This was originally posted as a response to a comment by Pasquale, but I thought it might interest a larger audience.

Transhuman Space has earned a reputation as a rich and magnificent setting… which is also almost completely impenetrable to players and incredibly difficult for GMs to run. Pasquale asks whether or nor the Between the Stars campaign structure could be used to crack open Transhuman Space.

The primary problem with Transhuman Space is that the complexity, depth, and density of the setting requires a heavy upfront investment from the players.

To give a basis of comparison:

My open table OD&D campaign relies almost entirely on common knowledge. If a player knows what an elf, dwarf, halfling, and wizard are, I can provide a functional basis for understanding the game world in about 60 seconds.

My dedicated 3.5 campaigns set in the Western Lands are a bit more involved: I have an 8 page handout (half of which consists of practical lists like “gods you can choose”, “languages you can choose”, etc.). It probably requires about 5-10 minutes from the players, with another 30 minutes or so dedicated to character creation.

Transhuman Space, on the other hand, doesn’t have a lingua franca of common genre tropes to fall back on. It is a very specific, very complex, and very deep setting. In order for most characters to function coherently in such a setting, the players need to have a specific, complex, and deep understanding of the setting.

Basically, a setting like that often requires that the players read most of the setting book for themselves. That requires hours of investment, and I’ve found that most players won’t commit it.

To make things worse, Transhuman Space was primarily designed to be an interesting setting for the sake of having an interesting setting, without any real consideration or focus given to the types of stories/games that can be told in that setting.

So, to answer Pasquale’s question at long last: Yes. I think you could use a structure similar to “Between the Stars” as a solution to both problems.

It’s been about 10 years since I read Transhuman Space, so take any specifics with a grain of salt, but the general approach I would take would look something like this:

(1) Set the PCs up as the crew of a tramp freighter. These vessels, due to their relative isolation and the difficulty of maintaining network connections and advanced tech on a mobile platform, end up being a lot more culturally conservative than the rest of the solar system. (In other words, their crews cleave a lot closer to early-21st century norms, so the players don’t have to “reach” as far to understand their characters.)

(2) The scenario structure needs to be tweaked somewhat to accommodate interplanetary travel instead of interstellar travel, but the basic principle of “key to the voyage” should still work.

(3) I would key each voyage to reveal some specific facet of the Transhuman Space setting. (Over time, therefore, the campaign would slowly introduce your players to its intricacies one chunk at a time.)

In terms of keying, this can actually be quite liberating. Flipping through the setting book randomly and just grabbing stuff off the page, for example, gives me:

A large group of executives from Nanodynamics is travelling to a base in the outer system to inspect the installation of zero-gee nanofabrication tools. But they’re being targeted by pro-union terrorists from the recently acquired Exogenesis Systems Technologies. (see page 95)

A poorly secured microbot swarm breaks loose in the ship’s cargo hold.

The crew is hired to make the long haul out to Miranda with 3HE mining supplies. There’s a spy onboard trying to figure out what China’s real intentions are for the Miranda colony. (see page 48)

A Felician combat bioroid sneaks onboard in an effort to escape her contract. A corporate hunting team, however, is trying to track her down. And since the Felician killed their captain, they may be more interested in vigilante justice than fulfilling their contract. (see page 116)

And so forth.

It might also be useful to check out “Getting the Players to Care“, which is primarily about how to parcel and structure exposition so that it’s not boring or overwhelming.

Go to Part 1

Now that we have a custom campaign structure for a “Between the Stars” campaign, let’s turn our focus to the scenarios that will be triggered by that campaign structure.

With quite a few of these scenarios, of course, we can use scenario structures that we’re already familiar with: Someone is murdered on board; grab our scenario structure for mysteries. The ship stumbles across a wandering asteroid studded with alien architecture; whip out the maps for an old-fashioned dungeoncrawl. We might want to give some thought to the types of hooks we can use to initiate each scenario narratively, but there’ll be no need to reinvent the wheel in designing the scenarios themselves.

