To everyone, thanks for your input. It looks like alot of you are similar to what I try to do. I like the "Try to plan, ready to improv" moto. I may have to steal that line. Hahaha. Now how many people build your stories based on player backstories more then running your over all arch, and tying them into the main story somehow. This is an area I'm struggling with, and would love more input on how best to do it. Also, I know what you're thinking. "Wanta be Matt Mercer". But, I would like to put out there that I ran my first game this way before I knew what CR was. Though it didn't go as well as I had hoped.
Might be worth a second question on this but happy to help. I will say that I don’t write lots down I am constantly living in my world in my head and thinking through details, throwing ideas out of re working them. I then simply put bullet points down or short sentences to prompt things.
To everyone, thanks for your input. It looks like alot of you are similar to what I try to do. I like the "Try to plan, ready to improv" moto. I may have to steal that line. Hahaha. Now how many people build your stories based on player backstories more then running your over all arch, and tying them into the main story somehow. This is an area I'm struggling with, and would love more input on how best to do it. Also, I know what you're thinking. "Wanta be Matt Mercer". But, I would like to put out there that I ran my first game this way before I knew what CR was. Though it didn't go as well as I had hoped.
In terms of writing the campaign around the players or incorporating it it is a mixture of both.
My most recent campaign I started with a blank canvas in terms of my world. I had an idea which I sketched out, I drew out a rough continent shape and then drew some borders on it. But I then didn’t make any decisions about much of the land until my players started coming to me with character ideas. At that point I make decisions like, where so tiefling come from In my world, how common are they. Where do the elves live, where do Minotaurs have a home.
In terms of my player stories, currently they are running in parrellel to the overall narriative. The focus right now is on forming the party and building inter party relationships. The party did not start formed, they came together over the first 2 sessions. That doesn’t mean I am not nudging things forward a little for instance.
The warlock, in a dream sequence, has been introduced to his fey patron, although as the player told me I left him with far more questions and no answers.
The warforged who has no recollection of how, where or why he was created discovered that the information he is seeking might be locked inside his own mind for some reason, and he might not be alone in their.
The satyr prostitute who gave me simply, I was abandoned at a brothel as a baby, I am 125 years old and don’t care who my parents are, they abbandoned me. She has been told by her “mother/madame” that actually, she was given to her, by a scared women, not her mother but someone trying to save her. she was being taken from somewhere, escaping some great threat. Her mother doesn’t know who, why she only knows that whoever her mother was she was trying to rescue her. (That reveal was done to give the player a reason for her character to leave, but also led to an amazing roleplay moment as she really reacted the way I hoped she would).
The Minotaur who’s back story was he was running away from his Russian mafia inspired family, his father is i prisoner for a crime he committed, his uncle sent him away to “keep him safe” from the rest of the family. (Yep the lion king). In fact his uncle perpetuated the whole situation and framed the player, he also has the players father and mother imprisoned. He has sent a letter home suggesting there might be opportunities in the town they are in, he doesn’t know that will trigger his uncle to send a hit squad to hunt him down and kill him (he was meant to be dead already but didn’t go to where he was told to go)
The other 4 players have all had similair glimpses into there stories.
As for the overall narriative, they will all be linked in some way to that. I have an empire on the south of the continent, Etresh. Etresh is not a a nice place, it has legalized slavery, believes in racial purity (all races are allowed but half breeds are looked down on). It oppresses and destroys the green skin, who in my world are nomadic tribes akin to native Americans and they enslaved sorcerors with a magic collar that allows them to be turned into human weapons.
The Minotaur criminal, his uncle has been promised his own nation if he supports Etresh they are working with him to overthrow the king of Kosha where he lives and then declare an alliance with Etresh,
The satyr, her mother is a sorceror slave, she managed to get her baby out from slavery sending her through a network of people who help slaves escape.
In some way each characters story will be tied into the overall narriative of the threat of Etresh, who or what is its emperor and what does it want. But I have no intention of even starting to resolve any of them until level 6 onwards, give the story and world time to breathe, to live in their heads, and give them a chance to wear their characters for a while and decide if they want to tweak anything about that backstory.
