How do *you* do session prep?

[Venger]

Statblock Post removed, its off topic.

Thanks Viral Platypus for the help.

After playing with the statblock snippet area I learned how versatile it can be.

[rob]

Originally Posted by monsterfurby

Main issue I have is that my current campaign is more of an exercise in character interaction than a classic PnP campaign. Sure, we do have fights and missions (it's military themed), but more often than not my preparation involved figuring out how to get each individual player character motivated to undertake said mission. That said, I do have a long-term game plan in place, a metaplot if you will, and a billion NPCs will run that metaplot even if the PCs decide to be involved in other ways than those I can think of ahead of time. The world does not revolve around my PCs by default, but they are certainly in a position to make it if they want.

This sounds eerily similar to a 15-year campaign run by one of the Realm Works developers. As you pointed out, you can heavily leverage Realm Works to manage and track the hundreds of NPCs that are moving the plot forward, as well as all of their alliances, conflicts, and machinations. Then you can weave the PCs into all of that based on what they choose to do. Realm Works might not be the perfect solution for planning out how to get the PCs involved in the main plot, but it will be invaluable for maintaining a handle on the maelstrom of events and ploys surrounding the PCs, which should greatly simplify a huge chunk of the work.

[rob]

@Venger: One important trick to keep in mind is Quick Create. It's invaluable for avoiding the problem of having to go back and rebuild links all the time. It allows you to flesh out topics while the creative juices are flowing and pause only for a moment to create a new topic that you've decided to introduce. After that, you're right back where you left off, without breaking the creative flow.

You'll find more details about Quick Create in the following thread (see post #3):
http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=48764

Another thing to consider is putting many of your creatures into the Mechanics Reference as articles. If your creatures are generic one straight out of the bestiary, then they are just reference information. For something special like Gorcrow, he's absolutely something that belongs in the story. For special versions of creatures, those typically belong in the story as well. But the generic Restless Ones are definitely vanilla monsters that belong as articles.

Don't worry much right now about the distinction between the Story Almanac and World Almanac. I suggest starting with everything in the Story Almanac. As your material grows, you'll reach a point where it starts to become unwieldy. You'll also reach a point where the players are adventuring in areas and you have lots of material for completely different areas just cluttering things up. At that point, leveraging the two separate Almanacs will make a lot more sense and feel more natural. Just wait until you reach that point instead of forcing it now.

Hope this helps!

[Mystic Lemur]

Originally Posted by rob

@Mystic Lemur: Instead of concealing topics that have changed, you might consider tagging them with a custom tag. Then you easily identify those topics via a filter, plus you can pretty quickly spot those topics by the present of the tag. This approach would work smoothly in conjunction with Player View and with making revealed content available to your players via the upcoming Player Edition.

Hope this helps!

It does. I'm still getting used to tags, so thanks for the reminder of how useful they can be.

Originally Posted by rob

@Venger: One important trick to keep in mind is Quick Create. It's invaluable for avoiding the problem of having to go back and rebuild links all the time.

+1. Quick Create is amazing.

[Venger]

Oh yes, I see, Quick Create will be VERY useful! Thanks for the link to that topic.

And I will move the generic Creatures over to Mechanics Reference.

I read a post somewhere about someone putting things in the Story Almanac so they will be "isolated"

I finished the manuals today, but didn't find any references to that so I will do as you suggest Rob, just put things in Story Almanac until a later date when things become unwieldy.

Thanks for the replies.