(Random thought: If we’re looking for a semi-generic structure for constructing scenario hooks we could define them according to (a) when they’re triggered; (b) what officer will receive the trigger; and (c) what the hook is. For example, a scenario in which the PCs are approached to smuggle a cargo might be triggered in dock before the voyage starts; target the cargomaster; and take the form of a comm call asking for a meeting at a dockside bar. The “asteroid of alien architecture” might be hooked with the navigator making a Sensors check (on a success they detect the asteroid a fair distance away; on a failure they stumble too close to it and get caught in an automated tractor beam). A murder scenario might be hooked with the security officer making a Security check (success indicates they find the body on a routine sweep; failure indicates that a random passenger finds the body).)

For other scenarios, however, it may be useful to give some thought customizing new scenario structures. As an example of that, we’re going to look at the hypothetical example of hijacking scenarios. Before doing that, however, I want to make a couple of particular points.

First, we’ll want to remember that the default goal of the campaign’s macro structure is to successfully run a ship in order to maximize profit. Which means that scenarios and hooks that either threaten the PCs’ profit or offer them opportunities for more profit will be most successful.

Second, I want to note that this entire section of the essay is entirely hypothetical: If this stuff were to be put to a proper playtest, I have little doubt that we’d discover that some of it doesn’t work in practice and other stuff could be greatly improved. That’s just part of the process.

SCENARIO STRUCTURE: HIJACKING

What we’re looking at here is any scenario where passengers, stowaways, or members of the crew attempt to take control of the ship.

If the ship were relatively small in size, we could probably run this using location ‘crawl techniques. In other words, we could take a fully keyed map of the ship and then run the actions of the PCs and hijackers in “real time” so to speak. This would be appropriate for something like Air Force One.

But let’s assume that the ship is larger and that we want to create experiences that feel more like Die Hard or Under Siege.

Node Map of the Ship: First, for purposes of navigation, let’s create a node map of the ship. This abstract representation of movement aboard ship will allow both PCs and hijackers to make meaningful decisions about where they’re going and how they’re going to get there without getting bogged down in tracking things corridor-by-corridor and room-by-room. (Although for certain key areas – like the bridge of the engine room – we may still want to draw-up detailed maps for tactical purposes.)

With this map we can now key both nodes and the routes between nodes. We can also allow characters to secure and/or barricade specific nodes or routes. (So some routes to the bridge may be less heavily guarded than others, for example.)

We can also assign travel times between locations.

Shortcuts and Stealth Paths: Looking at our touchstones of Die Hard and Under Siege, we can see that a lot of the action is driven by protagonists seeking out alternative methods of moving around the structure (ventilation shafts, service corridors, burning holes through bulkheads, etc.).

We could try including these routes onto our node map of the ship, possibly by using dotted lines:

Or, for a simpler and more flexible solution, we could assume that the ship has sufficient structural complexity that secret routes can always be found: With a sufficiently high skill check, a character can either find a short cut (which reduces the amount of time it takes to get from one location to another) or a stealth path (which makes it possible to reach areas of the ship that have been blocked off in one way or another).

To this, let’s add a wrinkle: If effort is taken, certain locations can be secured. For example, in Aliens the last of the survivors attempt to seal up a portion of the colony so that they can survive long enough for a rescue ship to arrive. Of course, the aliens still managed to find a way in, so let’s make that an opposed check: If your effort to find a stealth a path into my area is better than my check to seal the area, then you’ve found something that I forgot.

Control of the Ship: For a simple structure, we could simply equate control of the ship with control of the bridge. But if wanted a more dynamic scenario, we could make it so that individual systems can be taken offline or supersede the bridge’s control from other locations in the ship. (For example, you might be able to gain navigational control from the engine room; knock communications off-line by getting to the receiver room; turn off life support from environmental control; or access the automatic security systems from the security center.)

