Which are you, The plan everything out GM, or the Ad lib?

This is one encounter from another adventure. I haven't even read it to see if is readable or complete (please be kind, posting my art makes me very nervous), but I happened to open the file because I needed some world building information out of it and thought I'd give another example:

Top Hat Plasticrete, LLC

You arrive on site at Top Hat Plasticrete, LLC, a sprawling operation of perhaps 100 acres near the edge of the city, wedged between other industrial sites and the beginning of the suburbs that have grown up beyond them. A chain link fence surrounds the site, and two BSS ground speeders with flashing lights are set up to either side of the entrance directing traffic. Several large air cars with markings of local news agencies are parked nearby, with a cloud of camera droids hovering just above the fence. One crew is apparently live broadcasting.

The interior consists of huge mounds of piled sand and other particulates, massive holding tanks, feed tanks, cranes, and miles of piping, most of it running overhead on pylons leaving the ground covered with a deep layer of mud and wet sand except where there are large casting floors – plasticrete slabs naturally – for precasting large forms. Water from the continual rain is dripping over everything. You see a large number of employees wearing hard hats and coveralls sheltering beneath an elevated office building. Some are smoking stimulants of various sorts. Mixed in among them are a number of blue humanoid droids, scratched and weather-beaten. A bit beyond this point there is a BSS armored air car, and an unmarked air speeder with concealed flashing lights. Several BSS security people wearing riot gear are sheltered behind the armored air car and a large holding tank, scanning the scaffolding and walkways beyond. A man in a brown trenchcoat and broad brimmed hat, smoking a cigarette, is watching your vehicle arrive.

Benelux Security SWAT Squad (4): DEXTERITY: 2D+2, Blaster: 4D+1, Dodge: 4D, Brawling Parry: 4D, Grenade: 3D+2, Melee: 4D, KNOWLEDGE: 1D+1, Survival: 2D+1, Tactics: 2D+1, PERCEPTION: 2D, MECHANICAL: 1D+1, Search: 2D+1, STRENGTH: 2D+2, Brawling: 4D, Climbing/Jumping: 3D+2, TECHNICAL: 1D+1, Blaster Repair: 2D
Equipment: Riot Carbine, Medium Armor, Stun Baton, Manacles, Gas Mask, 2 tear gas grenades

Riot Carbine: Damage: 4D+1, Range: 3-20/60/250, special: +3 bonus to hit at close range

Benelux Security SWAT Squad Sniper: DEXTERITY: 2D+2, Blaster: 4D+1, Dodge: 4D, Brawling Parry: 4D, Grenade: 3D+2, Melee: 4D, KNOWLEDGE: 1D+1, Survival: 2D+1, Tactics: 2D+1, PERCEPTION: 2D, MECHANICAL: 1D+1, Search: 2D+1, STRENGTH: 2D+2, Brawling: 4D, Climbing/Jumping: 3D+2, TECHNICAL: 1D+1, Blaster Repair: 2D
Equipment: Blaster Rifle wt. Sniper Scope, Medium Armor, Stun Baton, Manacles, Gas Mask, 2 tear gas grenades

Dannen Barneto, Benelux Security Detective: DEXTERITY: 2D+2, Blaster: 4D, Dodge: 4D, Brawling Parry: 4D, Melee: 4D, KNOWLEDGE: 2D+2, Bureaucracy: 3D+2, Intimidate: 3D+2, Law Enforcement: 3D+2, Scholar: 3D+2, PERCEPTION: 2D, Command: 3D, Investigate: 3D, Search: 3D, MECHANICAL: 1D+2, STRENGTH: 2D+2, Brawling: 4D, TECHNICAL: 1D+2, First Aid: 2D+2
Equipment: Blaster Pistol, Stun Baton, Manacles, Gas Mask, 2 tear gas grenades

