GM-fu: Session Prep

GenCon 2008 Saturday, Aug. 16, 8:00 AM

Topics:

1. Understanding, Using and Subverting Tropes

2. Tailoring Content to Players 3. Essential Elements

4. Development Cycle

Presenters: Phil Vecchione – Long-time GM, repeat GenCon presenter and RPG

blogger (http://www.dnaphil.com/; http://www.gnomestew.com/) Philippe-Antoine Menard – Long-time GM and RPG blogger

(http://chattydm.net/) Vicki Potter – Long-time GM, Draconian Editor and co-owner of Tabletop

Adventures (http://www.tabletopadventures.com)

Acknowledgements: The GM-fu Masters would like to thank the following publishers, who provided samples of products which can aid GMs in preparing their games – and then allowed us to give them away! To pick up your own copy of these great resources, visit their booths at GenCon, or see the publishers’ websites. Goodman Games – booth #2535; http://www.goodmangames.com Johnn Four – online at http://www.roleplayingtips.com Open Design – booth #1921 (with Green Ronin);

http://wolfgangbaur.com/opendesign/ Paizo Publishing – booth #2221; online at http://paizo.com Tabletop Adventures – booth #400; http://www.tabletopadventures.com We’d also like to thank Stan! for the use of his timely comic strip. See more of Stan!’s work at http://www.stannex.com. Workbook layout provided by Tabletop Adventures. Some clipart ©2008 Jupiterimages Corporation. GM-fu: Session Prep ©2008, Phil Vecchione, Philippe-Antoine Menard and Vicki Potter

Understanding, Using and Subverting Tropes (Bonus: The 5 Room/Scene Adventure)

Definitions

Roleplaying adventures are a form of narrative entertainment. As such, they share common elements with movies and TV shows as well as graphic and classic novels. Some elements are obvious, like characters, background, plots, and action scenes. There is also a lesser-known type of element that is common to all these forms of stories. These are “tropes,” and learning to use them (or subvert them) properly can make writing an otherwise-ordinary adventure stand out and become a very satisfying experience for both the players and the GM. What is a Trope? A trope is a narrative “figure of speech,” shorthand for some concept that the audience will recognize and understand instantly. Above all, a trope is a convention. It can be a plot trick, a setup, a narrative structure, a character type, a linguistic idiom... It's like leadership (or porn): hard to define yet you know it when you see it. There are a lot of tropes out there, many of which you probably already know about without knowing about it. Here are a few taken out of geek cultures (fantasy, sci-fi, horror): High Fantasy Tropes (Lord of the Rings, The Belgariad):

• The Dark Lord • The dark palace/tower • Evil armies invade • A band of heroes • A mysterious wizard • A non-combat resolution (i.e chuck the ring in the volcano, Mr. Frodo)

Heroic Fantasy (Dragonlance, Record of Lodoss War)

• Same as High Fantasy but with more muscles • The party of 4: Fighter, Thief, Cleric, Wizard • Bad guys are killed more often than outwitted • Sorting Algorithm of Evil (Bad guys get stronger as heroes get stronger)

Sci-Fi (Star Trek, Star Wars)

• Faster-than-light travel • Bumpy-headed aliens • Proud warrior races • Space Marines • Empires/Federations • Mystic forces

Horror • Abandoned buildings • Attack of the Killer Whatevers • Buried alive • Town with dark secrets • Lovecraftian horrors • Braiiinnnns!

What's a Cliché? A cliché is when a trope becomes intrusive or too obvious and distracts the viewer rather than serves as shorthand. When the audience groans, the trope has become a cliché. Examples of clichés in fiction:

• “Nooooooooooooooo!” • The evil laugh • Fruit carts and panes of glass in chase scenes • “Luke, I am your father.” • The ethnic comic relief • “It's quiet... too quiet.” • The slow clap

Tropes in RPGs Tropes work just as well (if not better) in RPGs, because the audience controls the main protagonists. Since tropes are shortcuts, this can allow a GM to elicit a reaction from players while spending limited effort. Clichés also have their use in RPGs; they aren't inherently bad. In fact, they can be a useful tool for introducing new players to the game, as they can help bring familiar territory into an otherwise unfamiliar game, facilitating participation. To be honest, all adventures (published or homemade) already use tropes liberally because writers steal/borrow ideas all the time consciously or not. It's the careful and conscious choosing of tropes to elicit an emotional response from players that can add value to your adventure.

The two Fundamental Rules of RPGs The Rule of Fun (From Musings of the Chatty DM) Games must be fun to play. Sure, we like pretty graphics and a good plot, but the fun’s the main thing. If they’re fun, a lot of incongruities can be forgiven. Go ahead, try to explain why the yellow circle loves dots and why the ghosts are out to get him, or why the frog needs to get across the road. You can’t. Doesn’t matter.

