I tried out scene details for my campaign this weekend. I utilized the Theater of the Mind template because we play in-person and I use a laptop for organization to reduce paper consumption. I tried to emulate the premade encounters WOTC created and my players loved the adventure! Because this was my first use of the feature, it took me a long time. The adventure, if fully completed, would take roughly 6 hours and it took me roughly 6 hours to prep it. The actual time, due to players creatively skipping some non-essential encounters, was almost 5 hours.
PREP: I think prep took me so long because I wasn't quite sure how to organize it, yet. I was going back and forth using the premades as a reference for how to organize my own. I also think I leaned too hard on my writing instead of my improv.
PLAY: I linked each magic item, monster, and spell so I could easily reference them when they were needed and this was great. For the most part, the links in Scene Details would open a new tab which I had linked. This made referencing things easier and faster. I found it easy to navigate each scene due to not over overprepping but would've been a little easier with less overprepping.
MY REQUESTS: I want every published adventure to use this structure in Maps VTT. I would love, for example, if details from the adventures in Arcana Unleashed Deadfall were added with scene prep in the map pack. This would give the map pack a 1000% more value as it would make running the adventures practically require no prep. You could easily follow the pins on the map and then improvise the rest. Also, I would love even more drop-in encounters with scene details already added at all tiers of play. These are just fantastic!
I tried out scene details for my campaign this weekend. I utilized the Theater of the Mind template because we play in-person and I use a laptop for organization to reduce paper consumption. I tried to emulate the premade encounters WOTC created and my players loved the adventure! Because this was my first use of the feature, it took me a long time. The adventure, if fully completed, would take roughly 6 hours and it took me roughly 6 hours to prep it. The actual time, due to players creatively skipping some non-essential encounters, was almost 5 hours.
PREP: I think prep took me so long because I wasn't quite sure how to organize it, yet. I was going back and forth using the premades as a reference for how to organize my own. I also think I leaned too hard on my writing instead of my improv.
PLAY: I linked each magic item, monster, and spell so I could easily reference them when they were needed and this was great. For the most part, the links in Scene Details would open a new tab which I had linked. This made referencing things easier and faster. I found it easy to navigate each scene due to not over overprepping but would've been a little easier with less overprepping.
MY REQUESTS: I want every published adventure to use this structure in Maps VTT. I would love, for example, if details from the adventures in Arcana Unleashed Deadfall were added with scene prep in the map pack. This would give the map pack a 1000% more value as it would make running the adventures practically require no prep. You could easily follow the pins on the map and then improvise the rest. Also, I would love even more drop-in encounters with scene details already added at all tiers of play. These are just fantastic!