Preferred Adventure Writing Medium?

[Arilyn]

I do an outline, by hand. I think better with pen and paper. At least it feels that way.

 

[Hriston]

I don't really write "adventures", but I make notes with a pen in a notebook along the way to keep track of what has happened/is happening. I also draw maps with pencil on graph or hex paper. I use colored pencils/crayons to indicate terrain on wilderness maps, and to indicate lighting on combat encounter maps that I show to the players. I keep other notes on character personal characteristics/backstory, various other character sheet information, and inventory on google documents/worksheets for reference during play.

 

[pogre]

It usually starts with an idea notebook.

I draw the maps and then scan those into Gimp and neaten things up and add notations, encounter numbers, a compass, and other details.

I use google docs to write the adventure. Google docs let me write from almost any device including my phone. I also insert digital copies of my maps into the doc.

Finally, I print the whole thing out - I still am a pencil and paper DM at heart.

 

[aramis erak]

Hiya!

I have a question to the DM's out there that write their own adventures/modules.

What is your generally preferred "medium" for writing them? All digital on a laptop/desktop? On a tablet sitting in the coffee shop? On dead-tree skin with poisonous metal? Psychic memory impressions on un-marred geode's? In your own blood on the backs of your slain enemies?
[snip]

I don't know. There's a lot to be said for ye ole quill and parchment method!

Anyone else do this? Write adventures/modules "by hand" nowadays?

I tend to do electronic only except for maps, but occasionally jot the initial ideas on paper or epaper. Maps tend to be hand drawn, then redrawn on the computer.
I occasionally brainstorm plots, and I have a good eInk writing-capable tablet (Likebook Alita), and a writing capable LCD tablet (Galaxy Note Pro), so when I get the urge to handwrite, I don't have to commit to dead trees.

My next tablet (barring oddnessess) should be a color eInk in the 13" size, vs my current 10.3" grayscale.

 

[Eltab]

Today I rolled up some characters for Classic Traveller, writing them up with pen on paper.

Did any of the characters fail to survive the process?

 

[Eltab]

I write down ideas as inspiration strikes on pencil-and-paper.
Transfer to home computer to organize and get into playable (I hope) form.
Print off for game use.

Somewhere I have a ring binder with a complete set of homebrewed Gamma World rules, printed off because I was about to buy a new computer that would not talk to the old-style storage disk.

 

[pemerton]

Did any of the characters fail to survive the process?

One or two, I think - but because i'm preparing NPCs I use that to trigger the end of the gen process rather than starting again!

When we did PC gen for this campaign, one of the PCs failed to survive. Two others failed by 1, which in our rules means a half term with no chance for promotion and not counting towards mustering out rolls.

 

[payn]

Wow, reading your OP really brought me back in the day where I would plan things out and write them down physically. Im getting really nostalgic now!

My problem was I never really finished things and couldnt keep up with the players. That and they always seemed to find published adventures so intriguing and my homemade stuff less so. I eventually moved into running published adventures.

I have found since, that published adventures are perfect for me. They do most of the leg work, but thats not to say I dont do anything but run them. I dissect them, I rearrange, and I create within them. I do most of this ina digital format. I've found this to be the best use of my time and a way I can still put some of myself into the adventures Im running.

-Cheers

 

[Lanefan]

Depends who I'm writing it for, and why.

If it's just for me, it's probably pen-and-paper all the way and even if it's digital it's going to end up on paper anyway if I want to run it as my (desktop) computer isn't behind my DM screen. And in any case it'll be a mish-mash of scratch notes, maps, stream-of-thought notes, and so forth.

If I have any thoughts of anyone else ever reading/running it then I'll put in in the computer, write it up properly in a decent format in Word, digitize the maps (an appallingly tedious process; I'm fussy enough that what I scan in is never good enough thus I end up tracing over all of it (often almost to the pixel-by-pixel level) using an art program, and bundle the lot together somehow even if just a bunch of files in a folder.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Nice replies all around.

I was kinda expecting the variety we see here...there are soooo many different preferences for RPG's in every way (how we play them, why, where, etc) that seeing people go from physical hand-made with paper and pen...to full-everything digital...and everything in between. I think my preferred method is 'old school pen/paper', but find myself doing a mix; maps hand drawn (usually; sometimes digital), and a point-form key that is printed out, often with half of each page just blank so I can jot down stuff after I give it another read before the game.

^_^

Paul L. Ming