I am 95% prep, 5% improv. Because we use a VTT and I want to be quick with placing down units, I prep every random encounter before hand so I can just load up a state and 'boom' everything's already set up. My party are running through Storm King's Thunder at the moment and I wanted to give them a LOT of freedom, which meant I had to prepare all the random encounters, the occupants of every inn as well as preparing every dungeon. As I am very pro battlegrid, I also had to adapt every battlemap from the module to 5ft squares (SKT and their damn 20ft square maps...) and after being cocky, decided to roll health for and name every enemy/npc the party come across (Naming 117 pigs was fun...). I have a timeline set up that goes into rough detail the history of where we set the campaign (I've set it 10 years after The Dragon Tyranny) and the backstory of the player characters.
It would be 100% prep, but no matter how much I prepare, the party always seem to surprise me. Like when the Lawful Neutral Wizard decided to steal the poor box from a church.
I'm one of those dungeon masters who prepares for most eventualities... probably beyond what might be considered sane... but in actual games improvises a huge amount.
I write out the plans for 1-2 sessions at a time with potential chain-reactions based on what/who I predict the players might choose to interact with, I generally use a fairly simple bullet point approach so that everything is just a rough generalisation of an event. That way I can fill in how I think will fit the live situation using improv.
There are however occasionally times where I have something fairly well scripted with a bit less improvisation - e.g. dream sequences, certain locations where a player definitely must abide by set rules, interactions with NPCs that'll only discuss specific topics, etc.
An example of what some of my pre-game notes might look like, this was at the top of my notes for a previous session:
Topic: Investigating the Torched Manor
Event: Discover the Alchemist's Lair
Points of Interest: Research Notes; Journal; Materials; Equipment; Locked Chamber; Lava Pool; Ritual Circle
Potential Gains: Knowledge of major threat; Alchemy recipes; Loot; Major lore reveal; Potential leads on enemy names
Dangers: Players might mess with volatile chemicals; If players activate ritual circle, 30% chance to release evil being; Lava chamber contains strong enemy; Traps; Manor and tunnels may collapse if too long is spent inside
Completion Criteria: Players successfully find useful intel from Alchemist's Lair, collect evidence of links to corrupted nobility
Risk of Loose Ends: Creature in lava chamber may break out of lair if left alive; Others may stumble onto ritual circle if not used
In terms of how much of the plot is a planned story and how much is player backgrounds, I'm usually running games where there are multiple stories all happening at once and it is entirely the choice of the players on what they choose to pursue. There's typically at least 3 major world plots being played out, each player also has a personal storyline, then I do a lot of secret behind the scenes intermingling the plots - generally each player's backstory is link to one of the major world plots, then there are also links between backstories of the players to each other.
As an example, one player may learn that something they did in their past is partly to blame for an event in another player's backstory which resulted in that other character getting mixed up in major plot #2.
I'm personally a major prep DM. I'm writing a homebrew setting that is nowhere near done, and it currently has 72 pages of notes. I'm guessing it will have over a thousand by the time it's done.
I've waited a while to reply to this. Just to think about it.
The answer I came up with is I write up 100 percent of the content that the players need. Like npcs, the land the towns and cities. Every single npc has a life and a backstory. Everything from a frog jumping into a pond to a bird flying. Down further to what the npcs are doing each day. I write and run a living breathing world. One that's an open world.
No matter where players go and what they do they have a living world around them. After that. The story. What they do is maybe 10 percent improv. Cause while I have npcs ready to interact with the players I have no idea how they are going to decide on that intersection between them and the story.
Players live and love to adventure. It's not possible for them to go off the cuff in my games. Cause there's content that's ready for them. That's preparation. World building.
Except when they really go do something unexpected. That's where the improv comes into play. Improv doesn't last long cause it's not hard to lead players into other prepared content. Being prepared and having content for players is key for me. Having a little improv to guide players into what's prepared can be quite difficult.
So when they go way out of things then it's simple to bring them into a new area or dungeon or town or encounter.
The players run amok in the world. The world changes because of their actions. They change the world. Other towns will hear of what they've done to help or hurt others. Reputation is everything.
So yeah. The world is 100 percent created and moves with each day. Players actions will change that world. Maybe even if they've never been to a town by word of mouth and mail. Players go through the world that's prepared. How they handle the world is all improv.
