Waypoints: Shorten Your Game Prep with This Conceptual Tool
I have no idea if this concept has been floated before, but it’s new to me — and it’s been enormously helpful over the past couple of weeks.
As my Mage game draws to a close, I’m working towards a specific ending scene. I don’t know what’ll happen in that scene — more to the point, what the PCs will do — but I know what I want it to look like. What I didn’t know was quite how to get there.
So with three or four sessions left to go, depending on how things shook out, I got an idea: I jotted down the ending, and asked myself how to get there. What immediately popped into my head was the concept of “waypoints” — crucial scenes or game elements that needed to happen in order for us to reach the ending I had in mind.
After writing down a sentence about the ending, the waypoint that led into that scene came to mind immediately. I took a few notes about that one — whatever I thought of, unfiltered — and then was pleasantly surprised when the next waypoint back in the chain came to me just as quickly.
In less than 10 minutes, I had three sessions loosely mapped out: the second to last, based around one waypoint; the next to last, also based around a single waypoint (and connected to the prior waypoint); and the finale, which was reachable by hitting both waypoints.
You could look at it like this:
- You know the starting point (wherever you left off last session)
- And you know where you want to go: the end of a campaign or a story arc, or just the next major plot point
So you jot them down and try to connect the dots with waypoints. It’s really just brainstorming with a light conceptual framework wrapped around it — a little structure, which I often find useful.
The end result is:
Starting point > Waypoint > Waypoint (repeat as needed) > ending.
Prep usually takes me a long time, so anything I can come up with — or read about, or steal from another GM’s bag of tricks — that saves some time is a blessing. Much like shower insight and clearing GM’s block, the idea of waypoints is something that just works for me.
Since your brain works differently (lucky you!), this technique might be totally useless for you — or, conversely, it could be just as awesome for you as it’s been for me. I hope it’s the latter!
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16 Comments, Comment or Ping
jonathan
Not to be too snarky… but isn’t this a bit like the often used (and terrible) mechanic called “railroading” ? I mean… of course you could adjust your diagram to include a network of interconnected “waypoints”, but as presented it just looks like, no matter what the players do they are either going to succeed at each waypoint and move on to the next one, or stop (die). Comments?
Oct 21st, 2008 - Link
Martin Ralya
Yep, it is. That’s because I don’t think railroading — or “linear games,” if you prefer — is automatically a bad thing.
We’re all adults with limited time (that seems to get more and more limited the older we get!), and there’s a lot to be said for having a focus every night we play.
I know X will happen — but not what my players will do about X. And I think that after X happens, Y can happen next session; I could very easily be wrong, and if something the guys do changes that, I’ll roll with it.
But for me, at least, I need a plan — and in the case of this game, a degree of linearity.
Oct 21st, 2008 - Link
SmallBlueGod
I use a very very similar trick. Or at least initially. I set up “Events triggers” which may or may not be attained/set-off. However if a player character triggers the Event by doing whatever it is that sparks the event then the scene plays out. It’s entirely up to the players which way the story goes but I still get to play out really cool & inspired scenes.
It’s a shame they don’t all get triggered but that’s ok. There are all kind of triggers, the easiest are time based triggers in which case I give the players “Freeplay” time where they tell me what’s going on in their life. Then when time plays out Event happens!
I learned this style by trying to the metaplot of Old World of Darkness as a massive set of Event triggers. I can totally understand why people hated the oWoD metaplot, but played like this with most of it in the players hands and me itching for a witty adlib scenario, I can’t help but adore it.
I am careful not to use this style to railroad the players (personal style) but I (and they) do take it as a challenge to out wit them, and they me. When they win it usually means I’m forced into an adlibing situation which I absolutely adore. Yeah their hard but it seems the world/plot really takes fun & amazing twists & turns once it comes time to adlib and outwit one another. But it helps to know where to stop. I have fun players who want to hear a story & by making them part of it I keep them involved no matter where it goes.
