I blather a lot on this board about DMing, so I'd like to pose a couple of questions to "full-time" DMs:
How thorough are you when it comes to record keeping, adventure writing, developing your campaigns, and so on?
How much do you "wing it" during a session, and do you take that into account when writing adventures (or taking notes on published APs)?
For those of you(us) with homebrew or semi-homebrew campaigns, how much behind-the-scenes plot development do you prepare prior to its introduction to the PCs?
Zo
I used to 100% homebrew my campaigns. Paperwork was a tedious chore, creating everything from the ground up. It came to a head when my computer crashed, taking with it my entire campaign notes.
These days, I'm running a Forgotten Realms campaign, populated from NPCs gathered from various sources, living in towns published in different sources and settings, all cobbled together. My notes generally consist of NPC A (on page # whatever from such and such book)lives in the City of Boogerville (from blahblah book), and then the role that NPC plays in the campaign and any differences from the source material. Easy as pie, and it makes it easier for someone else to take the captain's chair for a session or two.
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I tend to come up with encounters in pretty thorough detail, designing any major baddie with the same attention I'd give a PC. That being said, I'm more likely to run pre-packaged adventures, where that sort of thing is already written out for me, and I just have to flavor the characters to taste.
I also 'wing' stuff fairly often, when the players, as is their wont, go haring off the beaten path to chase after some red herring, but my bane is that I don't always remember to write down what I'm 'winging' and it comes back to haunt me later when I forget it and the players don't...
Even using pregenerated adventures, like the Freeport Trilogy, everyone gets re-written. I don't use the Warrior or Commoner NPC classes, for instance, so those get ditched, and I tend to refluff stuff that seems boring to me. If the head of the 'Yellow Shield Mercenaries' that have been sent after the party is a 2nd level Fighter, I change him to a 2nd level Urban variant Ranger (from Unearthed Arcana) so that he's not only an effective bounty hunter (which is kind of his *job*) but also a more interesting combatant, with dual-wielded masterwork hand axes or whatever.
I'm fairly generous with point-buys and starting cash and the like, so I often find myself bumping up encounters a bit.
That being said, I was pretty much immersed in 3.5 at the time I was running the aforementioned Freeport Trilogy game, and spent a couple of hours one night rewriting every encounter in each of the three modules, so that I had material ready for a solid month and a half of gaming.
If writing up a single encounter takes you hours, you might want to skip that level of detail so that you're not stuck spending one day a week preparing for your game and another day a week running it. It shouldn't be a second job, after all!
One time-saver, cribbed from our old GURPS games, was statting up NPCs on index cards, or 'monster cards' (a free download from The Game Mechanics). In addition to use as a GM's aid, they were also invaluable for characters that made use of Summoning spells, as you could just stat up the important stuff on the cards and pull them out when you summoned that critter.
I have used a pretty extensive home campaign that started with a single country and grew organically through a 4 year campaign. It probably encompasses maybe 120 - 200 notable NPCs, 7 detailed countries and 20 -30 detailed cities and towns. The whole thing packed in to 5 or 6 notebooks.
On a day to day basis my preperation is pretty simple. I outline am adventure... maybe 5 -7 bullet points / encounter ideas. I flesh out some NPCs mostly names and a short physical and personality description. Then my game is free form from there.
I keep a short journal for treasure, XP and NPCs they have encountered or defeated or thought they defeated.
For long term campaigns I usually start jotting down or just keep in my head a timeline of a couple of other relevant events and decide if the players actions impact those in any way.
I wing everything, pretty much. I usually start games with a short preplanned adventure that's planned for three or so sessions, and it's basically intended as an introduction to the setting (homebrew) before turning the players loose to play in the sandbox.
So basically I don't create anything pre-game. Once the game starts though I take copious notes on what they've done, because eventually I'll start to forget what I've made up six sessions ago. I don't usually end up consulting a lot of it, but writing it down helps me remember. As the game progresses I also end up winging less of it, since the players would be working through the logical conclusion of previous actions. I'll usually take the time to stat up NPCs and villains I've made up after the session and generally flesh out things that need to be fleshed out when the players get to them.
