Tips and Tricks 3

Something I remembered today as I was rewriting my next adventure is Mind Maps and then as I moved into the other apps I use I realised that the tools of adventure writing have changed quite drastically for me these days so I thought tip number three is the tools of the trade and how I use them to write my adventures.

I have only been using these tools for a couple of years, previously I got an idea in my head, made things up on the fly and improvised a lot. Planning in the way I now do takes a lot of time but does mean I am less paniky and flustered when it comes to the game which I hope improves things for the players.

Step One - The basic Idea.

I start with a mindmap to help flesh out an idea I have had and while I am sure some of you are aware of mindmaps they are not a common piece of software outside of project management and database planning teams. (They maybe in more widespready use but I have not seen them used by anyone else)

Basically a Mindmap is a tool for helping you organise your thoughts.

Essentially it produces a tree structure that allows you to visually break down the aspects of the adventure and then move the branches around to help organise your thoughts.

An example of a mindmap is available here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_mapping

I use them for two purposes. One is a generic mindmap I use to plot out backgrounds and locations which just reminds me of all the aspects I need to think about as I create the world. Things like farming, tradegoods, terrain, maps foods etc are all broken down so I can quickly grab the info I am going to need and get it into my notes.

The second I use for planning the adventure itself, particularly for plot driven games and it helps link one thought to another and ensure that the adventure is internally consistant as much as possible.

They are not the be all and end all of adventure planning but they can work to help you recall the little details that you need to plan for.

Step 2 - Locations

Once I have the mindmap completed I start to work on the locations where the adventure will take place. The locations shape the NPC's drastically so I always plan Where prior to Who.

I tend to work best from a visual reminder so I go looking for maps of either the geographic area or in the case of my D'arbres adventures I started with a map of the village itself and grew it from there.

This is where the power of the web and Google Earth kick in. For villages, abbeys etc I use the Web for geographic area's I use the web initially and then Google Earth to get an idea of what the same kind of area would look like on earth.

Step 3 - NPC's

For NPC's I use a mixture of Viso and Excel.

I start with Viso and map out important interactions between NPC's, referring to the mindmaps to ensure I don't miss anything vital to the plot. From here I create interaction maps similar to the ones you find in White Wolf books which I use during the game to help refresh who hates who when parties are questioning people.

Once the important NPC's have been named, mapped out and sorted I turn to Excel where I have two NPC generators. The first simply creates a Name, gives them a sex, height, body shape and hair colour. This creates villages or entire area's full of names people. I tend to import these into Visio using the organisation chart wizard to group these into visable groupings.

A second Excel spreadsheet is used to produce tidy NPC's for combat purposes that I use for fight planning.

Both these Excel spreadsheets are in development and I hope to release them in the near future as companions to the charactersheets I have also helped create. If people want the Beta editions please let me know.

Mandos <Hoping that more people have things to share cos I am running out> /s

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