David West

When I first joined the RPGA, I honestly did not expect to write any modules for them. This was especially true for the Living Greyhawk campaign.

However, after a time, and with the regional aspect of that campaign, Aaron Manning asked me to join him in writing a module for Living Greyhawk.  The results of our collaboration was the regional Dyvers module called 'Will You Be Mine'.

The module's theme was a renegade mage, called Tyler, who was obsessed with a woman called Olivia. Olivia, though, loved only Roger, the inept clueless paladin. The players were taken through what could only be termed a 'merry romp' to stop Tyler's kidnapping of Olivia.

The module received the highest praise by players and gamemasters, and was absolutely despised by the editors for the region, especially Phil, the regional coordinator. It was so despised Phil wrote a module to kill the characters off. Of course, he failed to kill off not only the main antagonist, Tyler, but the other NPCs in the module...one of whom was a priest with a level high enough to resurrect.

Phil's modules that year were almost universally panned by all, by the way. Aaron and I have decided not to pursue another module to resurrect the compatriots, though we certainly could have done so.

Interestingly enough, the characters used in the module were all actual player characters in my home-brewed campaign. Tyler was created by Jim Hay, Roger by Aaron and was Aaron's PC. Olivia was an NPC I created. The halfling, Lunarhopper, was created by Ray Parrish. The priest was Jeff Bevirt's character, and the secretive informer in the module was Andy Grotheer's character. We were given permission by all to put their characters to print, and we made the most of it.

 Unfortunately, due to RPGA rules, we had to cut back on the roleplay in the module and put in far too much combat. That may have hurt the final presentation of the module. It was designed to force roleplay, especially storytelling and interaction with NPCs. RPGA rules, though, limited experience gained from roleplaying to only 10% of the experience that could be gained in the module. Frankly, this is a crock and why I have pretty much ended my association with the RPGA after writing this module. Strictures such as that impede good module writing, making the game one of rolling dice instead of role playing your character to the best of your ability.