{"id":259,"date":"2013-03-07T20:05:04","date_gmt":"2013-03-07T20:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/?p=259"},"modified":"2016-10-23T02:29:27","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T09:29:27","slug":"creating-an-adventure-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/creating-an-adventure-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating a Cynosure Romp – Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Probably the most common question any GM is asked, behind “Do you do it for the money, the prestige, or the groupies?”, is “How do you create your adventures?”<\/p>\n

In these posts I’ll be dissecting a recent convention game I ran<\/a>, step-by-step and start to finish, to give everyone a peek behind my GM screen. It should go without saying that this is the way I<\/strong> prep my<\/strong> games — it is not intended to be The One True Way, because the entire philosophy of GURPS is “Here are the tools, play however you want to.”<\/p>\n

Still, I hope some folks find it helpful.<\/p>\n

Step 0 – Perpetual Prep<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

This is the step before the steps. Just like writers of more traditional forms, I always<\/em> have something on hand to record ideas: moleskine, voice recorder app on my phone, unpaid intern, something<\/em>. I never, ever let an idea slip away if I can help it — a setting, a plot, a character, a mannerism, an image, a turn of phrase — doesn’t matter, they all get recorded and ultimately find their way to my omnivorous OneNote<\/a> File of Stuff for later use.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While I do agree with authors like Stephen King that ideas are commonplace, that our brain tosses them out like confetti, they are worthless to me if I don’t record them. I will not remember them on my own, no matter how brilliant I think they are in the moment! I don’t know if everyone is like this or if it’s just me, but my advice is — record it. Then when the time does come to run your next game you can simply wade through your, say, “Villains” file and pick the best fit from all the ones you’ve ever dreamed up.<\/p>\n

Step 1 – What Is It?<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

This is sort of \u00a0the “glimmer in your eye” stage. One day, sometime before OrcCon 2013, I wasn’t planning to run a game; the next day, I was. For Step 1, I figure out what the game is going to “be,” in the very broadest sense, just a one- or two-sentence summary.<\/p>\n

Do you want to run a “Cthulhu game where the PCs battle monsters in Chicago”? A “spy game set during the Cold War”? Maybe a “game where the PCs are ferrets”?<\/p>\n

In the case<\/a> of my convention game, I knew I wanted to run a “GrimJack<\/a> game set in Cynosure<\/a>.” Whee, Step 1 done!<\/p>\n

Step 2 – What Happens?<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

In Step 2 I give the game a little bit of shape. There are a gajillion stories that can be told in Cynosure — but only one will fit in a four-hour convention game. And those hours go by in a blink.<\/p>\n

I knew I wanted to have GrimJack at least present in the story, but I didn’t want him to be active<\/em> in the story and overshadow the PCs with all of his badassery\u2122. I also wanted all of the characters to know one another to keep the special snowflakes from wandering off. So I flipped through a few GrimJack comic books, brainstormed for a while, and eventually decided the game should be about GrimJack being kidnapped and (hopefully) rescued by a group of six of the regular patrons of Munden’s, the bar he owns. Good enough — Step 2 done!<\/p>\n

Step 3 – The Player Characters<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

To my mind, this is probably the most important step, whether I’m creating pre-gens for a convention game or helping a group of players mesh together a solid group of characters that can all work well together. To me, the “story” is secondary — great characters can be fun to play in even the weakest of stories, but weak characters can’t save the most brilliant of games.<\/p>\n

Setting a game in Cynosure has its own unique challenges. The city is the absolute perfect showcase for GURPS’ strengths and variety because it is the very definition of a kitchen sink, anything goes kind of setting. But that also means I as GM need to take into account low-tech weapons, high-tech weapons, even ultra-tech weapons (lasers and such), as well as magic, psionics, a dizzying array of species and races, and the fluctuating chaos of the dimensions themselves.<\/p>\n

For the first time \u00a0in the process I set pen to paper.<\/p>\n

\"Character<\/a>
Character Notes, Page 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Apart from the completely-unrelated parts I redacted (this was the top page of my doodle pad), I’ll translate my chicken scratches for those not fluent in “third-grade handwriting.”<\/p>\n

“Robot, Tiny cute\/Alternate Form”<\/strong><\/p>\n

I quickly decided I wanted a robot and a cute little critter that could “Hulk out” as PCs. Both of these characters made it to the final cut.<\/p>\n

“Robots, Tiny, Underwater, Trees”<\/strong><\/p>\n

These were ideas for dimensions, not characters. Dimensions populated solely by robots, or tiny creatures, etc. to maybe use in the game.<\/p>\n

“2 Support (Healer), 3 Ranged (Sniper),\u00a0<\/strong>3 Melee (Unarmed, Swords)”<\/strong><\/p>\n

I knew I wanted to make 8 pre-gens for the 6-player game, so I broke them down into three broad groups, to make sure the party choices would be covered for the most common challenges. These would be their primary niche, but I was careful to not make anyone completely ineffective outside their sphere.<\/p>\n