Adventure Design: Robber’s Bridge (Part VI)

Robber’s Bridge Concept Map (v3) by D. Koch

Hello friends!

Our adventure is really starting to come together. If you’re new to this series, we’re collaboratively developing a short Torchbearer adventure.

If you need to catch up:

Last time I asked for your input on various features of the map and you provided some great suggestions. Let’s nail down the details.

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Adventure Design: Robber’s Bridge (Part V)

Robber’s Bridge Concept Map (v3) by D. Koch

Hello friends!

If you’re new to this series, we’re collaboratively developing a short Torchbearer adventure.

If you need to catch up:

Last week we took a look at a concept map from Mordite Press developer D. Koch. Above Koch has provided an updated map adjusted for many of the things we discussed. You’ll note that the break in the bridge has been enlarged and the Middle Tower now has a portcullis on either side with murder holes that could be used against attackers trying to pass through. There’s also a stairway on the southern side of the Middle Tower that grants access to the upper levels of the tower.

There are still a few issues that I need your help to address, but first I want to circle back to some of the questions raised in Part III. The suggestions are below. What do you think about them? Which ones do you like or not like? Do they suggest any additional ideas to you?

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Adventure Design: Robber’s Bridge (Part IV)

Robber’s Bridge Concept Map by D. Koch

Check out this amazing concept map from Mordite Press developer D. Koch! This is really starting to come together!

If you’re new to this series, we’re collaboratively developing a short Torchbearer adventure.

If you need to catch up:

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Adventure Design: Robber’s Bridge (Part III)


Pont Valentré

Thanks to everyone who chimed in with their thoughts on the submissions for the Robber’s Bridge adventure. Everyone contributed some great stuff! I would encourage everyone to recycle some of those ideas for your own adventures.

I’ve taken everyone’s feedback, incorporated some of my own editorial discretion, and brought it all together. There’s still time to change things, of course, so please share any feedback or ideas inspired by the content below. Let’s take the next steps in pulling this adventure together!

If you need to catch up:

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Adventure Design: Robber’s Bridge (Part II)


Pont Valentré

OK gang, the results from last week’s poll are in. Thank you to everyone who contributed! The entries are below. Check them out and let me know in the comments which ones inspire you. Feel free to riff on them. Next week I’ll use your input to finalize these answers and then we’ll move on to the next steps.

There are just a couple of boundaries that I want to place.

First, I want to keep the Ylfarings1See The First People, Middarmark, page 6 mysterious. They could have built the bridge and left it to be discovered by later humans. It could have been destroyed (by giants or otherwise) in a later age. I just don’t want to set anything down about their history. I’ll leave that for you in their games.

Second, when considering who currently inhabits this location, keep in mind that I want this to be a small dungeon. Think Skogenby or even smaller. Maybe it could even be expandable by treating each of the towers independently to create three linked adventures. For now, let’s keep this focused.

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Adventure Design: Robber’s Bridge

Pont Valentré

Let’s make an adventure together. We’re going to take this bit by bit and I hope it will be an interactive process.

We’ll start with the process from the Adventure Design chapter in Torchbearer. I’ll provide my answers, but I’m looking to you to jump in with your own ideas. Nothing is set in stone yet. I’m giving this adventure the working title Robber’s Bridge. We’ll consider final titles later in the process.

Feel free to add your suggestions in this handy form. I’ll choose the best ones (or maybe even do a poll) to build out our adventure

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Evolving the Dread Crypt: Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Skogenby Barrow by Rebekah Bennington

Last week, I wrote about NPCs I’ve added to the village of Skogenby to help bring it to life. This week we’ll use those NPCs and some material already in The Dread Crypt of Skogenby to update the adventure as Haathor-Vash’s plans take shape.

Note: The rest of this post will contain spoilers for the adventure.

The idea here is to create the feeling of a dynamic world that changes around the PCs. Some of those changes will be in reaction to the players’ actions, but the rest will be the result of antagonists and other NPCs advancing their agendas.

As a GM, this should be a relatively straightforward process: Between adventures, take stock of what your various important characters are up to (including PCs’ family, friends, mentors and enemies) and determine whether they’ve advanced their agendas or not. If they have advanced their agendas, note the consequences. That’s it. Simple, right? Let’s take a look at Skogenby.

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Evolving the Dread Crypt: Bringing Skogenby to (un)life

Over the past several weeks I’ve alluded several times to my ‘evolution’ of The Dread Crypt of Skogenby. For the next several posts I plan to take a deeper dive into the details of that evolution to give you an example of how you might evolve your own adventures.

To set the stage, I need to first tell you about how I updated the adventure. I wanted my players to invest in Skogenby as a place, maybe even choose to come from the village, so I fleshed it out a little bit.

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Prepackaged and Individually Portioned

The Light of Civilization Flickers by Russ Nicholson

One of the biggest challenges Torchbearer GMs face is creating dungeons or choosing published dungeons (especially if they weren’t specifically written with Torchbearer in mind).

I highly recommend crafting your own dungeons if you have the time. It’s fun! The Adventure Design chapter can help make it a snap, too! But you don’t need to shy away from published adventures, even from other games. They’ll make your life easier.

Whether you choose to make your own or use a prepackaged adventure, you’ll get the best results if you play to Torchbearer’s strengths.

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Way Down in the Hole

Castle Erobring by Kurt Komoda

As a Torchbearer GM, your job is to create opportunities for players to make choices.

The communities you’ve placed on your map have problems! Not only do they face the possibility of real-world horrors like natural disasters, war and plague, the lands surrounding them are filled with goblins, dragons and evil enchanters. The dungeons and hazardous locations on your map won’t just exist in isolation (for the most part), they’ll create direct and indirect threats to the settlements on your map, and the people in those places will notice!

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