Node Effects: On a similar note, we might want to define some specific game structures for special nodes. For example, if you can access the communications array and send a distress signal, what effect will that have?

Is gaining control of the automatic security systems something that can be automatically achieved in the security center? Does it require an opposed skill check? A complex skill check? If so, how much time do those checks take? (Would it give enough time for the bad guys to physically lay siege to the security center?) Do you have to do it compartment by compartment? Do we run the whole thing as a massive hacker-vs-hacker battle in virtual reality?

Do I prep the armory by simply having an inventory of available supplies? Or do we code something similar to a wealth check to see if a particular piece of desired equipment is available?

Random Encounters: Finally, I’m always a big fan of using random encounters to simulate the activity in complex environments. Whether it’s panicked pockets of prostrate passengers or roving hijacker enforcement teams, a well-seeded random encounter table can add unexpected twists and delightful chaos to the scenario.

OTHER SCENARIO STRUCTURES

Here are some other potential scenario structures for a “Between the Stars” campaign.

Bomb Onboard: Touchstones might include stuff like Die Hard With a Vengeance and Law Abiding Citizen. The actual mystery of identifying the bomber can probably use a standard mystery scenario structure, but what about the process of finding (and possibly defusing) bombs before they explode? What effect do bombs have on ship systems?

Plague: The Babylon 5 episode “Confessions and Lamentations” is a particularly poignant look at disease scenarios on spacecraft. “Genesis” from Star Trek: The Next Generation was a particularly stupid one. (On the other hand, TNG’s “Identity Crisis” shows the breadth of potential within the general idea.)

Lost in Space: Touchstones would include… well… Lost in Space. (Also, Poul Anderon’s Tau Zero.)

Collision in Space: Here you could probably lift some of the same structures for systems damage from the “Bomb Onboard” scenario structure to model collision damage.

Mutiny: We could probably lift large chunks from our “Hijacking” scenario structure

Smuggling: Both with the PCs engaging in smuggling and with NPC smugglers trying to use their ships to achieve their own aims.

If you’re feeling up for it, grab one of these and give it the same treatment we gave hijackings: Post it here in the comments or toss a link down there to wherever you do post it.

Go to Part 15: Generic Scenario Structures

Something I’ve spent literally years struggling with as a GM is transitioning from one scenario structure to another within a dungeoncrawl.

Let me see if I can clarify that:

I find it really easy to switch scenario structures at the same time that the venue of action is being switched: If the PCs enter the dungeon, we swap to dungeoncrawling. If they seek out a specific character in a tavern we roleplay that conversation; if they exit the tavern and then start hitting the streets looking for information we handle that a different way.

After a few false starts as a neophyte GM, I also eventually found it relatively easy to switch scenario structures within most venues: Renting rooms at a local tavern is handled at one level of abstraction, but when they wake up in the middle of the night to find the tavern haunted by ghosts we switch to a different structure.

These days, this sort of thing is pretty much automatic for me. But swapping structures in the dungeon still routinely thwarts me.

The type of structure I’m talking about is mainly the one found in adventures like Night Below or Thunderspire Labyrinth: A large, underground complex in which there are isolated pockets of “interest” which are designed to be run as a room-by-room crawl.

For awhile, I thought it was the difficulty of presenting meaningful navigation choices to the players in these environments. But once I came to think of them as “underground wildernesses”, this wasn’t a problem any more.

No, the primary problem was the transition from the room-by-room crawl to the underground wilderness (or vice versa): When the PCs enter a room with three exits and two of them lead to another room but the third leads to the more abstract labyrinths of the wider complex.

I mean, it’s relatively easy to just do it. But it’s more difficult to do it effectively.

Partly it’s the difficulty of finding a smooth narrative description of the shift. Mostly, however, it’s the damage to roleplaying and immersion caused by the imposition of the metagaming structure on the decision-making of the characters.

