Looking for NaGaDeMon ideas

So, I'm thinking of playing NaGaDeMon this year, which is NaNoWriMo but for RPGs.

So, Nagademon being like Nanowrimo (I've given up on the caps, my puter hates them) the idea is to write an RPG supplement, publish it and play it, in November. It doesn't have to be 50 000 words, but if it is, then that counts as a NaNoWriMo Rebel win.

Any suggestions, people? If a guy wandered by and said "Hey...50 000 words...RPG sup...What do you want?" what would you say?

Now, some of your suggestions I may shut up about and they will just sink like a stone because I have some stuff that awaiting publication / I'm writing for paid publication / I've pitched for paid publication which I can't discuss, so if one of those comes up, I'm just going to ignore it, sorry, since I can't say "Oh, can't do X. Sold X to some people a while back. Can't do Y, hope to sell it next month."

You have a week, guys. I'll need to research a lot before we kick off. If I doin't get a corker of an idea by this time next week, I'll be doing something else for Libraries and Year of Reading and audiobooks which will be Great and Epic, but not roleplayingish at all.

Doesn't need to be Ars, but can be Ars. Doesn't need to be Mythic Europe because this is not a paid work, it's a fan piece.

Collaborators welcome. Kick in on the thread and we can blog this or wiki it or whatever.

So...what do you want?

how about "Soqotran stories" - give some sample Soqotran characters and some scenarios to play them in.
Well, I like Soqotra and someone else on this board has posted of their love for it, so you have at least two readers.

Advantages: You've already done the research!
You've already been paid by Atlas for Rival Magic, so it's unlikely to conflict with what you've done for them (although I could be wrong - I saw the Hooks open call, who knows if there was a sudden spate of scenarios entered featuring Soqotran magic?)
It gives you and any collaborators a chance to play with non-hermetic spells a bit.
Disadvantages: Unsure how many people would be enthusiastic for this. Collaborators won't be able to research up to your level in under a month.

Second idea: "Twilight of the archmagi" or "now it gets a bit silly" - an adventure suitable for magi 120 or 150 years past gauntlet, and any companions they may have. Scaling the magical power level up to obscene and still adventuring rather than going into semi-retirement, spending 27 seasons on lab work then leaving the lab for tribunal.

Advantages: I don't think anyone's published anything for this level of power.
Disadvantages: Maybe that's because it's very hard to do, or requires extreme tailoring to the capabilities of the party. Hell, I have enough problems storyguiding for magi 47 years past gauntlet at the moment.

Third idea: Magus Solus - making a solo adventure for an Ars character. Is the classic "find the paragraph and keep choosing" style workable, or would this be more like Pendragon winter phase solos? I bring this up because I've had fun making little solo adventures in the past.
Advantages: there's enough Ars fans who don't get a gaming group together very often who would thank you.

That's my 3 serious ideas... less seriously, "Nailing the chamberpot" - pinning down tiny areas of the Ars universe no-one would ever be bothered writing about. "Magi of hermes 2" - this time including Tremere, Guernicus, Mercere (was the other missing house Bjornaer?) and no Flambeau Creo Ignem specialists.

Welcome darkwing, and sweet ideas!
I had to read twice to realize you didn't say "nailing the chambermaid".... :blush:

I know, it's coming up with the idea that's tough, isn't it?

-Ben.

Coming up with a good idea is the modestly challenging part.

Turning that idea into something that the friends I roleplay with each week will accept for an evening's play is the easy part.

Writing down something good enough for other people to read takes work.

Writing a decent volume of work that is internally consistent requires hard work and a lot of re-editing, and is the hard part.

For me, the hardest part is writing down scenarios - I'm not sure if I became good at improvising while running a game because I was poor at writing scenarios, or if I just never became good at writing scenarios because I found it easier to improvise.

Actually, I'm the other way: the writing's the easy part: finding a concept that will act as a spine for the writing is the hard part. I presume Ben writes in much the same way. 8) This is why I'm putting this out there, bedcause I know the community has a lot of people who go the other way. (Ben, congrats on committing to doing a heap of monsters.)

