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Independent Game Festival Finalist: John Platte
Profile by Jay Watamaniuk
This week, we introduce members of the Neverwinter Nights community who have been named finalists for their outstanding work by the Independent Games Festival (IGF). The IGF was established to encourage creativity and to support innovation and talent outside of the mainstream world of game development. In its eighth year, the IGF has added the category of 'Modding' to its list of awards. In this profile, we feature John Platte, a.k.a Scrotok, for his work on the Dungeon Master run module Bitter Harvest, and to get some insight into his process for creating a quality module:
What reference material do you use when creating a module? Online resources, off-line?
John: D&D 3.0 rulebooks (Monster Manual, Players Handbook, DM's Guide); "classic" PnP D&D mods; David Gaider's scripting tutorial; NWN Lexicon; Neverwinter Connections (NWC) IRC Chat.
Where do you start when planning a module? Setting? Characters? Plot? All three?
John: The inspiration for module ideas comes from various sources. My first NWN mod (not yet released on the Vault) was inspired by the capabilities of the Toolset, while the mod I'm working on now is based on a PC background story from my regular gaming group. In the case of "Bitter Harvest," the inspiration came from one of my friends, who had been unable to play NWN for a few weeks due to a business trip. Just prior to returning, my friend sent me an e-mail talking about how his PC would soon return "from distant lands" after battling various types of creatures. That particular mix of creatures struck me as extremely interesting, and a plotline quickly formed in my head based on those creatures and their relationships with each other and the nearby city of Sapwick. These relationships drove the plot, one of the creature types drove the setting, and the characters evolved from there. Incidentally, most of my gaming group have been playing RP games with me for 20+ years, but the friend who sent me the "inspirational e-mail" had never played an RPG prior to playing NWN with us, so it was really cool to see him get into the game. Well done, BioWare!
How much of your module creation is done actually sitting in front of the Toolset and how much is notes and scrunched up paper?
John: I can do most of my modding without paper notes, because the Toolset is amazing. Usually, I'll take notes on ideas when I'm away from the keyboard (dangerous when you're driving), or when I'm working with the Toolset and my "to do" list of ideas grows beyond my brain's ability to keep up. Painting terrain when creating a new area in the Toolset is so easy and so fun, it allows me to focus on creativity (often inspired by the Toolset itself) rather than worrying about the details.
What do you think about all this attention for your module?
John: I'm completely humbled, inspired, and psyched at the same time! I thought I had zero chance of getting into the finals of the IFG mod competition, considering the incredible quality of mods out there. One of the things I'm most proud of is that "Bitter Harvest" doesn't restrict players to a particular class, alignment, etc., and the plot is pretty non-linear (thanks to the awesome DM Client), so it's basically like a giant sandbox with toys inside, waiting to be played with. I tried to keep things pretty straightforward, like one of the classic PnP mods by Gary Gygax. In addition, the detailed DM's Guide is designed to be "ultra friendly" for even novice DMs.
What level of expertise do you think you had when you started this module? Any chance you had improved when you finally finished it?
John: I felt pretty experienced with modding when I started "Bitter Harvest," based on the previous work I've done, even though I've never considered myself a modding guru (there are many talented folks out there with a wide variety of modding skills). But "Bitter Harvest" certainly helped me practice scripting, writing (especially the DM's Guide), play balancing (challenge level of encounters), etc. Although the skills atrophy with time, I feel much more confident about being able to finish the next mod, and I've inspired several of my gaming buds to create and DM their own mods, which for me is one of the greatest joys of playing NWN.
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