Looking for help in preparing an Adventure Path.

[PrimeDko]

Me and my group have finished the adventure "Troubles in Otari" and now I'm about to start preparing to play "Abomination Vaults". However, I'm finding the complexity jump to be quite significant, as one of the books features a dungeon with 64 rooms. How do you manage all of this? Do you read directly from the book to the players? I usually make a brief summary/note of the physical description, encounter, treasure, and NPC of each room, but up until now, I've been dealing with dungeons of a maximum of 12 rooms. I would appreciate the opinions of those who have already played this adventure or have prepared large dungeons.

[breithauptclan]

I did GM through most of the first book of Abomination Vaults. One thing that I found useful is that the players would usually not go through very many rooms during one session. No more than two. Maybe three if there weren't any combats in them. I'm not counting hallways in there.

So what I liked to do was to have a post-session discussion about where the players were planning on heading next. Which hallway were they going into the unknown with, or were they going to backtrack to a different location? That cuts down a lot on the amount of rooms and content that I have to have specific detailed notes pulled up for.

[NerdOver9000]

So, what I typically do is create a pdf for myself that is used for handling the game at the table, and hyperlink it so I can get through it quickly on my iPad. I take screen shots directly from my Paizo pdfs for room descriptions, maps, and monsters.

I can't share it, obviously, but for my Abomination Vaults campaign the first/landing page is the side view map of the dungeon, showing the 10 levels of the dungeon. Clicking in the name of each level takes me to the map of that level, and all of the numbers on the level map are hyperlinked to a room page.

Each room page has the room description along the left side, with my notes directly typed along the top of the page. Any read aloud text is highlighted. In the remaining space I place screen shots of the monster stats in the room. If any of the monsters are spellcasters, I have a second page for the room which has screen shots of all the spells listed in their stat blocks. I also add a link from the room name back to the floor map, and from each of the floor maps back to the side view map.

Since we were playing in person I also snagged screen shots of and enlarged most of the art in the book, then printed it out and kept it in a binder. When I wanted to show my players something it was pretty easy to flip to the page required and show them the art. This was most useful for NPCs and creepy stuff they find in the vaults, like the portrait on level 1. Now that we're transitioning to a projector I'll probably store them electronically so I can show them directly on the table when it is time to show them.

I created the pdf over a 3 day weekend for the combined Abomination vaults pdf, but it was ticky work. This method lends itself to megadungeons and works surprisingly well for hexploration for Kingmaker and Quest for Frozen Flame. I'm currently working on Outlaws of Alkenstar but I'm dividing it up by scenes instead of rooms when applicable, with a flow chart on the front page showing the order of the scenes and any possible branching paths. This is taking a bit longer, as I have to create the scene page, but not impossibly so.

I do wish that Paizo would prepare something similar, as it makes my life a lot easier. Failing that, something like the pdf extractor from Foundry would be nice. You feed in a watermarked pdf and it spits out a watermarked, linked pdf that makes it easy and quick to run at the table, with monster stats screenshotted from AoN on the page so you didn't have to go online and look them up mid game. I, however, am not good enough at programming to even begin to know where to start.

(edited for clarity)

[Captain Morgan]

I do read the room descriptions directly out of the book, yes. Those bits are meant to be. As are a few sections that explicitly call it out. "Read this as the player characters approach the giant light" and what have you.

[PrimeDko]

NerdOver9000 wrote:

So, what I typically do is create a pdf for myself that is used for handling the game at the table, and hyperlink it so I can get through it quickly on my iPad. I take screen shots directly from my Paizo pdfs for room descriptions, maps, and monsters.

I can't share it, obviously, but for my Abomination Vaults campaign the first/landing page is the side view map of the dungeon, showing the 10 levels of the dungeon. Clicking in the name of each level takes me to the map of that level, and all of the numbers on the level map are hyperlinked to a room page.

Each room page has the room description along the left side, with my notes directly typed along the top of the page. Any read aloud text is highlighted. In the remaining space I place screen shots of the monster stats in the room. If any of the monsters are spellcasters, I have a second page for the room which has screen shots of all the spells listed in their stat blocks. I also add a link from the room name back to the floor map, and from each of the floor maps back to the side view map.

Since we were playing in person I also snagged screen shots of and enlarged most of the art in the book, then printed it out and kept it in a binder. When I wanted to show my players something it was pretty easy to flip to the page required and show them the art. This was most useful for NPCs and creepy stuff they find in the vaults, like the portrait on level 1. Now that we're transitioning to a projector I'll probably store them electronically so I can show them directly on the table when it is time to show them.

I created the pdf over a 3 day weekend for the combined Abomination vaults pdf, but it was ticky work. This method lends itself to megadungeons and works surprisingly well for hexploration for Kingmaker and Quest for Frozen Flame. I'm currently working on Outlaws of Alkenstar but I'm dividing it up by scenes instead of rooms when applicable, with a flow chart on the front page showing the order of the scenes and any possible branching paths. This is...

Your dedication is impressive, I thought what I did was already a lot, but you go even further. My schedule doesn't accommodate this level of preparation for the game. My main concern is the text and description of each room. I'm hesitant to rely solely on what's in the book when players enter a room, fearing it might take more time than necessary, creating a "loading screen" sensation for the game.

[PrimeDko]

Captain Morgan wrote:

I do read the room descriptions directly out of the book, yes. Those bits are meant to be. As are a few sections that explicitly call it out. "Read this as the player characters approach the giant light" and what have you.

And the remainder of the room description, do you have any experience using just the content from the book without making any or very few preliminary notes?