D&D General What are you prepping for your next D&D session? (+)

[el-remmen]

Started prepping for the follow up to what has now been dubbed "The Battle at Troll Hole" - and like I said two sessions ago, I have to prep for a session where the PCs have some choice about what to do and what order and when/how to travel - so it is very open ended. Towards that end I am posting my session notes which are representative of how I do my session prep, one to four pages of possibilities and complications that the process of developing and printing out helps cement in my head in such a way that it remains flexible and I may not end up even looking at it! Nevertheless, I find it useful to do.

If, for some reason, one or more of my players find their way here, these notes are not for you!

 

[Charlaquin]

I’m putting the contents of Death House into the map of House of Lament. Rose and Thorne are in the tower instead of their bedroom. The secret stairs lead to the dungeon under Death House. Designing ambient and awakened haunts more appropriate to the story of Death House. The spirit board is still in the parlor, but instead of the three scripted seances, it can be used to cast contact other plane as a ritual, contacting a random spirit out of Gustav, Elizabeth, Rose, Thorne, the maid, or the butler, whom I’ve ported over and made a Priest of Osybus instead of a Keeper of the Feather or whatever he was in House of Lament. In my version of the backstory he’s the one who got the Dursts into the occult and taught them about the vestige beneath the house. His goal was to become its avatar, but it ended up choosing Elizabeth instead when she sacrificed Walter to it. The PCs can escape the house either by killing Elizabeth (who is a wight instead of a ghast), by sacrificing someone to the vestige to appease it, or by making the butler the new darklord of the house (which I’m not specifically planning a way to pull off, but if the players come up with one, I figure he’ll let them leave as repayment).

 

[embee]

I'm not prepping squat.

Because my players are on a ship going from Neverwinter to Leilon. And something dark and chaotic dwells in the depths and is coming.

So every hour on the hour, a new encounter happens. Not necessarily combat. Depends on how they want to play it. I've got a whole series of encounters lined up to take place. We use Roll20, so everything is all on the GM layer. All I have to do is move things onto the Token layer. In each option, combat can be avoided through, though there's usually some kind of ethical dilemma involved.

I've got the whole night planned.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

A small site adventure that will be an old lair of Acererak before he headed off to the East and became a lich. So it will give clues and bits and pieces to where the Tomb of Horrors is and some other artifacts that could put the party up against some Greyhawk death knights as well. Oh and also captive pit fiends, spectres, wraiths, ghosts, and lets not forget golems, golems, golems and more golems!

 

[Scott Christian]

Prep:

• The players are starting in a large city, so I am reading Lies of Loche Lamora and practicing to curse like the Gentlemen Bastards. I think the cursing will really add flavor for a specific NPC they are dealing with.
• Creating two maps in Inkarnate for possible encounters.
• Grouping miniatures by area, this way they are easily accessible.
• Wrote some setting pieces and practiced saying them aloud so I specifically know what to highlight.
• Wrote a few Q&A's with possible NPCs. Tried to add their flavor of answers. For example, the halfling use a lot of onomatopoeias and whistles and hand gestures. This might make for good comedic relief.
• Ran the two encounters with a mock group to make sure they were balanced.
• Created a player handout.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Might not be my very next session, but I'm considering starting Rappan Athuk. /gulp

 

[not-so-newguy]

We're two sessions into Isle of Dread. The group has met the Tanroan villagers and got some info on what's going on locally. They also had two forays pass the wall and into the main island; once with their main characters (killed a hydra and met the Rakasta) and once with their back-up characters (they barely escaped an attack by cave bears).

Anyway, I think they're finally going to set a goal for themselves and commit to it. If they dally longer, then the adventure will find them (probably a pirate raid on one of the villages)

Without further ado, here's the adventure hooks that have popped up so far:

ADVENTURE HOOKS
Adventure Hook numbers correspond with the map

North side of the wall, Main Island
1) Find the Pale Countess ship
You currently have no leads, but I'm sure something will come up. This ship was funded by Duke Karameikos and on an expedition to establish a teleportation circle on the Tanoroa Peninsula, but was plucked from the ocean by a Roc. The Roc, on his subsequent flight home to the Isle of Dread, was interrupted by an attack from a Red Dragon. The ship was dropped near the center of the main island. Many sailors plummeted to their deaths as the Roc flew across the ocean and to the main island. All are assumed dead (but who are we kidding here, this is d&d).


2) Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan
You have a good idea where it's at and could eventually find it with 1 day of searching. This dungeon comes with a warning label: Once you discover the exact location of the dungeon, you will then be forced to escape it or die trying. It's an old school deadly dungeon crawl made for Tournament play. The encounters require problem/puzzle solving skills from the player, rather than the character. Of course after you escape it, you can then attempt to return in order to plunder the rest of the temple. High Risk, High Reward, and purely optional.


3) Rakasta
Bistek, Djura, Florél, Jigo, Wilyur agreed to meet with Miku the Rakasta near the South East Tar Pits in about 22 days. One of those five characters needs to be there. You had a positive initial meeting with Miku. Djura wanted to visit Miku's outpost. Miku said he needed to report to his leader first. The Rakasta are from a nearby island and are searching for the lost shrine of their own ancestors.



Coast of the Main Island to the west

4) The Haunted Village
The Tanoroans give a decent idea of where this village is located. It's a couple of miles inland, but approachable from the ocean. According to the Tanaroans this was a thriving and somewhat isolated village that revered snakes (The Serpentes Clan). About 20 years ago, explorers from the Known World entered the village and inflicted the villagers with a deadly disease. Tanaroan traders discovered the area to be overrun with undead months after this incident. No one has returned since.



Island to the west
5) Pirates
Their home base is located somewhere on the western coast of the island. This group of pirates prey on the villagers for slaves and plunder. The leader is red haired and pale skinned, so she's probably from the Known World.


6) Pterafolk
They nest along the steep slope of an inactive volcano. These half pterodactyl and half humanoid monstrosities stand 10 feet tall and have a wing span of 20 feet. They're known to hurl javelins and pluck victims off of boats. If they can't get a meal, then they try to grab any bright & shiny objects.



Small islands south of Tanoroa Peninsula
7) Jawalaas Clan (aka Shark Clan)
Located northeastern shores of the island. These villagers worship a local power named Sekolah. They are fond of capturing/buying slaves which they use as sacrifices in their ceremonies.


8 Prattis, the lone foreigner.
His home is located somewhere on the smallest island directly south of Tanoroa Peninsula. Not much is known of this guy except that he's human, friendly, and travels alone. He will occasionally trade with the southern villages using coinage from different nations of the Known World.

Player's map with numbers corresponding to the adventure hooks

Spoiler

 

[doctorbadwolf]

In the spirit of ongoing threads like, "HOW WAS YOUR LAST SESSION?" I wanted to start a new one where we share what we have prepped for our imminent D&D session as DM. Not what the big story arc is, not what the campaign is aiming toward (though that might provide context in brief), but literally what are your either planning for, planning around, or perhaps even not able to plan and have to be prepared to improvise a few different things.

You will note the (+) in the thread title. This thread will not be the place for the "how do you know what your players will do? Sounds like railroading!" type arguments. As a DM I prep for what I think is most likely and try to be ready for the unexpected. But generally, by the time it wraps up, the previous session gives a very strong sense of where the next session will go.

Unless of course you are prepping the session I am working on. For the last 8 or so sessions I have been running a long involved module, so while some prep and tweaking was necessary between sessions, mostly everything was in an established framework it was easy to work with or deviate from - but now everything is up in the air!

We're playing this Saturday, and having just completed my remix of N1 - Against the Cult of the Reptile God and achieving 6th level, they are a crossroads (both figuratively and literally). What will they do next? In what order? Where will they go? Will they tarry or will they hurry onward? Will they do something completely unexpected?