Just replace ‘pretty graphics’ by ‘cool mechanics’ and the definition applies perfectly to tabletop RPGs. A lot of shortcuts are made in the mechanics and premises of a RPG to make it fun. The Rule of Fun should also be applied by GMs to everything in the game, from choice of game to character generation, the color of dice, the miniatures players choose, the adventure used, etc. With regards to adventure preparation, I suggest that you apply the Rule of Fun whenever you think of adding a challenge (a fight, a trap, or a Skill roll) by asking yourself this very simple question: “Will playing this out be fun?” If the answer is ‘no’ or ‘probably not, but it’s logical’ you need to rethink your design choice. Rolling a climb check to climb a tree to see the advancing enemy troops 50 miles away is not all that fun. Climbing it to avoid a horde of Berserking Goblins has a better chance of hitting the fun mark. Try to apply the Rule of Fun to any instance of travel, investigations, or NPC interactions and it will make a game session better. (Hint: random encounters, unless everyone wants them, are not usually fun.) The Rule of Cool (From Musings of the Chatty DM) The limit of the Willing Suspension Of Disbelief for a given element is directly proportional to its degree of coolness. Stated another way, all but the most pedantic of viewers will forgive liberties with reality so long as the result is wicked sweet and/or awesome. This applies to the audience in general, as there will naturally be a different threshold for each individual in the group. To transpose to RPG terms: Your player will put up with almost any illogical or “wobbly” plot devices or encounter as long as things get cool enough for them. This basically means that a GM's efforts should be not so much on far-reaching world building and tight, nitpicking-proof plot lines. They should go all out for encounters and roleplaying that will swamp players in coolness. For example, think about combat on ice bridges, negotiating the release of prisoners in a flooding underground prison, or hopping from floating islands to pieces of flying ruins in order to catch the thieves of the Star Jewel of Radnia.

Adapting Tropes to RPGs With the Rules of Fun and Cool in mind, the idea in creating adventures or campaigns is not to copy a whole movie or novel in game form. The trick is to extract the tropes that you found cool and engaging and try to import them in your game. Since Tropes are easily recognized, players will pick up on them and start building expectations. A useful technique then is subverting the trope by having it go in the

opposite direction of what players expect. If you mix and match straight and subverted tropes, you will be able to elicit stronger reactions from player which will lead to more satisfactory involvement in the adventure. For example, if you want to recreate some of the feeling of the Star Wars movies in your games, you can deconstruct the series in the tropes you liked best (this is my personal list):

• Dark Tower (Death Star) • Power Glows: Lightsabers • Mystic Ninja: Jedi • Badass Villain: Darths • Face Heel Turn: Darth Vader • Empire vs Rebels • The Chosen One: Anakin/Luke • Kung Fu geezer: Yoda • I am your father: Cliché!!! • Bad Acting (like a RPG)!

The idea is to borrow a few tropes to build an adventure around it. So in an adventure, you could build a world where an Evil Empire threatens a small coalition of planets/states (rebel equivalent). Players are young Spiritual Knights (Jedis) in a monastery, being trained by an irascible old Crone (Subverted Geezer) who looks to be a few hours shy of croaking. The Empire has an order of evil Hell-knights (Subverted Jedi) powered by pure hatred and led by an ancient pupil of the Crone (Badass Villain). They trash the monastery and kidnap the crone. Party finds prophecy that talks of the Five Nascent Stars (The Chosen Ones) chasing away the darkness and guess that it's them. They track the Hell-knights back to their "Invincible" Citadel of Woe (Dark Tower). They infiltrate it and battle through mooks and a few Hell-knights. As they enter the cell compound, they come face to face with Granny Sensei kicking Hell-knight butt saying 'What took you so long?' Then the Badass appears, gets a tongue lashing by the Crone; he goes mad and says 'shut up mom' (Subverted "I am your father") and the final fight starts. Near death, the Badass implores his mother and she turns against the PCs (Subverted Heel Face turn). It's as easy as that. Here's a short “How To” list for this technique:

• Take a narrative that triggered a strong reaction in you/friends (go with positive more often than negative)

• Extract the strongest tropes (use tvtropes.org) • Choose 2 or 3 for an adventure, more for a campaign.

• Work them (straight or subverted) into NPCs, scenes, and characters in ways to make the Rule of Fun/Rule of Cool come to the forefront.

• Be careful of Marty Stu's (those “perfect in every way” pet NPCs) and other tropes that are fun only for the GM.

References

• The TV Tropes Wiki – Contains description on thousands of tropes covering all forms of narratives, including RPGs and video games (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage)

• Mining Tropes for RPG Nuggets (series)—Philippe-Antoine Menard, Musings of the Chatty DM (http://chattydm.net/2008/07/13/mining-tropes-for-rpg-nuggets-season-1-boxed-set/)

Bonus Feature: The 5 Room/Scene Adventure (Adapted with permission from Roleplayingtips.com) A trick to create fast adventures that fit in one evening is to make them very limited in scope and length. Make any site-based adventure (ex: a dungeon crawl) a 5 room adventure! Room 1: Entrance And Guardian Room 2: Puzzle Or Roleplaying Challenge Room 3: Red Herring Room 4: Climax, Big Battle Or Conflict Room 5: Plot Twist A two- to four-hour site-based romp quickens flagging campaign and session pacing and can be squeezed into almost any on-going story thread. It also grants a quick success (or failure) to keep the players keen and excited, is quick to plan for, lets GMs “theme” sites with greater ease, and can be plopped into most settings with minimal continuity issues. Room 1: Entrance And Guardian Room 1 challenge ideas:

• The entrance is trapped. • The entrance is cleverly hidden. • The entrance requires a special key, such as a ceremony, command word, or

physical object. • The guardian was deliberately placed to keep intruders out. • The guardian is not indigenous to the site and is a tough creature or force

who has made its lair in room 1. • Turn room 1 into a puzzle by creating a special requirement that lets the PCs

pass (i.e. a riddle to solve).

Room 2: Puzzle Or Roleplaying Challenge Room 2 ideas:

• Ye old classic death trap. • Magic/technological puzzle, such as a chessboard tile floor with special

squares. • An intelligent entity grants access to the rest of the site but must be

befriended, not fought. • A being far more powerful than the PCs with whom they must converse or

negotiate. Room 3: Red Herring Room 3 ideas:

• "The passage ends in a 'T'. The right looks well traveled and the corridor is unremarkable. The left looks untouched, smells faintly of cinnamon, and there's a mysterious orange glow at the end that can barely be seen. Which way to do you go?" The left passage leads to the red herring.