Who are you: I’m Detective Barneto, Benelux Security Services. You must be the Hunters sent from the Guild.
What can you tell me about the situation?: BLX Labor droid blew a diode and killed it’s supervisor, then disappeared. We’re pretty sure we’ve reacquired it here. So far as we can tell, it’s holed up in a pump control room located about 15 meters off the ground, about eighty meters the other side of this tank. SWAT exchanged fire with it when we arrived but we haven’t seen it since.
What can you tell me about the BLX?: It’s a general purpose labor droid manufactured by Serv-O-Droid, Inc that’s been on the market about a hundred years now. When it was first introduced it was highly controversial because it has very little firm programming aside from a personality matrix and a rather sophisticated learning module. The idea was that instead of having a fixed function set, different buyers could instruct the droid to perform a variety of tasks the way they’d train an organic laborer. Industry watch dogs complained that with that open ended of programming, Serv-O-Droid was guaranteeing a product that would eventually go haywire and which couldn’t be repaired with routine memory wipes. However, apparently the designers really knew what they were doing with the personality matrix, because the droid has been remarkably stable with very few friendliness failures. The BLX got to be really popular. They’ve sold eight billion of them, and I could only find 18 cases going over 80 years where they attacked anyone – only three of those fatally counting the incident with AAA Waste and Recyling.
Any idea what went wrong with this one?: Not a clue. No one seems to have noticed in problems with “Blocks 7” before he bludgeoned the operations chief to death. Whatever happened either happened really fast or Blocks 7 was keeping his infatuation with violence really secret for a long time. Everyone is really touchy about it though. Serv-O-Droid has representatives on the way from the Core Worlds to investigate the situation, and the Moff’s office has issued an advisory suggesting any BLX owners do a full memory wipe. However, we don’t really expect anyone is going to act on that advice, since most of them have spent decades building up valuable work experience.
How can we reach the pump control room?: There is a staircase on either side of the pump control room, then it’s about 50m across a catwalk. There is a third stair case about 100m to the right of the pump control room. All three catwalks link up at a balcony. There are two entrances, each reinforced and blast protected. The doors though I’m told have no locks – the primary concern here seems to have been employee safety – they didn’t give much thought to security besides theft and even then, not too much thought even for that. As one of their employees put it, “Who is going to steal sand?”

, Typical Industrial Worker: DEXTERITY: 2D, Brawling Parry: 3D, KNOWLEDGE: 2D, Survival: 3D, MECHANICAL: 2D, Operate Machinery: 4D, Sensors: 4D, PERCEPTION: 2D, STRENGTH: 2D, Climbing/Jumping: 3D, Brawling: 3D, Lifting: 4D, Stamina: 4D, TECHNICAL: 2D, Repair Machinery: 4D
Equipment: Hydrospanner, torque wrench, sonic probe, hard hat & coveralls (+1 armor vs. physical)

“Blacks 12”, Typical BLX Labor Droid: DEXTERITY: 2D; Running: 3D, KNOWLEDGE: 1D; Bureaucracy: 2D, Business: 2D, MECHANICAL 2D, Operate Machinery: 4D; PERCEPTION: 1D, Command (Droid): 2D, Persuade: 2D, Search: 2D; STRENGTH: 4D, Lifting: 6D, Stamina: 6D, TECHNICAL 1D, Repair Machinery: 4D
Equipment: Hard hat & coveralls (+1 armor vs. physical)

“Blinks 5”, Concrete Encased BLX Labor Droid: DEXTERITY: 2D; Running: 3D, KNOWLEDGE: 1D; Bureaucracy: 2D, Business: 2D, MECHANICAL 2D, Operate Machinery: 4D; PERCEPTION: 1D, Command (Droid): 2D, Persuade: 2D, Search: 2D; STRENGTH: 4D, Lifting: 6D, Stamina: 6D, TECHNICAL 1D, Repair Machinery: 4D
Equipment: Hard hat & coveralls (+1 armor vs. physical)

“Blocks 7”, Modified BLX Labor Droid: DEXTERITY: 2D; Blaster 4D+2, Dodge: 3D+2, Melee: 4D+2, Melee Parry: 4D+2, Grenade: 3D+2, Running: 3D; KNOWLEDGE: 1D; Tactics: 2D+2; MECHANICAL 2D, Operate Ground Vehicle: 4D, Operate Machinery: 4D; PERCEPTION: 1D, Command (Droid): 3D+2, Search: 3D+2, Sneak/Hide: 3D+2; STRENGTH: 4D, Brawling: 5D, Lifting: 6D, Stamina: 6D, TECHNICAL 1D, Sanitation Worker: 4D+2, Security: 3D+2
Equipment: Riot Carbine, Hard hat & coveralls (+1 armor vs. physical), code cylinder, pipe wrench (+1D physical)
Riot Carbine: Damage: 4D+1, Range: 3-20/60/250, special: +3 bonus to hit at close range