This is what I am planning on based on the previous session:

• The PCs taking up a sidetrek they ignored in favor of the bigger threat that has since progressed in severity in their absence. This involves several possible encounters with trolls (including one very misunderstood fellow who just wants to sing and make friends), a girl fleeing into the swamp, and the jerkface knight her dad wants her to marry. [This could stretch out their stay in this area 1 to 3 more sessions!]
  • As such, I stated out a few different trolls, found a map for their lair, and stated out the knight and his men-at-arms.
• Wrapping up the logistics of the village they saved, including touching base with NPCs, reuniting people they rescued with family, and dealing with a few loose ends (like the guy who summoned them to help the town is still missing). This may also involve the party getting a couple of followers in the form of the young woman who wants the party gnome to teach her to be a wizard, and an orphan boy who parents were made into zombies and sister was fed to monsters. There is also some potential political stuff they could get involved with if they want. [Should be able to advance time to do this fairly quickly in terms of session time depending on how they want to handle it]
• Going back to their base. They left Saltmarsh in the process of buying an old noble's hunting lodge on the edge of the marshes to covert into a headquarters. Furthermore, the plot of the final enemy has advanced in their absence - but before that they need to establish their base and deal with a potential haunting/infestation!
  • This last point needs to be set up carefully because it is going to be focus of the rest of the campaign (I think) and leads to a big conclusion. It also involves their returning to find the town preparing for a possible battle/invasion and allies they made along the way in their earlier adventures returning to help out.
  • The "haunting" is a way to make their HQ feel more like their own by setting an adventure in it where they cleanse it and feel like they have done something to claim it (besides go into debt - which they also have). I am not worrying too much about prepping this yet because I figure even if we get that far it will be towards the end of the session and I can wing it to an appropriate cliffhanger.
  • That said, I need to finish the handdrawn battlemap of their lodge and surrounding area before they get back there (I will share a pic when I am done).
• It is also totally possible they will want to immediately follow up on some of the hooks they caught wind of during this past adventure, in which case - most of the session will be travel, and I can just cook up some potential "random encounters" to tide us over until I have prepped one or more of those.
  
  
  So that's it for me for now. . . what are you prepping for your next session?

Great idea!

I’m mostly working on the NPCs that will flesh out the region of Drooam the PCs will be in soon, and how I wil play their NPC ally’s former “owner” from when he was an arena slave, who is a friendly djinn.

I also have to sit down with the Bugbear Swarmkeeper Ranger and hash out his home in one of the more foresty fens of the Shadow Marches.

But the biggest thing is…figure out the extraplanar adventure that is going to interrupt them en route, taking them to a Shadowy realm of Thelanis known as The Dusklight, and the NPC ally’s home city of Noctus. They’ll prolly meet the Raven Queen and her sister, who are a trio of archfey.

 

[Bolares]

Last session the greatest fear of any DM happened to me. I'm playing in Eberron (as always) and had the next arc of the campaign pretty much layed out in my mind. BUT I've planted seeds in the characters backstory for latter in the campaign, and two of my characters (a warforged and a firbolg) had some loose ties to X'endrik (another continent that is pretty much hexcrawl country) that I planned to develop later. BUT while researching what to do next they found the idea of X'endrik VERY enticing, and decided that's where they want to go next. So what am I prepping next? A WHOLE NEW CONTINENT, and basically gonna have to restructure what I intended for the next arc and tie these two character's backstory way earlier then anticipated. God I love this game.

 

[Bolares]

Okay, okay, I was being dramatic. What I'm actually doing now is reading up on Secrets of X'endrik, City of Stormreach and Exploring Eberron to have better memory of the city, the continent and the thunder sea (the firbolg is a cleric of the devourer, so sahuagin will be a big part of his arc).

Also I'm planning and flashing out NPCs and choices for the players to create their expedition to X'endrik. The warforged's former owner and now retired mentor is a veteran warmage made scholar due to loosing some limbs in the Last war, and due to some arcane misshap not being able to use prosthetics (he's gonna be in a combat wheelchair) will be their patron on this trip, as he has some archeological bacjground, but leaves the party to choose guides, workers and negotiate the trip (so the players can be hands on and make the important choices).