See, in most other circumstances it’s either the passage of time, the changing of circumstance, or the decision of the characters to do something different which smoothly transitions us from one game structure to another: But not so in this case. Circumstances remain unchanged and the PCs are making the exact same type of decision they’ve been making for the past twenty rooms… but suddenly the scenario structure is changing.

And, like I say, this can be handled pretty simply by saying to the players “we’re switching structures now” (or some equivalent thereof). But that has consequences on the decisions they’re making. (As a simple example, if I didn’t tell them “all the rooms beyond this point are empty, so we’re going to be switching to underworld exploration” then they might waste time searching those empty areas… which might have an impact when they return to the occupied rooms.)

In a lot of ways, this is all a mountain out of a molehill because it just doesn’t come up that often. But it’s something that my recent discussion of using multiple scenario structures has brought to mind.

Recently, though, I had an interesting discovery in my Ptolus campaign. Part of the vast megadungeons beneath that city are immense labyrinths built by the warlord Ghul. Ghul’s Labyrinth is filled with a number of bluesteel doors which are extremely difficult to bypass (being resistant to knock and lacking any normal lock to pick).

And these doors have proven to be ideal transition points between dungeon scenario structures because they’re natural transition points within the game world: Not only do they require a significant decision on the part of the PCs in order to pass through them, but they were actually built by Ghul to logically divide his demesne.

All of this, of course, ties back into the larger issues of making sure that your players’ decision within a scenario structure are associated with the decisions of their characters: Something I not only aesthetically prefer, but which is absolutely necessary if the scenario structure is actually unknown to the players.

Go to Part 1

When I designed The Lost Hunt for Fantasy Flight Games, I launched the scenario by having an elven village attacked by a kehtal (a servitor of the demon gods of Keht). The idea was pretty simple: The PCs could then follow the trail of this murderous creature, which would lead them to the interdimensional rift in which the demon gods were imprisoned.

The tricky part was the actual tracking. Although I wasn’t thinking in terms of game structures back in 2001, I knew that this section of the adventure needed more weight to it than a simple skill check. The experience of the adventure couldn’t be, “Fight a monster, make a Wilderness Lore check, and – ta-da! – you’ve found the interdimensional prison of an ancient god cult!”

So what I ended up doing was crafting a custom game structure for tracking: Following the trail required five successful Wilderness Lore checks (DC 20). Each failure would force the PCs to backtrack (requiring an additional success in order to find the trail they lost). Each successful check would bring them to a “pit stop” along the trail, which was described in boxed text: One established the creature’s prodigious leaping ability; another brought them to another scene of carnage wrought by the creature; and so forth.

Nothing too complex here: I was basically adapting the concept of complex skill checks (as found in numerous RPG systems) and tweaking it a bit. But it did take a little bit of thought and a little bit of experimentation to nail down the details. Once I had tucked this custom “pit stop and backtrack” game structure into my mental toolkit, though, it proved useful time and time again: I’ve used it probably a dozen times since then.

This is, obviously, a very simple example of how you can create custom game structures to organize your prep and affect your players’ experience with the game world. In fact, it’s so straight-forward some of you are probably saying, “Duh.”

So let’s tackle something a little more complicated.

BETWEEN THE STARS

Campaign Concept: The PCs are the crew (and possibly owners) of a starship plying the interstellar trade routes. Although some planet-side activity might croup up, the focus of this campaign is going to be on the voyages of the ship itself.

Macro-Structure: For the macro-structure of the campaign, I’m going to use Traveller. As discussed in Part 10, Traveller has a well-developed system for handling interstellar travel and trade. This system empowers the PCs to make decisions about where they’re going; what they’re trading; and so forth.

Scenario Triggers: As we also discussed in Part 10, however, this game structure is incomplete. It has a closed resolution loop (go to starport, deliver goods, pick up goods, go to starport), but it lacks vertical integration. So the first thing we need to figure out is the trigger we’re going to use for transitioning from the trade-and-travel macrostructure to the scenarios that will probably fill most of our actual playing time.

