 December 31, 2016 - 9:15pm | In March 2006, some of the WotC designers for D20 posted an interesting design article on how they prepare encounters for tournament play, which they called "The Delve Format" named after the Dungeon Delve encounters they ran. The original article has long since disappeared from the WotC site, but is resurrectable courtesy of the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20161031212753/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060317a For the fun of it, I've taken my stab at preparing the first combat encounter in SFAD5 "Bugs In The System" with my interpretation of a Delve format encounter. It is assumed you have a Referee Screen, but just in case not, I also threw the robotics skills on the page since they are the most likely skills needed for the encounter. But, its pretty much guaranteed someone forgot their robcomkit on the the starship they arrived on since they didn't need it for a formal dinner. A slight complication... Just posting this here as an idea for those who haven't seen such before, and as a way to fish out any protips those of you have from running Star Frontiers in a convention setting... SFAD5 Bugs In The System - Beta Section - The Incident - Moneyspider - Deck 6 - Room M25a  |
 January 1, 2017 - 7:09am | This is a link to the same article but not on the waybackmachine archive which means the links from this page will work: http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060317a I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 1, 2017 - 9:28am | Something funny with that for me, probably something weird in a browser security addon, but when I try to go to the direct link, the wizards site shows me a 404 critical error page. That's why I posted the wayback link. But if the direct link works for everyone else, that's definitely better. EDIT: Tested with Google's Chrome browser without all the security extensions I use in Firefox and sure enough, the direct link works. I think my Firefox extensions are over-scrubbing redirects somehow which confuses Wizards' site by the time its all done. Thanks for pointing out that it worked for you which let me find that my browser was zigging instead of zagging. Doesn't happen often, but when it does, its sneaky and hard to detect. |
January 4, 2017 - 5:07pm | So this is a mock up of the Delve Format for Star Frontiers I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 4, 2017 - 5:57pm | Refinements I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 4, 2017 - 7:27pm | Heh your mockup is much better than mine. What tools are you using? What do you think of the idea so far? |
January 4, 2017 - 8:23pm | Heh your mockup is much better than mine. What tools are you using? What do you think of the idea so far? My computer is messed up these days. Just down loaded inkscape, but doing some things in Gimp and other things on my phone- its an adventure. Its constrictive, I want to try to include too much data. you have to strip it down to bare bones. Its perhaps a good format for fantasy gaming. Might be a pain with some SF adventures. I've created 3 pages for a serial adventure im submitting to the SFman. That's my critique of it as the designer. I think the idea has merit from the perspective of a referee. Perhaps all the extra info I want to include could be printed on another page like computer files or other data pertinent to the adventure. Also perhaps since its a sci fi genre the page should be done graphically as a computer screen similar to things we've seen in Star Trek TNG, Shades of green or blue. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 January 4, 2017 - 9:49pm | It would work better as an interactive pdf scaled for iPad. |
January 4, 2017 - 10:23pm | It would work better as an interactive pdf scaled for iPad. yeah I wish Having lots of trouble to get anything useful out of my computer I'll see what I can do to clean up my Delve format to be more eye pleasing. as is I just submitted a 5 page adventure to the zine. 3 pages like the one I posted and a page front and back of instructions and information. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 4, 2017 - 10:59pm | If it helps you, I have all of the adventure tiles you used for your mockup redone in illustrator. |
January 5, 2017 - 8:05am | some work on cleaning up the lay out   Need to play with color schemes could not get the color effect I wanted in inkscape. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 5, 2017 - 8:17am | Just had a "duh" moment; Star Frontier colors! Although I could not seem to change to opacity of these colors without actually changing the colors. Weird and frustrating although I'm new to inkscape and its clear I'm not around the bend with the learning curve.  I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 5, 2017 - 9:09am | Alright I have to go to work so this is the last evolution for a while. Edit: it looks like I have to go back into the program and play with the font size for the robot's stats. IIRC I set them to font size 11 which is not showing up very well. Oops forgot to specify that the computer is level 4 as well. I can see the value of using this format at a convention game. put all the pertinent info and map on one page for the referee who is likely to be standing to the side with a clip board. From the perspective of writing a module it is probably not a very good use of space. if comnputer files need to be give to the PCs I think the best thing would be to put them in an appendix. print and cut that page and give out the pertinent files. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 5, 2017 - 11:38am | I went back and looked at the orignial delve formats examples form WotC and they are in landscape orientation. This seems to make it easier to plug in bits and pieces of information. In addition the stat blocks for D&D creatures are huge in comparison to Star Frontiers stat blocks and yet the D&D encounters in delve format are not crouded. having made 3 in portrait orientation and then remade the first it does feel constrictive. Yet if these were done in landscape and submitted to the zine they would be annoying to read. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