The Peripheral Code. A series of adventures and court cases for hermetic magi. The cases do not need to be hermetic crimes. They can be court cases for vis supplies, or a case of a church official or sheriff coming to court to prosecute a magus for mundane or church crimes. The magi of the OoH are not necessarily above mundane justice, so this might be an interesting scenario to draw the point :slight_smile:

Sanctuary of Ice Revised Edition is another option, updating what you like and rewriting what you don't.

"Elric comes to Mythic Europe and some other silly Faerie stories" might also be a topic, with faerie stories dealing from the maid in the pool to Elric or an old one coming to Europe to say "hi" and have some fun around with the connivance of the Divine (so, no miracles smithing the creature). Great for a Criamon or 2 to shine.

"Jerbiton was a Jerk, Merinita was high on pot and other Founder Era stories and adventures". You get the idea. Can be translated to "hunt for the elusive Founder" as well since a few of them are not dead necessarily, or might have brought Faerie or daimon equivalents in either the feae or magic realms.

Cheers,
Xavi

The Apprentice.

The apprentice is the anti-hero, the "also ran" of the AM world, but I think there is a lot of good stuff possible there. If you include the initial finding, complications from their tenuous legal standing within the Order, the tension between 15 years of hard study with a youth's typical preoccupations (think some of the young Arthur/Merlin tales), and then the last years networking with other apprentices and entering the political arena (to one extent or another, consciously or no) to garner potential compatriots and sponsors for a new spring Covenant, and finally leading up to the Gauntlet, you could easily have more than enough material. (Some of this is touched on in HoH:Soc under the Tytalus chapter, but that's just one strongly slanted dynamic.)

This supplement would run counter to the "splat book" mentality - this does not make a wizard stronger (altho' rules for detailed apprentice generation-thru-play might), but embellishes what is admittedly the weakest character in the canon, short of a grog (and even then). It could also (if you want) resolve some of the guesswork regarding some of the more amorphous aspects of apprenticeship, things that are hinted at but not developed (and there is a small list of those).

The challenge would be to create plots and RP opportunities for an indentured servant who is usually seen as being allowed very little(?) volition. Perhaps this could introduce an expansion of the idea of a "botch", as fledgling wizards surely make a lot of mistakes, and yet as a rule neither destroy themselves, their masters nor their general environments. Perhaps an expanded list of suggested botches that result in mini-scenarios attached - the "Special/Story Event" category of the Experimentation Table.

Another problem is that it's pretty clear(?) that an apprentice cannot be run as a peer with Magi and Companions - a few spells and tricks aside, they are far less skilled in almost all areas while more vulnerable and point-detonating in any sort of challenge, be that social, political, academic or combat. They don't even have Parma (unless their Parens is sharing theirs at the moment.) So it would almost have to be run as a separate (if perhaps parallel) story line to keep the survivability and challenges proportionate - but that's not uncommon with some types of main characters anyway.

(To reach 50,000 words, it might need to also incorporate Familiars, which are a parallel discussion - I don't have a good feel for what would represent that quantity of text.)

(btw - there is a duplicate thread topic - here: https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/looking-for-nagademon-ideas/6229/1

Arbitrarily, let's continue with this one only - if only because it's longer at the time of this post.)

Following Mr. Ferguson's and Mr. McFarland's lead, I'm going to stat up a faerie a day for November. A much more humble effort, to be sure. I'll cut and paste entries from my blog. metropollywog.wordpress.com/2011 ... -november/
Wish me luck.

At least you're doing it. 8(

At the moment I don't have an idea which is strong enough to push me to do this every day, day after day, for November. I have other writing on, I'm doing a lot of librivoxing, I have work on, and so I know I really need a strong idea to push me along and so far I haven't quite...clicked.

I mean, I could do a little plot hookish thing per day for 30 days. Not much of a hassle, and not much of a result.

Good luck, though...

Any idea on what your November project is going to be, Timothy?

Xavi

No, as I say: I don't have an idea.

Unless I get one I'll be doing some librarianish stuff instead,

We'll see how it goes. Something may crop up.

Something like this: metropollywog.wordpress.com/2011 ... -practice/
which is the last time I'll hijack Timothy's thread.