• A fake sarcophagus that contains another guardian. • A collapsed structure blocks part of the area. The debris is dangerous, and

blocks or hides nothing of importance. • A one-way exit so the PCs must return and deal with rooms 1 and 2 again,

such as a teleport trap, one-way door, or 2000-foot water slide trap. • Room 3 does contain the PCs' goal but hides the presence of room 4, which

contains an even greater reward. Room 4: Climax, Big Battle Or Conflict This room is The Big Show. It's the big combat or conflict encounter and is the final challenge before the Big Reward. Room 5: Plot Twist Room 5 ideas:

• Another guardian awaits in the treasure container. • A trap that resurrects or renews the challenge from room 4. • Bonus treasure is discovered that leads to another adventure, such as a

piece of a magic item or a map fragment. • A rival enters and tries to steal the reward while the PCs are dealing with the

big challenge in room 4. • The object of the quest/final reward isn't what it seems or has a

complication, such as the kidnapped King who doesn't want to return. Something similar can be done with an event-based adventure.

Scene 1: Get the Quests

• Meet NPCs • Get background/story • Get quests, possibly conflicting ones

Scene 2: The Roleplaying Challenge/Investigation

• Non-combat obstacle to get to next scene • Must not be a bottleneck for the rest of the adventure • Challenge the whole group

Scene 3: Opposition/Obstruction

• Where antagonists try to prevent you from succeeding at main quest • Combat or other type of conflict (race, joust, court case, etc.)

Scene 4: Red Herring/Optional Puzzle

• Something to put PCs off the trail • Secondary quests may come into play here • Can also be a puzzle for problem solving PCs to hack at while other scenes

are played out o Reveals a bonus advantage, reputation, or treasure not critical but

helpful for adventure Scene 5: Final confrontation

• Boss fight • Final negotiation • Last obstacle to get to quest goal • Possible party conflict over quests

References

• 5 Room Adventure model—Johnn Four, Roleplaying Tips (http://www.roleplayingtips.com/readissue.php?number=156#1)

• 5 Room Dungeons – Contest Entry Downloads (88 adventures) (http://www.roleplayingtips.com/articles/5_room_dungeons.html)

Exercise: Trope-up Bob's Generic Dungeon Crawl Bob, a nice if unimaginative GM of a popular fantasy RPG, has made up a dungeon crawl based on the 5 Room model. He's worried that it's going to be a bit stale. Insert some cool/fun by adding three tropes of your choice! Feel free to change things in rooms to fit the addition of tropes. Set-up: The Cave of Doom Room 1: A pool of water into which characters must dive to reach the dungeon's entrance. Guarded by a kraken-like squid monster. Room 2: An empty temple to an evil cult of Chaos, complete with regalia (clothes and documents); heroes must discover a secret exit or recreate a ceremony to open the exit. Room 3: A spirit that invites those who performed the ceremony to a ‘shortcut’ and sends those who entered without it on a longer path that features a wild dungeon monster. Room 4: An evil summoner with minions, trying to bring a summoned demon under his control. Fight! Room 5: Killing the summoner frees the demon! (Fight?)

Exercise: Using Tropes – The Cave of Doom Room 1: A pool of water into which characters must dive to reach the dungeon's entrance. Guarded by a kraken-like squid monster. Room 2: An empty temple to an evil cult of Chaos, complete with regalia (clothes and documents); heroes must discover a secret exit or recreate a ceremony to open the exit. Room 3: A spirit that invites those who performed the ceremony to a ‘shortcut’ and sends those who entered without it on a longer path that features a wild dungeon monster. Room 4: An evil summoner with minions, trying to bring a summoned demon under his control. Fight! Room 5: Killing the summoner frees the demon! (Fight?)

Tailoring Content to Players

Description

Player Types

A simple categorization of how players tend to play RPGs based on observations of the various ways by various authors:

• Glen Blacow in an article for Different Worlds #10 (Oct 1980) • Follow up article by Greg Costikian (Nov 1984) • Robin Laws' Rules of Good Games Mastering (Steve Jackson Games, 2001.

Get this book... it's still the best on GMing!) • D&D 4e Dungeon Master Guide (Wizards of the Coast, 2008)

The player types: • The Power Gamer: Get more powers and use them often and efficiently. • The Butt-Kicker: Enjoys combat and pwning NPCs! • The Tactician: Likes to beat complex situations through thought and

planning. • The Specialist: The one who always plays a <insert character type>. Ninjas

and Drizzt clones are popular. • The Method Actor: Likes total immersion in a character’s assumed persona,

whatever the costs! • The Storyteller: Enjoys exploring a story unfolding around a character’s

actions and choices. • The Watcher/Lurker: Shows up to be with friends and share the social

energies of the group. • The Instigator: Likes to make things happen and trigger awkward

situations. • The Outlier: Seeks the emotional kick of subverting a group’s dynamic by

creating weird characters or actively seeking failure.

Advantages: • Simple model to categorize players • Can help a GM to understand what players seek in a game. • Helps meta-game discussions with players.

Disadvantages: • Almost no player fit just one player type. • You can't go out and ask players for their type; most don't know.

