Designing System-Neutral adventures - FEUD

 FEUD is a project of a system-neutral adventure that is currently live on Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thewyrd/feud-0). This post is about designing FKR-y, system-neutral adventures.

Adventure summary: In the shadow of the mountain of a half-forgotten god, a new horror is stirring: blood-feud has come to the land. This dark-age inspired adventure puts you in the role of ordinary people struggling to survive the outbreak of blood-feud.

Here are three things that I think help in system-neutral design:

1. Clear organisation
2. Clear but evocative language
3. Inspiration over direction

Clear Organisation

One of the un-sung roles of mechanics in adventures is that they are key structuring elements. When I read system-based adventures I tend to flick between the sentences where mechanics come in (Make a DC:15 stealth check, on a fail...). The reason for this is that these are the moments of action where I as GM will actually have to act. I have often found that I would often skip everything else and build the adventure from these moments.

Without these mechanical elements to hold on to, I have had to do a few other things. One of these was to have a consistent structure to information - the order of details in describing a location are the same in each location. I have also tried to use very consistent keywords - my editor spent a good teal of time making sure that every time I referred to a character I did so in the same way.

I also added in an index and simplified map with page references to ensure that navigation and hunting for the actions and interactions is straightforward.

Clear but evocative design

Typically, mechanics add a lot of weight to the description of a character, monster or place. If you are playing at a very system-focused table then the mechanics may be the only thing that really matters.

However, when you are designing something system-neutral you have to ensure that the significance of characters etc. is clear, as well as making sure the "physicality" of them is also quick to grasp. The advantage of the system neutral writing experience is that you can add in elements that don't have to have a "mechanical" role. You can include details that open-ended and allow for the table to fix their own play system to them, if they want.

If I take one of the main NPCs from the adventure we see Harvetr who is the lord in the village where the blood-feud erupts as an example:

Harvetr

Known as Lord of the Oak Hall. A fair and honourable person, Harvetr has the bright eyes of a natural farmer. A scar splits the centre of their face, demonstrating their Deep-Göt ancestry. In their hands is their deceased sister’s war axe, Stone-Splitter: a heavy head on a long haft. Harvetr has their sturdy, iron-banded shield and battered old mail shirt at hand.

The opening paragraph gives the physical presence of the character. A quick hint at their behaviours (fair and honourable) and their appearance (bright eyes... scar). It also shows the immediate role they might play in terms of being very-well armed (for the people in this land, Harvetr is a pretty beastly warrior).

At the table my hope is that even if we hadn't read in advance, the GM (or solo player) could turn to this page in-play and present these details to the players and let them respond. Let's carry on through the rest.

As lord, Harvetr is the one who must lead the feud upon the rival village. The law allows no shrinking from the blood feud, it must be fulfilled until the weak overcome the strong.

In this I am saying what Harvetr's role will be as the adventure progresses. It doesn't specifically mechanise this "if the players do x, then y..." but I hope it is enough to show the way the main motivation of the character.

But Harvetr is in pain. Not only do they grieve their nephew, whose death severed the last link with the beloved sister, but they believe in the peace and security of Boradell and all of The Rook’s Cradle. Additionally, the people of Leverth are no strangers: whoever dies in the next breath of the feud will be known to Harvetr. Harvetr has become indecisive, a terrible fate for a lord.

The final paragraph gives us some of the complexity of the character. It shows the conflict in their motivation which a certain table might want to draw out.

Each character has an equivalent structure - I have almost imagined it as a sliding scale of complexity. The top part of the description allows you to just jump in and present the character, we then see how they might behave, and then we end - for the table that wants it - with the subtleties and reasons behind that.

Inspiration over direction

I don't know about you, but my main way of using adventure modules is to read them and then mostly forget them in-play.

What the great thing about the system-neutral approach is it allows you to take a step back in pre-deciding the actions that the players/characters will take. Mechanics often push you to do this because you define a monster etc. you are indicating the "affordances" or the ways it can be interacted with.

Part of the way I have done this is in the art. The art has been done with lino-cuts which have an almost abstract approach. The presentations of characters/places and monsters etc. isn't strictly representational but it hints at things players may want to pick up in the game.

Part of the point of this is that the style is almost neutral - it's dark, and distinctive but you could fit in the "look" of any game. A OSR classic dungeon crawl adventure could fit in this world, a Mork Borg style rock thing could, even more storygame/pbta style things would work.

Conclusion

You know I didn't think about it much before writing this  adventure, I was mostly inspired by the history and world of Old English, but actually system-neutral adventures rock. At least to write, they allow a nice sort of flexibility that does need a clear sense of control.

The Kickstarter has just launched. It is funding the 60 page adventure, illustrated with original lino-cut art (available in the campaign add-ons) and professionally edited throughout. Check it out here if you would like!