite eager to consider you.  :)



-k

wylie

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« Reply #2 on: <09-23-11/1834:12> »
hope your missions idea sparks Bull interest, as that bottleneck is smaller then some people think. 

Crash_00

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« Reply #3 on: <09-23-11/1913:01> »
Well every other Living Campaign I've played or run, players feel like they can play multiple characters without any of them suffering in the long run. My current players look at the current Missions rules and feel like the only time to bring a new character in would be after they retire the first for the "bonuses" they get hitting the 150/200/250 mark.

Looking at it, I see their point with the missions being so closely tied together and their being so few.

Between writers available and time available, I definitely don't envy Bull's position at all. I don't have any professional experience yet, but I'll definitely be available when he posts that he's taking submissions again.

wylie

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« Reply #4 on: <09-23-11/2254:09> »
I like to think Bull is doing quality control and put out a good mission

some of the dnd living adventures...left something to be desired.

Crash_00

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« Reply #5 on: <09-23-11/2330:02> »
I haven't played anything recent from the D&D living campaigns. I ran LG back in 05-07 though and most of the adventurers were pretty well balanced (at least as well as the system was). The only low quality ones I remember were definitely the regionals that were volunteer written, but that was because the their was no one doing any quality control on them, at least in my region.

I think Bull is doing a great job, now we just need to clone a few dozen copies of him so that he has more man hours. Anyone have a Doc Wagon contact that we can exploit?

sehmerus

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« Reply #6 on: <09-24-11/0004:48> »
I hear Doc Wagon Contact Write Horrible RPG Modules!  Could be Wrong but just what i heard!

Bull

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« Reply #7 on: <09-24-11/0327:33> »
We're cranking them out as quickly as possible, but tehre's a couple problem...

Writers is one, but it's honestly nota  huge problem.  We have a good pool of writers right now, and I have a few new folks I need to contact and look at.

The real sticking point s simply production...  getting the Missions finalized, cleaned up, edited, proofed, art done, and laid out.  That last is probably the biggest sticking point. 

We have a bunch of Missions (the CMP adventures, mainly) that are "done", but are not really ready for release.  They're what i call "playable".  We can give them to GMs for conventions and they can run the events just fine.  But there are typos, there are missing or incomplete stat blocks.  They need edited.  They're not laid out into PDF, and most have no artwork to go with them yet. 

Even though we sell the Missions adventures fairly cheaply ($4 for what is usually a 30 page adventure, in full color, is pretty good these days), none of us would be comfortable selling an unfinished product.  And unfortunately, Missions doesn't really make much money for CGL and we're already on a very bare-bones budget, so cutting back production values and releasing them cheaper isn't really an option. 

Would I like to have more Missions out each year?  Hell yeah.  But it's tough.  04-04 was run at origins, for example.  But it wasn't really finished then.  It's gone through two more drafts to polish the text up since then. After Gen Con, we made a push to try and get it released.  At that point, the majority of the art was done.  the cover was finished about 2 weeks after GC (So 3rd week of August).  The final text revision wasn;t done till the end of August though.  Then it spent a week in proofing.  Then it sat in my mailbox for a week, because I THOUGHT I forwarded the final proof to Jason for final approval, and forgot to attach the file.  Then it was with Jason for a week or so, and now it's in Layout, getting finished. 

It's nota  quick process, and this is compounded by the fact taht everyone involved has other projects on their plate.  My day job consumes a crazy amount of time, and I'm ttrying to do some writing on top of the dev work.  Our writers and proofers all have regular day jobs as well.  Matt, our layout guy, has a day job AND does the layout for pretty much every CGL product right now (Which is Battletech, Shadowrun, Leviathans, and Cosmic Patrol now.  Lev and CP had a lot of stuff to be done right before the cons, and SR & BT both have been just cranking out product, so poor Matts been working his fingers to the one).  And jason, of course, has the main SR line to deal with.

What it comes down to is money at the end of the day.  And Adventures just don't sell taht well, because only the GM needs to buy them usually, and not every GM picks them up.  The only way we could do more would be to go back to being strictly a fan-run production.  Which would mean free adventures, but would mean relying on artists and writers and layout guys who were willing to work for free.  And that can be a MAJOR problem.  Quality suffers, sometimes a lot.  And there's not much you can do about delays, since no one is getting paid. 

Bull

Crash_00

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« Reply #8 on: <09-24-11/0417:34> »
To be honest, I'm extremely impressed with the quality of season four for the same reasons you stated. Between only GMs needing it and the number of GMs in the demo program getting it free, I'd imagine profits would have to be on the low end for the missions themselves. I'd figure a considerable amount of the actual profit is from getting players hooked in missions to buy the books (I know my local gaming store owner loves me running missions, he's already sold more SR books in the past month than he had in the year before).

I'm not suggesting in loss of quality in the current season missions, but how about another program working in tandem with it.

For example, what I was thinking is have the current missions work just like they are now, and allow GMs interested to submit volunteer missions (read free) that are only made available to demo agents for free through the reward downloads (no ones ever charged for them in this case). If you make the entire process of submitting, accepting, and downloading done through the demo site, you could "pay" the volunteers with a pdf point.

To keep things from getting crazy, there could be a set of guidelines (rewards, threat levels, etc.) on the demo site for volunteer submissions, and being purely supplemental, the main season wouldn't have to be effected at all if someone didn't submit a volunteer mission.

With them only being available for demo agents to run, you wouldn't have to worry about production value so much, they could be used just like the "unfinished" modules at cons. I'm thinking closer to Season Two in actual production value, which for a mission to get accepted you could require the volunteer to do the rudimentary layout (with no art or background layers it shouldn't be hard and can easily be done in word, open office, or publisher) and basic editing.

The only downside is that there won't likely be many volunteered missions, but every one that comes in and is acceptable is still a bonus, and it can always serve as a stepping stone for those wanting to try freelancing.

Sorry if this is all crazy talk, but its three in the morning and my brain won't shut up to let me sleep.

Wasabi

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« Reply #9 on: <09-24-11/0639:40> »
I <3 CMP's. While they may be less polished if you say so to players like myself they are every bit as fun and, IMO, a way SR4 does so well at conventions. Will SR4 ever be as 'big' as LFR? Doubtful but we're far-and-away doing better than Virtual Seattle at least at the cons I frequent. :-)
Missions Characters:
[SR4] Jax - Merc Technomancer
[SR5] Reece - Journalist TM

Caine

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« Reply #10 on: <09-25-11/1659:12> »
Could do the story arcs like Living Arcanis does.  They have Hard point Adventures which are the Main story line of the campaign (Ie the released Missions for Shadowrun) and Soft points that are centered loosly if at all around the Main story line but give a chance for other missions to be written that don't have to be as strictly controlled due to worrying about Story continuity ect.

 But it sounds like for something like that to happen with Missions. Ie have some just generic runs for players Bull would have to find someone who he trusted and also was willing to handle the work of dealing with those extra Missions.  Assuming that CGL has no problem with this.  It could be a good place to get extra Missions out and also be able to have a varied supply of them for either game days or conventions to run.

C
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MisterJohnson

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« Reply #11 on: <01-06-12/1812:21> »
Way back in the day, I recall FASA doing this sort-of living world idea where things were happening all over the place at the same time.  All the results being fed back to FASA, then subsequent stuff was based on the most common outcomes.  I spoke to Sam Lewis about this way back in 1992 - or thereabouts.

If Catalyst could do this sort of "Multi-Thread Story Hook Mission-type" idea... I think it would be really wiz.  I am sure I would not be the first to stand in line to help.
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