I have noticed that done like this one event completely rewrites or at least tweaks all the events to come. To me this gets downright exiting as the plot thickens of it’s own accord. Write triggers and horrible (or good things) to happen, give players ability to roam ’sandbox style’ and viola! Cool stuff happens.
Oct 21st, 2008 - Link
Starvosk
It’s not really railroading. Railroading is forcing your players down a specific path and punishing them when they deviate. This is just a planning tool. While it’s certainly possible not to have any plans, to a certain degree real life -is- planned and everyone has goals.
What I tend to do is give the villain a plan (They always have plans, that’s generally appropriate) and if the players, or someone else doesn’t stop them, it generally happens.
Oct 21st, 2008 - Link
Kurt "Telas" Schneider
This initially sounded similar to the “Plot Point” concept that a lot of Savage Worlds settings are using. The Plot Point setting have certain events that will happen, whether or not the characters are directly involved, and those events will have far-reaching implications. It’s like a game set in WWII - D-Day, etc will happen, even if your team isn’t there.
The “Waypoint” concept seems a lot more small-scale and personal, almost like a flowchart. As paths are chosen, other paths are closed off, and “the next step” becomes more obvious (at least to the GM).
And here’s another vote for “Railroading =/= Bad”.
Oct 21st, 2008 - Link
LesInk
I’d tend to agree that this is a planning method more than a railroad method. The GM is hunching that the players really are going the way they say they are going along with a bit of pointed direction of what they need to do to get to the end.
@Martin: I will say that when I first read your article, I wanted to say, “That’s what I’m doing”, but now that I think about it, no that’s not what I’m doing. I’m still planning waypoints for the characters to reach, but I’ve been doing it from the now -> forward viewpoint. I think what you are helping us with is the idea that it makes perfect sense to start from the end and work back to the present. In truth, I need to do THAT more for my current game and get the game more on track instead of bumbling along (only complicated by the fact that the characters were supposed to bumble along in the current campaign until now).
I would also point out that just because a GM has waypoints planned to the very ending, that doesn’t mean the GM has to fill out the adventure completely when the ideas hit. In fact, I would recommend NOT filling it out until the next session is coming up. Those waypoints can definitely be easily ‘realigned’ to the new/changed goals of the players.
Oct 21st, 2008 - Link
deadlytoque
I use a similar system myself, and (at least the way I do it) it could never be mistaken for railroading. What I do, rather than plan -where- and -when- something must happen, I just try to have an idea of -what- should happen, and then no matter what my players decide to do, that will happen — it’s just a question of whether they are there or not, and what order. It means that I can script interesting dramatic scenes in advance, but don’t have to worry about one leading to another.
Improvising the transitions from scene to scene is always my favorite part, and letting my players pitch potential outcomes to any action is half of the fun.
Oct 21st, 2008 - Link
Troy E. Taylor
Your flowchart reminds me of Monte Cook’s suggestion on how urban adventures should breakdown, which he devoted a chapter to in his Ptolus book.
Basically, urban adventures flow as:
Interaction/investigation > interaction / investigation > interaction/ investigation > big fight.
He opposed this by the typical dungeon crawl, which is alternating periods of exploration and small fights leading up to the big fight encounter.
Oct 21st, 2008 - Link
nblade
The overall concept really reminds me of the “nugget” format of some of the Mega-Traveller Adventures.
I agree that this isn’t railroading in the traditional sense but rather a framework that a GM can work with to know where the part is in relationship to the entire story arc of the adventure. This can be a great boon when dealing with NPCs, If players have skipped certain elements and then came back to those elements later, the NPCs may have vastly different opinions and interactions with the PCs.
Oct 21st, 2008 - Link
jonathan
ok ok… railroading it is not. I guess I’m a bit more of a scatterbrain then… my flowcharts for campaigns endup looking like network maps for the internet… dozens of arrows pointing to waypoints, and each waypoint has mutliple arrows pointing away from it. from a code point of view … its like a huge number of “if.. then.. else..” statements.
but in general, this is good way of going things. The alternative Fly by the seat of your pants GM’ing is just so damn difficult to manage at times.
