Before I ever got the
Ghost Tower (which I played and enjoyed very much), I wrote my own version of the Fourth Tower, with a literal Fourth Tower that appeared every night before the first full moon. My Fourth Tower was also based more or less upon
Jack Flanders's Fourth Tower, though it did not have the same characters or purpose.
Unfortunately I lost that one right before college, think I gave it to someone, and before I destroyed most of my old stuff. I kinda regret losing it now though cause I always thought it was one of the single best stand-alone adventures I ever wrote.
Recently though I've had an idea about writing a new adventure of that type based upon an artifact that is very much like the
Whirlitzer of Wisdom (if I remember correctly then that was from the Fourth Tower, but it's been awhile - I'll find out soon enough). In this case though the artifact, located in Ghantik and long abandoned and thought missing, is actually caught between our world and Ghantik in a spot on the Isle of Wight, near Avalon, where the Grail is also hidden. And instead of being a technological artifact, like in the Fourth Tower, it will be magical. A sort of magical, rather than supernatural, corollary of the Grail. But I haven't decided what to call it yet.
I have to admit though, now that I really think about it, that part of
this adventure was also probably based partly upon the
Fourth Tower, and partly upon the
Memory Palace. I think that things like that sit in your mind for a long time and often reappear in different forms later on.
I have to say this though as well. Last night I was listening to the
White Album and
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, in particular to songs like
Sergeant Pepper's and
A Day in the Life (one of my favorite Beatle's songs).
I think that there was a time when real ingenuity and brilliance was coloring many different kinds of creative works throughout society. And you could see it in music, and in things like this, and even in the writing that went into gaming. Such as:
The Ghost Tower of Inverness received a good reaction on its first release, with White Dwarf rating it 8/10 and calling it "thought provoking" and "will have the players sweating in their seats". In particular they praised its emphasis on problem solving skills rather than hack and slash combat.[4] Its reputation has stood up in the years since its release, and it was ranked the 30th greatest Dungeons & Dragons adventure of all time by Dungeon magazine in 2004, on the 30th anniversary of the Dungeons & Dragons game.[5]
The Ghost Tower was also mentioned by full name and location in the 2005 movie Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God. The hero of the movie (Berek) mentions that another character (Dorian, a cleric) had helped him there.[6]
The Ghost of Inverness has also been adapted into a setting mod[7] for the Neverwinter Nights online game
You saw a lot of different kinds of media influencing one another and the kinds of things they produced were very original, creative, and interesting compared to a lot of things that have been produced recently. There was a lot of cross pollination and people weren't afraid to push the envelope, or to exceed it even. And that showed up throughout society, even in gaming. New and original things were experimented with, and old things interpreted in new and interesting ways. They didn't just stick to the same old tired and formulated formats but were willing to break and expand upon them.
The story was fleshed out, actors were cast, and the episodes were produced periodically whenever new scripts were written. The amateur nature of the production can still be heard, with frequent breaking of character by the cast, and laughing when lines are flubbed.
I had forgotten about this, but looking back on it nowadays it was one of my favorite aspects about the Fourth Tower play. My buddies and I would often hear them working and then try and figure out, "
did they do that on purpose, or did they just screw up and run with it?" It added to the mystery. It really was sometimes like a live play, or even a dress rehearsal, and it was not only fascinating because of the story, but it was interesting and charming and funny in the way they did it.
I'd like to see a return to that kind of creativity and ingenuity in our society generally and to gaming and adventuring writing as part of that, to include general fiction now that I think about it. However in certain places, like in film and sometimes in television, such as with
Battlestar Galactica and
Lost and other shows you can see the sort of ingenuity and originality I'm talking about. I think film and television have been undergoing a real Renaissance in the past few years, and sometimes that extends to fiction writing as well. Like Harry Potter, which although not always well written, was enormously impressive in originality and scale. I think people are hungry for the Harry Potters and the Fourth Towers and the Lost Islands and so forth.
I'd like to see that kinda thing creep more and more back into adventure and game writing as well. (I'm sure, if this site is any indication, that this kind of thing happens all the time on an amateur basis, as it always has for that matter, but I'm talking about professionally produced market products.)
That sense of, for lack of a better term, wonder.
The unknown, the dangerous, the mysterious, the thought provoking, that adventures gaming should be about adventures, and that adventuring is not just a never-ending job of simply killing monsters (though that is part of it) and routine, it really is about adventuring. Which means encountering the unknown and the weird and the intriguing and the stunning.
If you know what and who you are gonna encounter before you get there then it really isn't an adventure, it's just a job.
