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Traveller Prep
May. 21st, 2010 08:46 pmMy preparation for my Traveller RPG has, for a pretty long time, been overly exhaustive. On Fridays before Traveller I've often found myself spending 2-4 hours putting together an adventure. And, that's made the games not just as much fun, because I've come to dread the prep time.
Which is one of the reasons I've cut the game down to once a month.
So this week, I'm trying something new. I've only allowed myself one page of outline for the adventure. No screwing with point size or anything, just one page of solid outline at the default font and size I use in Word (12, Cambria, apparently).
Comparatively, my last several weeks of Traveller adventures were 4, 6, 6, 3, and 3 pages of notes. Some of those were additional backed up by Traveller "Amber Zones" which contained even more details.
The new format is surely faster to put together. I spent an hour or so tonight and used every line I was allowed. I still cover as much as I would have in my older notes, but there are less details and fewer stats. (I think I can use a recent Mongoose release, 1001 Characters as a resource there.) The question will be how well it supports the adventure. Notes are a crutch, of course, and I hope that the shorter outline will give me enough focus to run a coherent adventure and maybe at the same time give me more opportunity for more adlibbing and integration of player suggestions.
I'll see how it goes tomorrow. But from the point-of-view of Friday night, it's a success.
Which is one of the reasons I've cut the game down to once a month.
So this week, I'm trying something new. I've only allowed myself one page of outline for the adventure. No screwing with point size or anything, just one page of solid outline at the default font and size I use in Word (12, Cambria, apparently).
Comparatively, my last several weeks of Traveller adventures were 4, 6, 6, 3, and 3 pages of notes. Some of those were additional backed up by Traveller "Amber Zones" which contained even more details.
The new format is surely faster to put together. I spent an hour or so tonight and used every line I was allowed. I still cover as much as I would have in my older notes, but there are less details and fewer stats. (I think I can use a recent Mongoose release, 1001 Characters as a resource there.) The question will be how well it supports the adventure. Notes are a crutch, of course, and I hope that the shorter outline will give me enough focus to run a coherent adventure and maybe at the same time give me more opportunity for more adlibbing and integration of player suggestions.
I'll see how it goes tomorrow. But from the point-of-view of Friday night, it's a success.