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Back when I had time to do a homebrew, I would design all the encounters. Normally this meant stating up any new or not already made monsters (e.g. Dragons or my own creation), pre-rolling initiative, rolling up treasure and comparing to what my players had, designing the town and the different areas/NPCs, writing down page numbers in books I need, etc. But I also would wing an NPC on the fly if I had to, picking a couple of traits I liked and running with it. I also may have players give me a d100 roll on a random encounters/weather chart if I'm pressed for time and want some excitement.
Now that I use adventure paths and only run a game 1/2 months, it comes down to making sure they have random encounters, pre-rolling inititive, tweaking storylines and treasure piles and reading and re-reading the entire adventure so that I know what's going to happen.
I do a homebrew and published adventure synthesis
I'm doing the same thing. My written adventures are focused tightly on the specific PCs, so when I use a pre-written mod I usually change the intro slightly for continuity's sake. NPCs in pre-written mods usually make the transition to campaign NPCs after the mod's finished. For example Kerowyn Hucrele from the Sunless Citadel is now a potential future adventure hook. Hell, I may reintroduce Meepo in a couple adventures.
How about digital resources? I create everything for my (currently 4th level) Forgotten Realms campaign on the computer. I use Illustrator for maps, Word for writing adventures, TOS+ and erian 7's excel sheet for keeping track of PCs and making NPCs.
Recently I've started using a campaign planner pdf to help me keep the story arc straight in my head, though I'm not sure it isn't just extra paperwork. I don't have any problems winging it through a session with a few statblocks, but I'm hoping that the planner will help spur my creativity, as I find writing my thoughts down to be conducive to brainstorming. I find I'm doing a lot of development that my players will most likely never see, and I'm REALLY hoping it helps me provide a bit more realistic/natural feel to the world their characters inhabit.
Zo
Recently I've started using a campaign planner pdf to help me keep the story arc straight in my head, though I'm not sure it isn't just extra paperwork. I don't have any problems winging it through a session with a few statblocks, but I'm hoping that the planner will help spur my creativity, as I find writing my thoughts down to be conducive to brainstorming. I find I'm doing a lot of development that my players will most likely never see, and I'm REALLY hoping it helps me provide a bit more realistic/natural feel to the world their characters inhabit.
The idea of this intrigues me. I'm not sure if what you mean is something akin to just making notes about your campaign or if its more organized then that and is a tool to focus DMs on the story. If it is some kind of a tool meant to focus DMs on the story I'd be interested in what your using and were I can get a copy.
For myself I run an AP heavily modified to fit into my home brew so there is a bunch of rewriting. I'd need to do that anyway as I'm running Age of Worms in 4E so I need to restat everything in any case and make sure that everything works as far as the 4E rules are concerned. Currently its really not that bad however as I was used to the level of prep needed for 3.5 so I'm used to adventure prep taking longer then actual play but things are so scaled back in this regard for my current game that I barely notice the prep time. At the moment adventure prep is about 1/3 play time but home brew campaign world prep is eating about an equal amount of prep time. Call it 2/3rds of play time all told.
The idea of this intrigues me. I'm not sure if what you mean is something akin to just making notes about your campaign or if its more organized then that and is a tool to focus DMs on the story. If it is some kind of a tool meant to focus DMs on the story I'd be interested in what your using and were I can get a copy.
The planner I'm using is Mystic Eye Games' campaign planner. You can get it off this very site, IIRC. They make several PDF versions, some of which are fillable. It's basically a series of sheets that describe various aspects of a campaign, such as books used, house rules and modifications to classes, major cities in the campaign, important NPCs, custom random encounters tables and so on. I've been filling it out as things develop in my game and eventually I hope to be able to go to it for the "infrastructure" for an adventure and to keep track of my plot threads throughout the campaign. "Where did NPC so-and-so live? Oh yeah."
There's no reason a DM couldn't just make a word document or some such that has the same info, but the layout of the pdf seems logical to me and I'm using it under the assumption that it will help save time in the long run.
Zo
EDIT: So yes, it has a story development aspect to it, and IMO is worth checking out, though I'm running mostly self-written adventures. The first planner is fairly basic but everything is usable. The second and third planners are more specific but also have a couple sheets that I won't use, like psionics and redundant hex maps.
