GM Planning a Game Tools

#1

I am on the 3rd session tonight of a DungeonWorld game using my own homebrew campaign setting. When I prepare for a game for both DnD and DungeonWorld I write up a group of possible hooks, events and plans for the story based on the setting and basically an ideas prompt sheet. I don’t usually pick monsters or stats and instead let the events sort of drive out what might happen, although sometimes I might have a specific monster in mind.

It works really well for me as a GM and I will sometimes share progress if the characters work through it. If ideas and things during a game go a different direction I will add them in between sessions to reflect the changing events. I usually add a lot of links and organisations to the different characters, because it feels right that most folk / NPC’s they meet will be part of something bigger and where possible it helps me feel like I am developing a solid story/environment. At its very least level of use I do get a quick reference to NPC names…

I use free Google Draw to create the links and ideas from the characters. If anyone is interested I can share a copy of this drawing in on google and you can copy to edit your own versions. Sample attached.
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#2

This is so thorough and impressive :sob: Do you use fronts (for DW, of course, I wouldn’t expect them for D&D) as well? Would you mind talking through why or why not?

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#3

Thanks for the note and kind words. My fronts, dangers, grim portents and impending doom are all there for me but I don’t use the layout from the rules to describe them specifically under those headings. I do also have a more traditional written background to the setting and campaign which includes more detail for me and the players in regard to the setting and story.

I don’t really think about listing related GM moves and they come naturally from the different potential events and after 35 years of roleplaying I have a range of stuff I that create those moves. I do let the players come up with ideas for fronts in the first session, so they can develop ideas. The issue is that some players really can’t even think of a name in the first session, let alone provide input into how their background might weave into the campaign. Some players are great at it though, so I am ready to coach out ideas to keep updating the story with their ideas.

In terms of approach I like to have 2 or 3 different possible NPC/Monster encounters that can hook back into the same events. That’s my typical method, so players have plenty of choice but I have hopefully found a reason to bring it back to a campaign thread/front. So I am trying to let the DW game write its own story a bit by letting players fill in blanks, however I like to have a fallback with lots of notes written up to support me.

You have made me wonder about editing to in the titles for Grim Portents / Dangers etc and actually label them as such to help others pick up the story. It is a nice way to think about the game, although I consider fronts to be mostly standard prep notes.

One thing I also consider is henchmen. So the players being the protagonists, I would then aim for one primary antagonist and in this case it is Dackra Crow the pirate on the Iron Ghost. Then I would have a deuteragonist and tritagonist being part of other organisations with a link to the antagonist. The word Agon in these words means “Agony” in greek… :slight_smile:

This Gauntlet podcast is really good to listen to about fronts and it helped me understand DW. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb5QmchisOc

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#4

Definitely interested in accessing the template!

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#5

Here is a copy. Please use and share and do anything you like with it. Very happy if you do keep a credit to me on it when sharing etc. Thanks, Robin EDIT: You will need to make a copy of it and have a google email account to be able to edit online.

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