Writing for your table

[alcyone]

In these heady days of RPGnow and the like, one is tempted to take to the word processor and put out a product just like the ones that already line our shelves. But writing for publication, that is, writing for the public, those crazy, unpredictable people who come to the game with house rules and unbalanced parties and their own campaign settings and who knows what else, this sort of writing is not necessary for your own table.

But I could sell this someday, right? Well, maybe. But that's a different thing from CKing a game.

Now that this kickstarter for the Three Sisters is complete, and the Codex is just around the corner, I feel like it's time to attend to my home campaign. I will do some fancy stuff, sure; I have a nice map and I have been copying some rules longhand into a nice book for the players to use at the table. I wish I could make it all look like a nice published module, but it will take me too much time. It doesn't need to have a lot of illustrations only I will see. It doesn't need stat blocks because I can look that all up (but I can throw them in where they are needed, especially where there would be page flipping for a mixed group of foes.) And then I can cut and paste the whole damn monster, because it's my personal game. I can call a mindflayer a mindflayer. I can write encounters that are 3 words long, or use double negatives and start to really split infinitives. I can leave out the read-aloud text. It can be on 3 sheets of looseleaf, 2 index cards, 5 sheets of graph paper, and a few printed pages plus a few notes written on the back of my hand.

It can have diagrams and pictures that make sense to me and probably no one else. They can tell me where the noises are and how loud they are from where you are standing, or have arrows drawn between them, or whatever helps me remember, and I don't need to figure out how to lay it out.

I can say "Dave needs to roll a 17 here" instead of "If the party has a thief, he or she will notice the trap (CL 4)".

I can make up a monster and stat 1/4 of it and make up the rest on the spot.

I don't need to throw in the damn OGL at the end.

My maps can be on the backs of napkins. The fronts of them too.

I don't have to say how many characters of what level it's for. The people dying in my dungeon know who it's for (probably them a few levels higher than they were.)

And so on. The point is, I'll be able to write enough down that I can sit down and play this darn game I seem intent on buying every printing of.

And sure, maybe some day if I am (un)lucky someone kid will say "Wow, I wish I could have plumbed the depths of Nak-thar-hep's tomb! You should sell that!", and I am drunk and agree to do it, well, I'll just remember the parts that worked and write those up.

[DMSamuel]

I think the major benefit of writing for your own table is that you only have to make your players happy. You don't have to worry about the rest of C&C fandom.

[finarvyn]

Agreed. My notes and such aren't designed for public consumption, and indeed would be embarrasing if I had to share them. They're just designed for me to have a skeleton around which I can "wing it" as I run my game, and aren't fleshed out enough for another GM to use.

That's one thing I find interesting about Rob Kuntz filling in for Gary Gygax on occasion in the Greyhawk dungeon. Everything I've seen implies that Gary's original notes were very sketchy, yet somehow Rob managed to take over as needed to run the thing. (And even add to it.)

[serleran]

Having done both, neither is more or less difficult. It is far faster to "write for your table" though as you don't have to make it publish quality or even include "everything."

[seskis281]

Yes, it is very different - especially as the table is more about my players "writing" their choices and direction of adventuring I also admit that as we get into mid levels where the group is now, my C&C group is more "powered" up than BTB C&C (using adjuncts and availability of magic items) and so the challenges would be very different than what I've written for publishing before.