Player Motivations

Introduced in the Dungeon Master’s Guide II (Wizards of the Coast, 2005). The elements of the game that increase a player's involvement in the ongoing campaign. The player motivations:

o Accumulating Cool powers: Enjoying the acquisition of loot/powers, planning a character many levels in advance.

o Kicking Butt: Enjoying combat for the sake of inflicting mayhem and destruction on foes.

o Brilliant Planning: Enjoying combat for the sake of winning, beating foes with brains and tactics.

o Puzzle Solvers: Resolving riddles, short puzzles or longer investigation-type puzzles.

o Playing a favorite role: Seeking the same class/themes/roles cafter campaign.

ampaign

o Supercoolness: Being a badass and be able to show it often. o Story: Seeking the range of emotions that comes from a game’s

narrative and non-crunch achievements. o Psychodrama: Seeking to explore and develop a character from an

internal perspective. o Irresponsibility: Being able to create trouble without having to deal

with real-world consequence (example: jumping off the rails and going wild!)

o Setting Exploration: Seeking new horizons in a setting and learning the lore of in-game objects, locales and events.

o Make Things Happen: Pushing buttons, opening doors and starting things regardless of the group’s wishes. Pushing the limits of the game and the gaming group.

o Competition: Matching wits against the GM and other players to ‘win’ or gain advantage.

Advantages: • Tells you what a player actively seeks in your game. • Is easier to learn by passive observation than player type • A player can display several motivations

Disadvantages: • Motivations can shift and change over time • Some players don't telegraph motivations as openly as others because they

may not know about them yet (ex: Watcher/Lurker players).

In general, I suggest that GMs try to find out what motivates each of their players instead of branding them in a specific player type. However, some groups have an easier time dealing with types than motivations. (Humans usually prefer to categorize everything.) Player types are usually an easier starting point for establishing the vaguer, harder-to-define player motivations.

Skills Needed to Use the Player Types/Motivations

Observation and Empathy

Being is a GM is already a hard enough job for most. Prepping games, reading and mastering the rules, and running the game, is more than enough for many. However, as you master the basic skills, I strongly encourage you to start observing your players as you run the game. What makes them excited? What types of scenes make them sit back and doodle on their character sheets? After my games, when the players have gone home, I take a sheet of paper and I jot down the following:

• What players liked: Two or three events, scenes, or actions that made some players excited, sit upright, and pay extra attention to the game.

• What players disliked: A few items where some players were frustrated and/or sprawled on their chairs, doodling and fiddling with their cell phones.

• Lessons learned: Based on these last two, formulate at least two things learned from the game.

After a few games, you'll see a pattern develop from the like/dislike lists and player motivations will emerge. This necessitates a certain amount of empathy and emotional detachment as players are not excited because you rock as a GM but mostly because the game hit what they are seeking as players. Similarly, you have to resist taking player frustration and apparent disinterest as a personal affront or critique of your GMing style. “Leveling up” as a GM requires you to detach yourself from your players’ reactions to the game. Part of the satisfaction of playing RPGs is hitting pockets of rising frustration, followed by cathartic release when goals are attained (occasional failure being a type of frustration). Once you start understanding what players seek and get better at weaving frustration-building challenges and satisfactory release based on player motivations, you'll derive great enjoyment from seeing a significant increase in involvement. Passive and Active listening

Player feedback is hard to get. When you come out and ask for it, usually at the end of a session when everyone is tired, you'll get grunts and vague-sounding positive feedback. Instead, listen to what players say during the game. Their flippant remarks (“I bet there's another Gelatinous Cube behind THAT door”), wild guesses (“I'm sure the Baron is behind all this”) and wishful thinking aloud (“Man it would be sweet if I could get that flaming broadsword”) are a treasure trove of passive feedback and plot hooks waiting to be tapped.

Passive listening is a very useful skill to determine player motivations; using it can give you a ton of insights on what players seek in your game. Active listening is an even more powerful tool. During a pause in play, between sessions, and though email conversations, pick up one of the things you heard the players asking or complaining about and ask open questions about it:

• Why did you think the Baron was out to get you? • You got real intense in that rules discussion; what ticked you off the most? • What do you think will happen next in the game?

Active listening is the art of asking open questions that can't be answered by yes/no and building on the responses you get to ask more open-ended questions, usually one on one. Even the most hard-crusted introverts will eventually open up to non-threatening questions that manifest a clear interest on your part in what the player cares about. While doing that, you really need to rein in your defensive reflexes. Active listening is about letting others say it like they see it. It's not about being right or having the facts clarified. After one successful session of active listening, you should have a better idea of what motivates a player in your game.

Techniques: Developing content to fit your players’ tastes

Get to know what motivates your player

Find a way to apply the previously described skills, and create a mental map of what makes your current gaming group tick. Refer to it whenever you prep for future adventures. Tailor homegrown adventures to your player types

When you write an adventure, include at least one major motivator for one (different) player in each scene. Put in fights for the Butt Kickers and tacticians. Make combat meaningful and a driver for the story for the Storytellers. Give hard moral choices to method actors and hide traps and encounters behind doors and puzzles to give your instigators a kick. Trying to hit at least one major motivation from your list per scene is a good goal; you'll often find yourself hitting more. As you grow used to the exercise, hitting motivations will become second nature. Choose/hack published adventures to include player motivations

When you want to a play a pre-published adventure, it's a good thing to chose it by taking into account your players’ motivations. As you read through the ‘adventure

summary’ or equivalent, try to picture your players going through it. If the premise of the adventure is enticing enough, but the fit with your players isn’t to your liking, fell free to hack any (or all) scenes to fit them better. Change NPCs, antagonists, or storylines to fit with your campaign and your players. Try to hit the same “one scene = one motivation” target. If I managed it with Expedition to the Demonweb Pits (80% hacked), you can too.

