About this mod
Meet two-time award winner, author Rodney O'Brien!
This mod adds a new NPC to East Scarp. A friendly writer who happens to be Elliott's uncle.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
-
Translations
- Spanish
- Russian
- Portuguese
- Mandarin
- Japanese
- Changelogs
- Donations

Credit to the very talented Golden Coyotte.
Creative Differences introduces Rodney O'Brien, a new NPC who lives in East Scarp! He's rather friendly, even though he's also quite judgmental. He will warm up to you pretty quick, though! In this mod, you will experience Rodney's story through a lot of dialogue, 17 heart events and a very special custom item. He has dialogue for every movie, so take him to the movie theater, you (probably) won't regret it!
Rodney will often have an opinion about what's going on in the Valley (from the vanilla game, but also from many popular mods).
Oh, and on Wednesdays, he wears pink.
Name: Rodney O'Brien
Age: early 50s
Residence: The Silo in East Scarp.
Profession: Writer
Family and friends in the Valley: His nephew Elliott, Leah, Gus, Gunther.
Romanceable: Datable, but not marriageable.
You can find a guide to his events and his gift tastes below or on check Rodney's page on the East Scarp wiki for more details (including movies & concession tastes).
See spoiler below for his backstory! (you can skip it and find out while playing).
When Meredith left for college, Rodney started to get bored and, quietly, started writing again. A few months before the farmer moved in Pelican Town, he settled there, following the advice of Elliott who kept saying how inspiring the Valley was for a writer.
Prior to the death of his wife, his writing career has been quite successful. His specialty is science fiction novels.
Rodney spends his time writing, ranting about science fiction, gazing at the ocean, gossiping and giving unwanted writing advice to Elliott. He will try to teach the farmer about tarot. He is also a metal music enjoyer and he loves shiny rocks.
Rodney likes to move around, and his schedule includes a lot of randomized elements. You will often catch him gazing at the ocean on the beach in East Scarp. He doesn't visit the saloon at night, but he is often there for lunch. The rest of the time, he will either read a book at the Library,

(four of them are random and are therefore not listed)
Main heart events (random events and crossovers are not listed here)
Intro event:
Museum when Rodney is there between 9 am and 6 pm. Only triggers if you haven't seen the 2 hearts event.
2 hearts event:
Farm on a sunny day between 6 and 10 am. 2 hearts with Rodney. Rodney will ask you a question. Depending on your answer, the 6 hearts event will be different.
4 hearts event:
Saloon between 11 am and 4 pm. 4 hearts with Rodney.
5 hearts event:
Must have seen 4 hearts event. 6 days must have passed. Visit Rodney's basement between 8 am and 10 pm.
6 hearts event:
Rodney's house between 5 and 11 pm. 6 hearts with Rodney. Must have seen the 5 hearts event (3 days must have passed)
8 hearts event:
Saloon between 6 and 11 pm on a Friday. 8 hearts with Rodney. Must have received a letter inviting you to the saloon. Must have seen the 6 hearts event (8 days must have passed).
10 hearts event part 1:
Rodney's house between 8 am and 11 pm. 10 hearts with Rodney. Must have seen 8 hearts event (7 days must have passed).
10 hearts event part 2:
Museum. 10 hearts with Rodney. Must have received a letter inviting you there. Must have seen 10 hearts event part 1 (7 days must have passed).
10 hearts event part 3:
Bus stop before 10:30 am. 10 hearts with Rodney. Must have received a letter inviting you there. Must have seen 10 hearts part 2 (3 days must have passed).
Romantic route events:
Dating proposal:
Farm on a sunny day between 6 and 10 am. After seeing 10 hearts event part 3, Rodney will visit the farm asking a question. Depending on how you answer, you will be given the opportunity to date him.
First date:
Visit East Scarp on a sunny day between 10pm and 2 am after seeing the dating proposal event and agreeing to go on a date with Rodney.
Breakfast date:
Rodney's house between 6 & 6:10 am. 15 days must have passed since the first date event. To trigger this event, you should sleep in Rodney's bed (which is possible once you're dating).

You wanna bribe a famous writer into liking you?
Here's the guide on what to gift him!
Loved gifts:
Quartz
Banana
Triple Shot Espresso
Pale Ale
Duck Feather
Liked gifts:
Flowers
Joja Cola
Coffee
Cheese
Goat Cheese
Beer
Gems
Mayonnaise
Neutral gifts:
Universal neutrals
Disliked gifts:
Fish
Bread
Stone
Cave Carrot
Hated gifts:
Bait
Trash
His own autograph
Rabbit's foot (if using the vanilla item, if you use any of the popular mods that replace the rabbit's foot, he will love it)

- East Scarp and all its requirements
- Mapping Extensions and Extra Properties (MEEP) (optional, but recommended)
- SpaceCore

