Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="prabe" data-source="post: 7933993" data-attributes="member: 7016699">This is a good idea. Starting with published stuff also gives you an idea of what you need, if you ever write your own. The fact I struggle to make sense of published settings doesn't make this bad general advice, just advice I'm unlikely to think to give.This is part of why I write things on index cards. Granted, it's more monsters than NPCs, but I do re-use them. A parallel is to not worry too much about NPC stats until they matter. If you have a grand vizier sort, just have an idea until/unless you need his stats. If the players never engage, they'll never miss the work you didn't do.This is good. Also, third-party products for things like monsters or items or spells, if you want to throw the occasional curveball at your players. You might need to vet with some care, but there are guidelines in the DMG that are helpful, here.This is kinda related to the previous one, but the idea of snagging ideas from other media is solid. Even if your players don't catch the references, it'll make it easy for you to remember. I have some powerful quasi-deities in my setting, one of whom is named for Dante Alighieri and another is named for Randall Flagg.This. Very much this. Character actions and decisions have consequences. Also, if your players start speculating around the table, take that as an opportunity to either prove them right, or to prove them wrong; either result can be fun for all concerned.This is part of why I don't prep more than the upcoming session. I often/usually don't know where the players are going to be at the end of the session, so it's easier to prep less. Overflow happens, and isn't bad, and stuff that gets missed can be recycled. This isn't to suggest going all "quantum ogre," but you can certainly use a monster block later in a different context, or shift parts of an idea the party never encountered.Again, this. Know yourself, and how much bandwidth you have. I don't have a problem tracking initiative, but some tables find it faster/easier if someone other than the DM does so. If there's, say, a party-allied NPC, don't be afraid to hand that off to a player to run in combat. Also decide whether you want ACs and DCs to always be secret. I usually announce ACs, at least after a couple rounds. Encourage players to roll to-hit and damage at the same time (and seriously consider doing this yourself).This is a big part of why I use my index cards for monsters and occasional NPCs. Even if I have to sort through a stack of index cards, that's still quicker than finding things across three or four books.I'm not really thinking of things that aren't in this. There are some people who try to get the prep onto one page, so there's no flipping. I try to make it easy to read, so there's white space, so it takes more pages. Tastes will vary here. I also try to have a solid handle on what's going on and use the dice kinda like an oracle--I'm either rolling to see how much a given NPC knows, or I'm rolling to see whether he sees through a PC who's trying to snow him; makes things a little less predictable.If you're writing your own adventures and your stuck, try an oracle. Tarot or I Ching, if you feel comfortable doing so, or something like Rory's Story Dice (which you can get as an app) if you prefer something without mystical baggage. In either case, you're not completely bound to the oracle; just use it to see if a connection you'd missed emerges, or as a starting idea from which you can diverge. This isn't quicker, necessarily, but it might be easier and/or less stressful.</blockquote>

Verification