Prep time in two hours or less?
- Thread starter ThoughtBubble
- Start date
Fimmtiu
First Post
Two hours sounds about right for me. I tend to spend the week between sessions thinking about the campaign and maybe coming up with background material. And then, about two or three hours before the night's session, it all gels in a frenzy of typing, and I end up with enough material to keep them busy for the first few hours of the session. After that, they've usually caused enough trouble to keep us busy for the rest of the time.
Things that I could never do without: PCGen, for cranking out important NPCs. Jamis Buck's NPC Generator, for the unimportant ones. The chapter of canned NPCs in the 3.0 DMG (why the hell did they ruin this section in 3.5?) is great for situations like "A gang of four 4th-level rogues led by two 6th-level fighters attacks the party." Boom, instant stats and treasure. Writing up a synopsis of what happened in the last session and how it affected other things in the world is invaluable -- always take time to see things through your antagonists' eyes.
Things that I could never do without: PCGen, for cranking out important NPCs. Jamis Buck's NPC Generator, for the unimportant ones. The chapter of canned NPCs in the 3.0 DMG (why the hell did they ruin this section in 3.5?) is great for situations like "A gang of four 4th-level rogues led by two 6th-level fighters attacks the party." Boom, instant stats and treasure. Writing up a synopsis of what happened in the last session and how it affected other things in the world is invaluable -- always take time to see things through your antagonists' eyes.
ThoughtBubble
First Post
Alright, thanks a lot for the feedback.
Unfortunately, two of these guys are players from most of my recent games, and the material I have from before them isn't too applicable. I am planning on 'borrowing' as many ideas from other sources (especially fairy tales) as possible.
Fenes, that link is awesome. I'm sorry that I missed it, and thanks for bringing it to my attention.
And Agemegos, I'm not particularly attached to D&D for the new game, what options and techniques open up? Thanks for the additional advice as well. So far most of the game has taken place in one particular town in the area and I intend to keep it there as long as I can.
I've found that having easily referenced statblocks for 'townies' (tough humanoid, weak humanoid, normal humanoid) area creatures on hand, and a printed opy of hte weapons tables in my binder helps exteremely. At any point, I can drop in a generic combat and call it good. Sure, the PC's are going to stomp all over the opposition, but since it's a generic combat, that's fine with me.
I got very very lucky when designing this town. Since I had no idea what the characters would bite on, I threw out 4 adventure ideas, and built up the people involved in them.The party bit pretty soundly on the first two, so we've been using those. The other events keep 'pinging' off of eachother though, so the situation has seemed pretty fun, and keeps building stuff up itself. That's the one thing I'd offer to anyone trying things out. That and index cards. Index cards are wonderful. You can write all sorts of useful info on those.
Also, steal from real life where you can. The "Dungeon" that the PC's went through last week was, in fact, my apartment complex (After having a landslide cover a lot of it) with a subterannian trailer acting as a tomb.
Anyway, this week is mostly re-precussions from previous actions. There's an angry mob that's monster hunting (the pc's got to the monsters first), the inkeeper will offer free room and board for monster carcasses (the big one would make a good show piece, and monster meat sells well), a theft the rouge did is about to cause some problems as the imperials return to town, Father Venn still needs investigation, the smith has more info for them, they've got a magic sword that's still angry, and the mayor will want to talk with them. I think that should be enough for another session (or two).
And no, Wycen, I didn't waste my two hours of prep time waiting on responses. I wasted it playing KoTOR.
Unfortunately, two of these guys are players from most of my recent games, and the material I have from before them isn't too applicable. I am planning on 'borrowing' as many ideas from other sources (especially fairy tales) as possible.
Fenes, that link is awesome. I'm sorry that I missed it, and thanks for bringing it to my attention.
And Agemegos, I'm not particularly attached to D&D for the new game, what options and techniques open up? Thanks for the additional advice as well. So far most of the game has taken place in one particular town in the area and I intend to keep it there as long as I can.
I've found that having easily referenced statblocks for 'townies' (tough humanoid, weak humanoid, normal humanoid) area creatures on hand, and a printed opy of hte weapons tables in my binder helps exteremely. At any point, I can drop in a generic combat and call it good. Sure, the PC's are going to stomp all over the opposition, but since it's a generic combat, that's fine with me.
I got very very lucky when designing this town. Since I had no idea what the characters would bite on, I threw out 4 adventure ideas, and built up the people involved in them.The party bit pretty soundly on the first two, so we've been using those. The other events keep 'pinging' off of eachother though, so the situation has seemed pretty fun, and keeps building stuff up itself. That's the one thing I'd offer to anyone trying things out. That and index cards. Index cards are wonderful. You can write all sorts of useful info on those.
Also, steal from real life where you can. The "Dungeon" that the PC's went through last week was, in fact, my apartment complex (After having a landslide cover a lot of it) with a subterannian trailer acting as a tomb.
Anyway, this week is mostly re-precussions from previous actions. There's an angry mob that's monster hunting (the pc's got to the monsters first), the inkeeper will offer free room and board for monster carcasses (the big one would make a good show piece, and monster meat sells well), a theft the rouge did is about to cause some problems as the imperials return to town, Father Venn still needs investigation, the smith has more info for them, they've got a magic sword that's still angry, and the mayor will want to talk with them. I think that should be enough for another session (or two).
And no, Wycen, I didn't waste my two hours of prep time waiting on responses. I wasted it playing KoTOR.