- Compatible with Stardew Valley Expanded (NPCs from SVE have gift tastes & reactions for a few items added by this mod).
- Compatible with Ridgeside Village (Rodney will attend the Ridgeside Gathering & The Ember of Resolution. He will also visit Ridgeside from time to time)
- Compatible with Mineral Town (Rodney will visit there sometimes).
Compatible with Ginger Island Mainland Adjustments. (if you have this mod, Rodney has more dialogue when visiting Ginger Island, and he will sometimes visit with his nephew Elliott or his friend Gus)(Not compatible with SDV 1.6)- Compatible with Mobile Phone Continued. Add-on for this is mod is here: Rodney for Mobile Phone Continued
- Compatible with Romanceable Rasmodia - Female Wizard. If this mod is installed, Rodney will now mention a witch instead of a wizard in his dialogue and events.
- Compatible with Stardew Reimagined 3. Rodney has a dedicated schedule for the maps edited by this mod, but due to how the reimagined maps are layered, he may clip through benches from time to time. His schedule has been adjusted accordingly. Let me know if you find any issue.
- As a part of East Scarp, Rodney will have something to say about what is going on in Never Ending Adventure, Yri The Architect, Always Raining in the Valley, Professor Jasper Thomas, Juliet & Jessie the Joja Clerks, Lavril, Lucikiel, Lurking in the dark, Fievel (including a crossover event), A New Dream and Nora The Herpetologist.
- He will also have dialogue if you have Juna, Realistic Writer Elliott, and More Conversation Topics.
- Rodney will attend the following custom festivals: Fireworks Festival, Surfing Festival, Love Festival & Ferngill Fashion Festival. He will also attend the Marketpalooza Festival from the NPC Nikolai mod and he will have a shop there.
If you encounter any issue (typos, overlaps, incompatibilities...) with this mod, please report it in the Posts tab, ideally with a SMAPI log.

This mod comes with several new items, but the most special ones are as following:
An autographed photo is a printed signed photo of Rodney. It is not very valuable and is considered trash by the game. This item will spawn in water, same as garbage, driftwood or broken glasses. It also has a rare chance to spawn in artifact spots. Most villagers will not like it, but all the vanilla villagers, most of the SVE NPCs & a few other modded NPCs have a custom reaction for it. Some people may even like or love it, so try giving it to everyone!
If you don't want to give it and keep it for yourself, try putting it in a recycling machine. You might get useful materials or a rare item (added by this mod) that is far more valuable.
Note: if you don't like seeing the autograph floating around when using Visible Fish, I recommend disabling visible trash in Visible Fish's config. You can also disable autograph spawning in this mod's config.

This mod is fully i18n compatible. Please contact me if you plan to make a translation for it. You can either send me the files or upload it as a translated mod. If you choose to do so, please only include the translation files and list the original mod as a dependency.
Available translations:
- Chinese translation by qwfgh
- Spanish translation by mardrest
- Brazilian translation by joypallet
- Russian translation by HillarionS
- Japanese translation by TastyHarakomeshi
- Vietnamese translation by Tevahadoro
- French translation - work in progress

If you enjoy my mods, feel free to buy me a coffee on Ko-fi!
Check out my other mods:
Sakura Interface Redux
The Cosmic Shack
Horse to Ostrich
Horse to Pepper Rex

Making this mod took months. I started in late July 2022 with only minimal knowledge of code and zero experience with pixel art and without the support from the community and the many resources available to mod makers, I wouldn't be releasing this mod.
A big thanks to a group of weirdos I am now proud to call my friends (Kami, Fellowclown, DestyNova, TenebrousNova, TheLoreSeeker, 7thAxis, Ottersqueaks, Jayjaydub, Dáire, Rexstrife, Keeper of Memories, Rinny). They supported me, provided feedback, helped me figure out a lot of weird coding things, shared code, sent memes and just were very cool people. Thank you, friendos.
An additional special thank you to Fellowclown who updated Rodney's portrait to make him look how I envisioned him with 70% more muscles.
Another big thank you to the beautiful people of the East Scarp Discord for their help, support and feedback! (including but not limited to Arknir, Luna-pon, Hecate, Tiara, Phoenix, Chickadee, Ch0opera, xiaoleiwen, Hime, Gnadi772...). A general thank you goes to every person in the community who wrote a cool tutorial, provided feedback, tips and help.
This mod includes edited public domain assets: Goblin Caves by Hyptosis, Magical Road Pixel Art Environment by ansimuz and Parallax City - Night by FisherG.
I used the dollmaker created by SQBR to generate a few sprites for an event.
Flags for the "Translation" banner are from andi on OpenGameArt.
This mod includes edited paid assets: Pixel Tarot Deck by FinalBossBlues.
My profile pic was made by the very talented Rexstrife.
Thank you to Airyn for his help with Rodney's portrait (shading, head shape and suggesting he had dark brown hair instead of the red version I did). He also shared his code for seasonal outfits and portraits and helped me set up the dynamic tokens to make it work. He also provided the banner for Rodney's Book Launch Party!
Thank you to Yri for her help on Rodney's house: she drew the windows for the silo and beautified it!
Thank you to Atravita, Violetlizabet & Lumisteria for helping me to solve an issue regarding i18n and JSON Assets!
Another thank to Atravita for creating Ginger Island Mainland Adjustments which is an amazing mod for playing+ but also for testing an NPC on Ginger Island.
Special Stardew Valley 1.6 thanks to maddogofblank, Lumisteria, DestyNova, 7thAxis, TenebrousNova, Fellowclown, kittycatcasey, Jayjaydub, Lemurkat, Bagi and more people than I can remember for plenty of help, emotional & technical support & code. This conversion almost had me give up on modding and I wouldn't have made it without help & support.
Finally, a very big thank goes to LemurKat for not only making East Scarp, but for creating such a wholesome community of SDV lovers and mod creators.
My code is on Github in case you want to see how things are done. Feel free to ask questions or use my code (just don't use any art or music without asking me first please).