Second playtest
Cult of the cave crickets
An adventure for D&D 5e and Dungeon Crawl Classics
The journey from a single idea to publication is an arduous one. It is fraught with perils, pitfalls, and a million decisions. But damn if it isn’t fun.
After the first playtest with some good friends, I was feeling very proud. I took a week to let their notes sink-in, and then sat down to rewrite. The first order of business was to make the caves slightly less linear. I added a couple branching paths, and some extra decision points. I balanced the final encounter, and shifted the map around to be a bit more congruent. The ecosystem of the caves continued to take shape, as did the motivations of the surviving expedition members that were hidden amongst the chambers of the mountains.
The mutant cave crickets found their name, Crikari, and a society of fungal eating asteroid worshippers was fleshed out. Their look, feel, and chittering language were all discovered during this time, as was a new species of fungal entity that was quickly added to the adventure to provide variance to the enemies encountered.
Before I handed the adventure off to M.C. Funk, who would be running the second playtest online, I took a moment to redraw my chicken-scratch map in professional mapping software.
The adventure still wasn’t perfect, but the second completed draft was miles ahead of the first one in terms of balance, flair, and completeness. My editor went over this draft as well, and made hundreds of suggestions for the grammar, layout, and content.
When all was said in done, the adventure was now clocking in at around 15 pages, double columned (not counting the map and handouts). This is of course without art, a cover (back or front), or even the final font size and layout. My little idea had transformed into a full two, or (even three!) session adventure for the intrepid gamers of the world. I had poured over every inch of text multiple times, and ensured there was a ton of interesting things packing every corner of the adventure.
Surprise, surprise. The playtest could have gone better. M.C. Funk’s notes were comprehensive, and he even recorded the session for me to listen to. I’ve outlined some of the key lessons below, and have already started another massive round of rewrites. Always playtest with multiple groups!
Starting in a tavern seemed to leave a bad taste in this group’s mouth, and allowed a type of scope creep to slip unseen into the session. It turns out that when you start in a town, and not near the action, there’s a slowdown that can occur. Some players may wish to bargain with the quest giver, others may wish to shop, and still others may wish to roleplay and prepare for the coming journey. There is, of course, nothing wrong with this, but in the interest of time, I realized that providing multiple starting points to the judge/DM was crucial. Some judges may like a slower game where my adventure could take upwards of 4 or 5 sessions to complete. Another may wish to one-shot it, and so would prefer to begin In Media Res. I added an In Media Res option, reworked the tavern start, and then fleshed out three additional hooks for judges/DMs to play with.
The party was severely underpowered, and struggled with the introductory encounter against the Crikari. They felt they had to battle past them to resume the adventure, which, at the time, was totally true. Well over half of this first 4 hour session was dealing with the Crikari: how to avoid them, how to get the jump on them, and, ultimately, how to simply survive in the face of death. A party of players should rarely be put into a situation like this. Instead, they should have the ability to choose: fight toe-to-toe, avoid the fight and sneak around, or even get a jump on the enemy by using the environment around them. I have added all three options to the adventure for most encounters, and readdressed the balance of each.
Decisions felt scant, even with my modifications after the first playtest. This group felt railroaded, and that the caves were simply a linear march to the end. Although the map was packed with interesting things, they didn’t have much choice in what to interact with and when. Like the battle with the Crikari, they felt like they had to engage with each encounter or hazard at the time they found it, in the manner in which it was presented. I have made extensive notes, and will be going over all encounters (creatures, traps, hazards, and so on) to ensure that creativity can be expressed by the playing group. I’ll make sure that each area sets a scene, and that the players can then choose how and when to interact with the contents of that scene. Ensuring player fun, creativity, and engagement is paramount!
The Final Battle fell flat. In the first playtest, the final battle went very well, which is why I was surprised that in the second playtest it seemed to fall a bit flat. I’ve realized that a lot of what made the original playtest fun was the chemistry between myself and my friends, who have known each other forever. Listening to the session M.C. Funk ran was like a glimpse into another reality. Few of the players knew each other, and their discomfort with expressing themselves amongst a bunch of strangers was evident. This showed weaknesses in the adventure I hadn’t seen before, especially around the pacing and content of the final battle. It has now undergone extensive rewrites, which I will continue to work on as I run additional playtests. The take away here is to make sure you always playtest with people that don’t know each other, and mix up your variables as much as possible between tests!
Thanks to M.C. Funk, Witch Pleas Publishing, Olivia “GuiltySP” Phantasm, PJ Koroski, and Michael David Davis for playtesting!
So now that the second playtest is done, I have begun extensive rewrites of the adventure. This will include a much more complex map, with branching paths, additional content, and multiple modes of entry into various areas. I should be playtesting this adventure again by the end of the month.
My fiancée, Casey Lynch, is a professional illustrator (and potter) and has been working on the art for the adventure. The current plan is still a kickstarter in December or January. We’ll share the art just as soon as we have some!
Stay turned for more info, and, as always stay weird!
