DM Dilemma - I Need Help, ENWorld! - *UPDATED* - Putting YOUR ideas to work!

[Kzach]

My game prep involves several stages.

Firstly, I daydream a lot. Walking to the shops, or travelling on the trains or busses, or just lying down at home, I dream up scenarios and plots and NPC's and traps and tricks and whatever I can think of. These are generally pretty random ideas but sometimes I'll string them together into basic plot outlines.

This stage is, by a long-shot, the most important because without fuel, you can't light a fire.

Secondly, I think about the players and try to think about what they'll enjoy doing. This hardly ever works since most of the time I don't know my players very well but regardless, I think it's an important step. So using all the ideas I've come up with, I pull from the basket and connect dots to players and their characters.

Thirdly, I'll break all of the above down into what I think is most likely to happen. For instance, I trust that if I say, "Orcs have raided this village and the village leader begs for your help saying he can only pay with his beautiful daughter's hand in marriage," that the PC's will go fight orcs. That, and I'll have to hand-wave a marriage night 'cause all RPG players are juvenile, no matter what age they are.

Fourthly, I then pick and choose all the monsters and put them into likely groups that roughly equal an encounter's worth of trouble. Same with traps and whatnot. I try and think of likely encounters and scenarios where each group might be used but other than that, once I've got all their stats in a prepared format (I use index cards to help track initiative and deaths and conditions), I try to think of which treasure parcels might be most appropriate for each encounter and which there'll be none or several parcels.

Lastly, I write up a cheat sheet. This is a point-form reminder note about the major things I think should be accomplished during the session or that I want to bring up during the session. These are generally pretty broad goals or themes or ideas I can adapt to the situation that plays out at the table. A for instance would be something like, "Frank's halfling pissed off the guards last session, make sure they get payback," or "Pete's dragonborn wants to track down his birth mother, drop a clue or two somewhere in the session," or "The BBEG is recruiting local humanoid tribes, put signs in amongst loot and captives, etc. that point towards this," etc.

One theme you might notice in all of the above is that I'm not doing anything terribly specific. I plan ahead for what I think is most likely to happen given the clues and hooks I've put out and I try to steer the PC's in that direction, but ultimately I'm prepared for whatever they might come up with or attempt. Often what I'll find is that the ideas I had in the initial daydreaming sessions serve as a back-up when the PC's go off the rails and do something totally unanticipated.

Again, if you don't have fuel for the fire of the imagination, then you're going to be left out in the cold

 

[dvvega]

My method of writing my scenarios in general is a flow chart/brain map. I start with a bubble labelled "Start". From there I branch out as required for the options that I can foresee the players taking. I also have a branch that covers stuff I've not anticipated.

I then take that step and branch out. The aim is to try and connect bubbles as much as possible so that no matter what path they take you can get them "on track" with a storyline but they have done it their own way.

I've had these mind maps cover pages but it makes it easier for me to script a game and gives the players a feeling of freedom. It also gives a sandbox feeling where otherwise there is none.

I do it with pen and paper (love my pens and paper), however there are software mind mappers out there, even word can be used. You can even just print out pages with rectangles covering it and join them as required.

The other thing that is necessary to make this work are main encounters you want to use - the final confrontation, the down on his luck drunk with information, the prostitute with a grudge and put them on the map somewhere with all paths leading to them.

And you will need a list of random encounters to cover things when they head down that "what if they don't do any of those" path. These encounters need not be just a fight - it could be a warehouse raid, or a mugging that makes them run into a main path.

Hope that helps a little.

D

 

[Gloomshroud]

Awesome! Thanks guys! So far I'm getting that everyone does as little as possible to allow for player goofiness, while at the same time "fleshing out" what are at least LIKELY fodder, companions, foes, and things in between.


I guess....keep it loose and fast...right?

GRRR! I love my carefully nested outlines with multiple subpoints! Noooo! Adventuring parties wreak HAVOC on the carefully structured mind!

 

[Gloomshroud]

My game prep involves several stages.

Firstly, I daydream a lot. Walking to the shops, or travelling on the trains or busses, or just lying down at home, I dream up scenarios and plots and NPC's and traps and tricks and whatever I can think of. These are generally pretty random ideas but sometimes I'll string them together into basic plot outlines.

This stage is, by a long-shot, the most important because without fuel, you can't light a fire.

Secondly, I think about the players and try to think about what they'll enjoy doing. This hardly ever works since most of the time I don't know my players very well but regardless, I think it's an important step. So using all the ideas I've come up with, I pull from the basket and connect dots to players and their characters.

Thirdly, I'll break all of the above down into what I think is most likely to happen. For instance, I trust that if I say, "Orcs have raided this village and the village leader begs for your help saying he can only pay with his beautiful daughter's hand in marriage," that the PC's will go fight orcs. That, and I'll have to hand-wave a marriage night 'cause all RPG players are juvenile, no matter what age they are.

