Hi y’all, I’ll be running “The Gardens of Ynn” using Macchiato Monsters (starting next week). This module is really imaginative and genre-bending, but it seems like a challenge to manage as a GM. I’ve already had some conversations about running it on the Slack, but I thought I’d ask here for further advice. Points that were covered on the Slack:
- The tables in the module are hard to use because they’re not very well laid out (spread across multiple pages, not hyperlinked, etc.)
- The descriptions of the table contents are hard to use because they aren’t alphabetized.
- One possible solution (covered on Fear of a Black Dragon) is to curate a handful of selections from the book and build an adventure around that, instead of using the on-the-fly random generation the text suggests.
- Another possible solution is to use a web interface for the tables.
- There are also some better laid out versions of the tables that are WIP in the community.
- Finally there is also a spreadsheet version available that can be used with the Google Sheets random sort function.
If anyone else has tips about running this module I’d love to hear them!
Side note
I made up new starting equipment tables for Macchiato Monsters for my game. They combine a Napoleonic-era European setting theme (for where the PCs originate from) with some Ynnian influences to the magic items. Obviously these are really specific to my game, but maybe they’ll be of use to someone else out there!
I chose the Napoleonic era for the characters’ origin because the brasspunky, art nouveau, romantic aspects of The Gardens would seem like a strange far future marvel to them, but they are still less separated from those ideas and styles than medieval or renaissance characters would be. Equipment from the early 1800s is also not so separated from the renaissance-era stuff that’s standard in Macchiato Monsters, so it won’t break the game.
