@Someone_Evil so i should do it like a flow chart?

@Someone_Evil so account for every single possible outcome.

There's a great balance to strike as a DM between how much to prep and how much to improvise, and you'll need to find that for yourself (I'm still working on it for me), but I would safe on the prep side starting out. From experience, busking while trying to come up with something to add isn't a great feeling

A flow chart is a great tool. I use that myself for planning out campaigns

@Catofdoom2 Good luck with that one! Your players are likely to find ways to create unplanned-for outcomes

@Someone_Evil could you possibly send me a flow chart maker?

@Upper_Case i fully away of players and how they'll always do the unexpected.

I personally prefer pen and paper (getting an A3 sheet is lovely if you can)

@Upper_Case humans are already one of the most random variables but when its a player its even more random

But you still have a hook, and that hook leads to a few likely courses of actions (too much plural?). For those, what can they encounter when they engage with them? What further hooks, clues can they be fed and what to that lead to?

And in my experience, if you know what it's going towards you can much more easily shift those around to something you had to improvise, without setting up dead ends or contradictions. Or less of that, anyway

@Someone_Evil they are either running away or they're going to try to fight the thing, maybe once in awhile they'll try to help people get away

Right, and the question I'd ask myself where I the one prepping: what happens for each of those? Just having general ideas ahead of time have been a great help. That way you're fleshing out the details and needed, but you don't have to find the seed while sat at the table

@Someone_Evil well the monster will likely ignore them. if they run I'll have them run to one of 2 towns. either way they'll be attacked on the way. and if they try to help people. it's going to get emotional quick is all that really needs to be said

@Someone_Evil I'm going to delete that last message so my players don't find it. please read it ASAP

← 16 messages moved from TRPG General Chat

Let's do that instead :)

omg

It's been ages since I was invited to a chat room. This is exciting!

@Someone_Evil is this private?

room topic changed to Helping with Campaign Prep: May contain spoiler. If you are a player in Cat of doom2's campaign, please stay out. Save finding out for the actual game :) [dice] [pen-and-paper] [roleplaying]

@Someone_Evil good enough for be

me

@Catofdoom2 No, we don't use private rooms for things like this

@Upper_Case Sorry about that, didn't see your message was in there :)

@Someone_Evil so my first thought, is a kinda mini-boss or rather a boss encounter.

@Catofdoom2 So to continue with questions: What happens when it ignores them, what does that look like? How to make that not; "you can't do anything"?

Bah, then I'm a gatecrasher...

Or, attacked by what? What does that attack lead to? What do they find in either of those villages?

@Someone_Evil he'll have some kind of temple (most likely Japanese style) and he'll be a samurai and will be extremely tough. just based on where the temple is they'll be level 3 or higher before encountering him.

@Someone_Evil well I think it would be similar to how obelisk has been so far. all there attacks cannot or barely injure him

Or, you could work the other way; the hook sets up a specific big foe. Why is that attack and how do your players find out? Then, how do they stop it and what do they need to get done to do so?

and due to this he barely notices them, not that it even matters, he's been ordered to destroy the capital and will stop at nothing to do so.

Ordered by who?

that's the point

they don't know

How will they find out? What can they do to try?

for quite awhile in the game they know almost nothing of what, who, or why any of this is happening.

That's fine, but do you have a plan for how they will find out?

yes

Neat. And how to set up them getting to that?

To link this to what I was talking about earlier, that finding out is a node on the flowchart. Let's say it's an old temple of sort. If you have an arrow pointing to that with whatever reason they have for going there. Then an arrow to that starting point with what gives them that reason and so on

if they go searching for who/what sent him they'll discover a cult that's trying to release all of the gods so that the gods supposedly give them a blessing or keep them safe in some manner. they think the gods will grant there desires

And it's fine for this to have branches and for not all of them to end up being explored, or for branches to be explored non-linearly. But having such a tree means one thing leads to another and (hopefully) you don't end up with your players not having a clue what their character should be doing

@Catofdoom2 Neat, there's a cult. Then you need how they'll find them and how they can chase the cult

@Someone_Evil i already did that

And going back to the flowchart idea, if you put down disconnected ideas on it, it'll be much easier to connect it up to the rest of your ideas and that way you don't end up missing it because you never remember to send them towards it

These things are what I'd be looking for if looking at someones notes (not that I've done this a lot), because that's where the useful thoughts would be

Actually, going back to your notes; What are the plans with the homebrew spells and magic items?