Rich’s No Prep Week (the old prep)
By Orklord on Jan 16, 2010 in GMing, Plans & Schemes, Rich's Journal
My horizon of games for this week have no prep requirements.
My Monday night Savage Worlds game is on hold as a player will be missing and we’ve agreed to gather and play board and video games and hang out instead. I’m happy to do this with the group, we had a blast last time we did this. I’ve got the basics for the next session ready to go, although I’ll sift through the thoughts in my head as the week goes by.
My Wednesday night Skype game is gathering to prep MapTools and make sure we can all synch up, then we’re going to do a pitch session to set up a 5 “episode” series of Primetime Adventures. Other than boning up on the rules, there’s nothing I can do before the game begins because the setting and characters and premise are all developed during the pitch session.
So my week looks prep light. GM prep is a kind of lonely fun I enjoy. I’ll fill in the gaps by noodling over what I might run at MegaCon. Daniel Perez, our very own Arnold Cassell and Jarad, a player who I played OD&D twitter with once are all talking about going. In truth, I’d be happy to just show up in Orlando and run and play games with these guys. But its also an opportunity to bring some indie RPG love to a pretty big con that has very few RPGs. Plus, it is close and not too expensive.
I’m also writing this post on game prep.
Wanna hear more about how I prep? Check out after the cut…
How do I prep? The answer has changed over the past ten years. As a college student with tons of free time, I had about a 2 to 1 ratio of prep to game. since I ran 10 hour game sessions every Saturday, that meant I had a part-time job as a GM. Funny to think of it that way.
My college GM prep involved primarily creating my “one sheet”, which including the following info:
- a list of days that would be part of the night’s stories, usually a week ahead of it (in case the PCs lollygagged), listing the sunset and sunrise for the Vampire PCs and phase of the moon for the Werewolf PCs, all of which I obtained from the Naval Observatory Sun and Moon Data website
- a Cast List, where I listed the PCs involved and detailed each NPC I planned on using with a sentence about their current state and goals
- a brief review of any interesting details from the Almanac for the dates (I set my games up to 3 to 5 years in the past so I could have some real-life events to tie into the game, but I never let real-life canon overrule player actions)
- a bulleted outline of game events, most of which were modular in design and not tied to a specific place or time (meaning things like: “NPC A wants to get revenge on NPC B for doing blah, NPC A approaches the PCs to ask them to do blah)
- after each event, have possible reactions by faction to the event, meaning that each political group would change based on the event and then I could more easily have follow-up conversations with players as a result of their action or inaction
- For each event, I scored it, meaning I had a track listing for the CD or the MP3 names for later when I had a laptop
- Lastly, I had my fallback options, which was either a list of rumors they could overhear or alternate events that I could run if the players avoided the events of the game
Other prep work I did including many of the following items:
- working on accents, which included watching movies where I got the inspiration of the NPC and fast-forwarding to their scenes and mimicking the character
- updating my geocities website for the game so players had up-to-date information; it also gave me a chance to review character histories to make sure I wasn’t letting a halo effect color how an NPC would perceive things or act
- creating and updating relationship maps based on recent events or upcoming ones
- designing maps of set pieces on graph paper (naturally)
- cruising online for character or place pictures that I could hand out in game
- reading through rules and splatbooks for the game to mine new ideas for antagonists or plotlines
- talking to players or exchanging emails to find out what their next moves would be
- look for ways to introduce props, from things used by NPCs to physical objects to give players in game (audio tapes, maps, a wallet, whatever I could bring to the table)
As you can see, this was a ton of work. The flavor of the game was dense as a result, but that 20 hours of prep was unbearable as I graduated and had other duties to perform… like working a full-time job, taking care of a house, being a good husband and dad.. you know, the adult stuff. 
What did I get out of it? Well, seven years of a Vampire campaign with moments that we still talk about ten years later, a two year long Werewolf game that I rank as one of my crowning achievements as a GM. all of this was very fulfilling for me at the time. But there is a time sink cost to it.
Next, I’ll chat about my GM prep habits nowadays.
You and I need to play Vampire together, for old time’s sake.
Daniel M. Perez | Jan 17, 2010 | Reply
dooooon’t tempt me!!!!
Orklord | Jan 17, 2010 | Reply
I’m serious dude. I did the whole multi-year Vampire chronicle thing as well. It’d be interesting to tackle that game again with all the techniques we know now.
Daniel M. Perez | Jan 17, 2010 | Reply
…tempting… but how?
Orklord | Jan 19, 2010 | Reply
That we’d need to figure out. But, you know, we can put it on the list.
Daniel M. Perez | Jan 19, 2010 | Reply
hey… what if we did a Vampire-style game, but used Dresden Files RPG rules and setting to scratch that itch? I’d be really down for that.
Orklord | Jan 21, 2010 | Reply
Color me intrigued.
