Good Evening everyone!
We had a blast playing ICRPG tonight, special thanks to Dave and Gary from our community here for joining us! Alex run’s an intense game!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c69OuBBhHE&list=PLFrTsTiI3D8XFKZpznjYbKvxDn64Gm37s
The Icy Tomb an ICRPG One Shot on Roll For Effort
Thanks to Alex for running a flawless one-shot. Great players with lots of fun moments!
c_oyote
#5
I have the DM notes from a post I saw saved on my phone, I still have trouble wrapping my head around the fact you can read in a minute, but your game lasts over 3 hours…
c_oyote
#7
im still working on that mind set, I startet using Index Cards, one card per Encounter.
But somehow it has become a slight mess, I have a card for the area/dungeon and then a card for the room with 3ts and a little description and things to find and finaly cards with monsters 
Alex
#8
The best advice I can give you is to write less and put yourself in the moment more.
The tomb.
Threat: Skeleton Warriors, Choking Fog
Timer: Skeletons (1 heart, +3 all rolls) pouring in, fog closing in
Treat: chests, remains, a secret way down, when deciphered
That’s all you need. What does the secret door look like? I don’t know. Act it out in the moment. “Under a decade of dust, some runes have been carved into the stone here.”
On a successful wisdom roll:
“They look like they form a picture of a staircase. If deciphered, they might make sense.”
On an Int roll to decipher:
“Awesome. Give me some effort. The letters ar making sense. ‘Only the worthy can pass …’”
Or some such nonsense. Meanwhile, the skeletons are closing in (“you hear banging on the door and the rattling of old bones. They Make a disturbing dry clacking sound.”). Players are choking and coughing from the fog (“it feels like a malevolent force choking you.”)
Where did I come up with all of that detail? In the moment of the fiction. I just riffed on what made sense in that precise moment.
Alex
#9
“The remains of a grave robber are here, along with his discarded pack.”
If a player investigates, then maybe I make three rolls on the shabby table.
But then, as that fog gets closer, “the remains begin to animate!” Now there is a skeleton threat INSIDE. Lol.
All of that is just from the moment and what makes the most sense.
c_oyote
#10
Cheers mate, awesome advice, making a mental note of that.
I will give Icy Tomb a shot aswell, nice little drop in session in between 
Alex
#11
Thanks man. It was a huge gaming epiphany for me when I set events in motion and then became fully immersed in the moment (like the players) rather than a slave to my notes. When I referee in such a mindful way, based on the moment of the fiction, I have found that I enjoy my games much more. There’s a delight in uncovering these nuggets with the players, and oftentimes those moments turn out way better than anything I could have planned.
Khan
#12
I’d like to add to Alex’s insights that if a GM plays the game this way, it all becomes fluid and alive. Trying to follow some GM notes which were created beforehand in isolation can never be as fluid as this approach. Also using the players’ paranoia, distrust, greed and collective creativity against and for them is pretty enjoyable both for the GM and the players.
The only thing you need to do is to take small notes occasionally during play. Again, going with Alex’s example, “the remains of a grave robber are here” can be a campaign plot if your players take interest in it. Maybe he/she/it was a great warrior, or a thief. If they are interested, take a note for yourself and weave it into the story later. If not, nothing happens and you lose nothing because you didn’t waste time preparing that poor dude’s backstory.
Likewise if the letters on a door say “you must be this tall to enter”, your players might choose to pursue the matter like who wrote it, why did they write it etc. All of these can be turned into new game sessions.
The reverse is also true: Sometimes you’ll have some brilliant ideas only to be ignored by your pesky players. Why waste time on intricate plans when they are only a few actions away to be destroyed/derailed by your players?
The moral of the story is: More often than not, only prepare broad situations + motivations for NPCs and let all of the details get sorted at the table. You will be adjusting the overally story before each game session and this is where you can make some intricate (but still broad) plans. If players happen to derail anything, nothing will be lost because you will be smart enough not to prepare anything beyond the next game session.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t plan little devious things but try to keep them to a minimum and do it occasionally. You’ll develop a rthym that is suitable for you, in time. Another important thing is that overpreparing is more destructive to the game than underpreparing because overpreparing will slowly kill your motivation to play. Conversely, you can get away with no or little prep most of the time.
Just relax and have fun!
c_oyote
#13
One of my biggest problems, I always over think things…
I will try to stick to the 3Ts and DEW
Edit.
Just rewrote an encounter of mine
Dew, 3Ts and 3Ds
Plus 1-5 DM notes. Stupid things like who/what is that Monster
rpgerminator
#14
This is also a response to @Khan: Have you found setting up VTT scenarios to work against this “write less” approach? I have been struggling with that lately, a lot of prep that forces gameplay to be a certain way rather than unfolding fluidly (much like working with minimal notes).