BLX names: 1: Backtalks 2: Bailiwicks, 3: Baldricks, 4: Baulks, 5: Blowbacks, 6: Bluebooks, 7: Ballparks, 8: Beanstalks, 9: Blackjacks, 10: Blecks, 11: Blinks, 12: Blacks, 13: Blanks, 14: Blocks, 15: Bullocks, 16: Bulwarks, 17: Bootblacks, 18: Boardwalks, 19: Bollocks, 20: Bootlicks, 21: Bullnecks, 22: Battleaxes

Combat with Blocks 7

Things Blocks 7 will try from within the pump control room:

1) Drop a cantilever on the walk way:

a) Player must make a Search check. 11+ success gives 2 actions, 6+ success gives 1 action. Apply penalty Dice if the players are taking complex actions at the time and are thus distracted.
b) Players can attempt to dodge the falling beam but are at a 2D penalty if surprised. A 16+ dodge dodges the beam completely, putting the player out of danger. A 11+ dodge means the player is caught near the beam and must make a 16+ running check to keep their feet, as the catwalk vibrates and distorts under them. A 6+ dodge means the player is caught in the broken part of the catwalk. They take 2d6 damage, and must then make a 16+ climbing/jumping check to hang on and avoid falling. Falls are effectively 12m to the ground below taking a further 4d6 damage. No dodge and the player is crushed by the falling cantilever, taking 10d6 damage before plunging to the ground and taking a further 4d6 damage.
c) A falling cantilever automatically creates the effects of a burst pipe in the area, but without the initial explosion effect.

Once Blocks 7 has dropped the first cantilever, it takes six rounds to pick up and move the next one. Players can destroy the crane with pin point blaster fire, but the crane is Walker scale and has 3D effective hull. If destroyed, it collapses with similar effects to a dropped cantilever but players get +2D bonus on the dodge.

2) Blow up a pipe: Blocks can turn on a pump and then suddenly shut off a valve, bursting it.

This creates a small explosion doing 3d6 physical damage over a 3m radius, and spraying the characters with gel, goop, or concrete mix. Characters suffer a 1d6 penalty on all actions until they can be adequately cleaned. There is a 1 in 6 change that simply standing in the rain will wash enough of the material off to reduce the penalty. However penalties are cumulative. After blowing one pipe, it requires 4 rounds to build up enough pressure to blow up a second one. A total of 3 such pipes can be exploded before the system suffers enough failures it can no longer be operated.

Exploded pipes continue to spew material, creating an obstacle of high pressure fluid squirting and falling below them and/or near them. This obstacle is 50% likely to be cross the nearest catwalk. The obstacle can be navigated around with a DC 16 running or jumping/climbing check, or simply barreled through with a 21 lifting check. Failure covers the character in some heavy sticky liquid as well any other penalties. Barrel through it causes the character to take 2d6 damage, and always covers the character in goop. On failure, they simply don’t make it to the other side.

3) Order a binary load lifter (a CLL-8 droid) to move with a pallet of material across the path of the character if they are on the ground. Blocks 7 only has one palette carrying Droid near the site to work with initially, though a second one will arrive 10 rounds after the first. The Droids will be ordered to carry a stack of pallets that obscure their vision. Although they have flashing lights and warning beeps that make it impossible to surprise a character, they will rather single mindedly steer themselves toward a player as Block 7 will continually update their orders. Avoiding a CLL-8 droid at close range is a contested Running check versus Blocks 7 3d6+2 Command (Droid) check. A trampled player takes 6d6 damage. Players can also simply take double moves to move away from the droid, as the droid will refuse to move faster than speed 16 carrying the load due to built in safety protocols Block 7 lacks the skill to override. Alternatively, the player can attempt an easy command check to tell the CLL-8 droid to halt because a person is in the way. This stops CLL-8 for one round, but Blocks 7 can regain control of the droid with an easy command check. In case of ties, Blocks 7 wins as he’s using a supervisor frequency to communicate with the droid.

To stop Blocks 7 from doing these things, someone must get into the Top Hat Plasticrete, LLC network and lock Blocks 7 out of the system by identifying the hijacked code cylinder he’s using. Getting onto the system requires either a DC 31 Security check and appropriate tools, or a supervisor handing a code cylinder to you. Figuring out Blocks 7’s access requires a DC 6 investigate check. Locking him out of the system requires a DC 11 security check. Blocks 7 will try to get back in, but lacks the skill. At that point, he’ll consider fleeing in the direction with the most cover and fewest enemies, hoping to evade and hide.

