who else writes their ttrpg prep backwards?
- He/Him + They/Them
One Canuck built the #ttrpg tag and the #mecha tag. And that was me.
Cohost Cultural Institution: @Making-up-Mech-Pilots
Priv: @Scampriv
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in reply to @Scampir's post:
Ah, gotcha! Alas, I don't really work that way. I tend to go "Okay, what's a cool story hook or gimmick" and then build things out helter-skelter!
How does "prep backwards" look for you?
It means that I have to write down where I think the world state should go where the players aren't taking action! Then I write down some end points of where the NPCs want to move towards at the location the players are. Then I start filling out what the place is like and outline how the NPCs are going to navigate the setting.
I do it this way because I want to make sure that I don't prep myself out of bombastic things. I want to make sure that cool stuff is lined up before moving into details. Set Pieces, thematic "rules," and drama take priority. I've done bottom up stuff before and trying to get really specific about things I want to include in prep makes it harder to mix it all together.
Like most things, I tend to dance around all scattershot. I’ll often have a general culmination in mind, find a hook to get on that trajectory, and then work from both ends to connect ‘em together.
Pretty often I feel like I'm close to being done prepping and then realize I forgot to think about any of the stuff leading up to the big scene I've been prepping.
I tend to approach prep from the standpoint of asking, basically, if I were the only one telling this story, what would my instincts be in telling it, and then from there figure out what steps would lead to that point, which determines what my NPCs are inclined to do. bringing players in basically means revising the middle part, which usually tweaks where the story is headed, which basically just means doing that same process from a slightly different starting point. basically, I have some interesting scenes and set pieces that could play out if everything goes exactly to plan, and prep is about figuring out how to gently nudge the story in that direction.
interesting! If you'll forgive me for being glib and working with metaphor, I like to make a watch and let the players break it.
but by this I mean, I try to set up things that I think will be fun or meaningful to interact with, then dress it in the fiction to make it fit in with everything else.