I like Demo Scenarios. That is a scenario that you can picked up and run, taking the RPG for a test drive without owning the rulebook. I am disappointed that FFG has never released one for Anima. Though there is a decent fan one out there, "Nightmares Become True", I have been doing one myself. I am currently putting the finishing touches on it and after playtesting (probably in December) I hope to make it available for interested Anima fans.

So what can you expect? I like scenarios that give you a taste of the game. So it is 60 pages long and gives you the rules, setting summary, scenario, NPCs and pregenerated PCs necessary to run a 3 to 4 hour session. Wen-M has graciously given me permission to use his art work from his deviant-art site, so each PC will be illustrated with 1 or 2 costume changes in the scenario along with the 12 or so NPCs. Anima purist may note that I am not attaching images to the correct personages, but I hope you will excuse it for this Demo.

Though I have written Tears of Vykyris to promote Anima, I am not doing so for just that reason. My primary reason is to create a great RPG session. I am running this scenario myself at a local con which has a very high standard. To that end I have hacked the rules quite a bit to best enhance the one off experience. Though I love Anima's system, it is just not well suited for the telling the kind of epic Sword Opera stories it is designed to tell in a 3 to 4 hour session. The learning curve is much too steep. As such, the Demo Scenario will not be useful to use in your home game or with your own PCs. Again, I hope you will excuse that for this Demo.

Who am I? Well, I am a fan of Anima. I wrote three similar Demo Scenarios for Cthulhutech, which can be found here: http://www.portalseeker.com/misc/ctech. I also did the official one for Blue Rose by Green Ronin here: http://bluerose.greenronin.com/blue_rose_support.php?id=P396
and I also wrote the contest winning wuxia scenario here: http://sdc.rpg.net.nz/files/2007/UltimateChallengeTeaGarden.pdf. I was also involved in writing the official scenario for Mechanical Dream, but it has yet to see publication. I think my scenarios provide a real emotional arc which can be a push for GMs to run, but reward those that do.

Not much more to say, except I will be updating this thread with progress. Here's the contents page to provide you with an idea of what to expect. FWIW I don't profess to be skilled at layout but it should be clean and functional

I took a look at your posted scenarios and it looks like you do really good work. I'm looking forward to seeing your Anima project. Do you do this by trade?

well, the gamemasters toolkit had "shadows within dreams", but if you ask me it was a little dry. i'm looking forward to this though, a few premade adventures is always a good thing to have around.

Great news. One of the few things I don't like about Anima is the lack of adventures out there. Luckily Gaia provides a lot of great ideas to expand on. I'll look forward to hearing more about your progress and seeing how this turns out.

One quick question, though. All of the links that I've found for "Nightmares Become True" lead to dead ends. Does anyone know where it can still be found?

Brand said:

I have a copy on my hard drive. IIRC it was always difficult to find. If you are having no luck, I could put it up on Dropbox.

brewmaster_vitty said:

FWIW I really like Shadows Within Dreams, but it is limited by needing to be usable by any number of PCs the players create.

As mentioned above, the scenarios I write are pregen specific. You get a lot more depth that way - you are telling the story of those characters and you can set up highly emotional scenes as a result. The idea is that you play Tears of Vykyris and get a feel for the game and then go off and create your own PCs and story. Shadows Within Dreams did not have that luxury, most official scenarios don't.

Stilgar said:

No. I am just a fan. I tend to write up my scenarios for a local Con as it has a high standard and I can submit them into a local scenario writing contest. Not only does this raise the standard of my games but I also found that the designers of the RPG often were interested in them too. Frog Princess was taken up by Green Ronin. They were also interested in Ultimate Challenge Tea Garden for Dragon Fist but the RPG never eventuated. Wildfire was going to publish Lambs of the Nameless God in their Cthulhutech magazine but it never came to fruition either

For Tears of Vykyris, I don't expect FFG to take official interest mostly as Anima is a licenced RPG, but I may approach them to check. If I did I would need to stat all the PCs and NPCs again using the rules as written, so it would be a big undertaking.