Examples of applying those techniques My player group (Through discussions):

• Yan: Story-driven brilliant planner with a side of cool power accumulation and setting exploration

• Math: Supercool butt-kicking power accumulator. • Franky: Story-driven setting explorer with a taste for power accumulation • Eric : Near pure butt-kicking psychodramatist • Stef: Ex-casual turning into storytelling butt kicker

Typical Adventure for my group

• 5-room dungeon/ 5-scene adventure o A campaign organization asks players for help o A context for the quest with a significant impact on the story based on

player decisions i.e : Interrupt negotiation between Guild A and Noble House B

o Fights! o NPCs with strong traits (sadistic villains, arrogant nobles) o Tough moral choices (Do we let 100 die to possibly save 10,000?)

References

• The 4 stages of a RPG team’s development (series)—Philippe-Antoine Menard (http://chattydm.net/tag/the-4-stages/)

• Robin’s Law Revisited: Part 2, Player Types and Traits—Philippe-Antoine Menard (http://chattydm.net/2008/01/23/robins-laws-revisited-part-2-player-types-and-traits/)

Exercise: Tailoring Content

Bob the GM needs your help once more. He's got quite an eclectic group and needs to design an adventure for them. Select an RPG genre and, based on the player profiles presented below, build the plan of a 5-scene adventure that will appeal to each player at least once. Bob personally leans towards Supercool Butt-Kicking Psychodrama and has a tendency to Make Things Happen when he plays, but he is adaptable, as a GM needs to be.

The Players: • Tim: A power-accumulating supercool butt kicker. • Jill: A psychodramatist thriving on irresponsibility and Making Things Happen. • Ann: Storyteller with a strong setting exploration streak. Tends to play a lot of

social-focused elves. • Steve: A brilliant-planning puzzle solver with a penchant for a good story. • Conrad: Butt-kicking Instigator. Enjoys irresponsibility. Room 1: Room 2: Room 3: Room 4: Room 5:

Essential Elements

Description

Taking your ideas and turning them into notes can be a difficult task. One of the difficulties that many GMs have is figuring out what items need to go into their session notes. If you put in too little, you may forget an important detail during the session, or spend time looking up rules. Put too much information into your notes, and you will spend far too much time writing your sessions, filling the writing process with angst and dread.

Questions

1. List things that you commonly forget to tell your players during a scene.

2. Based on the game you are playing, what types of things do you need to put in your notes for each scene?

3. What are some of the things that frustrate you when you look at your notes during a session? What things are missing that you would like to include?

4. What are you currently using to write your session notes? How is it working for you?

Skill

The skill that you need to hone in this section is to understand yourself as a GM, and identify what you need to write into your notes in order for you to be comfortable enough to run your game each time.

Techniques

Your Notes

Your notes are just that: your notes. They do not have to make sense to anyone else, nor do they have to be perfect in spelling, grammar, or structure. They do need to contain everything that you will need in order to get through each scene, and for each scene to be a success. Your notes, and the media in which you take them, are a matter of personal preference. That said, there are a few broad criteria that define good media. First, it is reliable? If you have a laptop that always crashes, you are not going to want to write your notes on it, as compared to a paper journal that never crashes. Second, you must enjoy writing in your media. If the notebook you are writing your notes in has a tough spine that won’t fully open, or pages that rip when you erase a word, that is not going motivate you to keep using it. If you do not trust the media you are using, or do not enjoy the writing experience, you are putting obstacles in your path to getting your notes written. If you are not comfortable with how you are currently writing your notes, go and explore other options. Test out different programs or types of notebooks.

Knowing What You Are Playing

Different games and different gaming styles are going to need more or less notes, so it is important to understand what kind of game you are running, and to understand more about your own GMing style. Let’s start by looking at the type of game you are running. The two things to look at are setting and mechanics. Some settings lend themselves to more improvisation and less structure. A dungeon crawl can be improvised fairly easily, as can a session of Vampire, where the focus of the game in on PC-NPC interactions. With a game that has a setting that is light, your notes do not have to be as exact. You can get the major details down, and improv the rest. These notes can be shorter in length and contain less information. With a game that contains an intricate conspiracy or a challenging mystery, it is going to be harder to improvise. In a setting like that, you are going to need to have more detailed notes, so that you make sure you deliver every clue accurately and you do not create unwanted red herrings or erroneous leads. With games like this, your notes are going to have to be more detailed, and many need to contain specific lines of dialog, or descriptions. These games are going to have longer notes, and take longer to write, because of the increased detail. Next look at the mechanics. Does your game have mechanics that make it easy to create a session? A game like Savage Worlds has very easy rules for making up NPC's and various situations. With games like that, you won't have to spend a lot of time making up stat blocks for monsters, researching spells, etc. In contrast, a game like Iron Heroes has very detailed rules that can make creating NPCs some work. In that case, besides the actual writing of your session notes, you will need to dedicate some time to creating stat blocks for NPCs and monsters. The next thing you need to look at is your own GMing style. If you are good at improvising dialog, then you do not need to put any dialog into your notes. On the other hand, if you think your spur-of-the-moment dialog is flat or clumsy, then you will want to dedicate some space in your notes to specific lines for you to use in your session.

Do It With Purpose

One common pitfall in laying out your session is to create scenes that lack focus and direction, or do not fit in well with the overall story. One way to combat that when you create your notes is to start your notes with a Purpose Statement. The Purpose Statement is one sentence that defines what will happen in the scene. If you cannot write that statement when designing your scene, then you likely do not need the scene and you should consider dropping it from your notes. Some Examples: “The heroes meet the old man at the tavern who has information about the dungeon.” “Tabris is ambushed by the Ebon Blade, while opening the gate.”

