Recently, I've been working on developing my narrative skills. As such, I've been using tabletop rpgs as a medium for exploring tutorialization through narrative.
Trials of Boozer is a story about a cat who is being haunted by ghosts. It comes complete with 4 pre-generated characters, maps, and handouts all created by me. While the layout is a template provided by Chaosium to start with, the flow of information, the accessibility features, and the story itself were all done with my own skills.
Boozer was a project I made through the Storytelling Collective's Create Your First Adventure Summer Workshop. I knew most of the information already, thanks to my degree in Game Design, but it did provide me with new insights on marketing and project management (which was what I was really hoping for anyways). The goal was to make a professional level product (from start to finish) by the end of summer (3 months).
Trials of Boozer is a Call of Cthulhu module for the Miskatonic Repository, a community market for selling homebrew Call of Cthulhu modules. You can buy Trials of Boozer (and other Miskatonic modules) on Drivethru.
The Temple of Dyosi is a free tutorial for combat in the Quest RPG system. In it, you fight golems, solve a puzzle, and retrieve the relic for safekeeping from those who wish to destroy it. It is meant to be a simple 1 hour session (as opposed to the typical 3 - 8 hour session) to teach basic game mechanics and get players hyped for the real thing. I kept the narrative simple, so Guides (those running the game) can reflavor the scene to match whatever story they want to tell. You can download the Temple of Dyosi on my itch.io page. If you're curious about the Quest RPG system, it is available here.
This was made because I had noticed that a lot of rpg tools out there are catered to players who want to play the game rather than towards those want to run the game. There's a lot of stuff for how to tell a good story or how to balance monsters, but not really much in the way of actual design principles. Nobody's telling the GM/DM/Guide/Storyteller/etc how to properly teach mechanics, how to roleplay mechanically, or what a narrative mechanic actually is - as opposed to narrative storytelling, which is different. My hope with Dyosi is to actually make it part of a series teaching more advanced mechanics (i.e. how to barter, build a heist, drop clues, etc.).
Made with Love is a Valentine's Day module for the Quest RPG system. I wanted to make something light-hearted that could showcase my narrative skills and growth over the past year. You'll be able to find it on my itch.io page.
In this story for 3 - 5 players, you'll be helping an old friend with a slime problem their hometown is encountering. Since it's for Valentine's Day, of course that old friend also has a love interest problem (though its up to you if they get together or not...). At the end of the session, after getting a couple of laughs and more than a few light-hearted groans and eye rolls, you get to take home your very own slime!
Made with Love comes complete with 2 lovable NPCs, and interesting world (with room to build), 5 distinct baking-themed items/weapons, and a cute take-home slime.