Game Dream 10: Tangled Webs
Game Dream 10 asks us:
During games, how do you keep track of the various plot hooks, hints, and people? Are you a master of the arcane memory arts and keep them in your head? Or, are you a mere mortal who must put them to paper? How much notekeeping is too much? Do you find you are more or less organized in game than in real life?
It's a long time since I've GMed a long running campaign; all my gaming nowadays is either online (PBeM/PBmB) or convention one-shots. In the online games I've got the advantage that a lot of the threads are still archived online, so I can (and frequently do) search back two or three years to find the name of that NPC. Of course, if a game lasts long enough it's likely to outlast both online venues and home computers. I don't have access to the older threads of KLR dating from before the game moved to Dreamlyrics, for instance. They do still exist as OZWIN archives on my old desktop PC that somewhere in my parent's house, should I really need to access them.
I also maintain an extensive database of NPCs; a lot of these predate the online game and date back to the FtF game I ran ten years ago in the same setting, on the basis thatyou never throw anything away if there's a chance it might come in useful later. A lot of this information is also online on the Kalyr Wiki, which is mainly full of wider game setting material, but does contain some lists of the names of significant NPCs.
For the last FtF game I played in, we kept a campaign journal. But rather than putting the book keeping workload onto the GM, we delegated this task to one of the players. Since we only met once a month (and sometimes not even that), some record of game sessions was essential, because nobody could remember exactly what happened six weeks before. Were I to run another FtF campaign, I'd do something similar, but maintain the journal online using a Wiki or blogging software, to which all the players have access.
Posted by TimHall at August 22, 2004 02:02 PM | TrackBackHey, a database of NPC's is a great idea. Of course, it would need updating vs. 3.5ed or whatever you're playing, but at least you'd have a good starting point.
I find the hardest thing to do when creating NPCs is adding strategy to them. Since I often don't know EVERY spell in the game, or go through and add all possible skill points and feats to the NPC, it can sometimes be hard to make them do more than "run up to closest char and beat them with this stick".
Posted by: Tanker on August 23, 2004 05:37 PMA lot (probably most) of my NPCs don't even have full game stats, just a few important skills (and many don't even have that). But I'm running a low-combat city based game where the PCs talk to far more NPCs that they get into fights with.
The advantage of a PBeM is you can generate NPC stats as and when you need them, so most NPCs don't get combat stats until it looks like they might actually need them.
Posted by: Tim Hall on August 23, 2004 10:46 PM