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Welcome to part III of our interview with Jonathan Roberts, about our newest patronage project The Breaking of Fostor Nagar (PFRPG) that will being using the MapTool program from RP Tools. Feel free to comment or ask additional questions. (Also don't forget to check out Jonathan Roberts map on the last page of Kobold Quarterly #11. )
17. How do you handle patron criticism of a map you design?
I hope pretty well. Every map is a bit of art to me, but the first role of any map is to be functional and a fresh pair of eyes is the best way to make sure that works. Patrons get input at the sketch stage and the stage where the line art is agreed. This makes sure the map corresponds clearly to the encounter and often provides invaluable feedback. This, coupled with close interaction with the designers, makes sure that the maps work well with the encounter. This is particularly important for complex tactical combats, where a piece of terrain can make all the difference.
18. Describe your best moment so far working on Breaking of Fostor Nagar?
I really enjoyed the back and forth work with Ben on the concept. That collaboration is great fun.
19. What do you feel was the most ingenious part of Breaking of Fostor Nagar that you or Ben McFarland have Designed?
I like the fact that the siege of the city places a clear time constraint on the adventure. The players are in a race against time to get the ambassador out before the city is overwhelmed. This allows us to design encounters where the players get to decide between going flat out to reach their goal, or pause and fend off the attackers. Both have their merits and their consequences. The adventure may also have a final chase scene where they have to escape the city, pursued by cannibals as the glacier crumbles around them. Now that's going to be a lot of fun.
20. What specific design choice are you most happy with, and why?
I think another advantage is that the tight timeline allows us to create a good mix of location based encounters and sequential events which will keep the adventure moving along at a good lick. On a less technical note - I love the concept of a siege coming from a fleet of ships. Ben raised the possibility when we were discussing an adventure based on the siege of a canal city with ships sailing between the buildings. We kept those beats in Breaking of Forstor Nagar by having the glacier city under siege and the ships sailing between the city districts that lie on the tethered icebergs. I've been having a lot of fun creating some full blown ships that can play host to some serious swashbuckling fun.
21. Which design element was the hardest to figure out, and why?
Actually I think this one will still be to come. We'll be making a decision during the development process about how much of the adventure to automate. Maptool has the capability to make everything automatic - so it can pop up windows asking if you'll be using rapid shot and then take that into account when you perform a full attack action on a hapless foe. There are frameworks in existence that have that degree of automation already in place. However with the extra automation comes added complexity for the user. We'll be testing this with patrons to find the happy medium where we can substantially speed up the game without introducing a large learning curve. I think this will be a unique opportunity to really get a feel for how the game should be played on a virtual tabletop.
22. What did you learn about development and especially development of a Virtual Table Top adventure?
I've been running games on maptool for years so I thought I had a pretty good handle on what can be done in the program. What I found when I started talking to Ben was that many of my adventure design choices have been subconsciously informed by what I felt was easy or doable in maptool. I found myself beginning to object to an idea because I couldn't quite see how we'd do it, but actually the ideas were so cool that I stopped myself and instead sat down to figure out how we could do it. Not only does that mean we keep the elements of the adventure that are the most fun, it also means that we should have some things in this adventure that should surprise even long time users of maptool.
23. What have you learned about Breaking of Fostor Nagar as you developed the screenshots?
We'll be needing a lot of tokens! A siege lends itself to crowd scenes, and we're lucky to have crowds of Devin's tokens to populate the streets, as well as having custom tokens for the 'named' NPCs. Also, I learned that a scale pirate ship looks fantastic on the computer screen as a player or a GM. when your players see that coming towards them they're suddenly going to start wondering about the safety of the boat that previously seemed quite large and comfortable. And even the most power mad PCs are going to think twice when they see a whole ships worth of ballistae swivel their way... and yes, they do swivel - all in synch.
24. Did you make any other mistakes or miscalculations in the development process? How did you fix them?
It's been interesting keeping the updates coming in time as we've been approaching goal. It forces you to make sure that everything get's done to a level that can be released to the public (or to patrons once development starts) rather than letting things stew for a while. I like the discipline of it. I've been involved in patronage projects as a freelancer for the maps before, but now being on the development side I have a lot of respect for those who have been running the development process in the past. It's been fun to take the reins and I look forward to guiding this through to the final product.
25. We have a long history of real world table top focus in the RPG industry how do you plan to overcome a “Grognards” hesitance to try out a Virtual Table top
Wait for the upcoming screenshots. They've been eye-candy up until now. The next set will start to show off some of the power of the program, and I'm sure that will begin to pique the curiosity of even the most dyed in the wool gamer. I don't believe we really have grognards in the hobby. I think it's more a matter of persuading people why they should be interested in a virtual tabletop. That's not going to happen unless people see what they can do with it.
26. Are you happy with where Breaking of Fostor Nagar is today (other than wanting more patrons)?
Yes, I think the Breaking of Forstor Nagar is in fine shape. We have a great team together and the adventure itself is a classic caper. I think it's going to be a blast and I can't wait to hit goal so we can get going in earnest.
We will be posting part IV of this five part inteview on Monday. Your welcome to sign up as a patron today!
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