I use a mix of Fantasy Grounds II (VTT), Word/Excel, Herolab, and a group forum to prepare and keep track through the adventures. Our group only plays online due to location, though. Only used published adventures so far, but my next campaign will be a combination of two APs and thus heavily modified.
I've been intending to use LPJ's Adventure Planner for my CoT campaign. However, since the PDF is non fillable, I'm converting it into a usable word document (which is a hassle, but will hopefully be worth it later on...).
I've been intending to use LPJ's Adventure Planner for my CoT campaign. However, since the PDF is non fillable, I'm converting it into a usable word document (which is a hassle, but will hopefully be worth it later on...).
If you've got Acrobat Pro you can automatically generate fillable fields, assuming the PDF isn't locked down.
Zo
I've been intending to use LPJ's Adventure Planner for my CoT campaign. However, since the PDF is non fillable, I'm converting it into a usable word document (which is a hassle, but will hopefully be worth it later on...).
If you've got Acrobat Pro you can automatically generate fillable fields, assuming the PDF isn't locked down.
Zo
Regrettably I don't, so I used SomePDF to export the contents into Word. Having it as a document makes it easier to edit, saves paper and ink though.^^
How thorough are you when it comes to record keeping, adventure writing, developing your campaigns, and so on?
For my group, I keep track of all the character sheets and spell lists in databases that I've built in Excel. This also results in a level-by-level log showing all their advancement which makes it handy if there's a need to go back-in-time for some reason. Since the database handles all the calculations for stats and modifiers, this also means that the sheets that get printed out need contain only the final modifiers which greatly speeds up play since readability is vastly improved and everything is laid out in the order in which combat takes place.
For plot & setting-based info, I have a pair of MediaWiki wikis. One is for public info, the other is DM-only. On the DM side, I have a number of custom templates I've coded to handle inputting monster stats so they print out in the PfRPG format and calculate HP ranges (min, avg, max), while leaving out stuff that isn't applicable to a given creature. Also, the wiki links are modified so that links are followed by a cross-reference to the matching article on the opposite wiki.
Lastly, I recently developed an encounter calculator in Excel that uses the XP Bucket method. This allows me to quickly toss in mosters and characters by CR/Level and see how difficult it will be, and how much XP and treasure everyone should get. I can't really share my wikis or character database, but if anyone wants to try the encounter calculator, it's on my blog: http://home.worldsunknown.com/2010/02/23/pathfinder-encounter-calculator/
How much do you "wing it" during a session, and do you take that into account when writing adventures (or taking notes on published APs)?
As OCD as I've been told I am, I'm actually pretty good at improvising everything. Maybe it's because most of my prep time goes into building or refining tools to save myself time — ironic, huh?
When I run a published adventure, I generally will read thru the whole thing once to get a feel for the story and see where I can fit it into my homebrew. (This usually takes place well before I'll ever get around to running it.) If I know that I'm going to want to run a published adventure that I've previously read, I'll read thru it again this time taking a highlighter and a pen to make notes and change proper names to make it fit in my world.
At this point, most of the prep work becomes familiarizing myself with the encounters and plot hooks. I'll also do test runs of key battles to see how their difficulty measures up against my players' typical tactics. If it's too easy (we roll our stats instead of using point buy) then I'll beef it up. Generally, this doesn't consume a whole lot of prep time — maybe a few hours over the course of the week preceding.
As far as note-taking, I'll use either post-it notes, or make a quick entry in the public wiki noting the name of a place/NPC so that I can go back and elaborate [in the wikis] following the game. Typically adventure logs will be just an an outline of what took place, locations visited, and NPCs encountered. Occasionally, I'll go back and actually write up a short-story, but that's only for truly memorable or spectacular sessions. Examples:
Current Campaign's Log
Two stories from memorable Red Hand of Doom sessions
For those of you(us) with homebrew or semi-homebrew campaigns, how much behind-the-scenes plot development do you prepare prior to its introduction to the PCs?