The doors to the pump control room are blast resistant, and to open them requires beating a 6D roll. The locks aren’t however particularly complicated and can be opened with a DC 16 security check.

Once Blocks 7 is destroyed or disabled, the body can be investigated. All the components appear to be normal for a BLX labor droid (Technology: 16+). There is odd scoring as from a sharp instrument around the droid’s access terminal in the back of its skull. (Investigate: 16+) If the Droid remains are accessed with appropriate repair tools, it’s possible to determine that the Droid sentience personality matrix has been recently brutally overwritten by invasive software. (Computer programming/repair: 11+). Anyone with at least 4D of droid repair, inspecting this software finds that it is obviously designed for a class 4 combat droid (Technology: 11+) and there are large parts that are copied from a BX commando droid (Technology: 21+).[/quote]
 

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@Celebrim OK, I guess I can see how you it is possible to have such amount of text. And if you like writing it, then it of course is perfectly fine. But I doubt you actually need most of it, nor there is practical reason to write things in complete sentences instead of just summarising the key facts. It is aesthetically pleasing though, like from some published source book.

I literally gave you some of the most irrelevant prep I do.
 

This is one encounter from another adventure. I haven't even read it to see if is readable or complete (please be kind, posting my art makes me very nervous), but I happened to open the file because I needed some world building information out of it and thought I'd give another example:

Top Hat Plasticrete, LLC

You arrive on site at Top Hat Plasticrete, LLC, a sprawling operation of perhaps 100 acres near the edge of the city, wedged between other industrial sites and the beginning of the suburbs that have grown up beyond them. A chain link fence surrounds the site, and two BSS ground speeders with flashing lights are set up to either side of the entrance directing traffic. Several large air cars with markings of local news agencies are parked nearby, with a cloud of camera droids hovering just above the fence. One crew is apparently live broadcasting.

The interior consists of huge mounds of piled sand and other particulates, massive holding tanks, feed tanks, cranes, and miles of piping, most of it running overhead on pylons leaving the ground covered with a deep layer of mud and wet sand except where there are large casting floors – plasticrete slabs naturally – for precasting large forms. Water from the continual rain is dripping over everything. You see a large number of employees wearing hard hats and coveralls sheltering beneath an elevated office building. Some are smoking stimulants of various sorts. Mixed in among them are a number of blue humanoid droids, scratched and weather-beaten. A bit beyond this point there is a BSS armored air car, and an unmarked air speeder with concealed flashing lights. Several BSS security people wearing riot gear are sheltered behind the armored air car and a large holding tank, scanning the scaffolding and walkways beyond. A man in a brown trenchcoat and broad brimmed hat, smoking a cigarette, is watching your vehicle arrive.

Benelux Security SWAT Squad (4): DEXTERITY: 2D+2, Blaster: 4D+1, Dodge: 4D, Brawling Parry: 4D, Grenade: 3D+2, Melee: 4D, KNOWLEDGE: 1D+1, Survival: 2D+1, Tactics: 2D+1, PERCEPTION: 2D, MECHANICAL: 1D+1, Search: 2D+1, STRENGTH: 2D+2, Brawling: 4D, Climbing/Jumping: 3D+2, TECHNICAL: 1D+1, Blaster Repair: 2D
Equipment: Riot Carbine, Medium Armor, Stun Baton, Manacles, Gas Mask, 2 tear gas grenades

Riot Carbine: Damage: 4D+1, Range: 3-20/60/250, special: +3 bonus to hit at close range

Benelux Security SWAT Squad Sniper: DEXTERITY: 2D+2, Blaster: 4D+1, Dodge: 4D, Brawling Parry: 4D, Grenade: 3D+2, Melee: 4D, KNOWLEDGE: 1D+1, Survival: 2D+1, Tactics: 2D+1, PERCEPTION: 2D, MECHANICAL: 1D+1, Search: 2D+1, STRENGTH: 2D+2, Brawling: 4D, Climbing/Jumping: 3D+2, TECHNICAL: 1D+1, Blaster Repair: 2D
Equipment: Blaster Rifle wt. Sniper Scope, Medium Armor, Stun Baton, Manacles, Gas Mask, 2 tear gas grenades