Oct 21st, 2008 - Link
Scott Martin
@jonathan - I think you’re right when you fear railroading from this approach. In a careless GM’s hands (or, even more commonly, in a module writer’s hands) preparing one line of events encourages the GM to steer the players towards the “right” (= prepared) path.
Like everything else in the world, it’s a trade off. If you love prep, preparing several branches of events encourages flexibility– but guarantees you’ll waste prep, since the PCs won’t go down both paths at your branch points. And even if you’ve put in the effort to prepare three branches of events… the players will often come up with a fourth path! If you have a barebones path or series of events, it’s very likely the PCs will deviate or require space to get back on the path after their encounters– but if you’re comfortable improvising, you may find improvising between their stops [so you only have to keep the next big event in mind] provides a good tradeoff between flexibility and reduced prep.
Oct 21st, 2008 - Link
Eclipse
I like the idea of waypoints, and tend to do something similar when planning my own sessions. The only difference for me is I don’t use them as points that must be reached, but rather, as mentioned earlier, as triggers for events if they are reached.
The exception is the ending, but I usually have at minimum a “good” and “bad” ending planned, and expect I’ll hit something in the ballpark of one of my planned endings. It usually needs to be heavily modified over time in response to player actions, but that happens over many sessions anyway, and isn’t a big deal until it’s almost time for the campaign to end.
Oct 21st, 2008 - Link
peter
the background story of my games are mostley plotted by the “bad guys”. They have a plan and a schedule and if they are not stopped, they will succeed. and it is up to the pc’s to try and stop them, or not if they don’t want to do that. but they have to face consequences. the world is a big place and it is not revolving around them.
so my prep kinda follows the groundplan you described in your first post.
Oct 21st, 2008 - Link
Martin Ralya
@SmallBlueGod - Re: your last paragraph: Hell, yeah! I definitely haven’t planned this whole campaign using this approach, just the last few sessions. The organic growth of a campaign over time is one of my favorite aspects of GMing.
@LesInk - Thinking from the end backwards is new to me, too. I think that’s why these two articles (this one and the one I linked to, about planning endings) are connected in my mind.
It’s cool to hear all the formal and informal systems this idea is similar to — I didn’t think I was breaking new ground. I definitely want to check out a Savage Worlds setting now, too. Any recommendations, or is that too broad of a question?
Oct 21st, 2008 - Link
Kurt "Telas" Schneider
@Martin Ralya -
What is a Plot Point setting?
http://www.peginc.com/plotpoints.html
It depends on what you want; one of the beauties of Savage Worlds is that the ruleset is pretty generic. Shaintar is classic epic high fantasy: Good fights Evil in a desperate battle. Slipstream is 1930s pulp sci-fi, complete with rayguns and finned spaceships. 50 Fathoms is fantasy pirates. Rippers is Victorian horror/adventure. Necessary Evil is supervillains fighting off a galactic invasion (the superheroes having died in the initial battle). There are more…
Oct 21st, 2008 - Link
calico_jack73
I use a similar technique when I am running an adventure of my own design. I come up with several “Scenes” that I want to make sure get into the game which lead to the finale. The trick is to keep those scenes flexible enough that they can be inserted in such a way that doesn’t appear to be railroading. Personally I have nothing against railroading… anyone who has ever run a module is “guilty” of railroading. I think players understand that when they deviate from the planned “Plot” of an adventure that the GM has every right to end the game session so that they can prepare for the unexpected direction the players have taken. If I am running a module I’d tell my players that they are deviating away and I have no doubt that they’d be kind enough to change their course of action to stay on track. Sandbox style roleplaying is IMHO the only style of play that doesn’t involve some form of railroading.
Oct 30th, 2008 - Link
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