Alex
#15
Bear with me, as I have a few thoughts on this topic. One, I tend to plan encounters as “scenes.” Like a director in a movie, I tend to view the scene in my head and have a sense of what it looks like and how it plays out. This pre-visualization shapes my short notes AND the map that I use, because I’ll know in my head that I want a certain “look” for the VTT map or assets: a narrow bridge over a chasm; a twisting set of tunnels; or an expansive throne room. That part can be frustrating sometimes, as the available assets or images don’t always convey what I want. I recognize not everyone thinks or plans this way, but that’s part of how I approach setting up encounters. Importantly, this step forces you to think through the space. Is it confining? It is wide open? Is it precarious? Is there an environmental factor at play? If you have those pieces in your mind, it might help to make a quick drawing in your notes of the space. Where do the bad guys enter? Where is the exit? All of that can be as simple as the diagrams in the DM section of ICRPG for your room design. At a minimum, the space and encounter in that space is clear in my head beforeI begin making the map. Two, I enjoy “making” the map, which means finding the right background and assets or editing pre-existing ones to fit my vision for the encounter. This process is relaxing for me (though again, it can be frustrating and time consuming). I suppose one piece is that I have enough assets by now in Roll20, Sci-Fi and fantasy, that I can pull together almost anything I can dream up. In that vein, it might not take me long to put together a cool map. Here’s an example:
This is just a background and some Altered State/XDZ/Warp Shell assets plopped on top. It took me maybe 20-30 minutes to make, including the custom background, which I altered in Photoshop. If I can’t find what I need, I also do map editing (and sometimes building in photoshop). This process can be time consuming, sometimes three or four hours for a night’s worth of maps, but again, I enjoy setting up the world.
Those two pieces aside, what I find in relation to my planning is that sometimes the map alters the notes. For example, treats. “Oh man, there’s a log the players could roll on enemies depicted here. Dope! I’ll add a quick note. Log can be pushed onto enemies.” Or sometimes the available background and assets will change the encounter, and I’ll roll with it. I don’t have a mausoleum, but I do have this tiny church. Okay. This is happening in a church, and now these windows are points of entry for the skeletons. But most importantly, frequently I just drop the players into the map, and then, during play, we discover unique ways the terrain or depictions can be used. In a recent game, a player decided to jump a rover, Dukes of Hazard style, off a rock to save everyone. No one, including the DM, had thought about that possibility (and use of the terrain) until it came up in that moment of the fiction. And we went with it because it was hella cool. In those moments, sometimes “the map speaks” and informs play. Finding those hidden, unintended nuggets, is also a reason I don’t take a ton of notes. Odds are, if I even saw that one angled rock on the surface looked like a ramp, I doubt I would write it down. As soon as I wrote some far-off possibility like, “can be used to jump rovers,” the events of the night would take us in a totally different direction. For that reason, my notes are sparse, but my maps are pretty detailed. That being said, I don’t write down too much based on the map. I allow the fiction to drive what’s possible based on what happens to be included. Happy accidents are always the best. Also, roll with what is possible. In my aliens game, one player wanted to find a hatch to a substructure of tunnels. I hadn’t planned for that, but he made a WIS roll and found another way. I quickly grabbed a hatch token, and down they went to the tunnels — which potentially set up another set of pulse-pounding encounters.
But creating a map for your encounter doesn’t have to be hard or time consuming, and you certainly don’t have to put the effort in it I do. Make a black background and drop a few assets in it. Who cares if you have walls? With a few pieces of furniture, the space is now any interior you want. Or grab some “grass,” and drag in a few trees. This is now the forest, and with a few gnolls, you suddenly have a great encounter.
But, to summarize. I would definitely have a plan and a sense of how the space or scene works in your head. From there, you just need enough notes and enough map to make it happen. On the other hand, making a detailed map of the area doesn’t necessarily change the encounter; it just provides more opportunities in the moment for your players to delight you with creative use of the environment.
Khan
#16
@Alex beat me to it… Again…
What I do is very similar to what Alex does. To me, there is no difference between playing at the table or on a VTT; I do the same, so I’m not sure what difficulties you are having with VTTs. In fact, VTTs make things easier and faster because everything is one search and drag & drop away.
If you are saying that prepping maps etc. on a VTT requires more notes or more design, I disagree and Alex has showed why.
If you have something else in mind, we need more information to be able to help you.
If, for example, you are trying to create and populate more rooms than players can visit in a session, you are overpreparing. If you are designing your maps with very specific things and events, then that’s also overpreparing.
rpgerminator
#17
Oh wow! That is so much more than I expected (in a good way), thank you so much for the insight on how you put things together!
I do struggle with finding the right assets to use and it takes me a terribly long time to put maps together (it is more tedious then relaxing for me). I think I fall into the trap of how a scene looks more than setting up potential possibilities for the players to interact with. That being said, it can feel a little visually railroaded if that makes any sense at all. Now that I reflect on past games I think the best ones were those I sort of plopped down quickly without a lot of visual forethought. This has me thinking about how I might improve so I thank you!
rpgerminator
#18
Yes and yes…I’m way over prepping!
For example I just ran a warp shell game last weekend where the players entered a bar to meet a contact for help with their mission. I put probably a dozen other characters in that bar and had notes on what information or interaction each one of them could convey if the players interacted with them…they didn’t interact with ANY of them except the contact. Now that I write that out it is apparent that I have some over prep issues.
Alex
#19
So, I have just a few recommendations. One, curate a small set of universal backgrounds. Plain grass. Gray dungeon floor. Loose cobblestone for town. Brown earth. Desert sand. Water. Once you have those basics, you can build almost anything. Grab desert sand. Put rocks on it to make a canyon and run Starship Troopers. Put tents on it to make an oasis or bizaar. Put square buildings on it to make a desert village. Put wooden buildings on it to make a Wild West town for ghost mountain. See the possibilities?
Two, once you have a ton of base maps or backgrounds, then everything else is an asset. Make a folder for Forrest and have trees and fallen logs. Make a folder for town and have buildings in it. Have dungeon dressings. With a few simple assets, you can turn almost any space into something cool.
I highly recommend Two-Minute Tabletop. Not only are there a ton of great base layers, but his assets collection is now amazing.