As said, my primary purpose of writing these up is to run them at Cons, hence why I have no real issue in rewriting rules to better suit that one off experience. It is not a criticism of the existing system. Most RPGs are built for long term play after all.

I prepared these three posters to help promote the scenario at my local con, sort of like a blurb. They actually have very little to do with the plot of the game itself, but convey the vibe of scenario I am aiming for

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14355510/Poster1.jpg

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14355510/Poster2.jpg

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14355510/Poster3.jpg

Skywalker said:

That'd be great. All I've been able to find so far has led me to missing sites.

I enjoyed Shadows Within Dreams. For one thing, I'd already decided to start my campaign in Gabriel before I even read the GM's Kit, so it worked out really well for me as a starting point for the campaign. Raptor was fun, too - he's almost more like a video game boss with his random actions/phrases and mad cackling.

Brand said:

The link is: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14355510/NightmaresBecomeTrue.pdf

Yeah, Shadows Within Dreams is an excellent campaign starter. My favourite NPCs were Catherine and Selene.

Skywalker said:

Thank you very much.

Selene was great, but my party absolutely did NOT want to help her out. They were practically holding their breath when the Flauros was handed over, expecting her to transform into some nasty witch/demon/god thing and tear them all apart. If Raptor hadn't already thrashed them once and was about to do it again (especially since they nearly all died just beating Galael and his dang birds), I expect they would have tried locking her back up instead. Catherine was a good character, and she was an almost perfect counter to the womanizing, Darkness-loving Warlock in my party.

Brand said:

Yep. That's the reason why she is a great NPC and very anime-like.

Okay, Skywalker, which convention are you going to play this at?

I'm just curious, because it would be something I'm willing to try out doing, if only I knew which convention you'll be running this at (so that I can look for similar conventions in my area).

Xamusel said:

Kapcon (http://kapcon.rpg.net.nz) in Wellington, New Zealand. Probably a little far for US residents.

Ah, that makes sense, Skywalker.

Should've seen that coming.

Update: I have finised writing all the text except the mechanical info on the NPC and PC sheets. I am very happy with the result. I have booked in a playtest on 4 January and booked in the game at Kapcon: http://kapcon.rpg.net.nz/.

My wife is proofing the scenario next week and I will be finessing the final mechanical bits. Hopefully all done in a week or two.

simple question skywalker. the "Avernus" NPC you have for page 33, is he your own creation or is he based on a character you saw on the official forums? im just curious =)

*edit* and another curious question: are you gonna be using Elisabetta as Elisabetta, or her pseudo Anna Never?

Avernus is a Celtic name. I used a whole bunch of them for the NPCs.

I am using Elisabetta. It's not something I would do in a campaign but as a Demo, I see this more like a movie or OVA. So I took some small liberties with the setting to bring in prominent NPCs (well that one anyway).

You have to remember that in a 3 hour scenario, if you are going to have a compelling story for 6 PCs, there is not a lot of room for setting. So you need to be direct about it

sorry to say, but Avernus is a name of Greek origins. it means Portal to Hades

and the reason i asked is because of this =)

My bad. You are right. It must have been on a list of mythic names I was looking at I have never seen the NPC before.

Man, your work looks great. I'm dying to see the finished product!

Cheers.

Rough cut of mechanical parts of the PCs and NPCs are done but they will take a few days to be fully baked. The three combats/encounters in the scenario are pretty involved as I have really tried to promote interaction between PCs, NPCs and story at all stages.

Playtest version looks to be a few weeks away yet but its looking very good in all its 66 page glory

give us a delicious preview if you don't mind, all this teasing is making me drool.

Will do in 12 hours. Probably a PC, though it will contain spoilers. The rules page might also be insightful, given how different my approach is for this one off.

Making a slew of tweaks to the mechanics today after a review last night. Give me another 12 hours