I’m going to propose that, just like a dungeon has rooms and a wilderness has hexes, this campaign has voyages. In other words, just like we fill a room or a hex with content, we’re going to fill each trip from one star system to another with content. (Of course, some dungeon rooms are empty and some of our voyages may be uneventful. We’ll come back to that later.)

BETWEEN THE STARS – KEYING VOYAGES

We all know how to key a dungeon room or a hex: You write a number on the map and then you use that number to reference a description of the content of the room or hex. How do we key voyages? In other words, when the PCs leave a starport how do we know what this voyage will contain?

Linear Sequence: A simple solution would be a linear sequence. You prep a scenario for their first voyage (no matter where they’re headed); then you prep a scenario for their second voyage; and so forth. The obvious disadvantage of this approach is that it doesn’t include meaningful choice for the PCs.

Random: We could prep several voyages and then randomly determine which one we’ll use on any given trip. But, of course, once again we’ve eliminated meaningful choice for the PCs.

Space Hexes: We could key each hex on the subsector map with content. Couple of problems, though: First, any given voyage will actually contain multiple hexes. Second, because the campaign isn’t exploratory in nature there will be a lot of hexes they’re unlikely to visit (since they’ll probably be sticking to direct routes between planets). We could, of course, limit our prep to hexes near established trade routes and then implement a system for randomly determining which hex’s content on the flightpath gets triggered for any particular voyage. But doing that actually suggests what might be an easier approach…

Routes: What if we just key each route with content? When the PCs take a particular trade route, we trigger whatever content we keyed to that route. A potential problem here would be PCs who settle down into servicing a regular route: Once they’ve used up the keyed content for the route, there’ll be nothing new to experience the next time they take it. We could mitigate this by randomly determining cargo destinations (so that the PCs would be less likely to settle into a regular pattern) or by keying multiple scenarios to a single route (this would increase the prep load, but make it harder to completely “burn out” a given route).

BETWEEN THE STARS – SPICING THE STRUCTURE

So our basic structure looks like this: We key each trade route with an encounter or scenario which is experienced when the PCs take the route. In addition, we randomize cargo destinations to discourage the PCs from wearing a groove into a particular trade route.

That, by itself, would give us enough structure to run a campaign: We could draw up the local subsector, map out the trade routes, key them, and start play. But what could we do to spice things up – adding flavor, complexity, and/or detail to the campaign?

Random Chance: Instead of a route’s encounter happening automatically when the route is taken, we could have a randomized scenario check. Since the players won’t know whether there will be complications on a particular voyage, this will make the campaign less predictable (and also possibly less frustrating). Setting the right probability of experiencing a route scenario will probably require some experimentation: Will the PCs end up taking multiple routes on most journeys (getting from planet A to planet C via planet B)? How interested are the players in the actual trade mechanics of the game (as opposed to using the trade mechanics as a mere method of delivering content)? And so forth.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that we want roughly a 1 in 3 chance of triggering a scenario. (A roll of 1-2 on 1d6.)

Scenario Sources: Now that we’ve randomized the occurrence of scenarios, we can use that same mechanic to include encounters from non-route-based sources.

First, we’re going to seed our cargo and passenger tables with scenario triggers. For example, carrying a shipment of positronic brains makes it more likely to be targeted by rogue robotic hijackers. Or a particular passenger might be targeted for assassination.

Second, our scenario check (which is performed once per route) is now revised: On a roll of 1 we trigger a route scenario; on a roll of 2-3 we trigger a passenger scenario; on a roll of 4-5 we trigger a cargo scenario. A roll of 6 indicates no encounter.

Scenarios are theoretically being triggered on rolls of 1-5 on 1d6, but our practical odds of experiencing a scenario on any given route will remain roughly 1 in 3 because the PCs may not be carrying cargo or passengers with scenario triggers.