Dannen Barneto, Benelux Security Detective: DEXTERITY: 2D+2, Blaster: 4D, Dodge: 4D, Brawling Parry: 4D, Melee: 4D, KNOWLEDGE: 2D+2, Bureaucracy: 3D+2, Intimidate: 3D+2, Law Enforcement: 3D+2, Scholar: 3D+2, PERCEPTION: 2D, Command: 3D, Investigate: 3D, Search: 3D, MECHANICAL: 1D+2, STRENGTH: 2D+2, Brawling: 4D, TECHNICAL: 1D+2, First Aid: 2D+2
Equipment: Blaster Pistol, Stun Baton, Manacles, Gas Mask, 2 tear gas grenades

Who are you: I’m Detective Barneto, Benelux Security Services. You must be the Hunters sent from the Guild.
What can you tell me about the situation?: BLX Labor droid blew a diode and killed it’s supervisor, then disappeared. We’re pretty sure we’ve reacquired it here. So far as we can tell, it’s holed up in a pump control room located about 15 meters off the ground, about eighty meters the other side of this tank. SWAT exchanged fire with it when we arrived but we haven’t seen it since.
What can you tell me about the BLX?: It’s a general purpose labor droid manufactured by Serv-O-Droid, Inc that’s been on the market about a hundred years now. When it was first introduced it was highly controversial because it has very little firm programming aside from a personality matrix and a rather sophisticated learning module. The idea was that instead of having a fixed function set, different buyers could instruct the droid to perform a variety of tasks the way they’d train an organic laborer. Industry watch dogs complained that with that open ended of programming, Serv-O-Droid was guaranteeing a product that would eventually go haywire and which couldn’t be repaired with routine memory wipes. However, apparently the designers really knew what they were doing with the personality matrix, because the droid has been remarkably stable with very few friendliness failures. The BLX got to be really popular. They’ve sold eight billion of them, and I could only find 18 cases going over 80 years where they attacked anyone – only three of those fatally counting the incident with AAA Waste and Recyling.
Any idea what went wrong with this one?: Not a clue. No one seems to have noticed in problems with “Blocks 7” before he bludgeoned the operations chief to death. Whatever happened either happened really fast or Blocks 7 was keeping his infatuation with violence really secret for a long time. Everyone is really touchy about it though. Serv-O-Droid has representatives on the way from the Core Worlds to investigate the situation, and the Moff’s office has issued an advisory suggesting any BLX owners do a full memory wipe. However, we don’t really expect anyone is going to act on that advice, since most of them have spent decades building up valuable work experience.
How can we reach the pump control room?: There is a staircase on either side of the pump control room, then it’s about 50m across a catwalk. There is a third stair case about 100m to the right of the pump control room. All three catwalks link up at a balcony. There are two entrances, each reinforced and blast protected. The doors though I’m told have no locks – the primary concern here seems to have been employee safety – they didn’t give much thought to security besides theft and even then, not too much thought even for that. As one of their employees put it, “Who is going to steal sand?”

, Typical Industrial Worker: DEXTERITY: 2D, Brawling Parry: 3D, KNOWLEDGE: 2D, Survival: 3D, MECHANICAL: 2D, Operate Machinery: 4D, Sensors: 4D, PERCEPTION: 2D, STRENGTH: 2D, Climbing/Jumping: 3D, Brawling: 3D, Lifting: 4D, Stamina: 4D, TECHNICAL: 2D, Repair Machinery: 4D
Equipment: Hydrospanner, torque wrench, sonic probe, hard hat & coveralls (+1 armor vs. physical)

“Blacks 12”, Typical BLX Labor Droid: DEXTERITY: 2D; Running: 3D, KNOWLEDGE: 1D; Bureaucracy: 2D, Business: 2D, MECHANICAL 2D, Operate Machinery: 4D; PERCEPTION: 1D, Command (Droid): 2D, Persuade: 2D, Search: 2D; STRENGTH: 4D, Lifting: 6D, Stamina: 6D, TECHNICAL 1D, Repair Machinery: 4D
Equipment: Hard hat & coveralls (+1 armor vs. physical)

“Blinks 5”, Concrete Encased BLX Labor Droid: DEXTERITY: 2D; Running: 3D, KNOWLEDGE: 1D; Bureaucracy: 2D, Business: 2D, MECHANICAL 2D, Operate Machinery: 4D; PERCEPTION: 1D, Command (Droid): 2D, Persuade: 2D, Search: 2D; STRENGTH: 4D, Lifting: 6D, Stamina: 6D, TECHNICAL 1D, Repair Machinery: 4D
Equipment: Hard hat & coveralls (+1 armor vs. physical)

