Just in case you haven’t seen the thumbnail up at RPGNow or DriveThruRPG, I just wanted to confirm that the rumors are true– Skinwalker for the d20 System is now available! The Savaged edition manuscript has already been completed and is being proofed. We expect to release the Savaged edition in two weeks.
This has been the longest production cycle we’ve ever engaged upon, and it was a real learning experience. Jerry set out to create a big, detailed, non-linear adventure, and he succeeded admirably. We’re really excited to see how you react to it. We often see and hear people say they want a non-linear adventure. So now that we’ve given it to you, what do you think? One of the things we learned is that non-linear adventures are hard. They’re hard to write, they’re hard to organize, and they take more GM preparation–at the minimum to learn where to find the information they need when the time comes, if not learn the information itself. Skinwalker isn’t an adventure you can pick up and start running on the fly. But that’s a trait of an adventure with depth. It’s not a modern-day dungeon crawl, it’s a mystery–complete with quirky characters, subtle clues, and red herrings.
Even though non-linear adventures take more GM preparation, it’s balanced by a benefit. While the mystery of the Skinwalker makes it unlikely that players can play the adventure more than once without spoiling the surprise, you can run for six different groups of players and have each game end very differently each time. From a GM perspective, that’s evergreen. Any time you need a modern adventure for a new group of players, you can run Skinwalker knowing that you won’t be bored.
