Pulp Hummock Press

CREATOR

10 days ago

Project Update: A Faster, More Referee-Friendly Adventure Format

Hey Everyone,

As we close in on our funding goal, I wanted to take a moment to share some of my evolving design principles that I've implemented in this new book project.

A Massive Campaign Designed for Faster Play and Usability

One of my goals with The Overlords of Steel is to evolve the way I write and present adventures at the table.

If you enjoyed the enormous scope, detail, and worldbuilding of Gods of the Forbidden North but sometimes found its traditional, prose-heavy presentation difficult to navigate during play, I’ve heard you.

While Overlords will retain that epic trilogy's narrative depth, it will adopt many of the best information-relaying techniques pioneered by modern designers, like Gavin Norman, Kelsey Dionne, and Ben Milton.

That means this new mega-adventure will boast the following slick features:

referee-facing control panels
tightly structured encounter keys
bolded interactive features
two-page-spread layouts that keeps critical information directly in front of you
adventure reward summaries tracking monster XP, treasure, and magic items
print-friendly, space-saving creature stat blocks by section
intuitive map-to-key cross-references
a comprehensive glossary of people, places, and things
a meticulously hyperlinked PDF index

The goal is simple: less searching, less memorizing, less prep, less page flipping, and more actual adventuring, while still giving you an epic campaign that is huge in terms of its content but that also doesn't feel huge (or intimidating) when you're trying to run it at the table.

No More Lore Homework

That means I’m also changing the way Overlords delivers its deeper narrative. The result I’m aiming for is simple: You shouldn’t have to study the campaign before you run it.

In Overlords, there will be no giant history chapter to memorize before you run the campaign. Instead, the book opens with just 2-3 short paragraphs and 4 optional beginning scenarios giving the referee and players enough context to begin exploring Qa'rood. That’s it.

The land's ancient history—its kingdoms, catastrophes, forgotten peoples, and events stretching back 40,000 years—will be broken into what I’ve been calling NARBs: narrative bits. Rather than explaining the “true” history outright, these NARBs appear as objects, ruins, monuments, artwork, inscriptions, relics, architecture, and other environmental discoveries scattered throughout the campaign.

Players encounter the evidence and piece together the grand story themselves. And importantly, they may never know whether their interpretation is completely correct.

Think of the environmental storytelling found in video games like Elden Ring: the world has a history, but the adventure doesn’t stop so the referee can lecture the players about it. The history becomes part of exploration.

This doesn’t mean withholding information that actually matters at the table. An NPC’s motivation, secret agenda, personality, or immediate actionable history will still appear right where the referee needs it if it impacts play right then and there.

But these NARBs are being designed for the deep background lore, the sort of information that traditionally gets buried in a 20-page campaign history or an appendix.

I actually began experimenting with this writing technique while drafting GotFN: Volumes 2 & 3, though I couldn't go "full NARB" until now with Overlords.

In any case, I hope you like what I've done.

All Best,
Rob "An Old Dog Learning New Tricks" Alderman,
Pulp Hummock Press

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