“Blocks 7”, Modified BLX Labor Droid: DEXTERITY: 2D; Blaster 4D+2, Dodge: 3D+2, Melee: 4D+2, Melee Parry: 4D+2, Grenade: 3D+2, Running: 3D; KNOWLEDGE: 1D; Tactics: 2D+2; MECHANICAL 2D, Operate Ground Vehicle: 4D, Operate Machinery: 4D; PERCEPTION: 1D, Command (Droid): 3D+2, Search: 3D+2, Sneak/Hide: 3D+2; STRENGTH: 4D, Brawling: 5D, Lifting: 6D, Stamina: 6D, TECHNICAL 1D, Sanitation Worker: 4D+2, Security: 3D+2
Equipment: Riot Carbine, Hard hat & coveralls (+1 armor vs. physical), code cylinder, pipe wrench (+1D physical)
Riot Carbine: Damage: 4D+1, Range: 3-20/60/250, special: +3 bonus to hit at close range


BLX names: 1: Backtalks 2: Bailiwicks, 3: Baldricks, 4: Baulks, 5: Blowbacks, 6: Bluebooks, 7: Ballparks, 8: Beanstalks, 9: Blackjacks, 10: Blecks, 11: Blinks, 12: Blacks, 13: Blanks, 14: Blocks, 15: Bullocks, 16: Bulwarks, 17: Bootblacks, 18: Boardwalks, 19: Bollocks, 20: Bootlicks, 21: Bullnecks, 22: Battleaxes

Combat with Blocks 7

Things Blocks 7 will try from within the pump control room:

1) Drop a cantilever on the walk way:

a) Player must make a Search check. 11+ success gives 2 actions, 6+ success gives 1 action. Apply penalty Dice if the players are taking complex actions at the time and are thus distracted.
b) Players can attempt to dodge the falling beam but are at a 2D penalty if surprised. A 16+ dodge dodges the beam completely, putting the player out of danger. A 11+ dodge means the player is caught near the beam and must make a 16+ running check to keep their feet, as the catwalk vibrates and distorts under them. A 6+ dodge means the player is caught in the broken part of the catwalk. They take 2d6 damage, and must then make a 16+ climbing/jumping check to hang on and avoid falling. Falls are effectively 12m to the ground below taking a further 4d6 damage. No dodge and the player is crushed by the falling cantilever, taking 10d6 damage before plunging to the ground and taking a further 4d6 damage.
c) A falling cantilever automatically creates the effects of a burst pipe in the area, but without the initial explosion effect.

Once Blocks 7 has dropped the first cantilever, it takes six rounds to pick up and move the next one. Players can destroy the crane with pin point blaster fire, but the crane is Walker scale and has 3D effective hull. If destroyed, it collapses with similar effects to a dropped cantilever but players get +2D bonus on the dodge.

2) Blow up a pipe: Blocks can turn on a pump and then suddenly shut off a valve, bursting it.

This creates a small explosion doing 3d6 physical damage over a 3m radius, and spraying the characters with gel, goop, or concrete mix. Characters suffer a 1d6 penalty on all actions until they can be adequately cleaned. There is a 1 in 6 change that simply standing in the rain will wash enough of the material off to reduce the penalty. However penalties are cumulative. After blowing one pipe, it requires 4 rounds to build up enough pressure to blow up a second one. A total of 3 such pipes can be exploded before the system suffers enough failures it can no longer be operated.

Exploded pipes continue to spew material, creating an obstacle of high pressure fluid squirting and falling below them and/or near them. This obstacle is 50% likely to be cross the nearest catwalk. The obstacle can be navigated around with a DC 16 running or jumping/climbing check, or simply barreled through with a 21 lifting check. Failure covers the character in some heavy sticky liquid as well any other penalties. Barrel through it causes the character to take 2d6 damage, and always covers the character in goop. On failure, they simply don’t make it to the other side.