Once you have a Purpose Statement, use it as an anchor for the writing of the rest of your scene. When you finish writing a scene, go back and read it, and compare what you read to your Purpose Statement. Did your scene do what you said it was going to do? If not, go back and revise it. The Purpose Statement also serves another great purpose. When you are running your session and you start your next scene, the Purpose Statement will give you a one-line reminder of what the goal of the scene is, and help you focus.

Open It and Close It

Transition from scene to scene can be very tricky, and if done improperly can be jarring to the players. One way to ensure that your transitions go smoothly is to start your notes with an Opening. The Opening is one or more paragraphs, in your notes, that set the stage for the scene. It contains the information you need (see below) to describe the scene to your players and provide them with the element that will drive scene forward. As important as the Opening is to your notes, a Closing is equally important. Many times GMs are not sure when one scene ends and the next begins, or they forget important closing details as they are moving out of one scene into the next. The way to combat that is to have a section at the end of your notes for the closing of the scene. Describe what happens at the end of the scene, and include any mechanical notes that you need, such as treasure, healing, etc.

It's in the Details

Where a lot of GMs trip themselves up is in the details of a scene. In the heat of running a scene you always run the chance of forgetting some important detail that the players require. It could be a missed clue, an important line of dialog, etc. Once missed, the only way to get it back in is the ret-con (“retroactive continuity”), which is always jarring and awkward. One of the main purposes of your notes is to record those crucial items, so that you do not forget to convey them to the players during the session. The important details are usually not too hard to figure out, because they form the major parts of the scene. After your opening section, make sure the body of the notes contains these key points. In addition to the important details, use your notes to amplify the less obvious aspects of your game, aspects that will lend realism to each session. Many GMs fail to track the passing of seasons, or change up the weather from scene to scene and session to session. Their campaigns take place in a perpetual Spring, with all sunny skies, and light breezes! Other points that are often forgotten include descriptions of NPCs descriptions, details about the room the PCs are in, hints of upcoming events, information about what else is going on in the campaign world (otherwise known as plot hooks), etc. The addition of these small details will add a richness to your narrative.

The way to remember to include these details is to put a section at the opening of your notes for each scene, where you record the weather, date, and and any other important details. By having to fill them out each time you write a scene, you will remember to change these when appropriate.

All That Other Stuff

It goes without saying that in addition to your purpose statement, opening, closing, date, weather, and other important details, your notes will need other information as well. Maps, stat blocks, and dialog, are also going to make up your notes. Exactly what you will need for each scene is going to vary from scene to scene, by the type of game you are playing, and by your own GMing style (see above).

Build A Template

The best way to make sure your essential elements are included in every scene is to adopt a template for your notes. Depending on how you write your notes, there are a number of ways you can create a template. If you are writing your notes on your computer, you will find most programs include a way to create templates. MS Word, OneNote, and many wikis have the ability to create templates that you can use while you write. If you are hand writing your notes either on loose paper or in a notebook or journal, you can create a template on an index card and use it as a bookmark in your notes. The card will be handy when you work, and you can move it from page to page easily as you write. How you set up your template is a matter of personal style and involves some experimentation. When developing your template, think of the elements you need to include and make sure that they are all represented on the page. Then try

writing a session with your template. If you find things you don't like about the template, make changes after you finish your notes, and try your updated template the next time. In a few sessions you will find the perfect configuration that will allow you to capture all your essential elements in a way that is effortless.

References and Tools

• Session Writing – It’s All In The Notes—Phil Vecchione, Encoded Designs (http://www.dnaphil.com/2007/10/25/session-writing-its-all-in-the-notes/)

• Session Writing – Tools of the Trade—Phil Vecchione (http://www.dnaphil.com/2007/10/18/session-writing-tools-of-the-trade/)

• Using Description to Enhance Your Game—Vicki Potter, Tabletop Adventures (http://www.tabletopadventures.com/Gaming_Aids/Using_Description.pdf)

• Category: Prep – Articles on game preparation—Martin Ralya, Treasure Tables (http://www.treasuretables.org/category/prep)

• Gnome Stew – The Game Mastering Blog (http://www.gnomestew.com/)

Exercise: Essential Elements

1. What are the critical elements that you commonly forget to tell your players during a scene?

2. Based on the game you are running, is your game simple or complex? How

comfortable are you at improv when it comes to running your game?

3. What are you currently using to write your session notes? How is it working

for you? What features is it lacking that you wish it had?

4. Do you currently use a session template? If so, describe your template. If

not, describe a template that you could use for your current game.

Development Cycle Description Now that we have talked about what things we need to be sure to include in our notes, we need to figure out how to get the notes written. Many GMs come up with great ideas for their sessions, but a true Master knows how to get those ideas down into notes that can be used, without waiting for the last minute, and without stressing out. How you get your notes written is going to depend a lot on what is going on in your life and how you like to work. It will take some insight on your part, but once mastered, you will always get your notes written on time and with ease.

Questions

1. What standing commitments, outside of your game, do you have in your life? (examples: spouse, children, other games, clubs, work, activities, TV, etc.) 2. Rate the following statements with a score of 1 (not ever) to 10 (all the time): ___ I write my session notes at the last minute. ___ I like to write my session notes at the last minute. ___ The thought of writing my notes make me stressed. ___ I never know where to start with my notes. ___ I get interrupted a lot when I write my notes. 3. When do you feel the most creative? When are you the most awake? 4. What is the quietest time in your house?

Skill

Getting your session notes written is an exercise in productivity. It is not a matter of just making yourself "do it." Brute force writing works to a point, but it will bring you no joy and will make you dread writing your notes, leading to procrastination. What you want to achieve is an understanding of when the best time is for you to write, and then put yourself in front of your notes at that time. To understand your best time for writing you need to understand:

• What free time you have in a day. • The game for which you are writing. • When you are creative, and when you are not. • How to manage your writing schedule.

