GOZR Adventures

Pookie did a review of GOZR and he brings up a point that's been raised before: GOZR doesn't have an example scenario. People always say that RPGs need a sample adventure so people can immediately get a feel for how the game works and what you do with it.

And I agree. It is always a benefit and rarely a detriment to have a sample scenario in a game. Hell, my first RPG, the D&D red box, was centered heavily on that opening scenario that held your hand to learn the rules. Very effective.

I didn't include one with GOZR because I couldn't quite get one finished. Eventually I created Tower Trouble, a one page tower crawl (which will probably be included with GOZR RISING). But doing a full scenario for this game proved quite impossible for me to do. Why?

I think it's because this game is a toolkit. It is meant to inspire you to just play. You should roll on tables (or pick) to generate settings, NPCs, and situations. The material is meant for use and re-use both within the game itself and in other games you play.

Pre-written adventures are more like snapshots of a moment. A different vibe.

For GOZR RISING, I do want to include some adventures. But I'm not sure what form they will take. Honestly, I don't know if the default format of these pages is best suited to the task. An adventure will be looked at mostly by the GM, not by the players. But I designed the game book to be looked at by everyone. Therefore I think I might take a different approach for adventures and - GASP! - write them. With fonts and words and stuff.

But if I do that, I won't include them in the actual GOSR RISING book. They'll be in a separate book. Which, I think, is kind of a cool idea. You'll get the new GOZR book with all its color and art and handwritten craziness with new monsters, gadgets, and so on. And you'll get a nifty companion book with some slightly more traditionally-presented adventures.

As I type this, I'm reminded of Mörk Borg. That book is also heavily visual in its presentation. Indeed, when I started working on GOZR in early 2020, I got my copy of Mörk Borg at about the same time and was inspired by it. But the sample adventure for that game was in fact presented more traditionally and is even printed on different paper than the rest of the book (fancy!). I don't know if it is the case, but I suspect they might have done this for the same reason I outline above. It just makes more sense.

Still, similar to Tower Trouble, I might include a few one page "dungeons" in the main book. Just some locations to pepper into your games. The adventure book will be slightly more fleshed-out, perhaps.

We'll see.