THIS is kind of like a roulette wheel. If you look at the event log I posted above, all of that required very little advanced preparation. I got inspiration for an over-arching campaign (this is the 1st half of the 1st chapter), and then started breaking it down into a logical progression of scenes — some optional, some necessary.
Anything involving travel or combat is no big deal. I can wing random encounters or build one in a matter of minutes with my encounter calculator. For weeks during which all we're likely to do is have combat, etc. I'd say my prep-time is only about an hour (tops) for the entire session.
Where it bogs down is when there's a mystery or heavy diplomacy required. THAT takes me many hours to figure out who all the interested power players are, their motivations and goals, how they are going to go about achieving them, what contingencies they would be prepared for, etc. As that is all coming along, I'll no doubt have already thought of several scenes that would be key (or just cool).
The final trick then is figuring out what all the various clues are for the players to discern who the bad guys are (and being able to prove) and then scattering them about the various scenes and encounters that are likely to crop up.
For this 2nd half of this chapter that my players are entering, I've spent many hours over several weeks figuring out the tangled web of who all the power players are in a game of political intrigue the party is wrapped-up in. Right now, I'm at the point of clue-building, so I'd estimate it will be a couple more weeks before all the prep work is done. Now this should provide a few months worth of dynamic gameplay, but when I read Set's comment about avoiding "one day a week" of prep-time, I kinda laughed nervously, curled up into a fetal position and waited for the men in white coats to come... ;P
BTW, even though I haven't run any of the APs, I do make sure to mine them for NPCs, location maps, or even portions of encounters that I can use as a framework for scenes. I'm rather looking forward to my next shipment arriving next week since it contains the NPC book. I've found that if something saves at least a couple hours worth of time, then it's typically worth the asking price.
a lot.
Cool. I dig the xp calculator. Your approach seems pretty thorough, though I don't think I could put that much time into developing electronic resources, and my coding skills are so rusty it'd take me twice the time just to get back up to speed.
There are a couple of DM assistant-type programs out there, but unfortunately they haven't been updated in quite some time. It seems PFRPG has some solid character generators (TOS+, Hero Lab, Erian 7's sheet to name a few) but there aren't really any robust GM utilities specific to this game. Unless I've overlooked something.
Zo
a lot.Cool. I dig the xp calculator.
Hehe, thanks for not quoting my entire post. Also I'm glad you like that encounter tool — thanks for saying so!
BTW, as far as DM tools go, two things I like about sticking to client/server based resources or MS Office are:
Safety: Talonne mentioned that they lost everything for their campaign once due to a computer crash. While nothing is fullproof, things like Excel files are easy to email to yourself (and almost any computer will open them). As much space as gmail has, it's feasible to use that as an off-site, low-tech backup in case of a catastrophe (house fire, HDD melt-down, etc). Similarly, the databases on which hosting companies' webservers run are backed-up routinely. It's also not-too-difficult to do a mass-export from MediaWiki and store it on your computer or gmail for added insurance.
Accessibility: Almost any computer can open a PDF, Word/Excel document, HTML, etc. That's not necessarily true for propriety software unless you are licensed to install it on multiple computers. Things like wikis are great particularly with how many popular phones have full-featured web browers and good screens these days (Droid, iPhone, etc), since you can access your content even in a place where your laptop might not have a wifi signal. Lastly, everyone is familiar with at least how to read a PDF, Word document, or wiki article.
I don't think I could put that much time into developing electronic resources, and my coding skills are so rusty it'd take me twice the time just to get back up to speed.
Some of the Excel and template stuff can be a bit hairy, but you might be surprised to see how easy it is to get a wiki going and useful. I know that GoDaddy allows you to install MediaWiki (i.e. the wiki software Wikipedia runs on) via an automated wizard that handles almost all of the configuration and setup. Once that's out-of-the-way, creating the articles is on about the same level of complexity as using the BBCode tags on these forums (easier in some cases). :)
I run with what I consider a halfway approach.
The things I need to write down:
-Character names & important notes
-Some over view as to plot points, possible solutions and consequences
For the most part I'll wing the rest.
In summary the things I write down in advance are the points that I want to be meaningful, limiting (what stock types the store has etc), guiding forces and what Im not good at making up on the spot.
