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100% GMing
Treasure Tables is dedicated to game masters, offering GMing advice and ideas and a community of GMs helping each other run great games since 2005. I'm Martin Ralya, and I've been GMing since 1989 and writing for the RPG industry since 2004.
Adventure Notes: One Page per Encounter
Wed. September 19, 2007
In the comments on Metagame Elements and Transparency, TT reader Chris mentioned successfully reworking an encounter while improvising part of a session. Chris’s comment got me thinking about different ways to write up adventure notes — specifically, writing them with adaptability in mind.
Adventure notes are a funny thing: I don’t know about you, but outside of published adventures I think I’ve seen a grand total of two sets of adventure notes written by other GMs. In a way, that means there’s an echo chamber element to writing scenarios: How the hell do you know what you’re doing right, except by trial and error?
When I’m writing an adventure, I just type the whole thing up in roughly the order I expect it to happen, with a few reminders and notes up front. I use the method I outlined in the free PDF How to Take Simple (Yet Badass) GM Notes, which works well for me. This results in several pages of stuff in what might not turn out to be a very useful order — or format — at all.
Reading Chris’s comment, it hit me: Why not break adventure notes down into encounters, and give each encounter its own page? That way, when your players take the game in an unexpected direction (which, inevitably, they will), you can more easily shuffle encounters on the fly, tweak scenes to fit their new place in the session and slot in entirely new encounters.
What do you think of this approach? What approach do you take to writing adventure notes?
(I’ll be in Michigan from Thursday, September 20th through Monday, September 24th. As always, I’ve cued up a post for every day that I’ll be gone, but I probably won’t be able to respond to comments or emails. Have fun, and I’ll see you on Tuesday! — Martin)
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17 Responses to “Adventure Notes: One Page per Encounter”
Since I have access to wi-fi and a laptop, I use my DM wiki to manage my adventure notes. It makes it much easier to adapt and update. Plus, I hyperlink to the hypertext d20 SRD monsters or spells that I plan to throw at the players.
I’d provide a link to my DM wiki, but if anyone could read it, how could I keep it secret from my players?
Here’s a link to the campaign, though:
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/kensing
The party wiki is publicly viewable, at least.
That is 100% how I’ve started to structure my games, these days. I strive to avoid railroading, so I try and develop a set of encounters/scenes that I can fit in as needed.
You can almost thing of it like “chinese menu DMing”. One column is the entrees (the encounters, challenges, etc), one column is the sides (plot development, secrets, props, RP scenes) and another is the twists (motivations, environments, conditions, location).
Ok, the PCs decide to skip the juicy dungeon you thought you had planned and investigate the wilderness.
Ok, I’ll have the “knoll war party” with a side of “evil temple map” and “knolls simply want to get to said dungeon motivation.”
So now, your improv isn’t, “Ok, the players wandered off, crap.” It’s, “ok, the knoll war party I had planned isn’t in the dungeon, they are in the forest, heading to the dungeon. And they have that map/plot point.”
I think I’m rambling a bit, but the salient point I’m trying to convey is that I find it much easier to do mash-ups of my planned encounters with the locations/events the PCs create and spice them with the plot points I want to include for my story.
I HEARTILY second Micah’s comments about wikis and hyperlinked SRD references.
For my campaign/session notes I went from a disorganized, hard-to-read-and-update Word doc to a Tiddlywiki. The change was dramatic. Whenever I am typing along and need to mark something for fleshing out later, it’s SOOOO easy to just “link-mark” it and go on. Later I go back and check the “empty” links via the More/Missing list, and fill in as necessary.
Data automatically separates itself into easily usable and update-able chunks! It’s magic!
And you can hyperlink more than just the SRD: images, sounds, anything you can put on your hard-/thumb-drive! With links I can quickly pop-up a picture of the monster, play a sound effect for the scene, etc. without having to hunt for it.
The only problem I have run into so far is when I need to print things out, which isn’t often. To date I’ve just copy/pasted into a Word doc and printed from there, but that’s not very graceful. It also doesn’t work for ad hoc stuff like secret notes to players. (Still waiting for everyone to bring an IM-enabled client of some sort to sessions…)
Any Tiddlywiki users out there with a good (8.5×11) printing solution I can steal?
