As we don’t know how a campaign will unfold, we can do our best to guess which scenes might happen.
To help us calm our nerves and prepare a scene, we can quickly sketch a scene by writing just enough so we remember what we had in mind. With a few words per scene and potential outcomes of a scene.
We can prepare a list of sequential scenes, scenes that can be explored in any order or branches of the story that the players could explore.
While creating scenes that are encounters from any of the three pillars, it’s worth thinking of variant encounter goals.
Just as any preparation, be prepared to improvise and throw it away
Reference
E. Schea, M. (2018). Sly flourish’s return of the lazy dungeon master. Sly flourish shop
Highlights or timestamps
Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master highlights
- The outline [of a scene] does not need to be more then a few words per line, with one or two lines per hour of gameplay.
— Outline from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master highlights
- Sometimes we’ll outline a list of sequential scenes expecting the that the characters will go through one at a time, Other times, it’s a list of scenes the characters might explore in any order. Or the scene outline might represent different branches of the story, each of which can take the characters off on a different path.
— List of scenes from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master highlights
- You want only enough information to remind you what you had in mind for the scene- and no more than that.
— Remind yourself from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master highlights