Daniel M. Perez | Jan 21, 2010 | Reply
FWIW, that thing I said the other night about having no interest in playing vampires … if you’re talking Dresden-verse vamps – that changes things considerably. I could have fun as a White Court vamp. Possibly even a Red Court vamp under the right conditions.
Mick Bradley | Jan 23, 2010 | Reply
@Daniel – now it is only the questions of how and when… very cool.
@Mick – rock on, sir! Very exciting to see some interest. I figure vamp court intrigue and some noir investigations could scratch several itches simultaneously.
Orklord | Jan 23, 2010 | Reply
Just throwing this out there:
I’ve only read the first 4 DF novels, so my knowledge of the setting is still very much incomplete. I’d be down for a VtM game using the DF language, or a DF vamp game as long as it used the same style of VtM (which Rich already distilled in replying to Mick right above this). I’d totally be down for playing this.
I’d still also be totally down for playing actual VtM/tR just to see how that car moves with a more-experienced me as driver.
Daniel M. Perez | Jan 24, 2010 | Reply
If you asked me to clarify what I think the thematic difference is between WoD vampires and Dresdenverse vampires in terms of what could be explored in play, I admit, I’d be unable to articulate it. The only appeal a Dresden vamp has for me is that it is Dresden & Fate.
In general, I have no thematic interest in vampire stories. The archetypal metaphors that those stories tend to represent have been explored so much that I just don’t socket into them. Sexy-cool brooding loners who are also the ultimate Machiavellian power-trippers … yeah. Doesn’t grab me at all. I guess it’s because I AM a sexy-cool brooding loner in real life, but I have no manipulative skills or talents whatsoever, and I have a hard time trusting anyone who does.**
Anyhow, it occurs to me that there really isn’t much difference between vampires – thematically speaking – in WoD and Dresden. I tell myself I’d play Dresden because its a setting I like and a system I love. But really, the notion of being a vampire and exploring the issues that vampires tend to explore holds no real appeal to me in either case. But I can socket into other stuff in Dresden and make it work, is what I’m saying.
Of course, I don’t have to be involved in everything you guys play.
**Totally different conversation, but Daniel, I think this is at the core of why Naomi beat the snot out of Arkham, and why in PTA Star Wars, a confrontation between your recalcitrant Jedi and my wookiee messiah is very likely. I interpret both your characters as manipulative untrustworthy serpents playing both sides. I’m not saying that’s what you were actually trying to do – but it is for whatever reason the way it came across to me. There’s probably something worthy of exploration here. I apparently have trust issues of various kinds that color my play.
Mick Bradley | Jan 24, 2010 | Reply
@Mick
There’s two different, and worthy, conversations in here.
Vamps – I’d have to disagree that the themes have been explored so much. A lot, yes, but IMO they usually fail to really dig into the archetype of human nature represented, i.e. the the evil that men do (among others). Especially lately, where we have sparkly emo vampires by the dozen, I find poignancy in going back to early 90s goth-fueled Vampire: The Masquerade to re-explore the themes of alienation from reality, the beast that must survive, and fading humanity, in large part because when I played Vampire during those years I never really got to do so. Vamps were blood-powered superheroes with annoying interludes to deal with. When I ran it for my friends, I tried to infuse the true personal horror, and even then I pulled back many times because I didn’t have the tools to effectively deal with those issues, let alone force someone else to do so. I’m 10-15 years older than when I played those games; I’ve been through shit; I find interest in going back down that road now that I know what driving a 4×4 feels like.
Janus-type Characters – Oh man, this is good stuff that I hadn’t really thought of consciously but that rings entirely true. Yes, both of those characters are playing both sides, and both times it happened without a conscious decision to do so, just organically as the characters were revealed to me in my mind. Maybe it is the fact that in reality I am a 100% follow-the-right-path kind of guy that drives me to explore the moral gray limbo I shy away from. Maybe there’s a latent desire to be like that in real life curtailed by upbringing and religion. Maybe I just like shady characters. I don’t know, in all honesty, and that fascinates me. I need to chew on this a bit.
What I’ll throw out there is that, even if I display this morally-gray draw, at least so far, each of them has gone into the dark in order to help the light on the other side.
And not to play before we play PTA Star Wars, but I’m very much looking forward to someone calling me out on that Light/Dark line-riding, though I don’t know that someone that will truly have the effect will be Kashyyk. Then again, we won’t know until we play.
Daniel M. Perez | Jan 24, 2010 | Reply
You guys got me to wax poetic on the subject of Vampire. Enjoy.
http://www.dmperez.com/2010/01/28/vampire-and-my-humanity/
Daniel M. Perez | Jan 28, 2010 | Reply
@Daniel – cool thread, I went over and replied (a brief one).
Orklord | Jan 28, 2010 | Reply