But I do keep notes afterwards of any improvisations I made so that I can be consistent if it comes up again in the future.
I also keep a general list of names available for each new town the characters travel to. That way I can pick/create characters they interact with without having plain names, patterns of names or taking alot of time (or more then one of those).
As an added note, I have one very attentive player who keeps a detailed in-game journal which allows me to cross reference information in case a note of mine disappears.
I write down a lot. Even when I run a published adventure. I always make my own version of the adventure. And even when I improvise something, I make notes of it, and afterwards it belongs to the campaign world.
I have 20+ years of computer files about my campaign and campaign worlds. Luckily I make back-ups regularly, because my computer crashed about a week ago.
I blather a lot on this board about DMing, so I'd like to pose a couple of questions to "full-time" DMs:
How thorough are you when it comes to record keeping, adventure writing, developing your campaigns, and so on?
How much do you "wing it" during a session, and do you take that into account when writing adventures (or taking notes on published APs)?
Currently, I'm running RotRL. My prep consists of ensuring I have shorthand stuff for the bad guys in a convenient location. For some things not directly related to the AP I'll make some notes to let my ideas solidify in my brain.
For instance, the group is without a cleric. So, some fast-talking got them a loan so they could buy a wand of cure light wounds. That means that they owe the mayor a favor. Maybe I can find a side-adventure to run them through. Does anything make sense . . . .
They've befriended Ameiko . . . how's her business empire doing? Are there tidbits that I can feed the players to keep them engaged with her?
I find myself winging the adventure at times, too. Oops, I completely misread the numbers on the encounter areas and moved some goblins into a completely different room . . . well, gotta roll with it. Oh, they want to talk to the BBEG minion . . . crap I can't remember the notes Paizo had written because I didn't think they'd make it this far . . . guess I'll make something up.
Running the game is a delicate balance of dedicated preparation and crazy keep-up-with-the-players improvisation. But they keep coming back, so I guess I'm doing okay. Either that or they just love the fact that my dice hate me, letting a 3rd level halfing ranger solo a goblin warchief.
I've taken a page out of Laithoron's book and started a Google site for my campaign. At the moment I plan to use it to keep a running synopsis of adventures, store character records, etc. We'll see how involved my players will get.
Zo
Have fun with it DigMarx (I keep wanting to type DigiMarx)!
BTW, even if your players don't use it a whole lot, don't get discouraged. In my experience, such a resource is invaluable as a DM tool if only to keep straight what-is-what.
Let us know how it goes. :)
Have fun with it DigMarx (I keep wanting to type DigiMarx)!
BTW, even if your players don't use it a whole lot, don't get discouraged. In my experience, such a resource is invaluable as a DM tool if only to keep straight what-is-what.
Let us know how it goes. :)
So far I've added a campaign background and synopsis section, a page for players to upload their character sheets, a map page using maplib.net for google maps-style maps, a page with google wave embedded, and a couple other odds and ends. I intend to offer my players bonus xp and/or in-game incentives to contribute to the site, but I haven't informed them of its existence yet :)
Zo
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I blather a lot on this board about DMing, so I'd like to pose a couple of questions to "full-time" DMs:
How thorough are you when it comes to record keeping, adventure writing, developing your campaigns, and so on?
How much do you "wing it" during a session, and do you take that into account when writing adventures (or taking notes on published APs)?
For those of you(us) with homebrew or semi-homebrew campaigns, how much behind-the-scenes plot development do you prepare prior to its introduction to the PCs?
Zo
I used to spin the yarn straight from my brain, but these days I create on Paper and make sure i put it on Laptop. I have lost more in HD deaths than any fire.
I used to spin the yarn straight from my brain, but these days I create on Paper and make sure i put it on Laptop. I have lost more in HD deaths than any fire.
<hurriedly backs up PFRPG campaign folder to 2 separate drives>
<hurriedly backs up PFRPG campaign folder to 2 separate drives>
Since you obviously have a gmail account, why not setup a label for your PfRPG campaign? You can then email yourself copies of anything important. I just checked the gmail documentation and it looks like they've increased the max size of attachments again (25MB now). :D
BTW, I'll have to check out that maplib.net stuff — sounds like it could be useful.
