Prepping for Tonight's Adventure

It's my turn to GM the Monday night crew.  I'm running a Frankenstein system with the Swords & Wizardry Complete ruleset as the base.  This is my second session.  You can find my post on the first session, When GM Plan Goes to Shit...Have Fun all the way back in February.  Hadn't realized it had been that long.

Prepping for this session was like prepping for three different sessions.  The party is split into three very different groups. 

• We've got the Silent Knives group made up of Malcom (+Chris C.) and Arden (+Daniel McEntee).  They left off by getting a stern talking to by the higher ups in the guild.
• Hyroth (+Ken H), a battle mage, is in the graveyard with a freaky priest of a death god.  He was critically wounded from a inter-party fight.  He still has no idea who took him out.
• Lastly we have Marrick (+Rob Conley), a ranger, in Baludor.  He just reaped the rewards for cashing in on the pirate captain's head.
• In addition there will be an additional person joining the party this session +Rhandom A will be playing Elderad.  He'll be joining the Silent Knives group.

As you can see I have three very different groups.  What's a GM to do?  He preps for three sessions in one.  A little more work, but I had time between sessions to come up with, what I think, will be fun.  Although last time I thought I'd come up with a cool way to bring the party together...

What I've done is write up a flow chart and each chart has random tables included and variables in the adventure.  I've also included notes about some notes about things they will find in their travels.  Of course there is plenty of room to go off track if they choose.  Within the adventure I've weaved in a few places where the players could intersect.  At that point the players will have to decided what to do.

This is one of the few times I am this prepared and prepped for a session.  I rarely do so much front work.  I usually have a short note where we left off and then write a generic flow chart of events.  Some of which the player will have control on how it goes and a event chart for the world.  These events will occur no matter what the player does.

Looking forward to tonight.  I have a few pictures to upload, but I'm good to go.  We're using Google Hangouts, and Roll 20.  I haven't and won't be using battle maps.  I prefer the abstractness of the battle.  I can build the tension better with 'theater of the mind' than placing pogs.  I use pictures to help set the mood of who they are dealing with or where they are.

A sneak peek at tonight's featured location.