Id agree with a lot of the methods people have mentioned.
I have a group of fleshed out NPCs (some without a purpose to be used if players talk to someone random), then I "know" the world to fill in gaps as they adventure. I've then planned the main plot points in broad terms but don't plan which session they'll come up in.
So probably about 60% planned 40% improv.
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All posts come with the caveat that I don't know what I'm talking about.
I'd say 60% prep, 40% improv for me. I prepare a lot, although my adventures are usually quite open in how to tackle them, which results in me having to improv a lot. I don't really run incredibly linear things. My campaign which I just ended had been entirely derailed multiple times due to my style. My final battle in my campaign, instead of being just some super mega ultra dungeon, was a gigantic war zone where my players could go to whatever of the 3 points of interest they wanted, in any order, and tackle the threats there.
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Might be worth a second question on this but happy to help. I will say that I don’t write lots down I am constantly living in my world in my head and thinking through details, throwing ideas out of re working them. I then simply put bullet points down or short sentences to prompt things.
In terms of writing the campaign around the players or incorporating it it is a mixture of both.
My most recent campaign I started with a blank canvas in terms of my world. I had an idea which I sketched out, I drew out a rough continent shape and then drew some borders on it. But I then didn’t make any decisions about much of the land until my players started coming to me with character ideas. At that point I make decisions like, where so tiefling come from In my world, how common are they. Where do the elves live, where do Minotaurs have a home.
In terms of my player stories, currently they are running in parrellel to the overall narriative. The focus right now is on forming the party and building inter party relationships. The party did not start formed, they came together over the first 2 sessions. That doesn’t mean I am not nudging things forward a little for instance.
The warlock, in a dream sequence, has been introduced to his fey patron, although as the player told me I left him with far more questions and no answers.
The warforged who has no recollection of how, where or why he was created discovered that the information he is seeking might be locked inside his own mind for some reason, and he might not be alone in their.
The satyr prostitute who gave me simply, I was abandoned at a brothel as a baby, I am 125 years old and don’t care who my parents are, they abbandoned me. She has been told by her “mother/madame” that actually, she was given to her, by a scared women, not her mother but someone trying to save her. she was being taken from somewhere, escaping some great threat. Her mother doesn’t know who, why she only knows that whoever her mother was she was trying to rescue her. (That reveal was done to give the player a reason for her character to leave, but also led to an amazing roleplay moment as she really reacted the way I hoped she would).
The Minotaur who’s back story was he was running away from his Russian mafia inspired family, his father is i prisoner for a crime he committed, his uncle sent him away to “keep him safe” from the rest of the family. (Yep the lion king). In fact his uncle perpetuated the whole situation and framed the player, he also has the players father and mother imprisoned. He has sent a letter home suggesting there might be opportunities in the town they are in, he doesn’t know that will trigger his uncle to send a hit squad to hunt him down and kill him (he was meant to be dead already but didn’t go to where he was told to go)
The other 4 players have all had similair glimpses into there stories.
As for the overall narriative, they will all be linked in some way to that. I have an empire on the south of the continent, Etresh. Etresh is not a a nice place, it has legalized slavery, believes in racial purity (all races are allowed but half breeds are looked down on). It oppresses and destroys the green skin, who in my world are nomadic tribes akin to native Americans and they enslaved sorcerors with a magic collar that allows them to be turned into human weapons.
The Minotaur criminal, his uncle has been promised his own nation if he supports Etresh they are working with him to overthrow the king of Kosha where he lives and then declare an alliance with Etresh,
The satyr, her mother is a sorceror slave, she managed to get her baby out from slavery sending her through a network of people who help slaves escape.
In some way each characters story will be tied into the overall narriative of the threat of Etresh, who or what is its emperor and what does it want. But I have no intention of even starting to resolve any of them until level 6 onwards, give the story and world time to breathe, to live in their heads, and give them a chance to wear their characters for a while and decide if they want to tweak anything about that backstory.