Fourthly, I then pick and choose all the monsters and put them into likely groups that roughly equal an encounter's worth of trouble. Same with traps and whatnot. I try and think of likely encounters and scenarios where each group might be used but other than that, once I've got all their stats in a prepared format (I use index cards to help track initiative and deaths and conditions), I try to think of which treasure parcels might be most appropriate for each encounter and which there'll be none or several parcels.

Lastly, I write up a cheat sheet. This is a point-form reminder note about the major things I think should be accomplished during the session or that I want to bring up during the session. These are generally pretty broad goals or themes or ideas I can adapt to the situation that plays out at the table. A for instance would be something like, "Frank's halfling pissed off the guards last session, make sure they get payback," or "Pete's dragonborn wants to track down his birth mother, drop a clue or two somewhere in the session," or "The BBEG is recruiting local humanoid tribes, put signs in amongst loot and captives, etc. that point towards this," etc.

One theme you might notice in all of the above is that I'm not doing anything terribly specific. I plan ahead for what I think is most likely to happen given the clues and hooks I've put out and I try to steer the PC's in that direction, but ultimately I'm prepared for whatever they might come up with or attempt. Often what I'll find is that the ideas I had in the initial daydreaming sessions serve as a back-up when the PC's go off the rails and do something totally unanticipated.

Again, if you don't have fuel for the fire of the imagination, then you're going to be left out in the cold

My takeaway here is to be CREATIVELY prepared. Think of your adventure not in terms of just numbers and dice and so on...but as a product of your finest dreams...thank you!

My method of writing my scenarios in general is a flow chart/brain map. I start with a bubble labelled "Start". From there I branch out as required for the options that I can foresee the players taking. I also have a branch that covers stuff I've not anticipated.

I then take that step and branch out. The aim is to try and connect bubbles as much as possible so that no matter what path they take you can get them "on track" with a storyline but they have done it their own way.

I've had these mind maps cover pages but it makes it easier for me to script a game and gives the players a feeling of freedom. It also gives a sandbox feeling where otherwise there is none.

I do it with pen and paper (love my pens and paper), however there are software mind mappers out there, even word can be used. You can even just print out pages with rectangles covering it and join them as required.

The other thing that is necessary to make this work are main encounters you want to use - the final confrontation, the down on his luck drunk with information, the prostitute with a grudge and put them on the map somewhere with all paths leading to them.

And you will need a list of random encounters to cover things when they head down that "what if they don't do any of those" path. These encounters need not be just a fight - it could be a warehouse raid, or a mugging that makes them run into a main path.

Hope that helps a little.

D

Check your inbox

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

With my old group, I had an agreement with them to allow them to make their own choices that mattered, but once they picked up a hook, they would follow it.

I then had lots of prepared adventures to steal from, a couple of my own creation (not that great - I'm better at adapting something than creating it whole cloth), and quite a few short (one session or less) mini-scenario/encounters. I had hooks prepared for the various adventures available, along with some of the mini-encounters. For many of the hooks I had if-then statements prepared with some of the more likely things the players might do. For example:

If Kor agrees to meet with the Duke privately, the Duke will offer apologies for his past actions against Kor's father and tell him of the trouble Kor's brother is in back home (hook to adventure X). If Kor politely declines, the Duke will have one of his trusted men get the information to Kor (mini-encounter A Bump in the Night?). If Kor publicly denounces or humiliates the Duke, then he has created a powerful enemy (look for mid-level adventures that can be tied to the Duke and involve Kor's family history).

When the players are unsure, indecisive, or decide to run in a completely unexpected direction, I delayed with a mini-scenario. Often times these led to the players making connections between campaign threads and the mini-scenario that I never considered, which I would then steal and incorporate into future hooks/adventures.

One advantage I had with this was that our group only played about once every four to six weeks, so I had a good amount of time between sessions to do my prep for the next one. I usually only prepared in detail one session ahead (except once they were on a pre-published adventure).

 

[Barastrondo]

So, basically I have three physical elements that I rely on for the average D&D adventure: a box of "monster cards" (stat blocks put on index cards that can be easily reskinned), a formal campaign notebook, and my goes-with-me-everywhere notebook where I do a lot of my idle jotting down of ideas over lunches and such.

My process frequently begins with jotting down ideas in my go-everywhere notebook. I always start with the question of where the PCs are likely to go next. If at all possible, I ask them between sessions: going to try crossing the bridge, going up the wall, or navigating the sewers? My initial brainstorm of what that might entail goes down in the notebook, usually.

Formal prep basically involves transcribing any useful notes into the campaign notebook, flowcharting or mapping a location they might be likely to explore, and making some notes on potential encounters. The last entails going through my deck-o-monsters and assembling different configurations that might be encountered. These may get noted in pencil in the campaign notebook, over in the margins: things like "Mephits: 2 fire mephits, 1 steam mephit, 1 iron mephit". I may write up new index cards as I realize there's more critters I want to include that I don't have on a card yet. Or if singular personae are showing up, they get statted out in the campaign notebook proper.

The more certain I am that PCs will have a specific encounter, the more detail I can invest in it — but ultimately, I'm writing notes for myself. What is most likely to be written down are ideas that I don't want to forget (essentially, adventure Cliff notes), be they structural or descriptive, and specific details that I don't trust myself to ad-lib (like the title and events of a play the PCs are watching). Oh yeah, and names. I do try to do names ahead of time because I dread what happens when you ad-lib an NPC's name and fail.

