Who's your Daddy?
By Mike Simon

A disection of the creation of a good WindZone adventure.

The following is a step by step study of how I create an adventure for WindZone.  Having written the game, I'm allowed a few insights that a lot of people don't get as far as the world goes.   I hope to convey some of these insights to you as well as some common sense tips that you could use in constructing an adventure in any game.

Section 1 - Know Your Role:  Understanding Your Campaign, Knowing What Works (and what doesn't) and Laying the Groundwork

            Few things are more frustrating in the long run than remembering a story about a campaign you ran and then remembering an adventure that just hosed up your continuity that you wish you could take back.  I remember that I once played in a DnD campaign where a new DM took some of our established characters through an adventure where we journeyed to the future (the present) and had an adventure there.  When we returned to our time period, my halfling thief had two uzis and a flying moped.  Needless to say, that's one large scuff on the memory of that character that will never rub off. 

            In WindZone, things are a little different because on the endless plane that is the WindZone world, ANY time period can exist simultaneously with any other so things can be handled in one of a few ways. 

            The easiest way to avoid this kind of calamity is to simply stay in your genre.  Whether it's medieval, present day or futuristic, you have many, many options inside that genre without ever leaving it.  You can include whatever races you like and exclude the others (a good example would be playing a vampire game using Windless as vampires and using only Lowons as your average citizens).  Naturally, the races may require minor changes in this case, but it's your world so do whatever you want with it.  Just remember to explain your changes to the rules with the players before you start. 

            If you're really set on mixing genres, tech levels or time periods, it's important to remember that after you introduce new technology or old cultures to your players that nothing will ever be the same.  Players gravitate toward a way to turn a situation to their advantage and changes in any one of those directions could give them an advantage that you never intended to introduce into your game.  Worse than that, once they've found your weakness, they will generally milk it as long as you let them.  They'll use logic and rationale against you and your own actions will betray you.  As an example, imagine a tech 6 adventuring party on the frontier discovers a tech 3 society.  The "right" thing to do would be to leave them alone.  The "real player" thing to do might be to show off the technology, masquerade as powerful beings (or just take over by force) and then drain them of their resources.  The low tech society doesn't know that Pyre Gems are worth a fortune, they just know that the gems provide heat.  If the tech 6 group were to give them efficient heaters, they'd give them all the Pyre Gems they wanted.  And once they're allowed to do that, managing them is over.   Just the opposite, a low tech band of  adventurers might find new technology and then use it to take unfair advantage of their own society.    Just remember that whenever you make the decision to play outside your campaign genre, it's something that should really be considered carfully.

            Another important thing in knowing your campaign is knowing your world.  When creating a campaign, take some time to think about exactly how things are going to be.  Is it going to be dark future?  The victorian era?  The not so distant future or past?  Whatever it is, take some time to think about what kinds of cool things you can incorporate into your campaign.  Use the cultural hooks of each race to create interesting backdrops for your campaigns.  An easy example is architecture.  Imagine a tech 6 Lowon city where hover-cars are the norm (remember the movie The Fifth Element?).  Add to that Hyons,  Darkons, Avians and Chiropterans soaring through the streets 50 stories up.  How would this level of aerial travel impact the way buildings are built when ANY elevation can be street level and sidewalks could be built on the edges of buildings.  Lanes of traffic could be set at certain elevations leaving certain areas in between as "pedestrian" zones for flying races.  Or consider a Hyon cloud city where furniture never has to be near the floor.  Floor plans for houses need no longer separate rooms on a horizontal plane, but could have a TV room 10 feet over a dining room that is 10 feet over the kitchen on the "ground floor".  While these homes would be inhospitable to Lowon guests, traditional Hyon homes might be laid out this way simply because they have no need to sit on chairs and their tables might well float independently or protrude from the walls. Doors to various rooms in the house may not necessarily be placed on the ground and may double as windows.  Beyond that, there are many other types of details (described in section 5) that can be used to enhance your campaign.  Whatever you do to enhance your world's details will pay off when you run an adventure and have these descriptions at your disposal (imagine a chase scene in the city streets described above, or a shootout in a Hyon restaurant).

            Lastly, and perhaps most important about creating a campaign, is defining the morality of the characters.  Without a set system of morality in WindZone, it is up to the players to define the way their characters react to a situation.   Sometimes they need a little help.  The easiest thing to do is to set some guidelines in the beginning.  You can do this by making sure that they know that laws are in place.  This doesn't always do the trick (especially with inexperienced players) and you'll end up running a game of complete morally corrupt criminals who see the game as a way to live out every dark fantasy they've ever had.  This MAY NOT be what you want.  A  good way to keep the sanity alive is creating a moral hook for the players that they can attach their characters to.  For example, what has worked for me has been to start them out as police officers.  There is an instantaneous morality attached to that profession that, even if they are kicked off the force, will stay with the characters.  Another way is to create an emotional tie between them so that the will of the group influences their decisions.  Whatever the ploy, make sure you set the type of game you want in the beginning and be very clear of what you'd like to avoid.  This way you won't have a group of sadists wandering around slaughtering anything that comes in their path.