I am 95% prep, 5% improv. Because we use a VTT and I want to be quick with placing down units, I prep every random encounter before hand so I can just load up a state and 'boom' everything's already set up. My party are running through Storm King's Thunder at the moment and I wanted to give them a LOT of freedom, which meant I had to prepare all the random encounters, the occupants of every inn as well as preparing every dungeon. As I am very pro battlegrid, I also had to adapt every battlemap from the module to 5ft squares (SKT and their damn 20ft square maps...) and after being cocky, decided to roll health for and name every enemy/npc the party come across (Naming 117 pigs was fun...). I have a timeline set up that goes into rough detail the history of where we set the campaign (I've set it 10 years after The Dragon Tyranny) and the backstory of the player characters.
It would be 100% prep, but no matter how much I prepare, the party always seem to surprise me. Like when the Lawful Neutral Wizard decided to steal the poor box from a church.
I'm one of those dungeon masters who prepares for most eventualities... probably beyond what might be considered sane... but in actual games improvises a huge amount.
I write out the plans for 1-2 sessions at a time with potential chain-reactions based on what/who I predict the players might choose to interact with, I generally use a fairly simple bullet point approach so that everything is just a rough generalisation of an event. That way I can fill in how I think will fit the live situation using improv.
There are however occasionally times where I have something fairly well scripted with a bit less improvisation - e.g. dream sequences, certain locations where a player definitely must abide by set rules, interactions with NPCs that'll only discuss specific topics, etc.
An example of what some of my pre-game notes might look like, this was at the top of my notes for a previous session:
In terms of how much of the plot is a planned story and how much is player backgrounds, I'm usually running games where there are multiple stories all happening at once and it is entirely the choice of the players on what they choose to pursue. There's typically at least 3 major world plots being played out, each player also has a personal storyline, then I do a lot of secret behind the scenes intermingling the plots - generally each player's backstory is link to one of the major world plots, then there are also links between backstories of the players to each other.
As an example, one player may learn that something they did in their past is partly to blame for an event in another player's backstory which resulted in that other character getting mixed up in major plot #2.
I'm personally a major prep DM. I'm writing a homebrew setting that is nowhere near done, and it currently has 72 pages of notes. I'm guessing it will have over a thousand by the time it's done.
I've waited a while to reply to this. Just to think about it.
The answer I came up with is I write up 100 percent of the content that the players need. Like npcs, the land the towns and cities. Every single npc has a life and a backstory. Everything from a frog jumping into a pond to a bird flying. Down further to what the npcs are doing each day. I write and run a living breathing world. One that's an open world.
No matter where players go and what they do they have a living world around them. After that. The story. What they do is maybe 10 percent improv. Cause while I have npcs ready to interact with the players I have no idea how they are going to decide on that intersection between them and the story.
Players live and love to adventure. It's not possible for them to go off the cuff in my games. Cause there's content that's ready for them. That's preparation. World building.
Except when they really go do something unexpected. That's where the improv comes into play. Improv doesn't last long cause it's not hard to lead players into other prepared content. Being prepared and having content for players is key for me. Having a little improv to guide players into what's prepared can be quite difficult.
So when they go way out of things then it's simple to bring them into a new area or dungeon or town or encounter.
The players run amok in the world. The world changes because of their actions. They change the world. Other towns will hear of what they've done to help or hurt others. Reputation is everything.
So yeah. The world is 100 percent created and moves with each day. Players actions will change that world. Maybe even if they've never been to a town by word of mouth and mail. Players go through the world that's prepared. How they handle the world is all improv.
Id agree with a lot of the methods people have mentioned.
I have a group of fleshed out NPCs (some without a purpose to be used if players talk to someone random), then I "know" the world to fill in gaps as they adventure. I've then planned the main plot points in broad terms but don't plan which session they'll come up in.
So probably about 60% planned 40% improv.
All posts come with the caveat that I don't know what I'm talking about.
I'd say 60% prep, 40% improv for me. I prepare a lot, although my adventures are usually quite open in how to tackle them, which results in me having to improv a lot. I don't really run incredibly linear things. My campaign which I just ended had been entirely derailed multiple times due to my style. My final battle in my campaign, instead of being just some super mega ultra dungeon, was a gigantic war zone where my players could go to whatever of the 3 points of interest they wanted, in any order, and tackle the threats there.