Organization

 Organization is something I've slowly progressed from loathing to loving as I've grown older. Up until fairly recently in life I did, and could, almost literally keep all the relevant details for games I was running in my head. I could do the same for work. As time went on, and the amount of stuff I wanted to keep in my head increased, that kind of broke down. This has led to the very real problem of having to learn how to take notes, track notes, and organize those notes along with NPCs, locations, maps, pictures, and all that on top of things.

In a lot of ways this has been as frustrating as when I realized part way through majoring in Japanese in College that I had no studying skills because up until then, I had simply never needed to study. I don't say this as a brag, but as a pointer that I am very much in the early stages of my 'getting organized' journey, and that that is ok. Life throws a lot at all of us. You juggle it as long as you can, but then you need somewhere to keep things because you can't juggle all the things all the time.

Also, if you've been holding back, I've also found this: I'm happier the better I get at keeping things organized. This is true in my games as well as in my life. My mind is more free to handle things because I don't need to keep 80 things in mind all the time. They have a place to go, and I can grab them when I need them.

That said, let's talk about organization and your game.

Making NPCs for Intrigue

Sometimes you want the game to go along a more social avenue than straight combat. Sometimes the PCs end up in a place where everyone is a chessmaster, or a wanna-be chessmaster, and you need a quick way to track them all so that when your PCs look into things you know how to go.

Like with so many things, I find having a template that distills the character down to the core things I need to have on hand works well here. And for intrigue we need to know a few things, but none so important as what it is the character is actually aiming for - in the long run - and what levers exists to try and budge or move them.

"Making" A Game Session

I've been reading Adam Savage's "Every Tool's A Hammer: Life Is What You Make It." I took the book recommendation from a John Roger's tweet thread I've linked before about using notebooks. I figured I could use more non-fiction in my life, and I could definitely use more organization, and if the book helped John Rogers maybe it could help me. I'm not sure if it has yet or not, I'm still in the process of trying to create some good/better habits for myself. However, reading about Adam Savage's making process definitely got me thinking about GMing and creating sessions.

In my opinion, there is a lot similar between "making" something and running a game. The tools and results may be different, but at the end of the day you are making a creative work, and doing it on a deadline too. Which means the same order of operations can work for creating a session. Let's break down what that could mean.

Must. Should. Could. - Scene Preparation

I wanted to continue the conversation we started yesterday around "Must. Should. Could." and how it is used for preparation. Today instead of looking at a whole session, I want to focus on a single scene. In this way we'll be focusing our answers to these questions in answers that take only one or two lines at most. The idea isn't to use this to necessarily plan out the whole scene, but rather to establish our goals for what we want to convey the scene and how it fits into our game and our overall campaign.

Must.Should.Could - Planning A Session

I ran across these three words randomly reading about how John Rogers uses notebooks to organize his life and plan things. In part of the thread he talks about how when planning his week/month he breaks it down into three questions: Must Do, Should Do, Could Do. He further explains he only puts 3-5 things in each, because otherwise he's making a To Do list not a plan.

Those words have stuck with me since. So much so it made me realize that with all the craziness in the world I forgot a Must (post for Monday! Sorry!). But it also got me thinking about how these questions in a sense are also a great way to organize preparing for your weekly/fortnightly/monthly session of gaming.

The Benefits Of A Second Pass

Most GMs I know tend to prepare session to session. It's a little like living paycheck to paycheck, just for your RPG. Yes, you may know the general overarching plan of what is supposed to go on. You may know the NPCs, their motives, etc. However, you don't have the specifics for a session planned until the days before that session happens.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this.

The nitty gritty details of  session preparation is best done before the session. How else are you supposed to know what happened in the previous session you need to follow up on, or have a read on the general mood and events going on? If you plan a session several weeks in advance, you could have any number of variables that will throw that plan out of wack. So why put in the work if you are just going to have to redo it?

My answer to that is the benefits you can get with the ability to do a second pass on the material.

For example, for my previous session of one of my games I planned out a whole beginning for the adventure the PCs are setting out on. The PCs then decided they wanted a shopping session, and ran around a city buying goods and getting set up. We ended the session with the PCs just arriving where I expected the session to more or less begin. Which is great with how weird schedules are right now, because it more or less means my prep for the next session is already done.