Weighted Route Tables: Instead of just keying a unique encounter (or a set of unique encounters) to each route, we could instead key each route with a weighted scenario table: So in the Black Expanse you’re more likely to get hit by pirates, while in the Inner Systems you’re more likely to get hit with a random audit.

(Alternatively, we could rebuild our scenario check and include “region scenarios” as a fourth type: So each route would be keyed with a unique scenario; each region would have a random scenario table; and we’d also have cargo/passenger scenarios.)

“Empty” Voyages: As noted above, we’ve now created “empty” voyages (i.e., voyages on which no scenarios will be triggered). In order to spice these up, I’m going to take a page from Ars Magica, combine it with the character creation rules for Traveller, and create a game structure for handling “down time”: Improving your skills. Improving your ship. Working on research projects. And so forth.

Dockside Encounters: Another possibility would be adding structures for dockside encounters and/or scenarios. But I’m actually going to deliberately eschew this sort of thing: I want this campaign to be focused on the ship.

While it’s certainly possible that the players will get tangled up in some planet-side intrigue, by specifically excluding this content from the campaign structure I’ll be steering the focus of the game away from it: Docking will generally be the boring bit that bridges the gap between the exciting stuff.

Go to Part 14: Scenario Structures for Between the Stars

Go to Part 1

Up until this point, a lot of this blather about “game structures” may have sounded like it was something that only game designers need to waste their time with.

But, to the contrary, game structures represent the primary and most important tool in the GM’s toolbox. The more game structures a GM has mastered, the easier they will find it to prep and run their scenarios. The fewer game structures a GM knows, the more limited their scenarios and the more difficult their prep becomes.

(The argument can also be made that, fundamentally, all GMs need to act like game designers: An RPG without a scenario is like Monopoly without a board. Or, to put it another way, if Monopoly were packaged like a typical RPG it would come with rules for moving your pawns and buying properties, but it would expect the group to design its own boards. Scenario design is game design.)

To demonstrate what I mean about using scenario structures as tools, let’s take the example of a fairly straightforward adventure concept:

The PCs have been tasked with accompanying a clerk who has been charged with acting as the proxy for the Duchess of Canterlocke to bid for a dilapidated estate standing opposite the Dweredell Gardens. The PCs are to protect him while finding out more about the other parties interested in the estate and the suspected cult activity surrounding the estate.

Fifteen years ago, my mastery of game structures was limited. I basically had two of them: Dungeoncrawling and linear railroading. Faced with this concept for an adventure scenario, I would have been forced to resort to the linear railroad: A pre-programmed sequence of scenes that the PCs would experience. (To my fictionally retroactive credit, I would have probably tried to make those scenes as flexible as possible because I wasn’t actually a fan of railroading. But I would have been fighting my prep structure, and that usually means a lot more prep.

In a similar fashion, you can see how the lack of a game structure for wilderness adventures has resulted in most modern adventure modules presenting overland travel as a linear sequence of pre-programmed encounters:

But today, with a wider array of game structures at my fingertips, I find it relatively trivial to break this scenario concept down in a way that’s easier to prep, easier to run, and offers the players a much greater freedom in how they want to approach the scenario.

(1) “The PCs are to protect him…” I’m assuming this means that there will actually be something to protect him from. To prep this, I draw up a list of threats (i.e., the attacks that will be directed his way). These might be triggered by location (“when he reaches Water Street, the assassins strike”), but just putting them on a timeline will probably work, too.

(2) “To bid for a dilapidated estate…” When I prep a large social or business gathering, I prep two tracks: First, I prep a roleplaying profile for each significant participant. Second, I prep a list of significant events.

Sometimes the significant events are on a timetable. Sometimes they’re keyed to particular NPCs or locations. Sometimes they’re just a list of conversation topics that are popular at the party. (Ultimately, it’s whatever makes sense and is most useful to me. More details here.)

