Steve Zaccardi

A long time player and collector of board games and RPG's. Specializing in war games, conflict simulations, and historical subjects, I will play anything once, and some things for years.

What’s Next in Achtung! Cthulhu?

 Roleplaying Games  No Responses »
Nov 272024
 
Rendezvous at Rouen has been out for three weeks now and making its way into players hands. While that satisfying glow of accomplishment remains, the draw of new adventures beckons.

I must answer.

Rendezvous was actually a detour; a short respite from a larger work I had been tooling with. I will return and finish it now: a new A!C adventure. At least the first installment of it. Me and my habit of biting off too much had sketched out a concept for such a large piece that it has to be broken into a trilogy of adventures. This will probably take me into most of next year to finish.

But in the meantime, check here for some updates on The Last Emperor. First mission in the End of Empire triology.

Rendezvous at Rouen

 Roleplaying Games  No Responses »
Nov 092024
 

My 2d20 project for Modiphius’ World Builders community program has been released to DriveThruRPG. While not my first publication with Modiphius, it is my first through their World Builders community program. Rendezvous at Rouen for the Achtung! Cthulhu game line is a Section M mission set in France right after the surrender to Germany in June, 1940. It’s a sequel to the Quickstart adventure A Quick Trip to France.

My original goal was to release it on September 30th in time for Roll20’s “The Next Adventure” program. An unexpected event got in the way of that schedule: Hurricane Helene. The storm ravaged western North Carolina where I happened to be. Thankfully, (and by the grace of God), I came through it unscathed, but my heart goes out to those lives that were lost and the families impacted by the devastation of the storm. I had been through hurricanes before, but never in the mountains. I now have first hand understanding of flash floods and mudslides, along with a healthy respect for the convergence of moving water and terrain. 

With more time to complete the project I decided to add some details, do a little more research into the city of Rouen and its history and put more effort into the maps. These extras I think were worth it pushing the final page count to 32 from my original target of 15 pages. 

For those of you who are thinking about writing your own World Builders content, I thought it useful to give you an idea of the effort it took to produce this mission. I used tools that parallel Modiphius’ process and added extra time in for activities like layout and proofreading. Most of the art in the game is provided by Modiphius as part of the World Builders program. Art is one of the sticking points for tabletop RPG design. Unless you are a gifted artist, commissioning artwork is prohibitively expensive and no AI is permitted in the program. Thankfully, Modiphius gives its World Builders community access to an art pack for use in development. I took advantage of this everywhere I could in the manuscript with only a couple custom pieces I created that portray the relics of Saint Vitalis that the player characters acquire during the game.

With that, here is the rough breakdown of time spent in the various major areas and the tools used to accomplish the tasks.

Project start: 9/18/2024

Principal writing: 9/18 to 10/20, 32 writing days.
Tool: Scrivener
Word Count: 11,101 (Final Draft)

Map design: 10/21 to 10/27
Tool: Inkarnate
Maps Created: Rouen city, Rouen Cathedral, Grotto of Anguish, Hidden Cavern

Layout, editing and formatting: 10/28 to 11/4
Tools: Adobe InDesign and Photoshop, utilizes the World Builders template

Upload to DTRPG: 11/5
Tools: DTRPG submission tool and editor

That’s about 48 days total time to go from an outline to the finished product. To give you a sense of where it started, here’s the original outline idea: 

Rescue from Rouen

Scene 1
Sneaking into center city
Contact with underground

Scene 2
Entering the cathedral
Finding the crypt

Scene 3
Opening the door to the catacombs
Chase through the catacombs

Scene 4
Rendezvous with the boat
Escape the monster of the Seine

Note that the original working title was “Rescue from Rouen”. While the creation process was taking place, “Rescue” changed to “Rendezvous”; better with the French theme; then “from” changed naturally to “at”. Looking back on this first outline, I was impressed that not much changed from the scene flow other than one minor detail: there is no door to the catacombs. 

For how much is packed into this short four scene mission, that wasn’t a bad total project time. I was happy with the effort and it was fun to do. Given that this adventure is meant to complement and conclude the original Quickstart adventure, I wanted to keep the price modest and accessible for players. You really get your monies worth on this from a time and page count perspective, but I’d rather have this in the hands of players who are excited about Achtung! Cthulhu and want to explore a bit more before diving all the way in. 

This was a fun adventure to craft. The research in and of itself was a pleasure. I know more about Rouen and its cathedral than I ever did. I hope this is an enjoyable mission for both the gamemaster and players!

2d20 World Builders

 Roleplaying Games  No Responses »
Mar 112023
 

To date my contributions here have been primarily about board gaming. While board gaming remains a very important part of what I will continue to cover here on the site, a new addition to the portfolio is on the horizon. As a long time player of roleplaying games, there has been a draw to the newest incarnations of that old hobby.

In recent years I have taken a keen interest in the evolutionary path of narrative mechanic driven RPGs. Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars system was one that I’d classify as a first “mass market” (for as mass a market as RPGs are) narrative driven games. In that game the dice themselves were the narrative modifier to the flow of the game with a light form of meta-currency. Another of these narrative systems games is the 2d20 System developed and published by Modiphius entertainment. In this game, the narrative mechanics are driven by meta-currency as well as the dice results. An interesting combination.

This year, Modiphius launched the 2d20 World Builders program. This program gives the 2d20 community the ability to produce content for the 2d20 rules system under the programs guidelines and structure. Creators are free to develop their own game using the 2d20 rules as well as one licensed property, their Achtung! Cthulhu setting. With the World Builders program, distribution of created content is through DriveThruRPG. Given the value of the system and the property, a very good opportunity for designers and creators.

I have begun work on an adventure for Achtung! Cthulhu with the intention of publication through the program. While I won’t go into too much detail right now, on what topic I will be covering in the “Secret War” of the setting, rest assured that my love of history, interest in World War 2, and love of storytelling will all combine into what I hope to be an interesting and engaging adventure. More to come!

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