So what am I doing this week to prepare?

Session Summaries

With the newer of my two campaigns I've started keeping session summaries. I write these summaries after the session - usually a day or two later but I should do it faster - while the  session is still fresh in my mind. I don't go over everything from the session, but do write down the important things that happened in the session, along with the names of any NPCs that were introduced or referenced in an important way.

I have found that doing this, helps a lot with keeping track of what is going on in the game. Without having to delve through a bunch of different documents for different session prep notes, and associated note pages to see what actually happened or was executed upon, I just have to read a few paragraphs and I'm back up to speed on the past several sessions and what direction things were going.

This is especially helpful for me. I've joked before that my memory is like a room full of filing cabinets. If the cabinet is closed, I remember very little. Then with some prompting though I can usually find the right cabinet. At which point, once I have that i remember more and more about the subject. This is particularly helpful with games where it is more recovering the thread of thought going into the session and where I wanted to go.

As my games move to being online, and I have a discord channel with chat channels dedicated to the games, I'm debating extending this further to posting my summaries to the chat. This way everyone can see what I have for the 'official' recap, and add their own. The competition with this, is I've long used a session recap from the player perspective to get everyone back into the game.

Still, it is something to consider.

How To Prep When You Don't Know What Is Going To Happen

It happens on occasion to the best of us. One session ends at a solid closing, but doesn't leave enough time to transition into the next thing. You're going into the next session without a guide. Sure, the players have goals, but which goal are they going to pursue next? Yes, there are things going on in the world, but what is going to happen close enough for the PCs to do something about it and which is going to actually draw their attention? It's a weird gray area. A limbo if you will. You can't prepare too far in any direction, because simply put you don't know which direction the PCs are going to go.

For some reason it is a situation I find myself in fairly frequently, or so it feels. As such, I've developed a couple steps to help when that happens.

Three Questions for Self-Coaching & Improvement as a GM, Player, or Just In Life

We've talked a bit about improving our skillsets or ourselves as GMs and players. The fun thing about topics like this is they are universally applicable. The process used to actively review oneself and try to improve oneself in one area will work with little to no tweaking in another. Today I want to touch on this a bit more with three questions you can ask yourself to help you in finding a path to your goal.

Make A Puzzle/Obstacle, Not A Solution

One of the things I did as a younger GM was make solutions to the obstacles I was putting in front of my PCs. As I grew in experience I made multiple solutions. Both the singular solution and the multiple solutions suffered from the same two core problems: 1) they were more obvious to me than to anyone else because I knew everything about the puzzle as I made it. 2) They were more obvious to me because they came from how I think and how /I/ would approach the puzzle.

When it comes to running a game you can't count on either #1 or #2 not being a problem. Quite the opposite, your players won't know everything about a puzzle, and they almost definitely will not approach it the same way you would because not only do they not have all the information...they aren't you.

In my more current games I tend to not design a solution at all - with one exception I'll get into below. Instead I make the obstacle, and I ascertain that the obstacle is actually surmountable. Then when I present it to my players, I wait for them to come up with a solution that should work and we go with that.

This doesn't mean that I just go with the first solution, or that they are definitely set to get out. But if they come up with a solution that sounds cool, sounds reasonable, or involves a significant sacrifice to get out I'm able to go with it and reward them for it. If they don't approach the puzzle in a reasonable way, or what they say sounds like it wouldn't work, than it doesn't go forward.

Why Do I Do This?
The reason I do this is simple. When you make a solution to a problem it is then easy to discount all other solutions. The made solution becomes the only way to solve the problem, and no other idea will be entertained because you have a solution in mind. This is a huge problem when you combine the #1 and #2 problems I mentioned above. Your players don't have all the information, and they probably don't think exactly like you, so the trail of clues you think is obvious might not even register as relevant data for them.

However, by making sure the problem is surmountable/beatable, you're not married to those ideas. The obstacle has weaknesses. Those weaknesses can be exploited. Dice rolls can be used to point PCs at those weaknesses.

Specially Built Traps
This also doesn't mean that a specially built trap doesn't protect against certain approaches. If the PCs have a reputation of punching through walls, it makes sense a trap built for them is going to be designed so you can't just punch through it. Same with a trap made for a known-teleporter could have some means of preventing teleportation as part of the obstacle. There is a difference between denying individual common solutions, and making a specific solution for a problem.