3) Order a binary load lifter (a CLL-8 droid) to move with a pallet of material across the path of the character if they are on the ground. Blocks 7 only has one palette carrying Droid near the site to work with initially, though a second one will arrive 10 rounds after the first. The Droids will be ordered to carry a stack of pallets that obscure their vision. Although they have flashing lights and warning beeps that make it impossible to surprise a character, they will rather single mindedly steer themselves toward a player as Block 7 will continually update their orders. Avoiding a CLL-8 droid at close range is a contested Running check versus Blocks 7 3d6+2 Command (Droid) check. A trampled player takes 6d6 damage. Players can also simply take double moves to move away from the droid, as the droid will refuse to move faster than speed 16 carrying the load due to built in safety protocols Block 7 lacks the skill to override. Alternatively, the player can attempt an easy command check to tell the CLL-8 droid to halt because a person is in the way. This stops CLL-8 for one round, but Blocks 7 can regain control of the droid with an easy command check. In case of ties, Blocks 7 wins as he’s using a supervisor frequency to communicate with the droid.

To stop Blocks 7 from doing these things, someone must get into the Top Hat Plasticrete, LLC network and lock Blocks 7 out of the system by identifying the hijacked code cylinder he’s using. Getting onto the system requires either a DC 31 Security check and appropriate tools, or a supervisor handing a code cylinder to you. Figuring out Blocks 7’s access requires a DC 6 investigate check. Locking him out of the system requires a DC 11 security check. Blocks 7 will try to get back in, but lacks the skill. At that point, he’ll consider fleeing in the direction with the most cover and fewest enemies, hoping to evade and hide.

The doors to the pump control room are blast resistant, and to open them requires beating a 6D roll. The locks aren’t however particularly complicated and can be opened with a DC 16 security check.

Once Blocks 7 is destroyed or disabled, the body can be investigated. All the components appear to be normal for a BLX labor droid (Technology: 16+). There is odd scoring as from a sharp instrument around the droid’s access terminal in the back of its skull. (Investigate: 16+) If the Droid remains are accessed with appropriate repair tools, it’s possible to determine that the Droid sentience personality matrix has been recently brutally overwritten by invasive software. (Computer programming/repair: 11+). Anyone with at least 4D of droid repair, inspecting this software finds that it is obviously designed for a class 4 combat droid (Technology: 11+) and there are large parts that are copied from a BX commando droid (Technology: 21+).


Right. I would never bother writing most of this down. Like names and and perhaps some summary of mechanical details if I was afraid I would forget them. Like I would know most of the stuff, but I don't see need to write it down, and definitely not long sentences of descriptions and dialogue. I see no need and and relying on pre-written text might make my delivery stiff.

My written prep has just stuff like: "Zorak, spellwarrior, orc f" or "poison trap, r15, 6d6 con15, DC20." They are just reminders of facts, but I have not written down who Zorak works for what her motivations are etc, I just remember those. I have not written down where the poison trap is, what activates it, I just remember that. And same with all sort of description relationships and whatnot. Just in my head.
 

Blend. I have key things written in note form but the key part for me is knowing the characters and keeping track of the timelines. I can run stuff off-the-cuff, and am damn fine when I have to. In this biz, you gotta be able to run things that way .... but prep and notes and pre-built NPCs and baddies are always going to help you do that.
 

Read the comments on the word count. I'm a former professional writer, and frankly, IF the claim is true, the word counts one poster made are insane overkill [40,000+ per module/session?] or false.

I checked one "module" I wrote, and with stats, loot, and notes for the NPCs - 10 of them - I had 11,000 words. Again, most of that are stats.

This would be 31 words:
Sticks (F1)
Half-elf - at castle
HP: 14 (12->14)
Spear (3)
Two whistles, different frequencies
Basic bush training
5 sp/3 cp
Herb: Velor; Eudor's Root (purify water)
WIll try to escape

That's it. (I run out of Obsidian, so also keep track of hit points digitally when dealing with large groups.)

The leader was a former military vet. There were clues leading to a room in an upscale hotel. The party found letters from the dude's commander, medals and citations. 1,100 words.

This entire "smuggling ring" arc - which chewed up ten game sessions - maybe (MAYBE) 11,000 words.

I checked a pdf of an old pre-built module.
11,000 words.

The module I am about to run is going to take multiple sessions. It involves the kidnapping of an Oracle the party is quite fond of. I know the motivations of the players, who they work for. The entire module - including stats like the above - is 1,200 words and that includes spell lists for spellcasters.

So, frankly, I call BS. 45,000 words? That's a novel, not a module.
 

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