The thing I like about this process is that it's essentially staged prep: I'm free to brainstorm whatever I like in my notebook, because it's the first draft. Once I start culling notes and formalizing prep in the campaign notebook, that's the editing of the second draft. The "publication phase", of course, is in-play, and that's where I may wind up using red pens to record what really happened, and where the players diverged from my thinking.

That said, I have a reasonably easy time of it because I largely play with friends and co-workers who are accessible whenever I want to ask them "So what are you going to do next?", and who play characters with consistent enough motivations that usually I can anticipate what they're going to do. They make my job a hell of a lot easier.

 

[Diamond Cross]

Can you explain further your METHODS of recording this on paper?

Well, to some extent, I'm not a very wordy kind of person.

Basically I like to check sites like gamefaqs and buy official game guides to video games such as say Devil May Cry and follow the structure there.

For example, Devil May Cry and God Of War have one large story divided into little parts to involve the players of the game. Each part is a puzzle that player has to solve to progress in the game. As the player progresses, he also prohresses in power as well.

So here is the site for gamefaqs:


PlayStation 2 Cheats, Reviews, FAQs, Message Boards, and More - GameFAQs

 

[Gloomshroud]

Well, to some extent, I'm not a very wordy kind of person.

Basically I like to check sites like gamefaqs and buy official game guides to video games such as say Devil May Cry and follow the structure there.

For example, Devil May Cry and God Of War have one large story divided into little parts to involve the players of the game. Each part is a puzzle that player has to solve to progress in the game. As the player progresses, he also prohresses in power as well.

So here is the site for gamefaqs:


PlayStation 2 Cheats, Reviews, FAQs, Message Boards, and More - GameFAQs

That's a good idea! Never even crossed my mind! Thanks!

 

[Gloomshroud]

So, basically I have three physical elements that I rely on for the average D&D adventure: a box of "monster cards" (stat blocks put on index cards that can be easily reskinned), a formal campaign notebook, and my goes-with-me-everywhere notebook where I do a lot of my idle jotting down of ideas over lunches and such.

My process frequently begins with jotting down ideas in my go-everywhere notebook. I always start with the question of where the PCs are likely to go next. If at all possible, I ask them between sessions: going to try crossing the bridge, going up the wall, or navigating the sewers? My initial brainstorm of what that might entail goes down in the notebook, usually.

Formal prep basically involves transcribing any useful notes into the campaign notebook, flowcharting or mapping a location they might be likely to explore, and making some notes on potential encounters. The last entails going through my deck-o-monsters and assembling different configurations that might be encountered. These may get noted in pencil in the campaign notebook, over in the margins: things like "Mephits: 2 fire mephits, 1 steam mephit, 1 iron mephit". I may write up new index cards as I realize there's more critters I want to include that I don't have on a card yet. Or if singular personae are showing up, they get statted out in the campaign notebook proper.

The more certain I am that PCs will have a specific encounter, the more detail I can invest in it — but ultimately, I'm writing notes for myself. What is most likely to be written down are ideas that I don't want to forget (essentially, adventure Cliff notes), be they structural or descriptive, and specific details that I don't trust myself to ad-lib (like the title and events of a play the PCs are watching). Oh yeah, and names. I do try to do names ahead of time because I dread what happens when you ad-lib an NPC's name and fail.

The thing I like about this process is that it's essentially staged prep: I'm free to brainstorm whatever I like in my notebook, because it's the first draft. Once I start culling notes and formalizing prep in the campaign notebook, that's the editing of the second draft. The "publication phase", of course, is in-play, and that's where I may wind up using red pens to record what really happened, and where the players diverged from my thinking.

That said, I have a reasonably easy time of it because I largely play with friends and co-workers who are accessible whenever I want to ask them "So what are you going to do next?", and who play characters with consistent enough motivations that usually I can anticipate what they're going to do. They make my job a hell of a lot easier.

That's basically what I do, too. Just not nearly as refined a process as yours. Plus, I have a really hard time with flowcharts. They make little sense to me.

 

[Barastrondo]

That's basically what I do, too. Just not nearly as refined a process as yours. Plus, I have a really hard time with flowcharts. They make little sense to me.

That's trouble, since you're the only person who will be looking at them!

The thing about flowcharts is that they don't have to be too complicated, and they don't have to account for everything. That would result in overplanning. The main thing I try to get out of them when I use them is a sense for where major decision points will take place, and how drastically the chain of events might wind up diverging. Again, they're reminders for "Hey, think about this" or "Be ready to explore this possibility."

Mostly, though, I use flowcharts for dungeons or the equivalent: things too big to map (several city blocks' worth of city, for instance), or that shift and change layout (domains of dream or fey are examples). So a flowchart might run from "entrance into the sewers" into a branch for "reservoir route" or "upper drainage route," and go from there. And I do that generally if I know that the PCs are going to target that given location in the first place.