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DUNGEON MASTER'S BIG BOOK OF SECRETS
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A. Construction
Greater Wall (100’ high (30’ below ground, 70’ above ground) x 50’ wide), 26,400,000 cubic feet of granite per mile; Total Weight per mile: 2,006,400 tons; 125,400 lb Gold/mile; Quarry Cost: 6,270,000gp/mile
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B. Specialization
Isolated Farm Agriculture
Most villages are isolated and must be completely self supporting. They have very little intercourse with the outside world. Production is for use rather than an outside market.
Managed Agriculture
Tenants pool labour, and tools in mutual cultivation. Estate villages consisted of Woodland, Pastureland, and Cultivated land.
Towns and Guilds
Some villages evolved to include secondary industries and trade. While the main activity continued to be agriculture and the only difference between a village and a town is population, the development of forms of manufacture caused leading citizens to seek permission to establish a merchant guild – the role of which is to control trade. They controlled the quality and price of the product. Strangers required guild permission to buy and sell – and only under certain conditions.
The Craft Guild represents a rise in specialization where Masters, Journeymen, and Apprentices were regulated through membership in a guild which held an industry monopoly. A guild represents elaborate economic and social control organized at the local level. The system decayed when the opportunity for Masters to become merchants arose.
Fairs and Markets
Fairs were an annual event lasting weeks (St Ives) and originated at the shrines of saints and other sites of mass pilgrimage, evolving into crass commercialism managed by the church. It did however require a royal grant and visitors were promised royal protection.
Markets were weekly affairs held on church grounds where local producers peddled their products and citizens of the district made weekly purchases.
I write up a lot for my adventures, though I don't necessarily "write the story" as I am never certain of the particular path my players are going to choose. I will note what's been going on in the world/metaplot and I'll even note reminders to myself what that the party's already done and what those actions' repercussions are.
Usually I preface my notes with any background notes I need to keep in mind: the PCs are tromping through Lord Huffystuff's lands, so I'll note briefly what those lands are like, what Lord Huffystuff up to, and how that relates to what's going on in the region and why the NPCs are there. These notes are usually brief--just to help me pull or wing whatever else I need to come up with should it come up.
I don't detail out every nook and cranny, but if I want the players to encounter a particular obstacle or go through a particular piece of terrain, I'll note the details for that (for example, "the cave they were told about is blocked by a large boulder, which weighs approx x tons and is x thick in diameter"). My players like to ask me details about distances and thicknesses and make up of certain substances so I try to have that on hand (though I don't always anticipate what exactly they will ask about. "How big is the lake?" "It's... uh... (was supposed to be just scenery!) as big as most lakes are?" "But I need to know if I can cast's Morag's Mighty Monsoon on it, and that requires a width of one mile, so it is it a mile?" "Yes, you can cast your spell." "But is it a mile? Because then Kieren could also summon Kieren's Kackling Kraken in it, and..." *DM throws doritos at players*) (*If Lathiira reads this, gives a big hug*)
A lot of times, I'll just copy-paste relevant trap and terrain info from the PRD straight into my notes, so I have it in front of me and don't have to flip through the books to find it when I need it.
If they're going to a city, I'll have noted who the major power figures in the city are, who's the head of the constabulary, who's running the local temples, etc. I use the town generator at Myth-Weavers to get population numbers and how many high level (and low level) NPCs there might be around to perform certain services.
Otherwise, at least 60% of my notes are NPCs and monsters to fight. Even if it's a straight out of the Bestiary monster, I write up my own stat blocks so that in the middle of a fight I don't have to look up what a complicated spell like ability does or have to remember how Grab works, etc. (Indeed, if there was one thing I wished was different about the Bestiary, it's that I could run a combat straight out of it, but it's not organized well for me in that way. But if it was the way I wanted it to be, it'd probably be as twice as long. So I'll suck it up and do the work.)
The only thing I write down is the basic outline of the plot. The rest of it I make up in response to what the players do.
That way no matter what direction the players go I can adapt the story to follow.
