Prep-As-Practice Vol 1: Monster Creation

Prep-As-Practice

Shortened to PAP, I guess. There seems to be two major sides that come to blows from time to time: Prep vs ZeroPrep. Having observed some of the skirmishes, I believe the NoPrep side favors Efficient Prep and avoiding PrepHell; a state where a game master spends all their timing thinking and zero time doing. I’d like to explore a facet of this that came up during a couple side interactions: Prep-As-Practice.

Prep-As-Practice shares similarities to maintenance, drills, or training; the idea that you should be practicing and honing the foundations of your skills at regular intervals. For a game master, this could take form in generating dungeons with Appendix A, prerolling encounters (recommended in ACKS), or managing downtime actions from your players. That last one can be especially useful since DT actions can run the gamut from dealing with ACKS II’s arbitrage rules to learning about Domain Incursions and Fortifications.

What I’d like to do is occasionally share my experiences and log my own practice, to be criticized by the community or reviewed by myself later. Since I’ve had a downswing in players and sessions are in limbo, it is a good opportunity to work on improving my skills. To that end, let’s try out the Monster Creation Rules!

Rotvalan Reveries Ep9: Poking the Bear

 Run Date: June 9, 2024

PCs
Spring: Lv1 Nightblade
Anabelle: Lv1 Explorer
Sigfried: Lv1 Crusader (Shattered Soldier)

Hench
None

Poking the Bear

With the larger party still ahead in time and roaming the forests of the Greenwood, the shoddy side crew met up to discuss options. The church recently put out a 1,000 gold bounty to bring justice to pilgrims that were attacked by brigands; the same event that Anabelle had witnessed during her previous foray.

The group set out from Coxhaven with Anabelle leading the way. She attempted to follow her previous path, but after several hours of searching, could not locate the camp where the Barghest had slaughtered the band. What can I say? It’s been raining pretty heavily this past week. Since that proved to be a dead end, the group decided to do a bit of searching in the nearby woods.

Rotvalan Reveries Ep6: Scissors vs Paper

Run Date: June 2, 2024

PCs
Helena: Lv3 Bladedancer (WTW)
Gwendolyn: Lv3 Fighter
Antony: Lv2 Mage
Friedrick: Lv1 Mage
Zjane Zjulin: Lv1 Ruinguard
MaryMae: Lv2 Bard
Dex: Lv1 Thief

Hench
Harshnik: Lv1 Barbarian
Todd, definitely not a demon barber
Francois the crossbowman
Mercedes
Lothor
Eduardo

Scissors vs Paper

As you can see, we had a pretty large group today. This doesn’t include the extra 30 or so Mercenaries in Antony’s employ. Among the newbies are some returning oldies and one person who’s never touched an RPG before. Despite what some may believe, it is much easier to teach a new person when they don’t have “40 years of experience.” No terribly ingrained bad habits to break makes for a much easier time.

The players spent some time catching each other up on recent happenings and figuring out what their plan for the session was. We’re all scrubs here, and I think this size of group could have used a proper caller. It wasn’t as rough as I expected due to having several leader-types more or less run the show, but Zjane and Dex did end up dropping later due to various reasons.

Rotvalan Reveries Ep5: Confronting a Weakness

Run Date: May 26, 2024

PCs
Anabelle: Lv1 Explorer
Urso: Lv1 Thief

Hench
None

Confronting A Weakness

Nearly everyone was busy due to Memorial Day weekend so today was a trek off the beaten path with fresh Lv1s.

Today’s duo decided to hit up a rumour from a couple weeks back involving a Serif, the equivalent to a Viscount, and his desire for discreet action. The party headed to the local church of Iona for Sunday mass and located Serif Georgio. After mass, and a bit of stumbling, the pair managed to get the attention of Georgio’s steward and set up a meeting. They were taken in an unmarked carriage to a side road in the shadier part of town where the Serif met up with them.

Rotvalan Reveries Ep4: Adjudicating Chaos: Securing the Shrine of the Golden Sun

Run Date: May 19, 2024

PCs
Gwendolyn: Lv2 Fighter
Dex: Lv1 Thief
Helena: Lv2 Bladedancer

Hench
Mercedes Lv0
Eduardo Lv0
Lothor: Lv1 Vaultguard

Adjudicating Chaos: Securing the Shrine of the Golden Sun

Our Occultist, master of Mane and Merc, was out this session; but the teenager from the original crew returned. The players had decided they wanted to begin securing the Shrine of the Golden Sun. Due to their numbers, however, their MO was to favor scouting over warfare.

Before everything got going, they needed to actually return to Coxhaven from Rotval (the city). Given the distance, this would be a lot of encounter checks (like 14). I had the group give me an overall MO for their travels and slowed down only to cover anything that was potentially risky. To this end, they came across a rotund fisherman walking down the road. He had a giant pole and heavy basket on his shoulder. The group were immediately suspicious of him (per their MO: “Super paranoid and anti-social). They gave him a wide berth and wave, and kicked up their horses as they passed him. Fat man was none too happy, but rolled well enough on his RR to not care. The next couple days were mostly merchants, a group of shepherds, and some farmers.