If you don’t see what you want in the world, then create it and put it out into the world. That was the philosophical force behind our first two “creations” in the RPG space. Two years ago, as we started this blog, we had an idea for a short adventure that could launch a campaign arc. It wasn’t much, and maybe it’s not that original or groundbreaking – but it served as an idea we felt we should get out of our head and onto paper. This short adventure, or long adventure seed, isn’t something we’ve seen too much of in the RPG space. Something to help newer GM’s get stories started, open-ended, but also not so long that they are tied to text they may not fully enjoy.
Life burned us out for a while, and the idea went into the “someday” bin. With the OGL event, the Black Swan of D&D, we saw the opportunity again to put out a product that would help GMs interested in leaving 5e get started in a new system. And we chose to put this product in our favorite non-D&D rule set, the Cypher System. In that process, we realized we’d have to design a document, with a layout. And we have no idea how to professionally do that. We looked into different programs – InDesign, Affinity, Scribus – but with no understanding of how the process worked, they were all far over our head. We reset expectations and backed down to LibreOffice Writer, and went from there. And so it occurred to us that some nascent creators out there might benefit from having a Cypher System friendly template in a program that literally costs nothing. If you’re looking to dip your toe into RPG adventure design – you don’t want to invest too much up front. So we present to you our first supplement, FREE of charge, and FREE for your use: a Cypher System Layout Template for LibreOffice Writer, hosted at DriveThruRPG. Please use it to jumpstart your creative endeavors. Modify it as you wish.
We’ve used that template to create our first short adventure, a campaign arc starter, called The Safehouse. This is a 4-page adventure/encounter, suitable for use in pretty much any Fantasy campaign, written with Cypher System rules. It is published under the Cypher System Open License. We provide it to download, again at DriveThruRPG, for FREE. As it is our first effort at a published adventure, we do not expect to blow anyone away!
Well said, Jake the Dog. So feel free to leave a review or contact us with constructive criticism, or a story of how you used it in your campaign. We’d love to hear it.
Thank you! We want more Cypher System products out in the world, and we hope this will be a small piece of enabling that process!
Busy Wyvern 