Tips and Tricks 1

Tip 1. Planning.

When I started writing games, (as opposed to making them up on the fly) the method I used was to start with a really simple direct concept. There are only three or four and most games regardless of complexity use them.

Recover something. Find something. Kill something.

The bulk of adventures use these basic ideas and then flesh them out to make them interesting. As starting GM's there are not too many other base story idea's that work well. Explore something or other open ended, non focussed game concepts are generally too difficult for most new GM's to keep up the interest in players.

When you look back on the adventure you play on and GM they just about always have the same 3-4 story arcs. The trick is in how the GM presents the story and the area's and NPC's the players interact with.

Once I have the basic simple concept I map out a 9 session game. (9 sessions always becomes 12-13 once players get involved.

• Session 1. Introduction and getting to the adventure location.
• Session 2. Get basic details about adventure and discover first issue.
• Session 3. First combat to see how the party works together.
• Session 4. Greater complexity surrounding problem
• Session 5. Working towards the solution
• Session 6. Preparing final plans.
• Session 7. Main battle
• Session 8. Finish battle or deal with consequences
• Session 9. head home and wrap up.

Obviously these are scoped out more and are focused on the mission being planned. As you work through each session I would work out the requirements for NPC's and slowly the bulk of the adventure would come from those ashes.

The first one I wrote was

1. . Introduction and get players on board ship.
2. . Travel and discover strange child.
3. . Travel through lands to get to tower. (Possible bandit attack)
4. . Get through portal and discover new land
5. . Travel to tunnel annd city.
6. . Arrival fight. (Make capture attempt obvious so the party knows no-one is trying to kill them)
7. . Find out about actual assault and start planning
8. . Big assault
9. . Rescue Mage, find out what was going on. Get home.

In the end I had to add an extra bit on the end and flesh out some of the shipboard travel but it worked well in general.

So far I know of two other GM's one of them on the list who have tried this method of planning out their games with some success.