AW: [DL] Game planning...

["Markus Finster" <markus.finster@chello.at>]

> I'm always interested to know how much planning people actually put into
> their games.
>
> For example:  Do you outline the overall campaign events?  Do you
> detail the
> overall campaign?  Do you just wing it as you go?  Do you create lots of
> NPC's?  Do you detail a "home base"?  Are most sessions created
> on the spot?
> Do you use only published adventures? Etc.

For Deadlands, I use mainly the published adventures, maybe tweaking them
here and there a bit so they fit better to my posse.
Right now, we don't really have a campaign, it's more like a series of
adventures through which the players can enhance their characters. But there
is no bigger secret that connects all of them. I do plan on changing that,
though, as soon as we get into 1877.

> I'm just curious.  (Also if you do these types of things, sharing the
> method: three ring binder, database [that would be me, the geeky
> one! ;-)],
> note cards, whatever would also be appreciated.)

I use mostly a notepad and a three-colored pencil for the drawings. I
borrowed a laptap  from my office for one gamesession, though. There was a
short dialog between two villains, one of them a demon. So, instead of
telling the players that they hear a booming voice saying blablabla, I
recorded the dialog and changed the voices - made the demon's one darker,
rumblier, that sort of thing (nifty what you can do with freeware!). Oh
yeah, and to keep track of the November Offensives I made a little
presentation I used to explain troops movement (we're from Europe, so when I
tell my players there was a battle in Manassas, I get mostly blank looks).
That was kind of cool, but I had to return the laptop.

> BTW: How have folks ended campaigns?  In all the years I've been gaming,
> I've never been involved in a campaign that "wrapped up".  They
> mostly just
> evaporated.

I had one big campaign in Earthdawn which went on for a year (or two?). We
made good progress until the players suddenly had the notion that it's a
good idea that the five or six of them take on the 120 Legionaires that came
to arrest them. I tried to continue the campaign with new characters, but it
pretty much bombed. Shortly later I introduced Deadlands to my friends...

Markus