This is the way I’ve been doing it since I started running Twilight:2000 back in 1985-86, my first real campaign. I found out this if I write up encounters this way, I can save unused ones for later. That game was heavy on random encounters, varied by terrain and location, so I would make up some for where I thought the party would go, and then a few extras (i.e. 3 woods encounters, 1 hills, 1 plains, 2 highway). Sooner or later, it seemed I would use them.
I’m still old-fashioned about some things, so I waffle back and forth between typing up encounters (usually done for recurring NPCs and the like) and writing them out with pencil & lined paper (easy to adjust on the fly during game sessions).
For my Arcana Unearthed and Arcana Evolved campaigns I was writing up stat blocks in a Word document. Complex encounters might be one to a page or to multiple pages but simple encounters were formatted with multiple encounters on a page. I would get 2-5 stat blocks per page depending on their complexity. All stat blocks provided space below to track hit points and casters had boxes to mark off their spell slots as they were used (Arcana Unearthed/Evolved uses a cross between memorization and spontaneous casting - so you list spells prepared but track the number of slots cast separately).
In my forthcoming Original D&D game, I will be jamming many encounters to a page. 1000+ pages of adventure notes would be outrageous (I’m going to be creating an old school “megadungeon”).
So now, your improv isn’t, “Ok, the players wandered off, crap.” It’s, “ok, the knoll war party I had planned isn’t in the dungeon, they are in the forest, heading to the dungeon. And they have that map/plot point.”
This type of thing always makes me wary. By putting the encounters in the PCs path in the correct order no matter where they choose to go, you are effectively negating their choice of direction. Now the choice of direction may not actually be the significant decision point. I think it’s important to consider what the real decision points the players have are.
Railroading is an imperfect term and often misused. What’s bad is negating the player choices, not forcing them down certain paths or otherwise constraining their choices. Dogs in the Vinyard is totally about player empowerment, yet the GM tells the players: “Here’s the next town.” But the way Dogs works, it’s no different than the early D&D games: “Having purchased your equipment in town, you are now standing at the entrance to the dungeon, what do you do?”
If we stick to the metaphor implied by “railroad” we can get a useful definition. Railroading is when the players are presented with a single path they can not diverge from no matter their desires. The Dogs in the Vinyard and dungeon examples above are not railroading, because once the players accept the situation at hand, they do indeed have choices (well, assuming the dungeon or town is created correctly).
Back to the core of this thread…
Thinking of Dogs in the Vinyard, when I have run towns, I have actually fit a whole town onto one sheet. Of course Dogs doesn’t have prepared encounters in the way many other games do so all you need is a description of the situation and who is there in town and what they want from the PCs. Of course there is a 2nd sheet necessary, the set of pre-rolled NPC stats (not attached to specific NPCs yet). Sometimes a 2nd sheet of stats might be necessary though I’ve actually not run such a complex town yet.
I think the takeaway point here is to organize your notes such that it is easy to react to the players. Minimize the need to shuffle multiple pages during a single encounter.
An extension to this would be to attach any special rules that might be necessary for each encounter, though that might be impractical (for example, providing all the spell descriptions for a high level D&D spell caster).
Frank
Frank, I’m not advocating removing the PCs choices, I’ve actually found that for the way my group plays, this makes them feel much more empowered.
Taking the example above, assuming the PCs are motivated to go into this dungeon, they have a choice to make… dive in or explore the area. Now, imagining a typical D&D or fantasy world, stocked in the way of a typical module. Making the choice to explore around the dungeon is often a non-choice in that it’s generally a fruitless series of searching or wandering monsters. Here, I’m suggesting that their choice be made meaningful.
Admittedly, this quite a vague discussion. Part of my viewpoint comes from groups that don’t want to play in a giant sandbox and just haphazardly wander about and create a story. Most of the groups I’ve gamed with have grown up with D&D and the various plotted TSR modules and such. They want to follow a story through and make choices along the way… but are incredibly happy to play roles within the greater story, as opposed to creating their own.
Am I explaining this properly? (I should really read up on Dogs in the Vineyard since it seems to be the canonical example of a certain style of play around here.)
*ponder* Ok, trying to come up with a better example.
Taking the same dungeon example, perhaps my map includes a dense coniferous forest nearby, the players could very well decide that their characters head into the forest and begin a career as loggers. There’s many ways to handle this.
