I am running in a few hours and the players are going to be encountering several new terrain issues as their mission leads them into the blight line in the center of Kanchaka Valley.
It is going to take me additional time to create the adventure because I want to lay out the ideas in a way that can be edited into something that can be published.
In the past I have run everything off the top of my head with little more than a set of cryptic notes organizing the whole thing. I can run an evening in about six short sentences.
I do it that way because the time to do a complete work up has to be ripped from some other project.
Today I am going to do the adventure even though the Valarian and Channel sets are begging for the time. I can get one of them roughed out or do the adventure longhand.
I know that most GM's have exactly the same problem, so we need to assist by publishing adventures. To publish adventures we have to put off other projects. The old catch 22 is visiting us.
I also found the reason that I should not pre-number sets. Set 34 was supposed to be Familiars and Companions, but it is not ready. Anyway, I lost track of the missing set number.
Back to work with me.
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5 comments:
Geez! Do I have to keep a spreadsheet for what set numbers you've used as well? ;-)
I think so. Just take the list to a few over 100 sets. So many ideas, so little time.
So far so good on the written adventure. They say I am stiffer running from written material, but I have run the last 1,000 games off the cuff, so it may take practice.
It did make the traveling merchant with secret spies easier to handle.
while I always have a written page in front of me when running, I can run that same written page 5 times and actually have 5 different "stories develop since I really follow the players. It can get real interesting sometimes.... And a few times they have gone so left of feild that the story gets completely thrown out. That's when I really panic. I don't pull stuff out of thin air as well as others...
I would really like a way to sit down and listen to several GM's talk about what and how they run games.
As we started trying to analyze our system I began to see how many times I use 3.4 to extend our outline to make the games go. I am about 90% 3.4. Every time someone looks around or uses a skill I find myself making choices based on a combination of the rules and my understanding of the world. I use the rules as a system to determine an outcome and not to create the outcome.
What we want to try to do with the new PDF's is to give more world to people to use as a guide.
I think you do a more blended version with more detail from written words, but you still use the same method I do, just less often. We are probably not that far apart. I am just more comfortable without a net.
In a convention setting, I find it easier to have more written down, since there is limited time. It's easy to get off tract if I don't and run out of time.
In the home campaign, it's the exact opposite. I have an overall idea of where the campaign is going, how the world is spinning around the players, and what contingencies I may need to have ready. But, the players drive the story. I take from their lead and shape things from there. If things go in an unpredicted direction, I must invent on the fly, which I like, but it can be chaotic at times.
I do enjoy the prewritten adventure from time to time, as well. Nothing like not having to be "on" all the time. :-)
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