The main villains stay the same but once I know where they're going I can pick the most appropriate monsters to sic on them.
<hurriedly backs up PFRPG campaign folder to 2 separate drives>
Since you obviously have a gmail account, why not setup a label for your PfRPG campaign? You can then email yourself copies of anything important. I just checked the gmail documentation and it looks like they've increased the max size of attachments again (25MB now). :D
BTW, I'll have to check out that maplib.net stuff — sounds like it could be useful.
Not a bad idea, but I'm currently working with photoshop and illustrator documents that exceed 500 megs in size, and the folder itself (not including those graphics) is approaching 1gb. I've got plenty of extra storage (2x1.5TB external disks to start with).
Maplib.net is pretty cool. Free accounts' maps have a 6000x6000 pixel maximum (per map), so if you're uploading a city like me you might have to split the files up. Being able to label the maps online is super convenient.
Zo
I tend to write down the whole story, and then think about how the PCs are going to accomplish these things and trying to prepare as much for it as possible. But as everyone knows there is always that one player that comes up with something way out of the ordinary. Though i try to "wing" it as little as possible.
My current campaign is completely homebrew, with me writing the plot, and my entire gaming group designing the world. So besicly i use a campaign setting, our own. This works great for my group, since most of my players love to write background stories for countrys and races, making up new and cool stuff as we like it.
So far i think we have 10 or so detailed countrys, a whole bunch of races that just fits with our playing style, a complete pantheon and religious system, and actually some pretty profesional maps (an architect friend drew them). Its taken us a coupple years to actually be able to really use the world though.
Edit: i personally use dropbox to back up all of my playing notes and maps, and a seperate website. Better safe than sorry.
My current campaign is completely homebrew, with me writing the plot, and my entire gaming group designing the world.
I like this idea. Do your players just work on whatever they like, or do you give out "homework"?
Zo
well basicly it all started out 4 years ago, with a friend of mine that didnt like the standard DnD campaign setting. So he began to write a lot of stuff. And i mean a lot. Over the last coupple of years we have all just kinda made what ever we wanted to, with him making what ever was completely necesary for the world if he couldnt get us to do it.
Since we already have a working world, there is no need to give out homework. Now we just make up little but cool stuff we would like in our game, like a new race crawling out from under the mountains, a new alliance and stuff. It gives us a lot of freedom to change the world, yet keep it the same every time. My friends have now moved over to making the history of different races, and the different subtypes of species. multiple different orks, and stuff.
But all in all i think its a great way to do it, but probably only works if you or your group likes designing stuff.
From what I understand, you have a Google Site with an embedded Maplib in it.
I'm trying to make my own Google Site but can't seem to figure out how to link to my maplib. I tried inserting a gadget from the URL provided but it keeps telling me the script is not valid.
Anyone kind enough to explain me how to do it?
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I'm using the D&D campaign handler (Masterplan) which has a nice html level encyclopedia ability. It also has the ability to build Adventure Maps and Monster Manuals using libraries but as I dont know how to write my own libraries (and the manual only says download them from WOTC) I am pretty much limited to building a campaign encyclopedia.
I feel like I prepare a ton, but it's a lot of background info and NPC stats (I'm running a high level game, for which Paizo provides little to NOTHING for ideas or stats for high level games because they don't consider the small market for high level players worth their while, so I've got to do everything myself, or convert from 3.5 sources. And it's hard to have a high level character and not have stats because at this stage I need things like NPC saving throws, Perception modifiers, etc).
I run a homebrew world and over the years I've written a lot of background for the setting, gods, etc. As well as made maps, etc. I have a huge amount of background material written, but I've been writing it in bits and pieces for the last 10 years.
For a given story, I come up with major players and what the "bad guys" are up to. I have learned, the hard way, not to "script out" what I think the players will do, as inevitably they will think of something I haven't. Rather I just design the area they're adventuring in and what NPCs/creatures will be found there. I provide a lot of details to make it interesting, but I don't plan out a full "story" because I don't know what the players are going to do first.