1. Go with it, the campaign turns into a game social interaction and trading
2. Meta-game it, “guys, I don’t want to run that.” “I have nothing planned for that.”
3. Bring the story to them. (The kobolds in the supposed dungeon send out raiding parties, for example)
4. Create a new story tailored to the adventures of forestry… A druid starts awakening all their trees and is angered when they cut one down.
In my groups, the players generally seem to prefer 3 or 4, and I feel as though it’s not railroading… because they chose to create a logging camp near this dungeon, the parameters of the whole scenario change.
(You know, I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed talking about these topics until I started reading some RPG blogs.)
My GM notes tend to look something like this:
A brief description of the back-story and the situation at the start of the adventure.
A list of facts I want the PCs to discover in the first hour of play (to justify later events).
A list of possible encounters and events that proceed from the initial situation, as NPCs react to the arrival of the PCs and (based on my knowledge of the players) what the PCs are likely to do.
Notes to myself on anything I feel must happen this session to set up the events of next session.
Abbreviated block stats for the major NPCs and generic monsters/mooks.
There may or may not be maps.
I generally don’t pre-plan encounters at all, unless I know that one of the NPCs is going to actively set something up. As a GM, I’m not into tactical puzzles. I am much more interested in why the NPCs do things than how, and am confident in my ability to improvise encounters as needed. After all, why spend hours writing up encounters that may never happen if the PCs don’t do as I predict?
During the game, I’ll mark off my potential encounters as they’re used, and make notes on what happened.
After the game, I’ll take stock of the situation, and start the notes for the next session.
On a related note, I’d find it really useful to see links to other GM’s notes. Is anyone else up for this. Obviously they’d not be for current games. Is there any more demand for this?
I have found 3×5 cards to be convenient. I list both PCs and NPCs on them. One card for each person. For the PCs, I list only the information that I need, such as as stats, traits, feats, disadvantages, things I need to know about them. For the NPC, I have
I found an unexpected advantage to this. After rolling for initiative, all I have to do is sort the cards in order of initiative and then run through the stack.
The encounters are also split up by task. When they have finished one task (however they do so), I move onto the next encounter on the next page. When the players go off in an unexpected direction, I just resort the tasks and keep going.
The only problem with this is the amount of preplanning I have to do to get ready for a game.
I have found 3×5 cards to be convenient. I list both PCs and NPCs on them. One card for each person. For the PCs, I list only the information that I need, such as as stats, traits, feats, disadvantages, things I need to know about them. For the NPCs, I have their combat stats and something about their personality, so I can play them more effectively.
I found an unexpected advantage to this. After rolling for initiative, all I have to do is sort the cards in order of initiative and then run through the stack.
The encounters are also split up by task. When they have finished one task (however they do so), I move onto the next encounter on the next page. When the players go off in an unexpected direction, I just resort the tasks and keep going.
The only problem with this is the amount of preplanning I have to do to get ready for a game.
I’ve tried the 3×5 card method of running battles, but I eventually went over to running it on my laptop instead. ( If you’re running on a Laptop, check out Turnwatcher.) If you are going to do it with 3×5 cards, it allows you to keep some of the more common bad-guys/monsters and re-use them if needed. Just erase the lost hit points, and the init score and you’re good to go (again).
My last few games I’ve run from a Tiddlywiki, which has run really well for me. Monsters, NPC stats, area descriptions, the works. And I can put html links in for each of the areas that you can go to from where you are, allowing me to go to the next area without having to search a menu.
I’ve put up a library of scenarios for Stargate SG-1 at http://mysite.verizon.net/socalgamer/id5.html . That’s got several scenarios from several GMs, which should show you a few different ways that people do it.
(Millsy) On a related note, I’d find it really useful to see links to other GM’s notes. Is anyone else up for this. Obviously they’d not be for current games. Is there any more demand for this?
I’d love to read other GMs’ notes. I’ll cue a post that includes a copy of some session notes I wrote a couple of years back, and offer up hosting for anyone who wants to share theirs (plus links for those who have their own hosting).
Great idea, Millsy!
I’ve been organizing by encounter since … I don’t know. A while now.
