VermilionFire wrote:What were the problems and processes involved in adapting the first Slavelords module, A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity, from a tournament round to a full-fledged module?

 Considering that we planned to turn the tournaments into modules from the outset, not that many. The two biggest issues were probably coordinating all the work and length. Since each round/module was written by a different person we had to work out how the whole series played out from a tournament standpoint. Plus the early rounds of the tourney had to be relatively equal even though each was a different adventure. Each of us worked with a small limited set of monsters, a basic type, a tougher type, and 1 new one created for the series. We had a simple formula for number and type of encounters to create. I think there were supposed to be 8 or 9 total encounters per round -- basic monster, monster with trap, new monster, basic with boss type, etc. That was used to create the tournament rounds.

VermilionFire wrote:Was anything from the tournament round left out in the module?

 

It was more a matter of finding stuff to add. When the tournaments became modules we had to fill in the gaps, tie the different rounds together in a way that made sense and generally lengthen  to get things up to module length, even though they were really short in those days! .

VermilionFire wrote:How much flexibility did you have to add and flesh out the tourney as a module?  

As much as we wanted. That was the advantage of having us create both the tournament and the final modules. We weren't taking someone else's work and trying to change it. At the same time, we planned to release the modules at the same convention, so there were a lot of players who had the experience still fresh in their minds. Too much changing and they would have noticed

VermilionFire wrote:Looking back now, is there anything you would change in the module?  I always got a kick out reading the orc graffiti on the wall, "elves are fairies."  

Looking back it's easy to see flaws learned from years of experience that weren't apparent at the time, but they're not issues worth changing. Possibly the only thing that bothered me at the time was that the module is very linear. It would have been nice to be a bit more expansive, but it's hard to avoid linear play that type of tournament and it shows in the final product.

zeb

I don't have a copy of the Adventure Log anymore, so I don't really remember anything about the sample characters. Regular games for us were something of a rarity -- most of the campaigns run by employees had short runs as work, playtesting, other interests, and a general "let's do something other than what we do at work" came up. Without the actual info on the sheets I can't be much help -- and even with it I don't know.

Not much help on this one.

Here's a scan of it for anyone that's interested:

DMs Adventure Log Sample Sheet

Okay, so here's the good and bad news. This collection of characters never played in an adventure together. The little listing of events is imaginary since they didn't play together. I'm not even sure that all of them were actual characters. Here's a run down of each as I remember them:

Fred 9802: This was one of my characters from college before I joined TSR. He was a dwarf fighter. The 9802 comes from the fact that previous characters seemed to have short careers so he was "9802" in expectation of a short life span.

Knock Grafton: One of my wife's characters. Just used the name here, because she remembers the character as a 1/2 elf mage/thief with a hatred of dwarves.

Black Dougal: Don't anything about this one except that it is a very appropriate name for one of Kevin's characters since he's very Scottish.

Steve Marsh: Nothing about this one.

The Moldvay Characters: Certainly these names, if they were actual characters, were provided by Tom. I never really met any of his family. They look suspiciously like Tom immortalized them judging by the character names. I do remember Tom having a female character named Morgan Ironwolf -- very much his style.

Elron Hubbard -- Definitely one of Lawrence's characters though again I don't know from where.

Jean Wells: I don't know anything about this character though I did work with Jean.

Homer wrote:Zeb,
Hi, I have volunteered to come forth bearing greetings from the Dragonsfoot board.  Atherton started a thread in response to noting that you have started a thread here at Acaeum.  There is a positive consensus there (Dragonsfoot) for your presence and sage advice, so I formally extend an invitation to you to have your own Sticky: Q&A thread at Dragonsfoot.  I'm just a member of DF and not a moderator.  My interest is mainly in the Vecna elements, but others at DF know much more of your work and can provide ample supplication in return.  
http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/posti ... ly&t=26912
Thank You,
Homer.

I am not a moderator myself and even visit Dragonsfoot from time to time, but it makes sense to me for anyone who wants to ask Zeb a question to do so in one place.  It streamlines things for him and lessens the possibility of repeat questions.  Of course, Mr. Cook can do whatever he pleases.  Maybe I'm missing something here, and I'm just trying to be helpful.

Homer wrote:I was not aware of the proper location to make this post, please excuse my impropriety.  Where should I post the request?

You did fine, don't worry.  Dragonsfoot would certainly be a larger platform of members who are gamers, not necessarily collectors, for Zeb to interact with.  It's up to him whether he wants to or not.

Homer wrote:Zeb,
Hi, I have volunteered to come forth bearing greetings from the Dragonsfoot board.  Atherton started a thread in response to noting that you have started a thread here at Acaeum.  There is a positive consensus there (Dragonsfoot) for your presence and sage advice, so I formally extend an invitation to you to have your own Sticky: Q&A thread at Dragonsfoot.  I'm just a member of DF and not a moderator.  My interest is mainly in the Vecna elements, but others at DF know much more of your work and can provide ample supplication in return.  
http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/posti ... ly&t=26912
Thank You,
Homer.

I'm contemplating this. Haven't made up my mind yet. No matter what I do I'll still be answering questions here, though.

Mars wrote:I think it depends on how bombarded Zeb wants to be.  Here is a fairly light load - probably a question every few days.  DF is more of an all out bombardment.  Tim Kask is up to 50+ pages of messages in the half year, Frank Menzer has over 130 pages, Gary must be over 200.

Different audience between here and there as well and not everyone here visits DF very often.

I go to DF one or twice every 6 months, ToT every week or so.  Welcome Zeb!!  I am sure we will keep you moderatly busy with questions

Agent Cooper wrote:Zeb-
Hello there and thanks very much for taking the time to do this thread.

Would you like to tell us anything about what it was like to work at TSR day to day?  Did you enjoy that experience?  How did you end up working there?  Do you keep in touch with anybody from those days?

And how was the management towards the creative people like yourself?  Did they exert alot of control over the work,  or did they just let you do your thing?

It's really hard to describe a what work was like there. Part of it is because people imagine that we just got together and played games. You have to remember it was work -- you go in every morning and are expected to be "creative" for 8 hours or more. Most of the time you sat at a typewriter (in the old days) and wrote, which took a lot of discipline. At the same time, I've had real jobs and working at TSR was far better than those. I greatly enjoyed it and I learned a ton about games and how to make them while I was there.

I started at TSR because I was a woefully underpaid English teacher in the middle of nowhere. I'd been playing all sorts of games since before college, got introduced to D&D in college when it first came out and kept playing after I graduated. One day Dragon ran an ad for designers and my wife, bless her heart, encouraged me to apply. I was pretty surprised when I got hired. I blame it on the fact that nobody knew what designers really did, otherwise I'd never have had a chance!

I still have friends from those days, although I'm a terrible correspondent.

Managment was management (for a while I was part of it). It's very hard to manage creatives and even harder when you're still learning how to manage a company period. TSR management did good things by us and not so good things. It was a mixed bag. In many ways we defined how best to manage us. They managed us and we trained them in what worked best! There was definitely control -- product choices, schedules, etc. It worked best when we were a part of it, proposing titles and helping management schedule our time correctly. One of the great things I learned from TSR was the value of schedules and deadlines. If you don't have them, things just never seem to get done.

zeb