The rest of my prep is based on what questions I think my players will ask--for example, the last session, I knew the party would have an interest in a cathedral of a dark god, and might try to break into it. I had to think about what it was made of, what its break DCs and such were because I knew they'd end up with specific questions about its structure (and I was right, though I put my foot down when I was asked how precisely the building's doors' hinges were manufactured). I often have random notes about hardness and hit points of rocks and the sizes and depths of lakes and so on because are questions have been asked of me, and it's really embarrassing not to have an answer ahead of time. I feel like I haven't done my job right if I don't have answers to my players' questions. Sure, if I can wing it, I will, but not everything is easily "winged" for me.
I make maps using Campaign Cartographer of important areas; more and more I've started using the GameMastery maps when I can to save myself some time, so full homemade maps tend to be for really major areas or for geographical locations only I could provide anyway. I also liberally raid WotC's old Map-a-Week archive for ideas and maps if I need something on the spot.
Should I start a new campaign after the current one is over, I will probably write less--keep the general outline on hand and maps and NPC stats as usual, but otherwise just see if I can make it up as I go along. I'm good at "winging it" in more rules light settings (I ran a very off-the-cuff Doctor Who one shot that went really well) but I find it difficult to do in Pathfinder because a lot of times you end up needing a hard number for something, like a particular DC or a character's skill modifier, etc. You can make it up, but in the interests of being fair, I want to be as accurate as possible.
I tend to vary. In my previous game which was fully homebrew - world, cities, politics, all that was handcrafted, only the pantheon was out of the book (Greyhawk) - I kind of just went with whatever seemed appropriate and only did prep work when I knew a big boss fight or otherwise climactic event was coming up. Characters tended to get run right out of the books or wing it off the top of my head.
I'm currently running a Gestalt-variant Savage Tide, and I'm doing almost the exact opposite. I have a huge text file full of converted NPCs (stats in the book transferred over to better/more optimal classes and a Gestalted option) about half a chapter ahead of my players so that if they get ahead of my plans I'm not stumbling about in the dark. Since we're using Maptool rather than a mat and minis I generally spend about an hour on finding, testing, and setting up appropriate maps unless I already have them prepared. And I'm occasionally rereading later chapters to make sure any tweaks and changes to the story don't have unforeseen complications.
I'm finding the latter method is much smoother and works much better in practice than the former, even if it is more work for me as a DM. I doubt I'll do Gestalt again after this game, but I'll likely keep up on the same level of prep work.
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Something about running a DR WHO game...
I did that using D&D. PC decides to ignore the Professor's instructions about not interfering with the past. He slips a repeating crossbow to the oppressed elves (who are near extinct in the PCs time) in trade for a Vase that will be worth 1/4 million GP in the PCs time...and when they return home they are promptly arrested by Elven Commandos in cammowear.
--keep the general outline on hand and maps and NPC stats as usual, but otherwise just see if I can make it up as I go along. I'm good at "winging it" in more rules light settings (I ran a very off-the-cuff Doctor Who one shot that went really well)
I just got the Dr Who RPG, and I have to say it misses the point. What fun is it to have the solution to the story prepared? Whoever is playing the Time Lord will just end up rolling some knowledge dice and letting the GM tell him what's going on. That's not what it should feel like to BE a Time Lord.
To do a Doctor Who story, you MUST be prepared to wing it. And in fact, you have to be prepared to give the players creative control, not only over their characters, but over the UNDERLYING PLOT.
Which is more fun for everyone?
The players are running around and finding clues and running away down corridors."OK, have I ever seen these creatures before?""Yes, they're a dying race from a ten-billion year old sun that exploded scattering the last members in mated pair arks in suspended animation, so they try to colonize any inhabitable world and have no concept of other beings in the universe being anything but food animals.""Uh... OK I say that."
Or
The players are running around and finding clues and running away down corridors."Aha! Endoplasma nets! There's only one race that uses those! The nearly-late Grengovanoans! They're a dying race from a ten-billion year old sun that exploded scattering the last members in mated pair arks in suspended animation! They've become a race driven by survival, they try to colonize any inhabitable world. Unfortunately, they have no concept of other beings in the universe being anything but food animals.""Uh... OK."
I think a Doctor Who style lends itself to co-GM'ing from both sides of the screen.