Sunday, December 16, 2012

88 Days to GaryCon! GM Prep Time- Part One

I've decided that Sundays will be spent detailing the process of preparations for each game I'm running at GaryCon. Out of the three games, I have run two of them in the past. So I'm going to start this series on the D&D game that recently added.

Now, the adventure was designed for 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. But I'm going to run it under Cyclopedia rules since that will reduce the number of books I have to bring with me. Plus it will also make it easier to create pre-gens since the Basic Rules have race-as-class as a feature.

I allotted for six seats at the game, but I'm going to create eight pre-gens to give the players more choice and account for possible additional players. This should give me one of each class for everyone to choose from, plus one extra which I have yet to determine.


What I am going to do is roll up two PCs a week until I get all the bases covered. I'll assign equipment later for reasons that will be covered soon.

For the first two PCs, I will roll three sets of stats and take the best two. This will be my approach every week and should result in a set of slightly above-average characters. My first set of stats looks like this.

S71315
I11119
W121113
D81511
Co10126
Ch131211

The first set of stats will be thrown out as it tends to run between below average to average. For the other two sets, they look like they would make a good halfling and fighter respectively. I could possibly go with a thief instead of a halfling, but the chance of making the two prime requisites later on have me leaning more towards getting my demihumans out of the way as soon as possible.

Next up is determining levels. The adventure is for PCs of levels 6-9. I'm going to use an 8th level fighter as the base to build the party around. According to the Cyclopedia, a fighter hits 8th level as 120,000 experience points. So assigning 120,000 experience to both of these PCs gives me a level 8 halfling and a level 8 fighter. Rolling for hit points, I get 46 for the halfling and 37 for the fighter (that 6 con isn't doing him any favors). So as of right now I have the following:

Level 8 halfling; S 13, I 11, W 11, D 15, Co 12, Ch 12, 46 hp

Level 8 fighter S 15, I 9, W 13, D 11, Co 6, Ch 11, 37 hp

Before I assign equipment, I want to determine if there are any magical items that are available to the PCs. I'm going on the concept that each character should have received one item at every experience level. I'm going to roll randomly for each PC, which could lead to characters having items that they can't use due to class restrictions. But once I have all the PCs created, they will be able to 'trade' with each other to make sure everyone has something they can use. I'm also going to assume that magic-users and elves will scribe new spells from scrolls into their spellbooks if available. In addition to that, once every item has been reassigned I will give a 10% chance per level that a temporary magic item, such as a potion, has been used by the player prior to the adventure. This should keep the starting list of magic items low. I'll then assign mundane equipment and money for the appropriate level of the group.

Right now, here is what each character has as far as items:

Halfling- 2 arrows +5 of blinking, 2 mage scrolls with detect magic and hold portal, a wand of trap detection with 13 charges, a ring of water walking, a halfling-sized suit of plate mail +1 with a shield +3 and a potion of luck.

Fighter- a mage scroll with charm person, protection from evil and shield, a potion of etheriality, a potion of clairaudience, a scroll of protection from undead, a scroll of protection from magic, 11 arrows +3, a human-sized suit of chain mail +2 and a warhammer +3.

Right off the bat, it looks like the halfling will definitely be using the magic plate mail. We also have quite a number of temporary items that may get 'used up' before the game starts. But we'll figure that out at a later date. I'm going to place all these stats in an Excel file so I can print up the final character sheets later. Tune in next Sunday for two more PCs.

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