Limbo

Creator, Game Designer & Writer

Team: Solo Development | Genre: Fantasy, role-playing game

Inspired by Dante Allighieri's The Divine Comedy, I created a Dungeons & Dragons 5e supplement. In addition to designing new systems, item descriptions, locations, non-playable characters and features I was the sole writer and artist of the published supplement.

You can check out its most recent version on DriveThruRPG via this link.

Pre-Production

Summary:

I had been working on stories covering themes of faith, demonology and the afterlife for a number of years as a published poet and author. My goal when brainstorming was to develop a supplement for Dungeons & Dragons 5e that used the IP's pre-existing rules, but added a new component featuring new creatures, items, systems and spells from Dante's Alighieri.

Most of my time was spent re-reading The Divine Comedy, highlighting moments I wanted to bring to life in this medium, and then fleshing them out in the document.

Skills Involved:

Rules & Systems Adherence
IP Development
Quantitative & Qualitative Research
Brainstorming & Ideation

Production

Summary:

After developing the introduction and ruleset of the supplement, I focused on creating different encounters, creatures, non-playable characters, items and spells mentioned in The Divine Comedy.

Using the official Dungeons & Dragons handbook, I ensured that there were encounters for all levels and player archetypes to have fun with the portal systems I designed. The focus was on creating and designing the content and systems, revisions would come later.

After I finished the writing and design of the project, I created a handful of illustrations to give the player an idea of what the creatures, characters and locations look like.

Skills:

Game Design & Mechanics Understanding
Encounter, Quest & Mission Design
Lore and World Building
Game Writing & Content Design
Illustration

Revisions, Feedback & Testing

Summary:
Thanks to a brief stint as a certified writing tutor, editing is one of my favorite stages of the process. My editing process, depending on the timeline and scope of the projects, relies on various stages.

First, developmental edits. The focus is on organizing the content in a way that flows correctly, for example, adding a scenario right after the rules are explained rather than at the very end.

Once the content is organized in a way that flows naturally, I do a line editing pass. Grammar mistakes, spelling errors, by reading the writing out loud I'm able to catch these errors before the pages are printed and/or published.

After revisions, I sent out the second draft of the supplement to testers. In the message, I requested them to fill out a form in order to gather data, feedback and comments on how the supplement can be improved.

Publication

After implementing changes and doing a couple of in-person runs of the content, I published the supplement across multiple platforms.