Plot Whammy

[gothwalk]

I had my plotlines for the Friday evening Age of Legends game completely whammied by inannajones and puritybrown, both of whom solved reasonably large problems in a couple of seconds, as opposed to the several hours of discussion and solving that usually happens. So having started at 19:30, I was out of prepped material by 21:30. Very undignified.

My pseudo-resolution for the year involves more organisation, and a large part of this is going to be in the D&D region - having more material onhand, even if it's not 100% prepared. I'm going to take time over the evenings of this week and at the weekend to sort out current plotlines, timelines, where things are going, and where things can impact, and get everything current sorted into a binder or binders like I have for the Kingfisher's Way campaign.

I might try doing some numbers too, but at present rates, NPCs, creatures, and opponents move in and out too fast for me to actually draw up stats for all of them - and most of the time, the stats don't get used anyway. Still, it would be good to know what opponent and neutral capabilities are, especially with some of the more interesting plotlines coming up.

Comments

[niallm.livejournal.com]

Let me say how much I admire the story-telling skill by which you are placing events in the path of the Kingfisher's Way group. They are subtle, forceful, ingenious, challenging and evocative. More.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

I'll try to continue to be worthy of this praise.

[utterlymundane.livejournal.com]

If you find a reliable, good method of planning for games, I'd be interested to know. I always find thinking of general, setting ideas easy, and decent NPCs, but the actual nitty-fritty of planning often seems to elude me. I get bits done, but rarely get properly into the swing of things.

Recently, I've started using twiki to write up notes; it works reasonably well (almost as easy as paper for most things, and far, *far* better at making me keep things organised), but my linux box is in the middle of a reinstall.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

What I've taken to doing for my lower-level campaign is to sit down with map, setting notes, and so forth, and see what I can fit in. I know there are bandits there, and troglodytes down there, and that that city does a good business in enchanted wolf skins.

And then I write down a few encounters for each direction that the group could go in - just prose description and names - some static, like towns, forts, ruins, etc, and some mobile. Some of these can link into each other, and some into previous or future encounters. Then I write up the statistics for the encounters where there might be a fight.

This all goes in a binder, in the front. Behind this is a tab that says "Last session", which contains the notes from last time. Behind this is "NPCs", which contains the stats for frequently appearing NPCs. Behind this is "Random Crunchy Bits", which contains stats for monsters I mightn't use, and notes for encounters that aren't fully fleshed out, but might be used in a pinch. And spells, and the like.

Also in that folder are tabs marked "Scratch", which holds every sheet of paper I have ever scribbled notes on before, during, or a game, "Maps", with obvious content, and "Old Sessions", containing the notes on on sessions previous to the last one.

I don't know if that's any help?

[yrthilian.livejournal.com]

hmm some good stuff in there that helps me get a few ideas about getting my campain up and running.

will help me get stuff sorted out for when Pax Draconis arrives.

hmm any help i can give with some character stuff and the likes just ask.

BB
Yrth
:)