| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| boddynock |
Posted - 16 Jan 2007 : 17:29:06
I'm wondering how other DM's prepare for their sessions/campaigns.
If I start a new campaign I always ask my players for a good (believable) background. They get enough time to think about their characters/background and possible quests they want to do. (with quest I mean the reason why they make adventures, what they want to recieve early during their carrière as an adventurer and later on higher level. (finding your abducted child, travel back to your homeland to search your parents, destroying an nemesis, etc. During my experiences I found out that characters with a (written) background will give better roleplay sessions. Players will have more feeling with their characters and are likely to act more in character.
As a game master I switch between pre-made adventurers and self-made adventurers. I also try to switch between adventures that are more puzzles, mysteries, hack& slash & al that stuff. I have also sessions without any combat or with only one small fight. (sometimes it's the opposite depending on the adventure)
When using pre-made adventures the first thing to do is translation because we play in Dutch. Sometimes I do it on the run (not always so easy), otherwise I typ the text out in Dutch which take a lot of time  . I also make use of photo's and pictures as players hand-outs. When the party meets an important person in a town I always try to find a picture online to show my characters. Doing this, they will get a clear vision of the person. I do the same with landscapes (example: Evermoors: I printed photo's of moors on a paper, to show them the region that they travel). Other handouts can be books, small statues you have, or letters)
At the session: It happen that we use background music but that's not always a must. Occasionally I make use of "special guest players". Special guest players are persons who aren't member of our group, and plays 1 or 2 sessions a character that I gave them. You can see it as a "DM-tool" to help or impede the characters. I did this tactic 2 times: (one time an old player of my group who joined again for a session, the other time it were friends from Holland who stayed a weekend at my house). My players really liked those "special events". Of course, it's something you must not overuse. Other nice things are playing on locations. (We did it in Centerparcs when our group went on a short weekend together, or in a forest <-- yes grace and skydiver this will happen when the weather is better 
So guys it's up to you 
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| 5 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| boddynock |
Posted - 18 Jan 2007 : 13:31:29
Like you guys told, it's important to let the players decide which adventure they choose to do or what direction they want to go. Between sessions I always talk with my players to listen to what they want to do. |
| Wolf of the Dark |
Posted - 17 Jan 2007 : 04:16:06
In my homebrew campaign which is now almost 10 years old, I keep all my old calendars of parks, castles, vineyards, foreign countries and such. Those pictures help 'paint' the scenery as the players pass through it. They also help me describe particular locales that I may not have a picture of.
Something I'd like to see here on Candlekeep.com is a gallery of pix from anywhere and everywhere, that are 'themed' to places in Faerun. For instance, some pictures of the Scottish moors might be used by a DM when his players are on the High Moor; or pictures of the Oregon/North California coast could serve for the Sword Coast.
Is there anyplace in Faerun where you'd find "the white cliffs of Dover??"
Would Norwegian fjords be good scenery for the Vilhon Reach?
Has Ed posted anything about what particular places "should look like?"
hmmmm.... |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 17 Jan 2007 : 03:19:28
I tend to see if there is any kind of theme the players might want to try before we even get going. For example, if everyone wants to be hard bitten mercenaries, or if they want to be agents of a place like Cormyr, etc. Once this is established, I tend to write up e-mails for all of the players more or less outlining what their characters know about their characters and where they are from (sometimes this is more useful for the players that know the Realms, as it helps them to remember what they DON'T know).
We have a character generation session, where I use a point buy system. On top of that, I make sure and find out if the players had any other classes in mind. If they think they might multiclass into something else, we add years to their age and work out their history some more.
Hand outs are always good. Notes, decrees, maps, and sketches I try to print out for the PCs. I have a few times printed out maps or notes in the proper "script" (using some of the awesome scrips you can download here), with translations on a separate page handout.
I also print out a good number of pictures so that the PCs get a good idea what creatures or NPCs look like, especially if I don't fully trust my ability to describe them (to this day I don't think I could describe Phaerimm properly without the Valerie Valusek illustration from FR 13 Anauroch).
Once we nail down themes, where, and when, and get the player's their starting information, I go through my nice handy 2nd edition PDFs and print out any relevant pages, then put them into a binder for bringing to the game.
Also, some of this may be changing, since my lovely wife got me a laptop to aid in my DMing from here on out, but you get the jist of my setup. I have a lot of D&D minis, and I tend to use a battlemat and Paizo's tile sets in the game.
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| Halidan |
Posted - 16 Jan 2007 : 21:19:44
At the start of a campaign, I let my players know where and when we'll start the campaign (we seldom play at the cutting edge of the FR timeline and are often playing somewhere in the DR1340 - 1360's).
At that point, it's the players job not only to come up with a character background, but also to come up with a reason why their character is at the starting location. That way, I don't have to worry about comming up with a reason why a Cormyrian freesail, a Waterdeep guttersnipe and a Halfling Ghostwalker are all in a certain bar. The players have already done that for me.
I also let the players decide whether or not they know each other, and how well. Again it takes a burden off of my plate and lets the players have more freedom during character creation. If they want thier character to be brothers/lovers/rivals with another PC, then they work it out ahead of time and I don't have to worry about it.
As for the campaign arc, I don't usualy do a lot of heavy detail work too far in advance. I may have a goal in mind - like running an FR adaption of the A1-4 Slavelords modules, or having the players take part in the liberation of Daggerdale from the Zhents - but that's about it.
I then consentrate on the first adventure. Like our OP, I often use a mix of published modules and my own work. Typically, I'll start with a published module and work from there. Even with the published modules, I do a fair bit of conversions - putting FR touches into the histories of items found during the adventure and NPC's met along the way. That way, they get to see bits and pices of FR history, even if they aren't living through that moment.
I dislike railroading, so the players in my games have complete freedom to either pick up on an adveture hook or let it alone. If they want to do something other than the adventure hook, I usually just wing it for the session or drop back to material I've used before.
Sometimes those are the best sessions - like the time only three (out of eight) players showed up for a session, so the 3 PC's got involved with tracking down what happened to a stolen farmers wagon.
At the end of each adventure, one of my players will typically write up a summary of the NPC's they've met, items they've found, and rumors they've heard. That way, I can use their summaries to plot out the next adventure. |
| Mace Hammerhand |
Posted - 16 Jan 2007 : 20:25:52
Character creation is simple, I ask them what they wanna play and let them roll up their characters, handling a little info on where the characters hail from, basic stuff (leaves enough gaps for me to fill in when needed...like the one character who had gotten to know another because she was working at a party he attended and found him asleep in the egg-salad, utterly drunk)
As for adventures, in my long running campaign I plan the adventures adjusting while it runs.
In my Waterdeep campaign I hardly prepare anything, the players and characters are so unpredictable that it is almost impossible to actually run anything prepared because they *will* go off on a different path.
I love to improvise, and take known themes and twist them, or well-known scenes and alter them while keeping them the same.
In a SW game years ago I had the characters witness the Obi-Wan does the crooks in scene from Episode I, I told it in a way that about 4 days later the players began to figure out what they had witnessed.
Just to give you an example on how I run things... |
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