(3) “… a dilapidated estate standing opposite the Dweredell Gardens.” Here we come to a key question: Is the estate something that the PCs are supposed to explore room-by-room (like a haunted house)? Or will we just be just be treating it as a backdrop for the auction? The former gets prepped (and run) as a dungeoncrawl. The latter gets prepped with a few brief descriptions and maybe a generic floorplan if I think it’ll be important for some reason.

It might also be both: The mansion itself might just be a backdrop for the auction; but the family crypts under the mansion might shift us into a ‘crawl. Or maybe the mansion is treated as a backdrop during the auction and then we approach it as a ‘crawl during the night when all the ghosts from the Well of Souls come out.

(4) “The suspected cult activity around the estate.” Like most mystery structures, I’m going to default to node-based scenario design to break it down into easy-to-manage and easy-to-design chunks. To launch players into the node structure, I’ll liberally seed clues in the threats in #1, the NPCs in #2, and the rooms in #3 (if I went for a crawl-based structure there). A sample node list might look something like this:

• Cultist Assassination Team
• Shrine of the Black God
• Temple of the One-Eyed Priest
• Councilor Jaffar (Secret Cultist)

The assassination team is a proactive node that attacks the clerk the PCs are guarding. One of the assassins has a distinctive tattoo (asking around town indicates people have seen people with similar tattoos hanging around the Shrine of the Black God). Questioning any of the assassins will reveal they were sent from the Temple of the One-Eyed Priest. Maybe one of them has a note signed by Jaffar telling him to kill one of their fellow assassins once the job has been completed.

And so forth.

BREAKING THAT DOWN

The first thing is the scenario hook: The Duchess of Canterlocke wants to hire the PCs to guard a clerk for her.

That hook is connected to a simple timeline structure: The clerk needs to head to the estate at Time A; assassination attempts will be made at times B and D; the open house and auction will begin at time C.

That timeline has additional triggers in it: Clues on the assassins will trigger the node-based investigation. Escorting the clerk to inspect the house will trigger the ‘crawl of the house. Escorting the clerk to the auction will trigger the social-based party structure.

The ‘crawl of the house will probably include triggers for combat (undead in the crypts below the house or whatever). The party structure will contain additional clues triggering the node-based investigation. And the node-based investigation will lead to both the Shrine of the Black God and the Temple of the One-Eyed Priest, which are probably both prepped as dungeoncrawls, too.

USING THE RIGHT TOOLS

Like most projects, once you have the right tools, it’s just a matter of identifying the right tool for the job and then using it.

For the sake of argument, let’s imagine that we instead used all the wrong tools:

(1) We try to prep escorting the clerk across Dweredell as a ‘crawl: That means prepping every street with a keyed encounter so that the PCs will encounter content no matter which streets they decide to walk down. (Result: Way too much prep, a lot of decisions that aren’t of particular importance to the immediate goals of the PCs, and probably some severe pacing problems.)

(2) We prep the crypts under the house as a timeline of undead-themed encounters: After 5 minutes of explortation we trigger encounter 1; after 10 minutes of exploration we trigger encounter 2; and so forth. (Result: The only meaningful input the players have here is to say “we keep exploring”. Our impulse is probably to at least improvise a map as they explore, but of course that just moves us back towards the dungeoncrawl structure that we’re specifically eschewing for the purpose of this broken example.)

(3) Instead of prepping auction bidders for roleplaying, we instead give ‘em combat stats and roll for initiative whenever the PCs want to talk to them.

And so forth.

Use the proper structures and the prep will be easy and naturally allow your players to make meaningful and relevant decisions. Use the wrong structures (either by mistake or because you don’t know the right structures to use) and your prep will be difficult and your players will struggle to make the choices they want to make.

But what if the right game structure doesn’t exist?

Go to Part 13: Custom Structures