DM's Journal: A New Campaign Experiment
Hello and welcome to The Bard’s College. I am The Bard, and this is the first in a series of posts which will outline my experience developing a new campaign.
Specifically, with this campaign I am attempting to create something I’ve long been curious about, but have never found an adequate answer to. Can you make a tabletop RPG campaign that is also a metroidvania?
For anyone who is not aware, metroidvania is a portmanteau of the titles of two massively influential games, specifically Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, which is used as a shorthand to describe a genre of game built around exploring a map finding keys/powerups which will open up more of the map for further exploration.
I love metroidvania games and I’ve especially fallen in love with the original Dark Souls, a game that has spawned its own genre-defining label with the “souls-like” or “soulsborne” game.
The real thing this experiment will teach me is whether the metroidvania gameplay style can function without the hard restrictions implemented as part of a video game. In a video game a designer can lock areas behind obstacles which require the key they’ve placed in the game, whether it be a literal key, a key item, or a boss fight. At the tabletop players can try any solution they can think up for an obstacle, and it’s a poor DM that refuses any solution except the one they’d predetermined.
But before I can really face that question, there’s a bit of preparation I need to handle first. Specifically, there are two things, planning and research.
First, I need to outline the story, goals, and broad scenario the players will encounter. As always, this can’t be locked into stone because it needs to respond to the players’ actions appropriately. For my part, I like to do this by outlining the primary antagonist or antagonistic force the players will encounter, it’s motivations (unless it’s some kind of natural disaster which would have none), and what would happen without the presence of the players. After this, I create short blurbs about any central NPC’s which need to exist in the world.
For this experimental campaign, I’m going with something relatively straightforward. The king has died with no heirs and his uncle has assumed the throne, but was opposed by the queen mother who has turned to a combination of magic and mad science in an attempt to return her son to life. Should she succeed, she will bring a horrifying war to the kingdom vying for the throne with her brother-in-law in the name of her freshly undead son, devastating the lands and the peoples.
Now we have a simple line of succession story framework with the added flair of some unpleasant magic and science mixing. That should provide for ample obstacles, combat challenges, and areas to explore in a metroidvania style game.
Second, I need to really research what makes a good metroidvania. I’ve been reading a great deal of articles and watching many videos on both metroidvanias (design advice, design analysis, and commentary) and the classic DND megadungeon which is similar though it lacks the obstacle/key construct that defines the metroidvania genre.
The best resource I’ve found at this point is Mark Brown’s Boss Keys series on the GMTK YouTube channel. It’s a fantastic breakdown of the dungeon design of Zelda games and the overall world design of various games including Metroid, Castlevania, Dark Souls, and Hollow Knight. If you’ve not seen it before, I highly recommend it as it’s also just great game design analysis, but for my specific project I’ve been rewatching episodes to really get my head into the design space.
I’ve also just been going back through and playing the games I have. Dark Souls, Metroid, and Link’s Awakening for starters, but I’m also going to take a crack at some of the ones I’ve never gotten to try before like Hollow Knight.
Once I’ve finished this research, I’ll start really trying to put together a shorthand area map (not the final map to traverse, but a rough depiction of areas and how they might connect) and a rudimentary chart of the keys and obstacles I plan to include. For the latter, I think I’ll try to implement GMTK’s chart system from Boss Keys.
Anyway, I think that’s enough for an initial post about this. I’m not great at keeping up with regular updates, but I’ll definitely be writing future posts on this topic as it helps me organize my thoughts.
So until then, game well my friends.
-The Bard
Specifically, with this campaign I am attempting to create something I’ve long been curious about, but have never found an adequate answer to. Can you make a tabletop RPG campaign that is also a metroidvania?
For anyone who is not aware, metroidvania is a portmanteau of the titles of two massively influential games, specifically Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, which is used as a shorthand to describe a genre of game built around exploring a map finding keys/powerups which will open up more of the map for further exploration.
I love metroidvania games and I’ve especially fallen in love with the original Dark Souls, a game that has spawned its own genre-defining label with the “souls-like” or “soulsborne” game.
The real thing this experiment will teach me is whether the metroidvania gameplay style can function without the hard restrictions implemented as part of a video game. In a video game a designer can lock areas behind obstacles which require the key they’ve placed in the game, whether it be a literal key, a key item, or a boss fight. At the tabletop players can try any solution they can think up for an obstacle, and it’s a poor DM that refuses any solution except the one they’d predetermined.
But before I can really face that question, there’s a bit of preparation I need to handle first. Specifically, there are two things, planning and research.
First, I need to outline the story, goals, and broad scenario the players will encounter. As always, this can’t be locked into stone because it needs to respond to the players’ actions appropriately. For my part, I like to do this by outlining the primary antagonist or antagonistic force the players will encounter, it’s motivations (unless it’s some kind of natural disaster which would have none), and what would happen without the presence of the players. After this, I create short blurbs about any central NPC’s which need to exist in the world.
For this experimental campaign, I’m going with something relatively straightforward. The king has died with no heirs and his uncle has assumed the throne, but was opposed by the queen mother who has turned to a combination of magic and mad science in an attempt to return her son to life. Should she succeed, she will bring a horrifying war to the kingdom vying for the throne with her brother-in-law in the name of her freshly undead son, devastating the lands and the peoples.
Now we have a simple line of succession story framework with the added flair of some unpleasant magic and science mixing. That should provide for ample obstacles, combat challenges, and areas to explore in a metroidvania style game.
Second, I need to really research what makes a good metroidvania. I’ve been reading a great deal of articles and watching many videos on both metroidvanias (design advice, design analysis, and commentary) and the classic DND megadungeon which is similar though it lacks the obstacle/key construct that defines the metroidvania genre.
The best resource I’ve found at this point is Mark Brown’s Boss Keys series on the GMTK YouTube channel. It’s a fantastic breakdown of the dungeon design of Zelda games and the overall world design of various games including Metroid, Castlevania, Dark Souls, and Hollow Knight. If you’ve not seen it before, I highly recommend it as it’s also just great game design analysis, but for my specific project I’ve been rewatching episodes to really get my head into the design space.
I’ve also just been going back through and playing the games I have. Dark Souls, Metroid, and Link’s Awakening for starters, but I’m also going to take a crack at some of the ones I’ve never gotten to try before like Hollow Knight.
Once I’ve finished this research, I’ll start really trying to put together a shorthand area map (not the final map to traverse, but a rough depiction of areas and how they might connect) and a rudimentary chart of the keys and obstacles I plan to include. For the latter, I think I’ll try to implement GMTK’s chart system from Boss Keys.
Anyway, I think that’s enough for an initial post about this. I’m not great at keeping up with regular updates, but I’ll definitely be writing future posts on this topic as it helps me organize my thoughts.
So until then, game well my friends.
-The Bard
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