I do recall that I got the idea from an RPGA article I read years ago. Summarized, it said “plan for 8 encounters for a 4 hour session”. I don’t know if what I took away from the article is what they intended to convey, but it started me on the path to my current system, which has evolved over the years.
My adventure notes are organized like this:
1. Backstory - this is where I write NPC reactions and actions based on previous sessions. I find this helps me plan out encounters as outgrowths of past actions, and also helps me understand the NPC’s more. Which has proven helpful when players go off-map.
Example:
“With the Crypt of Orbakh ransacked, and so many zombies now dead, Kireba could see no point in continuing operations in the Tower of Bones. But since she also assumed that the party is going to be heading to Castle Cormanthor next, she decided to continue with her plan of staying out of their way. After all, if the Castle didn’t want to support her problems, she saw no reason to support theirs. They had been warned…”
2. Opening - I’ve started writing a paragraph or two that I read at the beginning of the session. Sets the mood, gives the current in-game date, and sometimes even some indication of how the party’s adventures have become rumors in the area.
Example: “It is noon on 20 Cinten. There is news that Gallows Tom set fire to section of Chesake District, and three people were killed before the blaze could be put out. The Lord Governor himself surveyed the burned out wreckage of the buildings and declared that the Fingers Watch and Fire Brigade on Hospice had done ‘a heckuva job’ bringing the fire under control and saving the lives of countless people.”
3. Scene #1, #2, etc - I come up with 6-8 “scenes” that I think are likely based on what the players want to do, what has happened already, and where I plan to take the story. Generally, a scene is a paragraph or two. Sometimes, though, a scene can run on for a page or so. The information I write down is dialogue, motivations, stat blocks if they seem useful, strategies, and so on.
Overall, I don’t worry about what order the scenes happen in. I’ll jump around as the players do. And if they do something I didn’t expect, often what I did think of can be re-purposed or just used for extrapolating. Sometimes I even have material left over. That’s always fun. Cause I can just copy-and-paste it for the next session.
-David
My GM notes are more like a flow chart with diferent encounter/scenes. It’s like creating a Dungeon but instead of rooms there are scenes. On various key points where there are the most likely options I describe briefly that options. On the side I develope these scenes/encounters (NPC, hints, etc.)
That helps me keep track of the story. Remind me non-played paths and (if it’s good for the story) rearrage the flow-chart to play it.
I don’t consider this to railroad as the flow-chart is usually a flexible thing. But it’s good to stablish both a time flow (one thing after another) and a story structure.
(Sorry for my bad english)
I have used TiddlyWiki in the TenFootWiki version (from Berin Kinsman) exclusively. I found that actually running from my laptopo to difficult, so now I print each tag each tiddler for an adventure and simply call up all tiddlers with that tag and print them. Now I can shuffle as needed.
I use a template statblock and fill it in for NPCs.
My Deadlands TiddlyWiki is here:
http://mountzionpress.com/raphael/rpgwiki.htm
The last few session are not included.
For you tiddlywiki users add the following to your StyleSheet tiddler:
@media print {#mainMenu {display: none ! important;}}
@media print {#topMenu {display: none ! important;}}
@media print {#sidebar {display: none ! important;}}
@media print {#messageArea {display: none ! important;}}
@media print {#toolbar {display: none ! important;}}
@media print {.header {display: none ! important;}}
@media print {.tiddler .subtitle {display: none ! important;}}
@media print {.tiddler .toolbar {display; none ! important; }}
@media print {.tiddler .tagging {display; none ! important; }}
@media print {.tiddler .tagged {display; none ! important; }}
@media print {#displayArea {margin: 1em 1em 0em 1em;}}
@media print {.pageBreak {page-break-before: always;}}
This makes each tiddler print on a separate page so that nothing but tiddler title and text are printed. Source
I write all my notes in one of a few spiral bound notebooks that I have floating around, then number the page corners based on setting (or campaign), and write a few keywords at the top. I prefer to use normal pencils, but often I use a pen because pencil’s aren’t always convenient to sharpen, and I’m not a big fan of mechanical pencils.
My stat blocks are comically simple: I write a general pool of points next to the figure’s name and deduct everything from that: HP lost, spells cast, whatever. One number stat block.
[...] Commenting on Adventure Notes: One Page per Encounter, TT reader Millsy said: [...]