Now that the wedding craziness has passed, I find myself slowly shifting back into D&D mode. I am currently in what I suspect is a rather rare situation: having successfully completed one campaign and gearing up to start another with (mostly) the same characters in the same world.
I am trying to use this intermission time to get my game notes in order so I can approach the next chapter with a better system of organization. This is not to say that I am changing my current system, just that I have not had a chance to fully implement it. Well, now I'm implementin'! and holy carp is it tedious to do so!
I've been trying to break my tasks into manageable chunks. The first step being to get the character records in my OneNote into a consistent format. Even this is proving daunting as I would often pull in stock descriptions from the 3.5 SRD website to avoid having to pull out a monster manual in the middle of a game, but when I had some time on my hands or was creating an NPC from scratch, I would use my own custom mini-stat template. If I was making a group of allies or baddies, I would often just shorthand a single block and then indicate a couple key stats to tweak up or down when rolling for the group's leader or other unique characters. Well, now that I am faced with getting my DM house in order, I look at this mix of desperate time-saving measures and I want to scream.
I'm sure I could move forward just fine without cleaning up my mess, but knowing that its there really bugs me. I also know that once we get wrapped up in the next campaign that I will never get around to cleaning up this pile, so I need to do it now, or not at all.
While I'm busy on my own trying to get my notes organized, my players and I are also starting to plan out some intermission sessions. These will be less formal get togethers to discuss things like how to incorporate any character swaps, what improvements to make to the party's base of operations and to go shopping with all of their reward money from saving the world.
Have you ever had to get organized between games, or even other creative projects? How do you handle it? Is it worth it?
Speaking as one who is always surrounded by a pile of notes and knowing, buried somewhere within, hide all my brilliant ideas over the years....well, I wish you the best of luck.
ReplyDeleteI've never really known anyone with both a spark of wild creativity AND a knack for order and organization. Don't make your fun work. If you have managed to get by thus far without an organizational scheme, then obviously you don't really "need" one.
Play and have fun! Isn't that the whole point?
Psst...and give your players an emperor's package kinda night to roll naked in their money and get fitshaced....then KILL'EM ALL! Then start over with some middling level charries and go from there.
Innnteresting! Hmmmm... *rubs hands deviously*
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