In order to understand these issues, you are going to need to be able to objectively look at what is going on in your life, and be honest about your capabilities and limitations. The product of this introspection and reflection is going to be a writing cycle: a schedule for when you should work on your game from the end of your last session until the beginning of your next session.

Techniques

Finding The Time

The first thing you need to understand in the development of your writing cycle is when you have time to write. Take a few moments to think about each day of the week. What kinds of commitments do you have every day? You likely have a job; is that the same time every day or do your hours differ? Are you in school? Are you married? Do you have children? What night do you run your game? How often do you run your game? Take a piece of paper and draw out your schedule for the week. Write down all your standing commitments for each day of the week. Don't be surprised at how little time appears on your schedule; most people have a lot of commitments in their lives. Once you have filled it all in, then look at the piece of paper and look for the gaps. Ideally you are looking for blocks of time, no less than an hour. Studies show that when you factor in getting your materials together, and getting your mind prepared for a task, anything less than an hour of committed work is not productive. Next, look across from day to day. Do you see any bands of time—that is, the same block of time across multiple days? Having the same time to write, each day, is helpful in that it becomes routine for you: it becomes a ritual. Humans are creatures that thrive on rituals. We naturally gravitate to ritualized behavior. By making your writing more of a ritual and less ad hoc, you are more likely to sit down each night and start writing. Now that you understand your schedule more, we can look at the factors that are going to influence what parts of your schedule will be best for writing your notes.

Know What You Are Playing

In the previous section we talked about the type of game you are playing and the type of GM you are. Take that into account when thinking about your writing cycle. If you are playing a game with a lot of detail, or with heavy mechanics, you are going to need more time to write than for a game with light mechanics, or with very straightforward plots. If you are a GM who likes to improvise more aspects of your session, then you will need less prep time than a GM who is more comfortable having all the details written out in advance.

Also, how frequently are you playing? If you are running weekly games, you are going to have a short schedule to get your notes written and will need to find prep time in nearly every day. If you are running bi-weekly or monthly, you have far more flexibility in the times you choose to write, and will have more slack (see below) available in your schedule.

Your Creative Cycle

The next factor that you need to understand is your natural creative cycle. Every person has a natural rhythm of when they have more energy and when their energy bottoms out. Understanding this allows you to choose the best times for prep from your available free time. If you pick a time to do your writing when your energy is low, you are going to have a hard time focusing and getting good material down on the paper. If you target your writing at a time when your energy is high, you will see that your notes will come naturally and without effort. There are a number of ways to map your creative cycles. One of the best I have seen is the Personal Heatmap (see references). This exercise is designed to have you map out in colors when your creative energy is high and low. It is a worthy exercise to complete, as it will not only work for your session notes, but help in all other areas of your life. If you don't have time to do the full heatmap exercise, then just think of the times when you are the most tired. It could be at a certain time of the day, say 3pm each day. It could be based on another activity, such as the hour after you get off from work, no matter what time you work. Then think of the times when you are most awake. Are you someone who wakes up before dawn and gets in a workout before heading to work? Or are you a night owl, whose best hours are after most of your neighborhood is asleep? These peaks are the axis of your creativity cycle. It is not too hard to figure out; it only requires some introspection for a few days, and then it will be clear when your energy is high and when it is low. Once you have an understanding of your creative high and low points, you want to leverage that information when doing your session writing. Look back at the piece of paper with your free times on it, overlay your creative cycle, and look for those free times when your energy is its highest. Those times are the best times to do the really “creative” parts of your session prep: coming up with dialog, writing descriptions, determining the transitions between scenes. If you can avoid doing any of your prep during your low points, do that, but if you have to do some work during your low points, then save the grunt work for those times. Use your creative low points for things like transcribing stat blocks for monsters, rolling up treasure, using a random name generator to make up names, etc. By understanding your own creative energy you can avoid writer’s block and other mental obstacles that often make session writing feel so tedious.

Managing Your Schedule

The last factor in the development of your writing cycle is time management. You want to plan your session prep times in a way that you provide yourself not only

enough time to sit and write your notes, but enough time to finish them when the inevitable distractions come into your life. In project management circles this is what is called Slack. Events of your real life are going to occur when you are writing, or want to be: friends are going to call, someone is going to IM you, you are going to get stuck late at work, etc. You want your writing cycle to have enough slack built into it that when those things happen, you can skip a writing session or two and still have enough time to finish your notes. Many frustrated GMs get into a time crunch. They have the best intentions for writing, but every time they sit down, something comes up. Having Slack in your cycle is going to give you a cushion, but you are also going to have to exercise some personal commitment to the process. There are going to be times when you don't want to write, and you have used up your slack. In those times, the only way that your notes are going to get written is by personal willpower. There is nothing fun about it: sometimes being a GM means work, but as a GM you have made a promise to your players to deliver a session, so sometimes you have to put your head down and get some writing done. To help avoid that feeling of work, break down your notes into small, manageable blocks of time. Don't try to write all your notes in a four-hour block on a Wednesday evening. Instead, try breaking up your writing into four one-hour blocks that you do from Sunday through Wednesday. A one-hour block is a special amount of time. As said above, anything shorter is not productive. Also, a one-hour block is fairly easy to re-schedule. If you can't write at your normal time, picking up an hour later in the day is not that hard to do. It also avoids burn out, which can occur with longer writing blocks.

