Advice Requested: How to Writing out Encounter Notes

[Ramlatus]

I am an inexperienced GM. I was wondering about how to write out my encounter notes. The format the premade adventures seem to use is:

GM Description: A few sentences to give the GM an idea of what is about to happen

Player Description: Basically Flavor Text, or the description of the area and possibly the start of the actual encounter.

GM Information on the Encounter: Info the GM needs to run the encounter.

Creatures: Specific information for the GM on the creatures, the motives, and their tactics.

Treasure: A listing and description of the treasure that can be found, if any.

What I need to know is how do I write the encounter without having to spend hours writing pages of information. I can't spend 45 minutes writing stuff out for a single encounter. I want to make it simple for me to get the information, describe what needs to be described to the players quickly, and make it all interesting. I know that a good portion of the interesting must come from my imagination.

Note for those giving advice. I am not running Golarion. The setting does not give the desired feel I want in a campaign. I find it too....renaissance as opposed to High Fantasy. Now I'm not saying it is not a good setting, it just does not have the right feel for the game I want to run.

Now on to trying to figure out how to find players..... living in the rural south has killed my gaming life. Need to move away from here.

[Kthulhu]

Grammatical Advice Requested: How to Titling Forum Threads

Sorry, I just had to.

It really depends as much on you as an individual as it does with you as an inexperienced GM. Some people like to have written notes dealing with anything that could possibly happen. Some people prefer rather minimal notes. And this has very little to do with GM experience level.

My advice: For the first session, have a bit more than you would think you might need. Then, after the session is over, think about how much you actually used, and adjust up or down as needed.

[Ice Titan]

A lot of us run entire sessions from nothing but notes that look like this:

PCs go to the depot
they meet with their contact
oh noes a flood
big bad evil guy

2 wonkas -> 1 trill in mine -> double fighter -> bbeg

*three stat blocks*

I suggest just writing up the notes you think you need and improvising as much as possible. If you're unfamiliar with DMing, maybe structure yourself with an outline format-- I did that when I was starting out

A. The opening
I. Fighter meets paladin
II. Rogue meets sorcerer
a. Sorcerer's bookie does this or that
...
D. Dungeon delve
*sketch of the dungeon, what it looks like, rooms marked D1, D2, D3
D1. entry chamber
a. This room is the entry chamber-- it has 2 wonkas in it.

If you do improvise, though, I can very strongly suggest having a "name bank" and a few stock personalities ready. Then, whenever you improv something, write it down on a new paper and cross off that name. I've gone through my entire prepped era-appropriate name bank in one session before.

There's a lot of other posters who will want to weigh in, and a lot of resources. The gamemastery guide can help a lot for a GM who is just starting out as well.

[Mike J]

Great advice so far.

If you've ever taken a speech class, you can apply the concepts you learned there. The authors of the published modules have to provide you with all the information and the general concept behind the adventure because you have no idea what they were thinking. But you already know the idea behind your adventure. So, you don't need to include all the concept stuff. You just need notes to help remind you of the details. Like with a speech, too much information is often just as bad as too little. You'll have to find your own balance.

The first couple of times, you may want to write up your notes, wait several days, and then do a dry run by yourself. I've found that sometimes my notes are too complicated (or missing important details) when they aren't fresh in my mind. And I've had game sessions where I couldn't find anything (or so it seemed at the time) in the sea of notes that made so much sense when I wrote them.

[Anonymous Visitor 163 576]

For finding players, I recommend the following:

--Advertise here (different section)

--Advertise on EN World, Obsidian Portal, GiTP Forums

--Go to a local convention, meet the locals

--Play online for a while

[Chobemaster]

For something you imagined, your own notes can be much less extensive. Basic room dimensions and dressing should be apparent from your map, so no need to write them down as well.

I do think it's useful to identify any sources of light on your map, as well, though that's not something that I commonly see. Admittedly it's been years since I've flipped a module.

You don't need the GM description at all, and I didn't normally write a player description except when the situation really called for it.

Creature statblocks you need. Their motivation is probably clear to you or you wouldn't have put them in the adventure in the first place. Especially for smart monsters, thinking about tactics and making some notes is a good idea. It's a good way to model them being smarter than you, for one thing. It doesn't have to be extensive. "CFH [Call for Help. Many GM's forget that this would be a natural part of reacting to invaders in many cases],Blade barrier - A [indicating a point A on your map], block @ B [point B on your map blocks exit from blade barrier w/o drawing AoO]."

I prefer pre-rolling treasure, but again you don't need to write much down. "l. strongbox DC 18:100 sp, ptn-CLW"

[Ravenbow]

Good advice above.

Each DM preps differently, and you will find your style and flow.

I tend to

envision concept.
write quick notes about basic plot and backstory so life doesn't make me forget what I was doing. (ruined church on hillside somewhere)
draw map
1 entrance- 4 skels. hp 3,5,5,7
2 antechamber- graffiti on walls
3 domed chamber- 3 dire rats. hp 5 ea. sack with 24gp and a rusty but intricate dagger 10gp value
4 side galley- etc
13- BBEG. This encounter I focus on.
Then as time permits I go back through and add flavor notes, expand treasure etc, otherwise with these basic notes I wing it.

I also write down a minimum of 5 names. These can be referenced in books, notes, runes, whatever but it helps to have npc names handy.

I also roll up extra treasure and have it on a note, ipad or index card and as play advances I will toss items out.

PC searches the pews
"You find a small velvet bag with a handful of small gems secured to the bottom of a pew. It has the monogram TTR etched in yellow thread"
Who is TTR? Time may or may not tell. etc

I am a map junky so I always end up going back and tweaking my maps.

Final thoughts - Have fun. If you do not have fun doing it why bother?

[DeathQuaker]

Some of my notes have been lengthy affairs that do indeed take up pages and pages, but over time I've tried to boil down to relatively simple descriptions like

---
Lich Tower, 3rd floor
Bedroom:
4 iron golems
Golems will not leave but fight any who enter/remain to the death. Will not fight them if standing at door. Use thrown weapons/beads of force if attacked at range (they should have cover).

Cabinet (locked DC 25, trapped Perception DC 29, Enervation spell, trigger touch [other trap details): +5 Cloak of Awesome, toy horse.
On desk: Pillow of Mending. Object placed on pillow gets fixed as make whole CL 5. Golems can touch to heal selves (5d6 hp).
In drawer: Letter to editor, half written.
----

(I just wrote all of this off the top of my head so whether it actually makes sense as an encounter is entirely debatable, but I hope the example is at least clear )

I use Combat Manager these days (a program -- here) to bring up monster stats and it offers enough customization and notes I can add monster gear and modifications there. It also has a treasure lookup and, IIRC, generator which helps for determining treasure if I don't want to plan it ahead of time.

The other thing I do is if I write lengthy notes, it's a broad description for me to develop a sense of the area and who is there and what's going on. But any stats I may just pull up in combat manager and/or make up the specifics of an encounter as I go along, using my notes to myself as to what would generally be appropriate to help determine what's there.

I seldom write anything down as to what I would read exactly to the players. I just extract from my notes and improvise.

[fendt]

This gamermastering guide (http://www.gamemastering.info/) has a lot of good information both about how to develop encounter (which he calls obstacles) and on many other things.

A must read imo.