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Secrets of low-prep homebrew [+]
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<blockquote data-quote="Truename" data-source="post: 9805640" data-attributes="member: 78255"><p>I'll start. For my homebrew campaign, I thought I could make it low-prep by making prep part of the game. I used <a href="https://www.lamemage.com/microscope/" target="_blank">Microscope</a> to generate the campaign world, and I asked the players to submit one piece of content each: a map, an encounter, an adventure, etc. I also had a in-depth session zero where people made characters and came up with conflicts, bonds, NPCs they knew, and so forth.</p><p></p><p>Microscope worked <strong>great</strong>. We ended up with a genuinely interesting campaign world with lots of opportunities for adventure.</p><p></p><p>The session zero also worked pretty well. People had interesting characters and compelling backstories. Easy to build a campaign out of. The NPCs didn't work so well, because they wanted to do a lot of traveling, and so it was hard to fit them in.</p><p></p><p>The "bring one piece of content" <strong>failed utterly</strong>. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f923.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":ROFLMAO:" title="ROFL :ROFLMAO:" data-smilie="18"data-shortname=":ROFLMAO:" /> Nobody was willing to do any homework outside of game night. Including me, I suppose! I had this idea that I'd always have three options in my back pocket: a dungeon, a wilderness location, and a urban location, so I could <a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/wef6c1/do_other_folks_use_schrodingers_plotnpc_or_am_i/" target="_blank">Schrodinger's Dungeon</a> a response to anything the players tried, but it just didn't work out. I ended up spending a lot of time trying to find material that fit the direction of the campaign, and that wasn't fun at all.</p><p></p><p>If I were to do it again, I'd lean into the "players create the content at the table" aspect. Microscope worked really really well. I'm not sure how it would work, though—creating NPCs, encounters, maps at the table? I think it's more common in rules-lite games, but my players prefer 5e. But it does seem like there's some potential there for a truly low-prep approach.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Truename, post: 9805640, member: 78255"] I'll start. For my homebrew campaign, I thought I could make it low-prep by making prep part of the game. I used [URL='https://www.lamemage.com/microscope/']Microscope[/URL] to generate the campaign world, and I asked the players to submit one piece of content each: a map, an encounter, an adventure, etc. I also had a in-depth session zero where people made characters and came up with conflicts, bonds, NPCs they knew, and so forth. Microscope worked [B]great[/B]. We ended up with a genuinely interesting campaign world with lots of opportunities for adventure. The session zero also worked pretty well. People had interesting characters and compelling backstories. Easy to build a campaign out of. The NPCs didn't work so well, because they wanted to do a lot of traveling, and so it was hard to fit them in. The "bring one piece of content" [B]failed utterly[/B]. :ROFLMAO: Nobody was willing to do any homework outside of game night. Including me, I suppose! I had this idea that I'd always have three options in my back pocket: a dungeon, a wilderness location, and a urban location, so I could [URL='https://old.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/wef6c1/do_other_folks_use_schrodingers_plotnpc_or_am_i/']Schrodinger's Dungeon[/URL] a response to anything the players tried, but it just didn't work out. I ended up spending a lot of time trying to find material that fit the direction of the campaign, and that wasn't fun at all. If I were to do it again, I'd lean into the "players create the content at the table" aspect. Microscope worked really really well. I'm not sure how it would work, though—creating NPCs, encounters, maps at the table? I think it's more common in rules-lite games, but my players prefer 5e. But it does seem like there's some potential there for a truly low-prep approach. [/QUOTE]
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