MYSTERY OF THE TIME-SLOWED CASTLE
Producer, Lead Narrative Designer
Responsibilities:
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Creating the core concept of the module.
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Writing the main quest.
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Drawing a reference map of the castle.
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Organizing a team of 9 people, including 6 writers.
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Teaching the team the rules and specifics of D&D 5e in a short time.
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Assigning tasks, characters, and quests for writers.
Writing & Production Process
Production
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When we formed our team for the Game Jam, we immediately realized a potential issue. Of our team of 9, we had 6 narrative designers, 1 musician, 0 artists, and 0 software engineers. Rather than giving up, we turned this issue into a strength. We decided to create a game where having an abundance of writers would be an advantage. Instead of a video game, I suggested we create a one-shot module for tabletop roleplaying games.
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After a quick brainstorming session using the theme of the game jam, we had the concept of the adventure. I was the person with the most experience with ttrpgs, so I took the role of producer and would be the one to write the main quest, while the other writers would each take a side quest involving 2 of the 10 characters. I split it up like this to lessen the workload on each writer, and so that no one stepped on anyone else’s toes trying to do the same thing.
Narrative
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We wanted the story to be a mystery, so we worked backwards. I came up with the answer to the mystery first, and gave each writer a clue to the answer that they could work into their quest. This way, the player would be able to solve the mystery by completing the various side quests in the castle, greatly increasing the chances of the player interacting with more content.