The Exception
The exception to this approach comes under a specific situation: what does the person who made the trap do if they have to come through here? This is a good one to have for dungeons and bases. Those death traps to stop the PCs, how do the people who belong there get through without being eviscerated by it?

This doesn't have to be an actual solution to the trap. For example, in a dungeon I built all the super dangerous traps were around corners that led to dead ends. Anyone who belonged in the base knew to not go around those corners, and had no reason to go around those corners. Intruders though trying to find their way around the base just saw that the corridor continued another 20' then took a sharp left before extending another 60-120 feet of bare walls.

It is also possible in a magical or more technological setting that the people who belong have some kind of device that disables traps around them. This is something the PCs can use to their advantage in a number of ways. Or it could just be that the monsters/guards know where not to step to trigger traps - which also means observing them can be used to get around traps.

No one wants to be killed by their own death trap though. So there's going to be some way to avoid it...even if it is just "don't go through that door. Ever."

Running Multiple Games

Running one game is a lot of work. Running multiple games is even more work. It is also a situation I find myself in quite often, and quite often by choice. I'll admit to being a bit of an addict, but at the same time when there are things you want to see happen in games sometimes you have to run them yourself. Today though, I want to talk about a few things that helps when you find yourself GMing for more than one game.

Preparing For Session 1

A first session of a campaign can be a very interesting thing. Few sessions have me as anxious in a campaign than the first session, because a solid first session can set the tone and pace for a game that will carry for a good, long while if not the entirety of the campaign. My personal anxiety over session 1 is helped by how awful I am at beginnings. Still, it always helps to be prepared.

What Is At Stake?

What are the stakes of your story? What are the stakes of any given encounter? Do your players know? Do their characters? Do you?

Having a clear eye on the stakes is important. To quote Mastiff Press and their new game Lancer:

It’s important to start a mission with both a goal and

some stakes established. Not only does this give the

characters clear motivations for why they’re

embarking on a mission, but it also sets up the

possible consequences of failure and allows the GM

to push harder if that should come to pass – after all,

you knew what the stakes were!

How I Set Up My Notes For The Next Session

I'm always looking for better ways to take notes. I'm always looking for better ways to prepare for a session. It occurs to me that if I am always looking for those ideas, that other people may be too. And while I am not so arrogant to think I have my shit together, everyone is at a different place in their journey and maybe my setup could help. So with that, today I want to go over the basic set up for my session preparation notes.

Three Questions For Building Encounters

When planning encounters it can be easy to get lost in the details or lack thereof. It is very easy to make a combat just for the sake of being a combat. Why are there 3 wyverns and an undead warlock? Because that would be a challenging fight for the PCs. Alternatively, your story and situation gets to be so big that you can't suss out the simple aspects needed for an encounter.

Today I have three questions to help you when making an encounter. If you can't answer all three, you may want to relook at your encounter.

You Can Let The Player's Drive The Action Sometimes

When prepping for a game session there can be a lot of pressure on the GM to have stuff for everyone to do. It's pretty much the focus of all session prep advice: how do you prep what to do for the session? And with certain plots you have to make it so they come to the player's attention, entice them to take them, and then know where they go.

However, that isn't how it always has to go. You can let the player's drive the session. And in fact, it can be a good idea to do so on occasion. Today I want to talk about how that works.

Raising An Army

Unless you're a necromancer, or something like the Geth in Mass Effect, there is more to raising an army than just building troops. And if you're running a game where things are getting political, it can be good to know what types of armies may be in play. After all, politics can turn to war very quickly. So today I want to talk about a few considerations to keep in mind when looking to building armies for your game.

Preparing To Improv

Some sessions you know what is going to happen next. The players left off about to start the climactic battle, or you left with them entering a city for plot items and quest progress. Maybe you're just starting something new. The point is, you have a good idea of at least what the majority of the session is going to be. Sometimes though, you don't have a clue what is going to happen. When walking into those sessions it can be near impossible to prepare properly. After all, the game could go anywhere. Instead, you need to prepare to improv.