Time Savers

The final technique is to look for ways to save time when putting your notes together. Any way you can save time on your writing is going to speed up your cycle and take stress off of you. There are many places you can save time in your writing. Here is a short list of some useful techniques that will help you get your notes written faster:

• Create a template for your session notes (see previous section) • Use an online random name generator for making up NPC names • Find free maps online and use them rather than drawing them • Use a Weather web page to make up the weather descriptions • Use supplements that provide lists for treasure, descriptions, etc. • Recycle stat blocks. Your players will not know that the NPC from three

weeks ago was recycled into this week’s NPC, with a different description. Pick the time savers that eliminate the parts of the session prep you find the most tedious. If you don't like making maps, find them online. If you are always writing the same things down for your session notes, create a template. By making the more tedious parts of your session prep more automated, you can avoid that feeling of dread each week as you put your notes together.

Putting It Together

Now that you have reviewed all of the factors that go into your writing cycle, it is time to put them together and create your own writing cycle. Let’s look at how they all go together:

• What kind of free time do you have? — This is going to show you when you could be writing your game.

• How often are you playing? — This will determine the how long your cycle can be.

• What kind of game are you running? — Does your setting require more or less prep time?

• What kind of GM are you? — Will you need more detailed notes to be comfortable, or will you improv more and use sparser notes?

• What is your creative cycle? — Target the times you write to the times when you are most creative; use the less-creative times for more mundane activities.

• Create slack in your schedule. — If you need a week to write your notes, give yourself ten days.

• Motivate yourself. — Remember, you have made a commitment to your players; use that knowledge when you need to motivate yourself into writing.

• Automate the repetitive or boring parts of your notes. — Find or build tools to eliminate the parts of session creation that you find most tedious.

Your cycle will need to contain at least two parts: Brainstorming and Execution. That is, you need to have time to generate ideas for future sessions, be it the next session or three sessions down the road. Then you have to schedule time for Execution—doing the actual session prep and getting your notes ready for the upcoming game. Depending on your frequency of play, you may have to be more creative with your time. If you are running weekly, you need to be generating ideas for upcoming adventures while you are writing the current week's adventure. If you are playing bi-weekly or monthly, you will have time to have separate brainstorming and execution activities. The hardest part of the process is going to be determining how much time you really need to prep your notes. There is no magic formula for this. The best thing to do is pick an arbitrary amount of time, like 1 week. Try writing your session over the course of a week. If you get to the end of the week, and you have a lot left to write, or you felt very stressed or rushed in finishing within the week, then give yourself some more time the next time you write. On the other hand, if you get to mid-week and your notes are done, then feel free to shave a day or two off and tighten up your cycle. You will know when you have found the right cycle, when you reach the end of your writing time (how ever long you have given yourself), and your notes are done, and you do not have that feeling of stress or dread. You had a few interruptions during

your cycle, but you were able to make up the time or use up some of your slack without getting into a crunch. It will take a few tries, but you will find it.

References and Tools

Here are some references that look at productivity and the creative process:

• Personal Heatmap (http://www.productiveflourishing.com/how-heatmapping-your-productivity-can-make-you-more-productive/)

• Lifehacker.com (http://lifehacker.com/) • Time Management for Creative People—Mark McGuinness

(http://wishful.fileburst.com/creativetime.pdf) • The War of Art—Stephen Pressfield

(http://www.stevenpressfield.com/books/war_art.asp) • Session Writing- Taking It One Step At A Time—Phil Vecchione

(http://www.dnaphil.com/2007/10/12/session-writing-taking-it-one-step-at-a-time/)

• Categorizing RPG Prep—Frank Filz (http://welcometofranksworld.blogspot.com/2006/03/categorizing-rpg-prep.html)

Exercise: Development Cycle

Meet Steve. (See the following page.) Consider these factors and develop a writing cycle for Steve.

• How often does Steve play? • What kind of game does he run? Does the setting likely require more or less

prep time? • What kind of GM is Steve? (Make something up, or give options for different

styles.) • What kind of free time does Steve have? • What is his creative cycle? • Is there slack in his schedule? • How can Steve use templates to speed up his preparations?

Group Exercise:

Meet Steve, the GM. Steve has a busy schedule which includes working nights at a data center, martial arts, and being active in his church. He has a wife and two children, and dedicates time to his family. Steve runs a Star Wars d6 game bi-weekly, on Friday nights. Steve has not yet developed a normal schedule for writing his session notes, and has been very stressed in getting his notes written for each game. Below are Steve’s schedule and a personal heatmap of Steve’s creativity (red most creative…green least creative).

Time Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

Time Heatmap

12:00 AM

12:00 AM 1:00 AM

1:00 AM

2:00 AM

2:00 AM 3:00 AM Work Work Work Work Work

3:00 AM

4:00 AM Sleep

4:00 AM

5:00 AM

5:00 AM 6:00 AM

6:00 AM

7:00 AM

7:00 AM 8:00 AM Sleep

8:00 AM

9:00 AM Church Service

9:00 AM 10:00 AM

10:00 AM

11:00 AM Sleep Sleep Sleep Sleep Sleep

11:00 AM 12:00 PM Sleep

12:00 PM

1:00 PM

1:00 PM 2:00 PM

2:00 PM

3:00 PM Family Time

3:00 PM

4:00 PM

4:00 PM 5:00 PM

5:00 PM

6:00 PM Church

6:00 PM 7:00 PM Family Time Martial Arts Martial Arts Service

7:00 PM

8:00 PM Girl Scouts Game Night

8:00 PM 9:00 PM

9:00 PM

10:00 PM Quality Time Quality Time Quality Time Quality Time Quality Time

10:00 PM 11:00 PM Work Work Work Work Work

11:00 PM

Steve needs 6 hours of brainstorming and 8 hours of writing. Referring to the questions on the previous page, develop a writing cycle for Steve.

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