#session planning

Me actually running the session I've planned: What the FUCK am I doing?????? What are my players doing????? What the fuck were my plans for this?!?!?!?

How long does it take you to create each part of the arc (concept, not recording & editing)? (Jim)

So here’s my process:

1. When Quest Friends! was originally conceived, I (genuinely) thought it would be comprised of 15 or so episodes over 7 sessions. And while there’s been some changes (e.g. “session 4” ended up taking place on an airship instead of a city atop a tower, “sessions 5 and 6” were combined into One Neon Night), each planned session ended up becoming a full arc. So while there was a lot of room for change, I’ve known roughly what each arc will be from the very beginning.

2. Each arc is given its own Google doc. As we play the game, I’ll get ideas for what I want to happen in the arc, big and small, and I’ll mark them down in the doc. Early on I also had a doc to keep track of the larger plot as well, until I had each piece fully figured out and memorized.

3. As an arc approaches, I’ll open the doc, which is often dozens of pages long, and start organizing it. This process of organizing involves resolving questions and discrepancies (the notes in each doc could be months or years old, so there’s bound to be some notes that no longer apply or contradict with each other) and placing the notes in rough chronological order in order to figure out a general trajectory for the arc.

4. I’ll do write-ups of major characters and locations, and I’ll send the relevant write-ups to sensitivity readers.

5. We play the arc, and I use the general doc to make individual plans for each session. I’ll also continue to adjust the master doc as needed (e.g. I get a new idea, the players do something that changes the events as planned).

I spent a long time going back and forth on how to represent enemies and other NPCs on the battle maps. Alex, of the Nat 1s, uses little pieces of whiteboard plastic on stands he can write/draw on to indicate what it represents on the table. I also considered just using different coloured generic game pieces, but I think that could get confusing with a lot of mobs in play. I have friends with 3D printers, my own digital 3D modelling is...still a work in progress, but I know there’s plenty of resources available but finding and printing all the ones I need for every session will take up a lot of time. I do plan on making 3D figures for some major characters and for the infernal engines, that are coming up later in the campaign, traditionally. I love sculpting with recycled materials, and I've already been fiendishly hot gluing bits of cardboard and other packaging to make some fun backdrops. If you're looking for cheap materials for making table top miniatures etc. then you're going to need to get down to the charity shop and rummage through the toys section, there’s also sometimes good stuff on the shelves of general knick knacks. I remember the fun of hunting through the bins and boxes a child, so I tried not to take anything too cool and picked up stuff that wasn't in good knick. I will share more of my toy haul in a later post because I did get some good stuff. I've also started modelling some things out of air dry clay and wire, but it's too time consuming to do it for every mini I’m going to need.

I was checking out recommendations for cheaper options on Reddit when I came across this user - Printable Heroes. They have a tonne of free to use miniatures you can print off on their website https://printableheroes.com. I know nothing more about them than this, and I'm not using them, but I thought I'd recommend them for other DMs and players because the art is awesome and it's really cool of the artist to have these up for people. Why am I not using them? Because I saw them and remembered that I'm an artist and I could make my own!

I have a session 0 next week with the goblins, I'm not sure how long that's going to take so I said we could at least start session 1 if we have time. Following more recommendations from Reddit I'm using the alternative session 1: Fall of Elturel which you can find on Dungeon Masters Guild. It starts your adventure in Elturel with a focus on giving players a connection to the city before the disaster. It also lets you skip straight to the first dungeon in Balders Gate once you get there. I'm making a few changes to this module, which I might talk about later, but I'm otherwise following it pretty closely. So I've drawn up all the minis I'm going to need for session 1. My art doesn't have the same broad appeal as the ones I've shared above, but I like them, and they're helping me practice drawing faster. I'm curious to see how much my art will change throughout the campaign. Maybe it will get worse?? Only time will tell.

I had alot of fun with the designs. I know Owlbears tend to have the tufted feathers that look like ears (I don’t know what they're called) but I thought that using a flat faced owl as inspiration would make something more unnerving. This Owlbear is based on a Tawny Owl, and I think it works. In the module the Runty Wolf is meant to be small and timid, and the players have an opportunity to adopt it. Being able to draw it myself is going to make it easier to signal to my players that they should feel sorry for it, and hopefully they’ll be less likely to kill it. I know for a fact that if it dies in my partners game, and he finds out later he could have had it as a pet, he will be distraught! I also found some concept art for the cult of the dragon outfits and they were really cool but a bitch to draw.

I also drew Grace stuck in a tree for the wolf fight. Trying to draw the tree to match the style, tiny, and fast was a challenge but I'm pleased with it. I haven’t drawn her donkey to save time.

Kaiser, one of the goblin players, was showing me the handouts they'd put together for a ttrpg oneshot they were running.I don't remember the system but they'd made a load of little handouts for different droids with stats, names, and a little bio. it was such a fun idea I stole it. Near the beginning of the module the players get horses, they're fairly inconsequential except for the wolf fight technically being mounted combat (I'm going to have to read up on that). So to make it more interesting I'm gonna print out the below and let my players pick one at random. The printouts do include pictures of actual horses I found on google, cos I thought actual pictures would be funnier than art. I've blocked out the pictures here because they're photos of peoples pets that I found online, it felt weird. Without the images I should add Boris is a donkey and a good boy. This gives the players some fun RP opportunities and I might have the mounts stats and temperaments effect the game depending on how much time we have and how hard the players are finding the encounters. If they’re having a tough fight it would be a bit cruel to go “Copper Star gets spooked, roll animal handling to not get thrown off and kicked in the head”.

I did try and find a bunch of little toy horses on my charity shop run because I thought that giving my players a little horse, even if they're too big for the board, would be novel and fun. Alas I only found three little unicorns, I'll think of something to do with them.