When You Need A Setting For Game Quickly...

I recently found myself in need of a setting for a game. My brain went a little crazy, started building a world, and then built itself into a corner it couldn't get out of. Bad news that, and not worthwhile for what is likely going to be a glorified one shot. Today I started fresh on the problem and came up with a much more reasonable solution. Once complete, I had a full setting I could use for one adventure or beginning a whole game. Even better, it had adventure seeds already built in.

Step 1: The Random City Generator
I've really grown fond of this random city generator by Watabou. You can have it give random parts of city, choose a size for the city, and let it go. I tend to not use the names for the city preferring to go with one of my own creation, or from something like Donjon's Random Town/City Generator.

Once you have a map and a name though, you're ready to go on to step 2.

Step 2: Six Facts About The Setting
To start off we're going to define six facts about the setting. We are only defining six facts, and we are defining six facts. However, since we're defining only six facts, you want to focus them on things that make the city unique, or that are otherwise needed to ground yourself in the setting.

Also remember, these are facts about the setting and not about what is going on in it. So your city has a King that is chosen by lottery goes on here, but not the plot to assassinate the current king to have another lottery. That comes later.

Step 3: Six Truths About What Is Going On
In fact, it comes now.

Once you have the six facts about the setting, it is time to define six things about what is going on. These can be anything, but they should be basic enough to be public knowledge. The six things don't have to be, and in fact shouldn't be related to each other. Try to hit a breadth of topics. They should be strange happenings, things people might comment on. More to the point, they should be tied to potential adventures - and multiple truths even if they appear different can be tied to the same adventure.

That's It
Once you have that, you're more or less all set. You have a setting, you have some interesting facts about it to ground you in the world, and you have events to build adventures off of. The rest is just fleshing some of those ideas out and seeing what your players go for.

Aguila City

Six Facts About The City

1. Aguila City is named for “The Aguila”, a pirate ship that sought safety from a terrible storm on the coast. The captain started a settlement (more of a hideaway) and over the course of a century it grew into a city.

2. Aguila City has a proud history of being a “City of Crime” or a “City for Criminals” but while its early days were quite chaotic, things are much more civilized these days. At least, on the surface.

3. Aguila City is ruled/led by a group known as The Silent Council. It is not public knowledge who is on the council, but it is said to be a council of 5, 7, 11, or 13 powerful people in the city.

4. The city sits in the shadow of two colossal statues that were there when The Aguila first came ashore. They are both of male warriors and are referred to as “The Brothers” or “The Left Brother” and “The Right Brother.” Time is told by saying where the sun/moon is in relation to the brothers (i.e. an early morning gathering could happen before the sun reaches the right brother’s spear.)

5. Aguila City has three large temples, one to Oma (NE Goddess of the Sea), one to Mannan mac Lir (LN God of the Ocean), and one to Huros & Tempos (CN, Twin Gods/Goddesses of Storms.) It is customary for captains to make donations to all three before setting out on a voyage.

6. The city guard are known as The Staves for the 6’ staves they carry while on duty. They further identify themselves with blue tunics, helmets, and/or armbands while on duty. There is also the Silver Masks who have a higher authority and serve directly under the Silent Council.

Six Truths From The City

1. Several factions - identified by colored arm bands - are vying for control of the city. So far fighting has been restricted to shadows and alleyways.

2. The past month has been incredibly hot and humid, even for the summer

3. The ‘Twin Swords Adventuring Guild’ has opened in Aguila, offering training, tools, supplies, and job opportunities for anyone willing to put it all on the line for the sake of adventure!

4. Goblins, bugbears, oozes, and other monsters have been reported in the city but not by reputable sources.

5. A circle of magi erected a tower off the docks and declared themselves the Council of Tides

6. Everyone is excited for the upcoming Mid-Summer Festival and the Balls and Parties that will happen during it.

Leave Yourself Room To Pivot

One of the more frustrating aspect of running a table top game - especially as folks get older and have more concerns going on in their life - is that life will randomly decide that the ability for 5-7 people to have the same 4 hour period available will just go away at times. Some times of year make this harder - like the holidays for everyone, and summer for people with school aged kids. There is a trick to dealing with this, and it essentially boils down to the title of this post: leave yourself room to pivot.